Pryamid schemes

bnt

Scammers won't talk about "pyramid schemes", of course. They'll use phrases such as "multi-level marketing" (MLM), "referral marketing" or "network marketing". They'll go in to all kinds of mental contortions to try and convince you that their scheme is not a pyramid scheme. There's a full description of some of the sneakiness and warning flags in this post, for example.

Sure, there are some technical differences, but they are all the same in their most essential feature: the holes they put in your wallet. TANSTAAFL. :cool:

fkface

Monty Burnz wrote:

Why do you feel that 'all money must be repaid'?.

You're amazing at creating strawmen arguments.

I never said the money needed to be repaid, just like I never argued pros/cons of money vs barter...again, you've initiated this debate and I don't care about it.

How's the Xbox keeping you busy?

Monty Burnz

fkface wrote: »

How's the Xbox keeping you busy?

It's going ok, but I kind of felt with LA Noire I was just a passenger watching a film - it didn't really matter what I did, which was a bit disappointing. I don't know, maybe I'm just not cut out for console games.

ctrl-alt-delete

Roadend wrote: »

I got caught in a pyramid scheme once, took me a pharohld time to get any money back, had to cut back on the luxories for a whicle after that mistake

The worst thing is you spend most of your time in denial too.

Joey the lips

Boss tried to sell one in the job. You know. You invest 3k and get 30k.

I could not believe the amount that believed it. Then the northside people ran an article on it. I had to leave it on the table in the canteen.

Leprechaun77

I cannot believe the amount of people who fall for this ****. The last one I heard about was designed for women to dupe other women. It was called .......wait for it......"Women Empowering Women".....you find 10 women who all give you €400....then these find another 10 women etc....not even an effort to hide it.

As part of this, only women were allowed to join. They were not allowed to tell their partners/husbands ( as they did not want men to benefit) from their scheme. I nearly pi$$ed myself laughing when my wife was telling me about one of her friends asking her to join.....I was the 'tool' of course when I tried to explain to these friends what was going on....seemingly I was jealous

Show Time

Great way of making a fast buck.

Lando Griffin

Show Time wrote: »

Great way of making a fast buck for someone else.

Fixed your post.

Show Time

Lando Griffin wrote: »

Fixed your post.

i was lucky enough to get out after my first west cork windfall.

Cool Mo D

fkface wrote: »

It was crystal clear to me what I said in the first post, you seem to have a personal problem with it.

Our economic business model is a pyramid scheme, because our planet has finite resources. hence unsustainable model.

Explain exactly what you don't understand and I'll try my best to help you out because I don't remember going off into a debate about Barter Vs Indulgence.

You can have your Rolex and your fancy BMW but when you die, you'll have to leave it all behind. Boo hoo.

So, I hope dstruction of the environment is worth having those sh!tty little luxuries you covet everyday.

Your problem is that you assume that economic growth means using more of the planets resources. That just isn't true. It is what has generally happened so far, but there is no necessity for it.

A former colleague of mine tried to sell me some aloe vera stuff he was reselling in some sort of scheme.

He said they had 'copyright' over them.

Monty Burnz

Show Time wrote: »

i was lucky enough to get out after my first west cork windfall.

Of course, the people whose money you got out with were not so lucky...

yore

fkface wrote: »

It was crystal clear to me what I said in the first post, you seem to have a personal problem with it.

Our economic business model is a pyramid scheme, because our planet has finite resources. hence unsustainable model.

Explain exactly what you don't understand and I'll try my best to help you out because I don't remember going off into a debate about Barter Vs Indulgence.

You can have your Rolex and your fancy BMW but when you die, you'll have to leave it all behind. Boo hoo.

So, I hope dstruction of the environment is worth having those sh!tty little luxuries you covet everyday.

Are you, by any chance, typing out that little rant on your fancy new iPad or Apple laptop?

Show Time

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Of course, the people whose money you got out with were not so lucky...

Losing friends was tough but more money allowed me to meet new and better friends.

Suryavarman

fkface wrote: »

A pyramid scheme is an unsustainable business model which promises participants payment or services based on the expectation of other people becoming involved.

Correct.

The key thing here is that our economic model is completely unsustainable.

