Ponzi Schemes Multiply On YouTube

Hugh Pickens writes "While it's probably not true that P. T. Barnum was the originator of the saying 'there's a sucker born every minute,' the proliferation of nearly 23,000 Ponzi schemes on YouTube, with an astounding 59,192,963 views, proves that the sentiment is still alive and well. The videos usually don't ask for money directly, but send viewers to web sites where they are urged to sign up for the 'gifting program,' usually for fees ranging from $150 to $5,000. One of the videos recently added on YouTube featured Bible quotes, pictures of stacks of money and a testimonial from a man who said he not only got rich from cash gifting, but also found true happiness and lost 35 pounds. 'They make it seem like it's legal and an easy way to make money, but it's nothing more than a pyramid scheme,' says Better Business Bureau spokeswoman Alison Southwick. Some of the videos claim that because it's 'gifting,' it's somehow legal. 'They talk about "cash leveraging," whatever that means, and other vague marketing talk,' says Southwick, but the basic scheme is that participants are told to recruit more people who will put in more money. 'It's just money changing hands,' says Southwick, 'and it always goes to people at the top of the pyramid.' A spokesman for YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc., said the company doesn't comment on individual videos."

Comments

They learned it by watching the government.

[Rockoon]

Just as the government learned it by watching Ponzi, these youtubers learned it by watching the government.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Right, because taxation never produces libraries, public roads, schools, an FDA, FCC, or any number of other services.

All taxation does is make a handful of oligarchs rich, right?

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[Nitage]

He might be talking about Social Security - which relies on more people paying in than taking out and will crash and burn horribly if the population stops growing fast enough.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[patro]

Right, because taxation never produces libraries, public roads, schools, an FDA, FCC, or any number of other services.

All taxation does is make a handful of oligarchs rich, right?

The question is how much more roads, schools, libraries, etc. we'd have if the gov didn't take the money from the people and spend it wastefully.

The current system does produce good things, but one can argue it produces more bad than good.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[cayenne8]

"Well the population will surely stop growing if you let people die in the street won't it? Good alternative plan you have there."

Well, considering that most people on Social Security are well past their reproductive years, it won't keep them from adding to the population.

I'm heavily against govt. (especially the feds) spending on things which it is not constitutionally mandated to do, but, even I see some need for a very, very basic social safety net for the elderly and infirmed. However, the ponzi scheme that is the SS program, isn't what I'd like to see. It is going to go bankrupt in a few years. Likely when I retire, it will not exist I fear. It really sucks that I have paid all this fuckin' money into a black hole, which will not come back to me. Frankly, even at this last point, if the govt. would let me, I'd sign away any 'rights' I have to collect SS, if they'd let me OUT of the program at this point, and let me keep and invest my money on my own.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[Rockoon]

It isnt just social security...

The national debt is now over 11 trillion dollars and there hasn't been a real budget surplus since 1969.

The federal government has borrowed money and can not pay the prior lenders back, so they borrow more money in order to do so. This has been going on for so long that only a few people still recognize it as an active ponzi scheme, as is evident by the ignorant people modding my post as a troll.

The interest payments on the debt will crest half a trillion dollars this year, and will be over a trillion/year by the time Obama's 1st term is up. The government will likely borrow more from social security (why not? its doomed anyways) in order to pay off prior lenders as it becomes more and more difficult to find new lenders.

There are other areas where the government is actively ponzi as well, such as medicare (medicare is a bigger problem than social security.)

Check out (U.S. Government Accounting Office) http://www.gao.gov/cghome/d08446cg.pdf to see how grim the pyramid really is.

It wont be possible to take down the pyramids through force (taxation at gunpoint) for much longer. If ponzi could have gone out and robbed some banks, he could have paid off all of his lenders. But imagine the point where even if he robbed every bank in the country he couldn't pay them off. America is pretty much there, right now, at the point of no return.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[LaughingCoder]

... a huge lie perpetrated by people who would like to see the huge pot of SSA money be put into the stock market. I wonder how that would have worked out?

You are in luck. This gentleman (a former deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration) did just such an analysis. Hint: it turns out much better than you might have expected. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0413/022-stock-market-taxes-on-my-mind.html

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[Rockoon]

You got it backwards.

Master Charge owns the debts of others
United States owes debts to others

See the difference? Its hard for the government to write off bad debt when its the one thats upside down.

..and whats this about a tax deduction? The solution to the problem of not enough tax revenue, you believe, is to reduce tax revenue further? Did you even think about it before you typed it?

..and whats this about right wingers? Did someone convinced you that this was a political idiology problem (with the 'right' being the 'enemy') rather than a fiscal numbers problem?

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[cayenne8]

"It's the private retirement funds that are screwed, that's why a govt funded one is vital. Maybe it's different where you live but here everybody votes and if the govt ever tried to stop pension payments they'd be out on their arse before the ink was dry on the bill."

With the usage of the word "arse", I'd have to guess you are not an American.

I'm guessing Europe, UK?

It is just a different mentality, you are used to thinking of the large government 'nanny' state, where the state takes care of you from birth to death. Over here, we (at least we did) believe in personal resposibility, the individual, and taking care of your own.

