Stoneleigh: Everyone has heard of pyramid, or Ponzi, schemes. In their simplest form they are short-lived deliberate frauds where a small number of existing members are paid from the buy-in of a larger number of newer members until the supply of newer members is exhausted, whereupon they collapse. Typically, the founders, and perhaps a few others who got in early and out before it was too late, end up making a lot of money at the expense of later entrants, who end up holding the empty bag. There are always many more losers than winners. What most do not realize, however, is that Ponzi dynamics are far more pervasive than people think. There are many human systems that ultimately rest on the buy-in of new entrants, and every one of them will ultimately meet the same fate, although it can take far longer for complex constructions than for simple pyramid frauds.
What allows a more complex pyramid to last for longer than a simple one is a supplementary source of funds to pay members, besides merely the buy-in of newer members. The more such sources there are, legitimate and otherwise, the more complex the pyramid can become and the longer it will last, as the apparent on-going success of early entrants will attract many more new ones. There's nothing like seeing one's friends and neighbours seemingly making a lot of easy money for a long time to eventually overcome the mental defenses of even the most skeptical.
Peacenik remembers reading about the blow up of the Albanian Ponzi economy a few years ago. Peacenik wondered how they could be so stupid. Now the global economy has been exposed as a giant Ponzi scheme created by Wall Street, the corporate media, compliant politicians and stupid greedy citizens. The wealth and prosperity of the last 25 years has been an illusion. Peacenik lived it. Peacenik prospered from it. But now Peacenik and everyone else will suffer from it. 60 trillion dollars of "wealth" has turned out to be worthless. And now it is sucking all the wealth in the world into a black hole. The banks, pension plans, insurance companies, auto companies, are all insolvent. The only way forward seems to be to pretend that the black hole does not exist. Do not look in the black hole. Peacenik looked.