I look forward to you explaining how.

Today, you might be living a life of indulgence and perceive everything is going really well for everyone, great system. Nice car perhaps, maybe a house paid for with money borrowed from a bank, able to go on holidays few times a year.

Fine, no argument, some people are living pretty good.

Indeed many people are living pretty good.

That doesn't really change the fact the business model is unsustainable.

What business model? I thought you were talking about our economic model? Actually, weren't you supposed to explain how money was a pyramid scheme?

We live on a planet of finite resources, our economic model is based on expectation of infinite growth which is simply impossible.

Our economic system is based on the fact that it can produce growth faster than other economic systems i.e. make our lives better and easier but sooner than other systems.

Infinite growth isn't actually all that impossible. For there to be a cap on growth there needs to be 2 things:

1) There needs to be a finite amount of resources. Technically speaking there is a finite amount of resources but for all practical purposes there isn't. There is a finite amount of resources on this planet as you pointed out but we aren't restricted to staying on this planet. There is an entire universe out there that is full of resources we could use but will probably never need to use.

2) There needs to be a limit to productivity. This is what our economic model is more geared towards. Humans become more intelligent with each passing generation. As humans become more intelligent it is safe to assume that they will continue to find new ways to enhance productivity and therefore allow the economy to continue to grow.

tl;dr: The economy will have the ability to keep growing until humans stop becoming more productive AND we exploit every single resource in the entire universe.

Some people (especially economic academics) can't seem to understand this.

Actually, academic economists do understand that we live on a planet of finite resources, as do a lot of other people.

I find it quite ridiculous that you claim that you understand this but people that make their living by trying to understand this don't actually understand this. What's next for you? Head over to the thread on the Higgs Boson and claim that the physicists at CERN don't know anything about the Higgs Boson or the laws of physics?

In order for you to live that life of indulgence, other people on this planet have to live with less, much less in some cases, they live a terrible existence because the planet was never designed for our insane business model.

Business model? I think you mean economic model.

The planet was never designed for any specific model. In fact Earth wasn't designed at all and therefore wasn't designed for any specific system. So the fact that the Earth wasn't designed for our system isn't a mark against our system.

The only way that one person can legitimately improve their life at the expense of another person in our economic system is through the use of government. Whether or not they should be allowed to do that is best left to another thread.

I assume however you are trying to refer to the capitalist part of our economic system. In that case you are hopelessly wrong. The whole point of the capitalist system is that you cannot make yourself better off without making somebody else better off. When I buy my Rolex from the local jewellers I must give them money. The reason this exchange can happen is because I prefer the Rolex to the money as I think it will make me better off and vice versa with the jeweller. In that scenario, both of us are better off and nobody is worse off. So no, people don't have to live a terrible life just because I live a good one. People live terrible lives because their participation in the capitalist system has hindered by an external force such as government.

You have massive destruction of the environment just so people can buy **** they don't need and it can't continue infinitely.
In my opinion, our economic system is a pyramid scheme. 100%

In what way do we have massive destruction of the environment? And so what if we do have massive destruction of the environment? Maybe some destruction of the environment is a good thing. And so what if people buy things they don't need? Should we go back to living in caves and a hunter gatherer lifestyle just because we'll damage the environment by improving our lives?

peter83

christmas2012 wrote: »

i think avon is a pyramid scheme - think of it , you have to buy in bulk to join up .. like how most of them start (and make fvck all on it)..

You don't have to buy anything to be an Avon rep never mind buy in bulk.

uncle_sam_ie

A while back my wife got roped into a guy from the village coming up to talk to us about a great business opportunity he wanted to share with us. I said to her if it’s such a great business opportunity then why does he need us. I mean normal people don’t share “business opportunity” with complete strangers. Anyway, so he comes up and spends an hour showing us all these pictures rich people he knows on their yachts and living in fancy mansions. It was like “see this guy that’s so and so from Dublin, played golf with him the other day. He was working 2 jobs last year and heavily in debt, couldn’t make ends meet. Now he spends the year out in Spain collecting his checks”. It was a painful hour and only at the end of it did I find out it was the Amway pyramid scheme that he was trying to sell. If it’s too good to be true then it is. Stay away from them.