During your working life, you are supposed to save for 'rainy' days, and retirement. In the constitution, the federal government, over here, is pretty much only supposed to be there for defense, and to be more or less, a mediation between the states, where the real power is supposed to reside.

However, that balance of power has slowly eroded over the years, and national programs and the like have come from the feds, which they really should not have the power to do or force upon citizens of each state. That's what myself and others are generally complaining about.

Many of us want to get back to the 'roots' of the US, and get rid of government mandated ponzi schemes (like SS). We don't want to go the way of Europe, and have a large, overbearing nanny state. As it has been said before, a government that is big and strong enough to give you everthing, is also big and strong enough to take everything from you too.

I'd rather be left to struggle more on my own, and be more free of govt. entanglements.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[drinkypoo]

Uh, is he assuming that the investments would be made the way they're supposed to be made? Because in practice the system would just turn into a means for funneling more taxpayer money directly into the coffers of the already incredibly wealthy. Invest, loot, company crashes, money is gone, adios Social Security. The only good that could come of this is that if the system crashed we might get enough riots to get some of these mansions full of pricks burned down.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[jabithew]

I don't know when, but at some point in the last few years wanting to have a balanced budget became the sure sign of a right-wing extremist.

The tax deduction only works for Master Charge, because it can take defaulted loans as losses, which then count against its income.

GP makes no sense. The US could simply refuse to pay off its debts, but to claim that this would have no consequence, or even be beneficial, is surreal. All of a sudden US treasuries, up till now the benchmark of safe investment, would be worthless. Investors would switch to safer euro-denominated bonds, probably from Germany. The markets would be awash with worthless dollars everyone wants to convert to euro. The dollar would collapse. China might start cutting its losses, accelerating the process. The euro would become the global reserve currency, assuming that European economies weren't too hammered for it to switch elsewhere.

The status quo, allowing America to effectively raise cash on its own terms, would be destroyed, and the American public would have to learn to deal with difficult terms of debt like the rest of us.

So yeah, good luck with that.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[Dragonslicer]

I don't know when, but at some point in the last few years wanting to have a balanced budget became the sure sign of a right-wing extremist

Too bad the last 8 years of what could be called "right-wing extremists" weren't even close to a balanced budget. I'd say it's more like wanting a balanced budget has become the sure sign of a politician that's doomed to lose their next reelection campaign because they haven't done enough pandering to their overlords.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[Cathbard]

Australia actually. Over here we have always had a "look after the underdog" mentality and don't think it's right to throw people to the wolves simply because they didn't have the ability to get rich. Personally I am glad that is the case, I find the "make money or die" perspective quite obscene, not everybody has the ability or aptitude to make money and that has no bearing on their worth to society. In fact I know lots of musicians and artists that did their best work while on the dole (unemployment benefits) and enriched us all. I also know several people on welfare that do great charity work. Making money is hardly a method of assigning worth imo and it certainly shouldn't decide whether a person lives or dies. But hey, I'm not an American, as you say, we think differently.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[cayenne8]

"Australia actually. Over here we have always had a "look after the underdog" mentality and don't think it's right to throw people to the wolves simply because they didn't have the ability to get rich."

But I'm not arguing that everyone has to get rich or perish. Just work hard, and live within your means. That means you don't spend on luxuries (HDTV, cable, fine cars, good booze) till you've bought groceries, and put back money for retirement and general savings. The problem is, that largely people have come to expect the govt. to fund their retirment and take care of all the basics, while they go spend their money on 'fun' stuff as mentioned above. If they stayed at home and cooked...they'd not have the weight problems, and they'd save money, etc.

"In fact I know lots of musicians and artists that did their best work while on the dole (unemployment benefits) and enriched us all. I also know several people on welfare that do great charity work."

I love artists and what they do...I applaud people for doing charity work. However, I don't feel it is my place to work hard, bust my ass to earn money, and then turn around and hand it over to people that are sitting around, doing 'fun' stuff like art and music. Hell, if I could be supported, I'd learn to play the guitar or paint or take more time to enjoy my writing. Unless you are good enough to sell your stuff, that is a HOBBY, it is not a livelyhood. Many charities hire people to work for them...no need to be on the 'dole' when you can work for a charity doing good deeds.

Again, no...not saying you have to get rich. But I don't believe in supporting people to have an easy life. I don't mind giving to the elderly, and the infirmed that cannot work. But, anyone that can work....should.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[vertinox]

See the difference? Its hard for the government to write off bad debt when its the one thats upside down.

That's ok. The US debt is backed by nuclear weapons, the IRS, and 2 million prisoners providing near free labor.

I'm trying to be funny, but I'm sort of serious. The fact that the USA can invade another nation with impunity to enforce its economic policies, use the IRS with impunity, and throw you into jail if you don't follow laws specifically created to create criminals makes the USD more valuable.

I'm mostly being pragmatic about the issue even though I don't agree with it. I mean, have you ever tried to pay the IRS in something over than US dollars. I don't think they will be happy with you. By the mere fact they force people to pay in USD means that it is made de facto valuable because you have to pay or face jail time.

