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[Raoul Duke]

No, Vandroiy, you don't remember me from pro-pirate posts.
If you open your eyes, and who know, maybe open your mind, you'll probably remember me from anti-bullshit posts, not pro-this or pro-that posts.

[Vandroiy]

Last time I checked, anti-bullshit does not start and end with "GTFO" and include "You're just a jealous son of a bitch".

At least you got my nick right this time.

[jamesg]

I hate to bring this thread off topic and apologize in advance but where can I buy Alpaca socks? I have been trying for months now and no response

I would like to raise alpacas so that I can make my own socks some day.....

[organofcorti]

You should use a nick that doesn't require copy/paste to get right, hhm k?

You made me sad, psy. I hope you're satisfied now. You're mean.

[Raoul Duke]

You should use a nick that doesn't require copy/paste to get right, hhm k?

You made me sad, psy. I hope you're satisfied now. You're mean.

Your's quite easy to get actually. Just the nicks who sound like Russian scammers are hard

[organofcorti]

You should use a nick that doesn't require copy/paste to get right, hhm k?

You made me sad, psy. I hope you're satisfied now. You're mean.

Your's quite easy to get actually. Just the nicks who sound like Russian scammers are hard

Tell that to the forum members who used to call me "organoff"

[hazek]

Let's keep it simple for starters. We could really use a hint as to why returns are so strongly dependent on the size of individual deposits, if not for the reason documented in the Currin Trading Ponzi (http://web.archive.org/web/20091026234156/http://geocities.com/currintrading/ On a side note, the text also documented neatly why an operator rarely replies to garbage like this).

An interesting read at least... Here's the link to the second page if anyone is interested.

http://web.archive.org/web/20090807121852/http://geocities.com/currintrading/bank.html

@Vandroiy
I think everyone is trying to say: WE ARE AWARE OF THE RISKS! I for one am small time when it comes to my bankroll, and I enjoy the excitement of weekly interest payments and the allure of "doubling up" with the PPT's. If for some reason I loose, God knows it won't be because I wasn't warned. Let us have our fun in peace.

Thank you.

Thanks for the 2nd link! I was so disappointed earlier.

Yeah me too, the writing by that guy is very engaging, I couldn't stop reading so thank you from me too!

[brendio]

I hate to bring this thread off topic and apologize in advance but where can I buy Alpaca socks? I have been trying for months now and no response

I would like to raise alpacas so that I can make my own socks some day.....

I'm wearing my Grass Hill Alpaca socks right now! Perfect for the cold snap we're having here at the moment. They were my very first bitcoin purchase!

[hazek]

Let's keep it simple for starters. We could really use a hint as to why returns are so strongly dependent on the size of individual deposits, if not for the reason documented in the Currin Trading Ponzi (http://web.archive.org/web/20091026234156/http://geocities.com/currintrading/ On a side note, the text also documented neatly why an operator rarely replies to garbage like this).

An interesting read at least... Here's the link to the second page if anyone is interested.

http://web.archive.org/web/20090807121852/http://geocities.com/currintrading/bank.html

@Vandroiy
I think everyone is trying to say: WE ARE AWARE OF THE RISKS! I for one am small time when it comes to my bankroll, and I enjoy the excitement of weekly interest payments and the allure of "doubling up" with the PPT's. If for some reason I loose, God knows it won't be because I wasn't warned. Let us have our fun in peace.

Thank you.

So what valid reason do you have to be angry? I haven't bothered following your rants: are you invested with Pirate?

[...]

Valid reason to be angry? How about "damaging the public image and stability of Bitcoin at a time that is absolutely irreplaceable for reaching critical mass, which could change global economics forever," is that a valid reason for you?

[...]

don't bother vandroiy. most people only learn the hard way. this might even go on for a long time with more and more people joining the bubble. finally a big wave of crying will run through the forums but that will be it. pirate might dump the coins but the screwed investors will also buy back in so the overall impact on price will be small and of short time.

and the parrot will laugh: "arr, arr, arr"  www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzPABxg3sS4

It's a shame really, that so many people are financially and economically illiterate to fall for scams like a ponzi scheme and it's especially a shame that with already much negative press that Bitcoin is getting from various fallacies being used as valid arguments in article to articles with reports on thefts and hacks, Bitcoin users and suporters neither appear to be able to escape being labeled idiots who fall for a ponzi when this all blows up and people lose a ton of money.

But I guess that's just the way it has to be; "A fool and his money is soon parted."

