AUBURN, ME—Sources confirmed today that the smiling 3-year-old boy happily playing with his 7-year-old brother on their family’s backyard swing set will, in a few decades, be swindled out of $50,000 by the sibling currently giving him a big push. “You wanna go higher, Tom-Tom? Higher?” said the older brother, using his affectionate nickname for the same individual he will one day dupe into sinking a substantial sum of money into a bogus portfolio of Florida real estate futures that is in fact nothing more than a garden-variety Ponzi scheme. “Whee!” At press time, the older boy, who by middle age will become so mired in debt and desperate to escape his disreputable creditors that he will beg, borrow, and steal from everyone he knows just to keep his head above water, was pouring his younger brother a glass of apple juice.

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