Not being in jail is important to you, right? Therefore the USD is valuable to you.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[mshannon78660]

I don't completely disagree with you here, but I'm guessing you're younger than I am. Your philosophy of 'everyone who can work, should' is great when we have full employment - but in recessions and depressions, there simply are not jobs for all the people who want to work, or who should work. Those people are burning through the money they saved for a rainy day. And often, their joblessness has nothing whatsoever to do with their worth - they just happened to be working for the wrong company (one that either ceased to exist, or at least had to lay off large numbers of workers) at the wrong time (when unemployment rates are high, so competition for the very few openings there are is much greater than normal, and perhaps in the wrong place (we usually just hear about the national unemployment rate - often it's much higher in specific places - especially if the major employer in a region goes under). Personally, I've been fortunate in my life - but I can still remember the early 80s when, even though the town I lived in had relatively low unemployment (compared to the national average), when a chain restaurant would open in town, they would get 300-400 applicants to show up on one day for a job fair. All of those people were competing for about 30-40 jobs (and we're talking pretty low wage jobs, too). It was a college town, and the jokes about taxi drivers with PhDs had essentially come true - the cab companies required at least a bachelor's degree for applicants. Those are the reasons why we have a safety net like social security - you can absolutely be a solid worker who tries to save for your retirement, and be completely wiped out, close enough to retirement age that you can not possibly recover on your own. And if you're working at Wal-Mart, or some other similar wage job, good luck saving anything (especially with bank fees, since you won't have enough of a balance to avoid them) - most people at that wage level can't afford health insurance, so getting sick (or needing dental work, etc.) can easily wipe out anything they can manage to save.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[Cathbard]

But some people don't have the ability/aptitude to even make enough to subsist. These people do not deserve to die. About 90% of the wealth is owned by 10% of the population (or thereabouts); it's right and proper that they should relinquish some of that money they have hoarded to support the population that they have exploited with their greed.

And you also have to realise that VERY few people receiving welfare do it for extended periods of time if they don't have to. Welfare provides enough for basic needs like food and shelter (and we have a public health system), it isn't the conditions that many people will endure for long. The vast majority of people on welfare are on it because they need it and I do not begrudge them some quality of life just because I have to pay a couple of dollars in tax to do it. If that means a few people get to live in relative poverty willingly then so be it, I don't think they should die either. There will always be unemployed and there will always be some people that don't want to work and are willing to live on a bare subsistence wage. As one of our PM's once said - "we should marry these two groups together".

My example of musicians, artists and charity volunteers seems to have been completely lost on you. I was trying to demonstrate that there are many advantages of living in a compassionate society that aren't immediately obvious.

We look after each other over here. We just booted out an arsehole prime minister in a landslide election that was trying to dilute welfare and turn us into the US. You may remember him, Bush's last act was to give the little prick a medal. Good riddance to him.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[cayenne8]

I'm not all that young.

:)

Sure things are down, but, there ARE always jobs out there, just may not be ones you 'want'. Like you mentioned, PhD cab drivers...yes, it sucks, but, you gotta do what you can to put meat on the table. When things pick up, you can move back up to a better job.

Also, I think people need a mentality change. Job for life at a company has NOT been around for a long time, yet many people cling to that idea/ideal. Also, we are now in a very mobile society. Putting down roots for life, is possibly a thing of the past. You have to move to where the jobs are, or at least be willing to relocate, or if you can't sell your house....travel,and get on the road. Long commutes,, contracting gigs...etc.

When times are tough...you have to be willing to do what it takes. But much of your proposition was that if jobs go from your area, you are sunk. To me that tells me one thing...MOVE to a different area where there are jobs for your skillset. Is it pleasant? No...but, you gotta do what you gotta do. There are jobs to be had out there, but, my may have to move from NYC to GA or somewhere...and learn a different lifestyle.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[Maudib]

"The government will likely borrow more from social security (why not? its doomed anyways) in order to pay off prior lenders as it becomes more and more difficult to find new lenders."

Except that its actually exceptionally easy to find lenders. Currently treasuries are barely above a negative yield and buyers are lining up to get them and paying some of the highest prices ever to do so. If the market is willing to lend the U.S. Government gobs of money at what is essentially interest free right now, why shouldn't the government do so in order to pay off the older high interest debt? Seems both rational and responsible.

Your hysterical rhetoric obscures some other more relevant facts. Regardless of the total $ amount of the debt, as a percentage of GDP U.S. debt was actually MUCH higher in the 40s and 50s and current debts is roughly equivalent to where it was in 1990.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[operagost]

This is why the left-right political ideology simply doesn't work. People called "W" a right-winger, when he greatly increased the size of government and added social programs like prescription benefits. Calling that "right wing" is simply childish. The idea of a government strength scale based on Aristotelian/Platonic ideas-- from anarchy, to democracy, to republicanism, to oligarchy, to totalitarianism-- is far more realistic and brings the M.O. of politicians into sharp focus.

Re:They learned it by watching the government.

[The_Wilschon]

You may be a troll or you may not, but I'll bite. The US federal government takes in a certain amount of money each year in taxes. It also pays out a certain amount of money each year in salaries, contracts, purchases of war material, simple handouts to the "deserving", etc, etc, etc. In nearly every year, it pays out more money than it takes in. In order to make up the difference, the government asks for billions of small long-term loans from anyone who will give them loans. This is more usually called selling bonds. You or anyone else can buy a bond from the US government, which means that you give a certain amount of money to the government, and they promise that after a certain amount of time (on the order of 10 years), they will give you your money back, plus some amount of extra interest (this is just like any loan). This extra income from bonds is enough to make up the difference between tax revenue and expenditures.

