The Odd Lots Variety Show

Joe Weisenthal (0:06)

Hello, ODLOTS listeners, it's Joe Weisenthal. So on Thursday, September 19th, Tracy Alloway and I hosted the first ever ODLOTS Variety Show at the WNYC Greene Space in Manhattan.

The show featured Sam Antar, Lee Buchheit, Brad Setser, Stephanie Kelton. We even had a surprise guest, one of the Spy Kids. If you know that story, you should be excited about that. And if you don't, well, then this will be a treat for you. And we even had musical guests. So we had the country singing economist, Merle Hazard, and I sing a few of my own songs. So on this week's ODLOTS, we're going to feature the full length audio that we recorded at the live show so that even if you weren't able to make it out that night, you can still hear the great conversations and music from that night.

And if you'd like to see video from the event, you can find it on the Bloomberg Markets and Finance channel on YouTube, or just by searching ODLOTS Variety Show. We'll also be featuring video clips and teasers from the event on social media. You can check it out on Twitter from the handle at podcasts. And I'm sure that Tracy Alloway and I will be tweeting links to it plenty. If you missed it, don't worry because we are very hopeful and confident that this won't have been the last ODLOT Variety Show. So thanks, everyone, for listening and enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_1 (2:04)

Bye!

Joe Weisenthal (2:09)

Thanks, everyone, for coming. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (2:13)

And I'm Tracy Alloway, and welcome to the Odlots Variety Show. It's our first ever live event, and we're so happy to have you all here.

Joe Weisenthal (2:21)

I have to say, I'm a little disappointed because I wanted our first Odlots live event to be an Odlots live poker tournament, but this is also cool.

Tracy Alloway (2:30)

I'm not disappointed.

Just a couple notes before we start. We have some really, really great people backstage, some guests that we've been wanting to get on the podcast for a very long time. One housekeeping note, this is being recorded in audio format. Of course, it's also being recorded in video format, so please just be mindful of that. And other than that, enjoy the show.

Joe Weisenthal (2:51)

One other thing, we don't have time for Q&A, unfortunately, but we'll have cocktails and reception afterwards. You can hang out and mingle and ask questions that you didn't get a chance to ask. So let's get started. All right, our first guest is a criminal. It's an actual convicted felon. He is the former CFO of Crazy Eddie, which for any longtime New Yorker may remember their ads in the 70s and 80s. He was an electronics retailer, also a fraud through and through from the beginning. And so we have the CFO. He now does work on forensic accounting. And I want to bring in Sam Antar.

Uh, so who are you?

What do you do?

Sam Antar (3:43)

I'm a retired criminal.

Joe Weisenthal (3:45)

Are you a reformed criminal?

Sam Antar (3:46)

No.

You think I'd be here right now if I didn't get caught? Well, maybe I would as a legitimate CEO that hasn't gotten caught yet.

Tracy Alloway (3:57)

Do criminals ever truly retire?

Sam Antar (4:01)

Yeah, because, you know, after a while, you know, it's, you know, what's the benefit of doing any more crime? Even though at times I feel like I'd love to do crime again, after meeting some of the people in this room here, I said, oh man, this would be easy just to go back into the game again.

Joe Weisenthal (4:17)

So tell us about how you got into the business and what was Crazy Eddie and how did you become at CFO?

Sam Antar (4:24)

Crazy Eddie's was a small garden variety electronics operation.

We engaged mostly in income tax evasion. Stealing the sales tax gave us the competitive advantage because that 6% or 7% we can steal gave us the opportunity to discount more to customers and still make money. So we were pretty much being competitive by evading taxes in the old days.

It was a family-oriented business. We wanted to grow and they wanted somebody in the inside, family member, to be the CFO of the company if the company grew to a certain level. So they picked me because I was the nerd that read the Wall Street Journal and Barons when he was 12 years old. So they put me through college so I can become an accountant to help them commit more sophisticated crimes in the future. So eventually I go to Baruch College right over here on 23rd Street. I get my CPA and of course I become a criminal mastermind doing white collar crime. I went to college to become an effective white collar criminal. White collar criminals should never cheat themselves out of getting a good education. So I was one of those kids that cheated in school anything. I earned my grades because I wanted to be the best at what I was doing in crime.