August 8, 2025 • 9 mins
LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/watchdog-on-wall-street-with-chris-markowski/id570687608
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PtgPvJvqc2gkpGIkNMR5i
WATCH and SUBSCRIBE on:
https://www.youtube.com/@WatchdogOnWallstreet/featured
We lock our doors, arm our homes, and teach self-defense—but when it comes to money, most Americans are wide open to attack. In this passionate segment, Chris unloads on the failure of our schools to teach basic financial literacy and shares why personal responsibility is the key to financial freedom. From credit card traps to private equity scams, from crypto hype to Ponzi schemes—he's seen it all, and he's been warning the public for decades.
This is about more than money. It’s about protecting yourself and your future from the con artists who use fear and greed to exploit good intentions. Don’t fall for it. Don’t gamble your retirement chasing shortcuts. Learn how to build lasting wealth the right way—and why hard work, patience, and knowledge will always beat hype.
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/watchdog-on-wall-street-with-chris-markowski/id570687608
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PtgPvJvqc2gkpGIkNMR5i
WATCH and SUBSCRIBE on:
https://www.youtube.com/@WatchdogOnWallstreet/featured
We lock our doors, arm our homes, and teach self-defense—but when it comes to money, most Americans are wide open to attack. In this passionate segment, Chris unloads on the failure of our schools to teach basic financial literacy and shares why personal responsibility is the key to financial freedom. From credit card traps to private equity scams, from crypto hype to Ponzi schemes—he's seen it all, and he's been warning the public for decades.
This is about more than money. It’s about protecting yourself and your future from the con artists who use fear and greed to exploit good intentions. Don’t fall for it. Don’t gamble your retirement chasing shortcuts. Learn how to build lasting wealth the right way—and why hard work, patience, and knowledge will always beat hype.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact that we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Markowski Financial Self Defense. Unfortunately, this country, we do a
god awful job, a woeful job and actually teaching people
how money works. I remember my going back to eighth grade,
eighth grade, junior high. We had to take these home
classes and yeah, they made us like so pillows like
(00:39):
Christmas pillows, and we'd have to bake cookies. Nope, Nope,
they didn't teach us about bank accounts. They didn't teach
us about interested and teach us about compounding interested, and
teach about the dangers of credit cards. And quite frankly,
these are actually life skills that our education system doesn't
(01:00):
doesn't teach. Well, you know, we got to teach kids
how to put condoms on bananas and crap like that,
but not things that are actually really really important anyway,
neither here nor there. I'm a big believer in personal responsibility.
I oftentimes I talk about, you know, in life, you
(01:22):
don't place blame. You want really a true moment of freedom,
a liberating moment for yourself. And I also tell people
that you don't become like a real adult unless you
own everything in life, meaning the things that go wrong
and the things that go well. And obviously you give
great thanks and credit to others when do things do
(01:45):
go well, But when things go wrong, if you can
own it and not place blame, well, then you know
what you can actually solve the problem. Too many people,
too many people. And again I've been doing this for
a long time, helping people out with investment scams and frauds.
I've explained the world's second oldest profession is get rich
(02:11):
quick connors. As of late, you know, I've been talking
about what I see happening in private equity. You want
to go, you want to go check out my record,
Go right ahead, go check. I encourage everybody to check
out everything that we've called over the past several decades
here on this program, the things that we've warned people
(02:31):
against my radio show, we warned people about madeoff for
crying out loud, every scam, ripoff, you name it. And
to this day, to this day, you get emails, messages,
phone calls from people asking the US about a myriad
of different things. And I'm saying, I'm sad to say
(02:51):
that I wish everybody listened to me, but they don't.
They don't. People sometimes are just they're just convinced. They're convinced.
I have a lot of good salespeople out there, quite frankly,
And what are the two things two things that the
con artists do. They use They use greed and they
(03:12):
use fear to set the trap. And you know the
funny thing is they like, I'm not greedy. I don't
want money, but it's not about greed just for greed's purpose.
And if we think of greedy is like I want
to be like Scrooge McDuck. Some people they have good
intentions for their quote end quote greed and a good
(03:34):
salesperson will figure that out. I see this happen a
lot with church groups. We've talked about affinity fraud here
on the program, where you know you're going to be
able to help your kids, you're gonna be able to
help their grandkids, you're going to be able to give
back to your church, and all of these things. They
find out what gets you going, and they hit that
(03:57):
and they paint a picture there are no shortcuts in life.
We say it every week on the radio show. At
some point in time, it comes out of my mouth.
