The Ponzi Scheme

This somehow seems familiar...

Under the assumed name of Charles Borelli, Ponzi was involved in a pyramid land scheme. He was purchasing land at $16 an acre, subdividing it into twenty-three lots, and selling each lot off at $10 a piece. He promised all investors that their initial $10 investment would translate into $5,300,000 in just two years. Wow!!! Too bad much of that much of the land was underwater and absolutely worthless.


http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/ponzi/

Can you say, "Ginko"?

Ginko could make a fair amount of the interest they pay out by selling when they recieve deposits and buying later, not enough to cover all the interest they pay out, but enough to offset it. Ginko just lowered their interest from .14% Interest per day to .12 . They have been decreasing the interest rate ocassionally and paying out as they are supposed to, other than the lack of any guarntee on the deposit, and the non visibility of the company's business what's not to like. I acknoledge that there is a risk, but I believe the leaders of Ginko are honorable people.

I'm a Ginko fan. I live in SL off the interest I'm paid. Despite my spending habits, I've managed to make $26 USD off what I put on deposit a few months ago.

I'll also stand up for Ginko here, I've been depositing and withdrawing money for months, and have never had any problems. I also never have more in there than I'm willing to lose, so if Ginko goes under (And you know exactly what youre getting into when you put it in there) I'm not going to sweat it.

*rolls eyes* You DO know you're about 5 months late right?

Not again.

Ponzi HQ

If you ask me there is a reasonable chance the whole of SL is probably a unintentional Ponzi...

Personally I view SL model as a whole more like a form of Better Slot Machine where the casino (Linden Labs) creams the profits as you play.

A few have legendary advertised winnings.
Most just blow a bit of money and leave.

But then there are the hard core addicts in the middle that continue to blow their money on the dream of some day making it big.

Hmmm....Bwhahaha!!!

That's funny

This is an interesting comparison. I often wonder what life will be like for different business sectors in SL after the resident growth halts (or even reverses some). There are only a finite number of people on the planet, and only a fraction of them have the computer hardware and internet connection to utilize SL.

Hmm, I have to say that there are one or two aspects of Second Life that make me uneasy, a few points I am not qualified or could be biased to pass judgement on (as they are moral not financial) (an example being the very complex world of the Gorean community) and many points I am moderately satisfied are related to some entertainment value which can be justified at not being a Ponzi Scheme.

But my great reservation remains that of the issue of the Linden Dollar. If people were paying for goods, services, and general entertainment in real US dollars I would be more content as I would feel that both purchaser and vendor understood the perceived value.

As things stand through it is not.... hence the devaluation of the Linden dollar and the follow on rise in land values has led to speculation that in some aspects reflects a type of stock market bubble. I made it very clear on another thread I got out of true land ownership and am now in Dreamland. I do not expect that land values there would significantly increase in value (demand driven or supply side) as Anshe Chung can literally create on demand, (and the best of luck to her)

That’s my main point anyway, and of course it is only my own opinion. Others are entitled to their own views

I disagree with this, and I believe the fact that SL deals in "play money" is fundamental to the greasing of it's economy... I don't think I'd sell a _fraction_ of the content that I do if everything was labelled in US$.

The real-world entertainment/shopping industry *thrives* on divorcing people's perception of value away from hard reality. One might even say that the SL is the pinnacle of a "Hyperreal" economy...

"Interacting in a hyperreal place like a Las Vegas casino gives the subject the impression that one is walking through a fantasy world where everyone is playing along. The decor isn't authentic, everything is a copy, and the whole thing feels like a dream. What isn't a dream, of course, is that the casino takes your money, which you are more apt to give them when your consciousness doesn't really understand what's going on. In other words, although you may intellectually understand what happens at a casino, your consciousness thinks that gambling money in the casino is part of the "not real" world. It is in the interest of the decorators to emphasise that everything is fake, to make the entire experience seem fake. Of course, money itself is an object with no inherent value or reality in-itself."

- Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 14:25, March 23, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hyperreality&oldid=45064212.