The end result of this is that the government owes money in small chunks to anyone who holds a bond. The sum total amount owed in bonds is the national debt. FWIW, nearly all governments in the world operate like this.

Some of it is in the hands of domestic individuals, some is in the hands of domestic corporations, some is in the hands of international or multinational corporations, some is the hands of US state or municipal, or foreign governments, some is in the hands of foreign individuals. The majority of the debt could be called in at any time, if the debtholders decided to call it in. This would be disastrous, so the major players wouldn't do it unless they thought they could somehow profit from worldwide economic chaos, and, in the case that the debtholder calling in a large chunk is a foreign government, likely war.

Having a national debt does give the government an extra way to affect the economy, by setting the interest rate on these bonds variously. See monetary policy. However, the debt need not be so precariously large in order to have an effective monetary policy.

"educate yourself! educate yourself!"

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

...this is precisely why we really need to reconsider our public schooling system.

If we abolish forced schooling, and insist that people "educate themselves" They'll find one of these scams, get taken for an expensive ride, and then left dumbfounded as to what happened.

Solid critical thinking skills start with a decent education. Decent education starts by making it free, neutral and accessible.

Sign of the times

[VShael]

Just like during the Great Depression, this will be a time of resurgent con-men as the majority will (in desperation) try anything to get cash.

Legal if enough people believe it

[Rik Sweeney]

Some of the videos claim that because it's 'gifting,' it's somehow legal

Reminds me of that law software pirates invented so that they could copy games.

Pedantry

[elvum]

Surely these are pyramid schemes rather than Ponzi schemes?

A fool and his money...

[onion2k]

The notion that you can "gift" (or "buy") your way to being rich without doing any hard work, or having a creative idea, is so completely stupid that anyone who believes it, assuming they're in full control of their mental faculties, deserves what they get.

Re:A fool and his money...

[SalaSSin]

deserves what they get.

What do you mean get? Then it does work???

Where's that website???

Re:A fool and his money...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a kid of the English aristocracy, I can with full confidence say that the richest people in this country have never done any hard work and have no more creative ideas than the average Slashdot poster.

As far as I can tell from the nouveau riche the family tends to mingle with, they might work harder than us but I've not met one who does "hard work" in the sense of toiling mentally or physically through almost every waking hour, as was pretty much obligatory for some classes over a century ago. And they certainly don't have creative ideas! they're mostly just middlemen who know how to appeal to a large volume of the lazy.

One of the great giggles of capitalism is that it produces a middle class the largest component of which only exists to support capitalist machinery - the re-sellers, the jesters in marketing, the accountants, the civil lawyers, etc.

Bah

[nrgy]

I don't care about getting rich or losing 35lbs, if the video says I'll get a free pocket fisherman just tell me where to enter my cc #

Ponzi != pyramid

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't a Ponzi scheme different, in that you show a "return" on an investment using other investors' money in the hopes that they will keep investing in you, thereby allowing you to make it seem as if there is money being made.

In a pyramid scheme, you recruit X members who recruit X members each etc. At each level, you send some percentage of the money you receive up.

The main difference being that in a Ponzi scheme you are recruiting investors whereas in a pyramid scheme that task falls upon the suckers you convinced to give you money.

Also, according to Wikipedia, Ponzi schemes are easier to maintain for longer because you simply have to convince a large enough portion of your "investors" to reinvest, whereas the pyramid scheme relies on an exponentially increasing base of suckers.

Ponzi schemes also revolve around financial machinations to confuse people, whereas pyramid schemes, from my understanding, relate more on convincing people about buying into a "franchise" or something to that effect.

captcha: viruses

Re:"educate yourself! educate yourself!"

[QuantumG]

You'd be surprised how quickly a sucker learns after his money is gone forever. Sounds like a cheap education to me.

You can't con an honest man....

[hattig]

The people that send off money (gifts, paying for "Get Rich Easily" books, whatever) are idiots, they were idiots 10, 20, 30 years ago for similar scams, and they'll be idiots in 10, 20, 30 years time in whatever variation comes to light then. I won't cry for them. Maybe they'll learn the really hard way, because for some people there is sadly no way of getting them to learn any other way.

However it isn't right that YouTube is giving these people a free advertising platform. There are some people out there that are actually vulnerable (for whatever reason, this shouldn't matter) and society does need to protect them.

Why should it be illegal?

[Opportunist]

With more and more videos being pulled because the various MAFIAA organisations can't get enough, crap like that will soon be the only things left on YouTube. Let's be honest, what's left? Music videos were the first thing to go (or "be unavailable in your country" should they not want to cough up the dough to be available for you). User made videos are now targeted, as well as videos to the likeness of "look how I play $instrument to $song".

Soon all there will be left are videos that, bluntly, nobody wants to watch.

