As PZ Myers reported a little while ago, the latest scam from Answers In Genesis is to sell junk bonds to gullible investors—bonds that AiG has no binding obligation to ever pay back. Classic sucker bait, right? Anybody who knows anything at all about investing is going to steer clear of the giant red flags all over this investment.
But there’s a new twist in this sweet little con game. Everyone knows that government bonds are a much more sound investment than ordinary junk bonds. So why not sell your junk bonds through some government office, in order to trick people into thinking they’re getting government bonds instead of junk bonds? Ken Ham apparently has enough inside influence to make it happen.
A city in Kentucky may soon offer $62 million in securities for prospective investors to help aid the completion of a Creationist theme park and replica of Noah’s Ark.
Beginning next month, Williamstown may oversee the amount of taxable securities for investors to the project overseen by Answers in Genesis, reported Brian Chappatta and Priya Anand of Business Week.
Yes, for a mere $100,000 dollars, you too can purchase a “lifetime family pass,” allowing you to enjoy a full day of overcooked french fries and half-baked mythology for as long as the park remains profitable. And if it never does return a profit, AiG gets to keep all of your money, absolutely free.
What does Williamstown get out of all this? Not much, probably, although there might be a short-term benefit to local businesses and contractors while AiG is spending all those anticipated millions building the park. At least the city won’t be stuck with the bill, should all those bonds default.
Mark Looy, chief communications officer for Answers in Genesis, told The Christian Post that since the “bond offering” is offered through rather than by the city, Williamstown “is not at financial risk.”
Investors who are paying attention might notice that this means no, the city isn’t guaranteeing the security of those bonds either. The only contribution the city is making is lending an illusion of government security to investments that could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, if you are incautious enough to waste that much money on them.
Like I said, a sweet little scam. The coal mines may be playing out, but you can still make a healthy profit mining people’s gullibility, inattentiveness, and superstition.
Just think how much damage Ken Ham could have done, if he had gone into the finance and investment sector…
It gets more dubious, the closer you look at it.
1. The Ark Park itself recently converted from a for profit corporation to a 501c3 nonprofit, a religious entity. This raises all sorts of questions.
2. Can a religious nonprofit sell municipal bonds through a city? Seems like this would violate separation of church and state.
3. Whoever heard of a religious nonprofit group selling industrial bonds anyway? I don’t know that this is illegal but it is certainly strange.
4. AIG’s Monument to Modern Plastics, the Fake Museum is in trouble with declining attendance and financial problems. Which calls into question the market for mythology is real theme parks. The whole idea isn’t all that appealing.
The story of Noah and the Ark is one where a Sky Monster god invents genocide to fix his mistakes. And it ended up a total failure. The people afterwards were the same as the ones before and he ended up later trying a human sacrifice of himself as jesus, to himself. Which didn’t work either.
This is the story that xians tell their kids like it was a good thing. I heard it as a kid. If you actually try to make sense out of it, it is just a pointless atrocity.
PS. And where are our nonavian dinosaurs? We miss our dinosaurs. The Big Boat Salvage Operation was a near total failure. It’s known that 99+% of all life that ever existed is…extinct.
You can be sure Williamstown’s “leaders” have been paying attention to Goldline and its “spokesmen”, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, and what happened to each.
http://www.salon.com/2012/11/29/more_legal_trouble_for_beck_backed_goldline/
(1) Beck and Hannity personally profitted from the scam…I mean, scheme, while the unwitting “customers” were fleeced.
(2) Beck and Hannity haven’t faced any responsiblity or lawsuits for promoting the gold fraud. Only those at Goldline are facing charges.
It’s low risk and profitable, all they have to do is lend the city’s name to it. It’s only a problem if you have a conscience, a sense of ethics, or you worry about the city’s long term ability to obtain credit or government funding if needed.
Keep is classy Kentucky.
Is the Ark park going to attach its suckers to the new blockbuster Noah film and suck all the associative publicity out of it they can? No doubt treating it as a documentary that proves all they’ve been trying to show Kentucky.
Given how professional big film companies can uhm..slant the books to make it look like they made no profit despite boffo box office, I’m sure the Arkonauts can take lessons away from that too if it ever looks like they have to pay out on bonds.
Even if, by some “miracle,” the Ark Park manages to make a profit, what are the chances of getting those bonds payed back, if AiG is not obligated to honor them? I would guess that would be slim to nothing, knowing Ham’s track record on honesty.