You can make a significantly plausible argument that the US economy, running at close to a trillion dollars in debt and showing no signs at all of slowing its indebtedness through any major policy iniative, and running a trade deficit more or less indefinitely, is a Ponzi scheme.
SL certainly has some Ponzi features, giving money away in stipend, dwell, and discounted land form.

Ginko may be a Ponzi scheme, we don't know. In their defense I'd say so far they have paid up, and advertise the risks prominently. I don't agree with Anshe's comments that the advertised return is much larger than the stock market-the two things aren't comparable because it is much easier to get a high return on investment with smaller amounts of money. Getting a big return on stocks is almost impossible consistently because you are competing against teams of mathematically sophisticated analysts and billion-dollar pension funds. Those problems don't affect other areas of investment.

I'm a professional gambler, though poker, sports and blackjack play I have managed to return a comparable return to my investors and make money on top. There are many other anomalies in the investment world which would allow you to do the same-the less money in a market the less efficient it is and the easier it is to get a return. Probably you could get a Ginko style-return investment by farming accounts-pay for a premium membership, get free stipend which pays for your sign-up, then get and sell on discounted first land, referrals and so on. A fairly dumb play in fact. Effectively shafting SL for free money, and unethical, but quite possible. (If they are doing that, then watch out Ginko investors, because the sudden haemorraghing of the Linden could cause problems)

If Ginko grew into a billion-dollar corporation things would be different, but it is probably one hard-working guy looking after $20,000 of stipend money with some bright ideas. It might not come off, but we knew that. That's capitalism.

And no they don't have my money. What do I look like, a sucker?

In fact, yes, I would make this argument with regards to the US government. I am very very worried about where our country is headed.



I didn't say a word about Ginko. Why are you responding to what I didn't say? Are you a Ginko Financial "employee" here to do some advertising or damage control?



This is JUST what we need here, a professional gambler doleing out economic advice.



Addressed above. Responses to more of what I never said require no additional reply.

I didn't intend to respond to your post. I didn't read nor am ever likely to read anything you write again.

Well you did respond to it. You quoted it, wrote a first paragraph in response, and then went off on a tangent/rant about Ginko Financial and your sports betting career, seeming to respond to things I'd never said.

I would perfer it if you would in fact skip over my posts, if the other option would be continuing to write replies to things that I don't say.

Dude, I clicked on the wrong button. My mistake.
Now please let this die.

Shep, that is my point. When I stand on my prom, looking out over clear blue azure seas to the Dreamland hub it is not real......but is it?

I am not afraid to say that when "in world" I do tend to mentally enter. Technology will aid that process as time goes by, better graphics, VR Headsets, sound including speech, are all near term possibilities.

The use of real money would enable the process to the point where things become more straightforward and remove that element of "unreality". After all if I sell something on EBay or buy and sell shares on my computer I am using real money and understand value

All I gotta say here too, is that this whole Ponzi thing is a beaten horse that you have just dug up from being 600 feet under to start beating again. (Not just 6, but yes, 600.) Look up the old posts about this same thing from last year.

Remember when Anshe took on Ginko?

Looks like Ginko won. One of Anshe's rare defeats.

Very true. I was in Las Vegas for an EQ fan faire a bit ago, and gave myself a strict budget to spend gambling (a tiny sum, like $150, knowing that I wanted to sit at a table but knowing I'm not a gambler and would lose it without remorse.)

I'll tell ya, you lay down a colored chip and you forget all about what it represents. I would never casually toss $25 down on the turn of a card, but a chip is just a chip. And a $L is just a $L unless you buy and sell them all the time.

I might be half way forward to agreeing with that point, providing you can exchange the chips......so I thought I would bring some real life concepts to the table and I have opened a Merchant Bank in Plush Zeta. The success or failure will go some way to telling me some answers to these questions -

I personally have $620 USD worth in Ginko (it WOULD have been $750 if the Linden has not dropped so much in the last few months). If I use the base $740US figure, then, considering I only deposited about $450US of my own money, I think I've made a pretty nice profit. And I've always been able to withdraw my money whenever I needed it. So yeah, I'm a Ginko fan, too.