Thursday, May 07, 2020

Stealing from Friends of Friends


A Ponzi Scheme is when the money you pay to join gets paid to someone who is already in the scheme. The promise is that you will then get paid by new recruits. Normally a multiple of the amount you initially paid. It seems like magic. Because it is. If you cut out the noise, you are effectively stealing money from each person you recruit. But they then recruit others so it “cancels out”. When new recruits run dry, and they will run dry, the last people to enter are the final losers. So instead of stealing from your friend, you are stealing from a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. The layers make you feel better. A Ponzi Scheme is wealth extraction. Typically from the vulnerable. Perpetrated by well meaning believers. The way to spot a Ponzi Scheme is to look at the Fundamentals. How is money being made? What real problem is being solved? What real Win-Win wealth creation is going on? If you can’t answer that, then it is Win-Lose wealth extraction. Then the “product” is other people’s money.



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