But, to avoid being modded offtopic, let's ask another question: Why should it be illegal to play pyramid schemes? Just because people are stupid enough to fall for them? I have no sympathy for people who are lured in by promises that are quite bluntly too good to be true, where thinking about it for only a minute would give you enough reasons to stay away from it. How can they promise you insane interest rates when your bank can only give you 3% or less? How the heck should they have any influence on your weight (aside from you not being able to even buy bread anymore and thus starving)? And if that's illegal, why is religion still legal while promising essentially the same?

Re:Why should it be illegal?

[American Terrorist]

Why should it be illegal to play pyramid schemes? Just because people are stupid enough to fall for them? I have no sympathy for people who are lured in by promises that are quite bluntly too good to be true, where thinking about it for only a minute would give you enough reasons to stay away from it.

Libertarian intellectualism at its finest. Why don't we just scrap all the laws and let people fuck each other over every way imaginable? People do stupid things, laws try to prevent and minimize the harm done by those actions.

Re:Why should it be illegal?

[Anna Merikin]

Here's why:

If it illegal to take someone's money by use of force, so it should *not* be legal to do the same with a pen or a computer.

If the strong of body cannot rob the weak, the strong of mind should be prohibited from doing the same.

Re:Why should it be illegal?

[xigxag]

Why should it be illegal to play pyramid schemes?

Because outside of the damage they inflict upon naive individuals and their families, if left unchecked (as we basically saw with the housing bubble) they have the potential to inflict damage upon the real economy.

Because a large percentage of people are not smart with money but are otherwise extremely capable of being productive contributors to society. As a society it benefits us for people to be justly rewarded for their fruitful labor, which requires mitigating the potential harm of their money-foolish character flaw.

And finally, to the extent that money becomes a hack as opposed to an accurate representation of labor and capital, it is devalued as a concept, which decreases its global worth and utility.

Re:Why should it be illegal?

[gnasher719]

In other words, I do think the law should protect you from being robbed and mugged, it should give you a title to enforce a contract you and another party willingly entered in, but why should the law protect or even reward someone for acting like a complete moron?

We need laws against robbery and being mugged not to protect strong people, but to protect people who are weaker and/or less well armed and less violent than the muggers. The laws are there to protect people who are physically weaker. I think it is quite sensible to also protect people who are mentally weaker. If the law protects me from a person who uses a gun or a knife or strong fists to convince me to hand other my money, why shouldn't the law protect me from a person who uses his brain and his smooth talking mouth to convince me from handing other my money?

Re:"educate yourself! educate yourself!"

[Kuroji]

You'd be surprised how many people fall for one of these schemes, then move on to the next, lose out, and move on to the next to lose out again...

Re:"educate yourself! educate yourself!"

[Skuld-Chan]

Want to see an economy tank all we need is a couple million illiterate people come of working age.

Re:"educate yourself! educate yourself!"

[ZarathustraDK]

Solid critical thinking skills start with a decent education. Decent education starts by making it free, neutral and accessible.

So true.
Speaking as a philosopher of education I can say that there's no end to the practical application of logic and reasoning that you're taught in the course of the study.

It should be an obligatory course in elementary school, but for some reason it's much more important to have bible-stories read to you.

Makes sense right? I guess someone thinks it's a shortcut to good behavior being told what's right and wrong in broad general terms open to interpretation, instead of equipping people with the basic tools to figure those things out for themselves on a case by case basis in an exact, non-interpretable manner.

Re:"educate yourself! educate yourself!"

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Sounds like a cheap education to me.

No, it sounds like the most expensive, yet useless education ever devised. You lose a lot of money, and you learn one way NOT to lose your money, when it's far too late.

Re:waves of infection with stupidity

[QuantumG]

Friend of mine seriously considered "investing" in a Ponzi scheme. Even after I explained to him how it works he was still thinking about it. Why? Cause he considers himself smarter than the guy doing the scheme. The conversation went a little like this:

Bob: Have you heard of these short term money market investments?
Me: Heh, these.. what.. investments?
Bob: short term.. money.. you give them money and a few weeks later they give you 100% return.
Me: Oh really.. what are they investing in?
Bob: Doesn't say.. I mean, that makes sense, if you knew what to invest in you wouldn't need them right?
Me: It's a scam.
Bob: Really? Their web site looks legit.
Me: Web developers are pretty cheap ya know.
Bob: Well I've search around for them and I've not found anyone bad mouthing them.
Me: Maybe they change their name every week.. or maybe they're doing the long con.
Bob: I think they're legit man.. umm.. long con? What do you mean?
Me: How much are they asking for?
Bob: Not that much, only a few hundred.
Me: So if you invest a few hundred and in two weeks time they give you double your money back and then ask you to reinvest that and give a few hundred more, you would right?
Bob: Well, yeah, I guess.. maybe a few times.
Me: So if, say, on the third time they said they really needed to you pump in twice as much as you have already given them or they won't be able to give you back your investment.. you would right?
Bob: Well, I guess, I mean, they'd have a good history by then.
Me: After just 3 cycles?
Bob: Yeah..
Me: You're a sucker.
Bob: No.. I'd take the money before then I think.
Me: So if they ask you for your phone number and call you up, will you talk to them?
Bob: Sure.
Me: And you'd give them your bank info.
Bob: Uhh.. umm.. I guess so.
Me: Yeah, you're a sucker.
Bob: I think I'll give em the first hundred and then take their money on the first cycle.
Me: I think they'll see you coming and make sure you never get that first "investment" back.

