Pyramid marketing, commonly called the Ponzi scheme, is a type of financial scam that bases its success on the increasing involvement of new investors with the promise of substantial and extraordinary gains in the short term.
Generally no real investment is made in the Ponzi scheme, there is only a transfer of money from the new coming investors to the old investors, when no new investors become part of the scheme, the liquidity is lost and the system inevitably collapses: most of the first investors manage to get out without damage (with a good profit indeed), while the last ones lose everything.
There is another type of variant to this scam however
It consists in the exchange of a precious asset with something that has literally no value with the illusion that it has a better and more practical use.
Does it sound familiar?
Our ancestors gave gold to a "trusted" third party in exchange of an IOU and when this third party's power became huge they simply removed the gold standard so that they ended up owning all the gold (precious asset), while citizens own fiat depreciating money without any possibility of exchanging it back for gold.
My intention was not to talk about the banking system (recently even with cryptocurrencies we had more than a case of this kind of scam), but I needed an example to make you understand the sad similarity.
Since we were child we have been told to study in order to get a good payed job that will last 3/4 of our lifetime until we retire and eventually pass away.
Now think of your lifetime as a limited valuable asset like gold:
- How much is your time REALLY worth?
7 dollars an hour? 10,20,50?
"Time is money."
The reality is that our time has no value.
Once it's gone, it's gone foverer and there is no refunds. It doesn't really matter how much you get paid per hour, because THAT hour is lost with no chance to recover it.
No matter how attractive the position, whenever you work for someone else, you will always be selling your time wholesale to someone who is profiting from you retail. No boss can afford to pay any employee the amount of money which that employee brings to the company, as that would cause the business to bankrupt. The only way to run a profitable business is to pay employees less than they're worth, usually far less. So if you are working for someone else, your financial stability is completely in their hands along with your lifetime, constantly running away.
CONCLUSION:
Regardless of our social background, it is important how we spend time, not how much money it is worth.
If you love every single hour of the day you will never feel like trapped in a pyramid scheme.
Take some time for yourself to rethink about your passions and if you could somehow transform them into your source of income.
Fede Sox: Naturally Grown Bodybuilder & Fitness Enthusiast