Decades:Lira, Lies and Franklin National
As we dive into six decades of American financial hubris. We'll watch the same old play unfold. Hide the losses, budge the numbers, and believe your own story until the money dries up. We'll go from the smoky back rooms of the 1970s to today's glass-walled FinTech empires, because the rules may change, but the game never does.
In the early 1970s, Franklin National Bank looked like the future of American finance. Its CEO, Harold Gleason, traded a quiet Long Island thrift for a lavish Park Avenue headquarters, convinced he could transform it into an international powerhouse. His secret weapon: Michele Sindona, the Vatican’s banker with mob ties and a taste for high-stakes foreign exchange bets.
This episode unpacks how Gleason’s ambition and Sindona’s schemes turned a conservative regional bank into a fragile giant—and how the façade collapsed in what was, at the time, the largest bank failure in U.S. history.
Host Cherise Lloyd peels back the layers of glamor, denial, and deception that made Franklin’s rise so dazzling—and its fall so inevitable.
🔊 Listen for:
* The Park Avenue move that symbolized Franklin’s “big-league” ambitions
* How Sindona’s currency gambles and hidden embezzlement bled the bank dry
* Why cultural swagger, from The Godfather to Wall Street fantasies, blinded regulators and investors alike
Sources:
St. Peter's Banker: Michele Sindona, Louigi DiFonzo [https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/49969062.Louigi_DiFonzo], Power on Earth, Nick Tosches, and NYtimes Archives, as well as others
As we dive into six decades of American financial hubris. We'll watch the same old play unfold. Hide the losses, budge the numbers, and believe your own story until the money dries up. We'll go from the smoky back rooms of the 1970s to today's glass walled FinTech empires, because the rules may change, but the game never does. As we dive into six decades of American financial hubris. We'll watch the same old play unfold. Hide the losses, budge the numbers, and believe your own story until the money dries up. We'll go from the smoky back rooms of the 1970s to today's glass walled FinTech empires, because the rules may change, but the game never does.
Overleveraged, Overconfident brings you the hubris, the hidden deals, and the lessons every ambitious professional should steal—minus the meltdown.
This episode was researched and written by Cherise Lloyd. Some music was created by using UDO. You can find show notes, transcripts, and sources at www.overleveragedoverconfident.com. Follow us on Instagram at Overleveraged Overconfident. Support the show on Patreon and help us keep deep-diving into those spectacular financial fails.. Overleveraged Overconfident is part of Seven Seven Spider, which specializes in deep dive research and financial storytelling. All research uses publicly available sources, so no confidential or regulatory information, just my keen sense of spotting nonsense.