(Bob isn't his real name, but if you're reading this M... you know who you are).

It's *money* which is the Ponzi scheme

[Colin Smith]

ok. Follow me here. This is real simple, but 300 million Americans keep missing it.

I need some money in order to facilitate a transaction... How do I create that money?

I go to a bank (the FED) and borrow $100 from them. The FED creates new money (credit) and loans it to me at 5%. (Did you see the pea in the shell game? It was right there. Cos millions keep missing it)

Right, so there is only $100 of credit in existence but now I owe them $105.

1 year later I'm a bit stuck because I've paid off most of the loan to the FED but that last $5 is a real bitch because it just doesn't exist. So what do I do?

I need some money, so I go to a bank (the FED) and borrow some more money from them. The FED creates that new money and loans it to me. Great! I can pay that $5 which didn't exist. But wait, I now need to pay off interest on the new load. lather, rinse, repeat.

That's money. The debt has to keep growing, or the system collapses. Growth. Growth. Must have growth. A Ponzi scheme of epic proportions. Hey, maybe you can talk some bums on the streets to take out some loans for a couple of McMansions. Then everything will be all right.

That's money. The government created it that way, and can change it as required. Don't you think they share some of the blame?

Re:It's *money* which is the Ponzi scheme

[lyml]

Yes, because economy is a zero sum-game.

Re:It's *money* which is the Ponzi scheme

[Tony Hoyle]

No thats tort money, which isn't used anywhere.

Fractional reserve allows them to lend out a fraction of their reserve - hence the name. You can't create money (well, the central bank can, but it's tightly controlled because of the inflationary effect).

For a deposit of $100 they can lend out $80, that gets deposited and lent out as $64, then $51, $40, etc.

There appears to be more money in the system but there actually isn't at all. Only the initial $100 exists - it's just been lent to multiple people.

In the real world it's more complex - banks sell their debt to other banks to increase their reserves, so they can lend out more (because they make interest on lending - it's their main source of income).

Where this system falls down is where someone in that chain suddenly decides they can't pay it back. This is how we got into the mess we're in right now, where enough people failed to pay the debt back all the banks suddenly remembered that none of this money they claimed to have actually existed at all.. it was all tied up in debt.

Re:It's *money* which is the Ponzi scheme

[Tony Hoyle]

The $5 comes from work - you know, the means of selling goods and services to generate income.

You're talking about a world where nobody produces anything, so the only income they have is from banks. That's not a realistic model.

Oh and nobody creates money, except in exceptional circumstances (the central bank can, but an ordinary bank can't.. that's self evident, otherwise they'd all have infinite money). Credit to you is a net debit to the bank (and a source of income, due to the interest payments). This is why banks aren't keen to lend right now - their reserves are low as they've taken a hit from all the bad debt.. because they can only lend based on their reserves they're cherry picking the lending to the safest debtors.

Re:It's *money* which is the Ponzi scheme

[Kjella]

1 year later I'm a bit stuck because I've paid off most of the loan to the FED but that last $5 is a real bitch because it just doesn't exist. So what do I do?

If it's (hyper)inflation you spend it as soon as possible before it loses value until it collapses like the reichmark in 1920s germany or just recently the zimbabwean dollar. If it's stagflation you hoard it as money is increasing in value. What you're missing here is that somewhere, real value is produced. Imagine that there's 100$ total and there's 10 foobars, the only goods to trade so each is worth $10. Now there's a foobar maker, which produces another foobar - there's now 100$ and 11 foobars and the new market price is 9$. Who's earned value? The people sitting on a 10$ bill. Now imagine how well it works if everyone wants to sit on their 10$ bill.

So what's the solution? To print money, they print one more 10$ bill and suddenly there's 110$ total and 11 foobars and the money market works. Of course they can fall to the temptation and print more money than actual growth, say 110$ and 10 foobars, meaning you can sell a foobar for 11$. The government basicly took part of the value out of everyone's 10$ bills. But people have a very simple way of fighting this - don't sit on money, sit on goods as printing money only increases prices. In those situations money is just an intermediary as you swap one good for another, you buy gold or a saner currency.

Of course the government like everyone else like skimming something of the top, but for the most part they work hard to keep the financial system going. Once you stop believing in the currency you also stop believing in deposits and credits because they make you "stuck" in that currency and so the whole economy withers. Like with the human body, you have vital organs but if you have no circulation system then none of those will survive either.

Re:It's *money* which is the Ponzi scheme

[Ihlosi]

If it's stagflation you hoard it as money is increasing in value.

Deflation is the term you're looking for. Stagflation just describes periods of economic stagnation coupled with inflation, and inflation is always a motivator to spend money instead of hoarding it.

Re:It's *money* which is the Ponzi scheme

[MoralHazard]

"Tort money"? You mean FIAT money, right?. As in, the money has value because the government decrees it so (paper notes), not because the money has any independent value (e.g., gold coins, sacks of grain, etc.).

Re:"educate yourself! educate yourself!"