Everything in life that has meaning, value and worth involves work, time,
and effort. I've been doing this a long time. No shortcuts,
(04:19):
There are no shortcuts. It just you can't you can't
replace hard work. You know. It's funny. I actually, you know,
asked about this the other day. I was talking about, oh,
you know, stock market risky like a casino. I'm like,
what how do you figure? I mean, you can treat
(04:43):
anything like a casino. You can gamble on anything in
this country at this point in time, with all the
various different apps that are going on. But how do
you say that if you actually take a actually take
a look at the perform Dorman stiff to just a
basic S and P five hundred over ten, twenty thirty,
(05:06):
forty fifty years. Right, we did that the other day here.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
On the show.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
One hundred thousand dollars nineteen seventy four's over fifteen million
dollars today. That's what I'm adding a dime to it. Well,
you think that's going to change now? Financial self defense
knowledge is your best defense. Knowing thyself is a great
(05:31):
defense skin we hear in this country, and I'm all
for it, a secondmendment, you know, protecting yourself, protecting your home.
We buy guns, we put up alarms at our house.
Some people get big dogs. But people are completely ill
equipped to protect themselves financially. And this is why we
see one ripoff and scam after another, after another after
(05:53):
another and again. This is what I like to call
my my Sisophian battle. And it comes out people. I apologize.
You know, from time to time I'll you'll catch me
yelling and screaming here on the podcast or on the
radio show. Wow, you gotta understand why I'm being frustrated
in the in the same way that you know, if
(06:14):
my kids are doing something stupid and I know that
they're doing something stupid and I'm warning against something and
they choose not to listen, and I know what's going
to happen, you get you get frustrated with that. I
get frustrated with with people when they don't listen because
they're gonna get hurt. And I know that it's not
a matter of if, it's just a matter of when.
(06:37):
And I've explained this before you did the thousands of
warnings that we've given out over the years and what
we've talked to people. Again, but doing this for a
very long time, and yes it's in the thousands. Not
one time has anybody ever come back.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
To my brothers or I and said, uh ah, you
were wrong on that, Chris. I, you know, you told
me not to get involved in that, that oil and
gas partnership thing, and I made a fortune on that,
not one time, not one time.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
And I'm sorry, I find it hard to believe that,
you know, because people love you know, proving others wrong,
that wouldn't wouldn't fess up. But you know what happens,
and you understand my frustration. So I feel like I'm
sissiphist and pulling the pushing the rock to the top
of the hill rolls right back down on top of me.
(07:33):
My frustration is that, you know, I know that these
people are going to get hurt some some let us know,
and then we got to rebuild their account. And you
know we can do that, but again, it's not gonna
happen overnight. It's going to take time. You cannot let
risk lead to ruin. You take major losses in your portfolio,
(07:56):
it can set you back years. This is the really
underlying problem I have when they start sticking all of
the you know, crypto and private equity and all of
these things. They want to put these things into people's
four to one case, And I'm saying to myself, why
would you do that? Why would you do that? You know,
(08:18):
I just I just gave you what one hundred thousand
dollars in a plain old S and P five hundred
fund did over you know, around a fifty year period
of time. So by that metric, you're going to be
wealthy anyway. Why would you Why why do you need
to get rich quick in your four one k? It
(08:39):
doesn't make any sense. Again, part of the problem again
people just not having financial literacy. And again the investment
con artists know that, they understand that they prey on that.
So what we're trying to do here, try to do
(09:00):
what I've been trying to do, attempting to do as
best as I can twenty five years on air prior
to that. Our newsletter is to provide an essence financial
self defense, so you're not ripped off, you're not scammed.
That's what we're here for. Questions get to our website,
(09:21):
sign up for our personal CFO program reach out. That's
what we're here for. Watchdog on Wall Street dot com
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact that we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Markowski Financial Self Defense. Unfortunately, this country, we do a
god awful job, a woeful job and actually teaching people
how money works. I remember my going back to eighth grade,
eighth grade, junior high. We had to take these home
classes and yeah, they made us like so pillows like
(00:39):
Christmas pillows, and we'd have to bake cookies. Nope, Nope,
they didn't teach us about bank accounts. They didn't teach
us about interested and teach us about compounding interested, and
teach about the dangers of credit cards. And quite frankly,
these are actually life skills that our education system doesn't
(01:00):
doesn't teach. Well, you know, we got to teach kids
how to put condoms on bananas and crap like that,
but not things that are actually really really important anyway,
neither here nor there. I'm a big believer in personal responsibility.
I oftentimes I talk about, you know, in life, you
(01:22):
don't place blame. You want really a true moment of freedom,
a liberating moment for yourself. And I also tell people
that you don't become like a real adult unless you
own everything in life, meaning the things that go wrong
and the things that go well. And obviously you give
great thanks and credit to others when do things do
(01:45):
go well, But when things go wrong, if you can
own it and not place blame, well, then you know
what you can actually solve the problem. Too many people,
too many people. And again I've been doing this for
a long time, helping people out with investment scams and frauds.
I've explained the world's second oldest profession is get rich
(02:11):
quick connors. As of late, you know, I've been talking
about what I see happening in private equity. You want
to go, you want to go check out my record,
Go right ahead, go check. I encourage everybody to check
out everything that we've called over the past several decades
here on this program, the things that we've warned people
(02:31):
against my radio show, we warned people about madeoff for
crying out loud, every scam, ripoff, you name it. And
to this day, to this day, you get emails, messages,
phone calls from people asking the US about a myriad
of different things. And I'm saying, I'm sad to say
(02:51):
that I wish everybody listened to me, but they don't.
They don't. People sometimes are just they're just convinced. They're convinced.
I have a lot of good salespeople out there, quite frankly,
And what are the two things two things that the
con artists do. They use They use greed and they
(03:12):
use fear to set the trap. And you know the
funny thing is they like, I'm not greedy. I don't
want money, but it's not about greed just for greed's purpose.
And if we think of greedy is like I want
to be like Scrooge McDuck. Some people they have good
intentions for their quote end quote greed and a good
(03:34):
salesperson will figure that out. I see this happen a
lot with church groups. We've talked about affinity fraud here
on the program, where you know you're going to be
able to help your kids, you're gonna be able to
help their grandkids, you're going to be able to give
back to your church, and all of these things. They
find out what gets you going, and they hit that
(03:57):
and they paint a picture there are no shortcuts in life.
We say it every week on the radio show. At
some point in time, it comes out of my mouth.
Everything in life that has meaning, value and worth involves work, time,
and effort. I've been doing this a long time. No shortcuts,
(04:19):
There are no shortcuts. It just you can't you can't
replace hard work. You know. It's funny. I actually, you know,
asked about this the other day. I was talking about, oh,
you know, stock market risky like a casino. I'm like,
what how do you figure? I mean, you can treat
(04:43):
anything like a casino. You can gamble on anything in
this country at this point in time, with all the
various different apps that are going on. But how do
you say that if you actually take a actually take
a look at the perform Dorman stiff to just a
basic S and P five hundred over ten, twenty thirty,
(05:06):
forty fifty years. Right, we did that the other day here.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
On the show.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
One hundred thousand dollars nineteen seventy four's over fifteen million
dollars today. That's what I'm adding a dime to it. Well,
you think that's going to change now? Financial self defense
knowledge is your best defense. Knowing thyself is a great
(05:31):
defense skin we hear in this country, and I'm all
for it, a secondmendment, you know, protecting yourself, protecting your home.
We buy guns, we put up alarms at our house.
Some people get big dogs. But people are completely ill
equipped to protect themselves financially. And this is why we
see one ripoff and scam after another, after another after
(05:53):
another and again. This is what I like to call
my my Sisophian battle. And it comes out people. I apologize.
You know, from time to time I'll you'll catch me
yelling and screaming here on the podcast or on the
radio show. Wow, you gotta understand why I'm being frustrated
in the in the same way that you know, if
(06:14):
my kids are doing something stupid and I know that
they're doing something stupid and I'm warning against something and
they choose not to listen, and I know what's going
to happen, you get you get frustrated with that. I
get frustrated with with people when they don't listen because
they're gonna get hurt. And I know that it's not
a matter of if, it's just a matter of when.
(06:37):
And I've explained this before you did the thousands of
warnings that we've given out over the years and what
we've talked to people. Again, but doing this for a
very long time, and yes it's in the thousands. Not
one time has anybody ever come back.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
To my brothers or I and said, uh ah, you
were wrong on that, Chris. I, you know, you told
me not to get involved in that, that oil and
gas partnership thing, and I made a fortune on that,
not one time, not one time.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
And I'm sorry, I find it hard to believe that,
you know, because people love you know, proving others wrong,
that wouldn't wouldn't fess up. But you know what happens,
and you understand my frustration. So I feel like I'm
sissiphist and pulling the pushing the rock to the top
of the hill rolls right back down on top of me.
(07:33):
My frustration is that, you know, I know that these
people are going to get hurt some some let us know,
and then we got to rebuild their account. And you
know we can do that, but again, it's not gonna
happen overnight. It's going to take time. You cannot let
risk lead to ruin. You take major losses in your portfolio,
(07:56):
it can set you back years. This is the really
underlying problem I have when they start sticking all of
the you know, crypto and private equity and all of
these things. They want to put these things into people's
four to one case, And I'm saying to myself, why
would you do that? Why would you do that? You know,
(08:18):
I just I just gave you what one hundred thousand
dollars in a plain old S and P five hundred
fund did over you know, around a fifty year period
of time. So by that metric, you're going to be
wealthy anyway. Why would you Why why do you need
to get rich quick in your four one k? It
(08:39):
doesn't make any sense. Again, part of the problem again
people just not having financial literacy. And again the investment
con artists know that, they understand that they prey on that.
So what we're trying to do here, try to do
(09:00):
what I've been trying to do, attempting to do as
best as I can twenty five years on air prior
to that. Our newsletter is to provide an essence financial
self defense, so you're not ripped off, you're not scammed.
That's what we're here for. Questions get to our website,
(09:21):
sign up for our personal CFO program reach out. That's
what we're here for. Watchdog on Wall Street dot com
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