[Ornedan]

There is a general tendency not to admit one has been wrong after having invested in something. A result is that people who have been scammed are generally unwilling to believe they've been scammed, even when confronted with evidence. They'll rather make up flimsy explanations for why the evidence can't be right.

So, no, the sucker won't learn fast, if at all. And it won't be cheap, because those that do learn will end up paranoid, unable to trust other people ever again.

Re:"educate yourself! educate yourself!"

[Kjella]

Solid critical thinking skills start with a decent education. Decent education starts by making it free, neutral and accessible.

That's a good start, but critical thinking must also be focused on as a skill. It's far too easy to regurgitate a textbook and even regurgitate what other people have thought on the matter. In things like math it's easy to learn the method without understanding, and in things like science you spend a lot of time catching up with that others have done or experiments with an expected outcome that is more reproduction than experimentation. Linguistics teach you to express things but again doesn't really help critical thinking alone.

Sure, you can do more critical thinking on subjects already discussed to death by millions of scholars around the world, but given the tendency to google instead of thinking yourself it really only works on those who already want to think for themselves. To teach critical thinking you need to make them "think where no man has thought before". Make up a situation they won't find on google, ask them to argue some opinions, form arguments and give reasons for their logic. Unfortunately that is orthogonal to teaching them about the big and important events in history, which is so much more concrete and measurable. So we get people that know a lot about the world and understand little of it.

Religious folk..

[Jeppe Salvesen]

.. I guess the devoutly religious are trained to suspend their disbelief and instead believe in miracles. The people who lost the most money in a recent pyramid/MLM scheme in Norway were more religious than the general population. That's what happens when you train people to be irrational..

Also watch out for Multi Level Marketing

[tezza]

A few of my relatives were almost taken in by Multi Level Marketers. These companies too are trying to grow via social internet means

These are barely legal organisations who sit _just_ on the legal side of the Pyramid definition.

Basically they try to sell overpriced financial restructuring products to people. Then if the customer does not want to become a purchaser, they try to convert the customer into selling the same products.

MLM people at the top earn more than people at the bottom.

Re:waves of infection with stupidity

[Tony Hoyle]

Or work for the guy that started it. I wrote the software to monitor one and he offered to graft me on somewhere near the top. As I'd done the maths I realized how sleezy it was (it was fairly obvious that those towards the bottom stood to lose every penny, whilst the guy at the top was looking at £50,000 per month) and in declined. Probably I wouldn't these days.. I'm older, wiser and have less of a conscience.

Pyramid != Ponzi

[demiurg]

Ponzi scheme is not the same as pyramid scheme.

One important difference is that with Ponzi scheme you do not receive any real, i.e. not on paper, profit immediately.

Re:waves of infection with stupidity

[stonewallred]

What about the dude that ran an ad in one of the NY papers back in the 70's that said "Last chance, send $1.00 now" and got like 14K. Now that was clearly a way to separate the fools and their money, without doing anything illegal.

Hmmm, there is a difference...

[tjstork]

Cry me a river Sophie! There is quite a chance that the national debt will mean nothing at all to any of us or our grand children. This is the old right wing scare tactic and nothing more.

In case you haven't realized, there's not enough people to buy t-bills to finance the debt at a rate the government can live with, so the federal reserve is printing money to buy up to about a 300B worth in addition to the trillion dollars worth it already holds. So we're printing money to pay for things, and, that's the kind of crap third world countries do. The only reason we can get away with it is because the dollar is the reserve currency of the world and now everyone has to pretend that the dollar is still worth the same as it was before, even though the Fed is printing away, otherwise, they lose all of their stuff.

I wouldn't cry a tear for these dollar holders overseas those. By and large these people are holding dollars in an attempt to keep their currencies relative to the dollar so they can export more junk to the USA. Like the Chinese, Japanese, you name it.

So what the Gov't is doing, in the big picture, is to take advantage of the fact that our trading partners are trying to use our own currency to screw us, and are instead using that to go buy massive amounts of stuff with it.

Meanwhile, the those of us that save have to run the risks of having all of our assets getting wiped out because of defacto dollar devaluation. What really sucks is that dickering over exchange rates is absolutely the worst way to mediate trade. It would be so much simpler just to set up quotas and tarriffs and have some protectionism, then it would be to screw up the entire money system of the world.

A lot of people make money that way.

[tjstork]

Ponzi scammers rely on people not making immediate withdrawals. If you invested with Bernie Madoff, then closed your account after a year or two, you made a -ton- of money, because Bernie always paid people withdrawing right up until the thing collapsed. It's all the people that sit in the system, that get screwed.

And who is going to collect?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Bad debt happens on country level all the time. What are you going to do, send the bailiffs on someone who can answer the question "and whose army?"

Much is made of the Chinese calling in the US debts, but what would China be without exports to the US? The world has become far to complex for childish tricks. Unless someone has a compelling reason to create turmoil, then the system can go on forever. That is the one part of the middle class idea that really works. The more middle class chinese there are who earn their living with trade, the less the will to upset this style of living with something as silly as calling in debt.

Granted, the current system is extreem but if the US economy collapses to many other economies will as well. The last thing the Chinese goverment right now wants is to tell its own people the economic welfare their communist leaders have created is about to end. Rich with no freedom is a lot easier to swallow then becoming poor with still no freedoms.

Vast majority of people always lose money

[DrXym]

Read up on any kind of pyramid scheme and the first thing that strikes you is that when they (ALWAYS) collapse the majority of people will lose their money. In a typical scheme something like 90% of the people come out with nothing. Mathematically guaranteed. And those losers are going to be really pissed off (not with their own stupidity of course) which means acrimonious disputes, assaults and all sorts of fun fall-out as people scramble to come to terms with losing everything.

Thirdly just because 10% of people seem to make money doesn't mean anything. The scammers who set up the scheme loaded the top of the pyramid with their own shill names. So Fred, Jack, Sue and Bob might occupy the top of the pyramid, but really they're all working together and never staked any of their own money either. And they're all gone well before the scheme collapses. So yeah, you might be a lucky non-shill and make some money (at the expense of friendships etc.), but vastly more likely is you will lose everything.

If you really want to blow money, go stick it on a horse or a spin of the roulette wheel.

Re:Did his analysis

[Nursie]

"You have to look at the investing in the market long term. Sure, there are fluctuations, and corrections. But over the long haul...so far, it makes money. Sure, if it drops 50% right now...there are some losses, but, it will go back up."

And that would be fine if you had a long term choice of when to retire.

I'd say yes, you're hopelessly optimistic.

Re:Onzi is a deceptive investment

[Nitage]

In a traditional Ponzi scheme people are tricked into investing. In the Social Security Ponzi scheme, people are forced into investing. So traditional Ponzi schemes collapse when the fraud is discovered - but Social Security will collapse when the people being forced to invest can't afford to.

Re:You mean I can just print the $5?

[Wildclaw]

In the scenario below, Dick will loan money from Sam so that he can buy a farm from Sam. After the farm is bought, Dick will work to produce carrots which will enable him to pay back his loan. (including the interest that you are claiming can't be repaid because it doesn't exist)

* Start
- Sam: Cash $100 Farm: 1
- Dick: Cash $0

* Sam loans $100 to Dick with a $50 interest
- Sam: Cash $0 Loan: $150 Farm: 1
- Dick: Cash $150 Debt: $150

* Dick buys farm from Sam for $100
- Sam: Cash $100 Loan: $150
- Dick: Cash $0 Debt: $150 Farm: 1

* Dick works hard and grows carrots on his farm. Finally, he sells some of his carrots to Sam for $100
- Sam: Cash $0 Loan: $150 Carrots: Lots
- Dick: Cash $100 Debt: $150 Farm: 1

* Dick repays $100 of his debt
- Sam: Cash $100 Loan: $50 Carrots: Lots
- Dick: Cash $0 Debt: $50 Farm: 1

* Dick works ons his farm to produce some more carrots that he sells to sam
- Sam: Cash $50 Loan: $50 Carrots: Huge amounts
- Dick: Cash $50 Debt: $50 Farm: 1

* Dick repays the rest of his loan
- Sam: Cash $100 Loan: $50 Carrots: Huge amounts
- Dick: Cash $0 Debt: $50 Farm: 1

I hope that should give you a good idea of how real economy works. Where did the extra $50 in interest come from? Simple, it came from the work that Dick did so that he could sell carrots to Sam. Dick had no problem paying back $150 in an economy where only $100 exists. Why did it work? Because money circulates.

The exact same thing is true with banks. What they demand in interest is an expectation to get some of your production in exchange for providing you with liquidity so you can increase your production. Of course, when that liquidity is wasted on speculating in stocks and houses instead of actual investment, everything goes bad.

Re:Did his analysis

[AuMatar]

I don't think you've looked at the long term. Look at a lifetime graph of the DOW.

It started at about 100 in the mid 20s. It peaked at 330 in 1929, then fell to 70 after the crash. It then took a *long* time to recover- it was next 300 in the mid 1950s. Over 30 years it went up a factor of 3.

After that it increased to about 900 in 1982. Over 30 years it went up a factor of 3.

Then the laws changed and 401Ks were invented small investors changed from banks to stock. This didn't change the actual capital owned by the companies or the profits of the companies, but more money in the market chasing the same number of shares caused a massive bubble. 30 years later the market is at 14K- a factor of 17 over 30 years.

One of these 3 numbers is not right. And if you guessed one of the first 2- nope. The market is still hyper inflated right now, to get to realistic P/E and dividend yields it needs to drop down to 3-4K, not its current 7K+.

So no, the stock market is not the magic money maker some people seem to think it is. It does go up over the long term, but much more slowly than it has been. On top of that is the issue of risk. SS is really called SSI- Social Security Insurance. Its point isn't to make your rich- its to make sure you have a certain minimum amount so you can live off it (if barely) should your other investments tank. For an insurance you want as low of risk as you can possibly get. Allowing people to invest it in the market is idiotic, and counter to the entire point of the program. And it would leave us with a big problem in 20 years- what do we do with the people who lost it all? Let them starve? Or create SSv2.0, where we just give them a small stipend- basically exactly what we have now. Not to mention- the people least qualified to wisely invest their money (those who don't have other savings they manage) are the ones who need SS the most. Why the hell would you want to increase their risk factor?