[copumpkin]

It's a shame really, that so many people are financially and economically illiterate to fall for scams like a ponzi scheme and it's especially a shame that with already much negative press that Bitcoin is getting from various fallacies being used as valid arguments in article to articles with reports on thefts and hacks, Bitcoin users and suporters neither appear to be able to escape being labeled idiots who fall for a ponzi when this all blows up and people lose a ton of money.

But I guess that's just the way it has to be; "A fool and his money is soon parted."

Yeah, the only reason we'd ever do something that you wouldn't is that we're financially illiterate.

[hazek]

It's a shame really, that so many people are financially and economically illiterate to fall for scams like a ponzi scheme and it's especially a shame that with already much negative press that Bitcoin is getting from various fallacies being used as valid arguments in article to articles with reports on thefts and hacks, Bitcoin users and suporters neither appear to be able to escape being labeled idiots who fall for a ponzi when this all blows up and people lose a ton of money.

But I guess that's just the way it has to be; "A fool and his money is soon parted."

Yeah, the only reason we'd ever do something that you wouldn't is that we're financially illiterate.

Not all, just those who unknowingly "invest" in a ponzi scheme.

[BurtW]

It's a shame really, that so many people are financially and economically illiterate to fall for scams like a ponzi scheme and it's especially a shame that with already much negative press that Bitcoin is getting from various fallacies being used as valid arguments in article to articles with reports on thefts and hacks, Bitcoin users and suporters neither appear to be able to escape being labeled idiots who fall for a ponzi when this all blows up and people lose a ton of money.

But I guess that's just the way it has to be; "A fool and his money is soon parted."

Yeah, the only reason we'd ever do something that you wouldn't is that we're financially illiterate.

Not all, just those who unknowingly "invest" in a ponzi scheme.

If you want to discuss ponzi schemes why don't you go and start your own thread.  Maybe call it "My thoughts on Ponzi schemes" or something catchy like that.  I don't understand why you are trying to discuss that here in this thread.  This thread is about BS&T it is not about ponzi schemes.

[hazek]

This thread is about BS&T it is not about ponzi schemes.

The only way this sentence makes any sense at all is if you believe BS&T is not a ponzi scheme, which I find no good reason to share. If you have some facts to support your belief I'll gladly take a read but until then, for me, talking about BS&T is talking about a ponzi scheme.

[danieldaniel]

This thread is about BS&T it is not about ponzi schemes.

The only way this sentence makes any sense at all is if you believe BS&T is not a ponzi scheme, which I find no good reason to share. If you have some facts to support your belief I'll gladly take a read but until then, for me, talking about BS&T is talking about a ponzi scheme.

What facts, exactly, do you have to support your belief?

[BTCurious]

You should use a nick that doesn't require copy/paste to get right, hhm k?

You made me sad, psy. I hope you're satisfied now. You're mean.

Your's quite easy to get actually. Just the nicks who sound like Russian scammers are hard

Tell that to the forum members who used to call me "organoff"

I don't think I've ever misspelled your name, stroganoff…

[hazek]

This thread is about BS&T it is not about ponzi schemes.

The only way this sentence makes any sense at all is if you believe BS&T is not a ponzi scheme, which I find no good reason to share. If you have some facts to support your belief I'll gladly take a read but until then, for me, talking about BS&T is talking about a ponzi scheme.

What facts, exactly, do you have to support your belief?

I can't prove anything definitively, that much is clear. But what I can do is look for the tell-tale signs of a ponzi scheme(various facts from what is disclosed about the "investeing" to the abnormally high interest promised, the way PR is handled, ect..) + take into account the complete lack of evidence to the contrary.

To someone financially literate like myself this is enough to know with a pretty high accuracy what I'm looking at is a scam and it's not the first I've encountered and immediately recognized either..

[copumpkin]

This thread is about BS&T it is not about ponzi schemes.

The only way this sentence makes any sense at all is if you believe BS&T is not a ponzi scheme, which I find no good reason to share. If you have some facts to support your belief I'll gladly take a read but until then, for me, talking about BS&T is talking about a ponzi scheme.

Tell me this, then: what could anyone possibly do to prove that BS&T is not a Ponzi scheme? Describe a few more details of his business? Open up his books? Those can all be falsified.

The truth is, there is nothing he can do to prove that he is not a Ponzi. This "discussion" always devolves into some combination of "the yield is too high", "he isn't transparent enough", or "you guys don't understand finance" but the reality is that none of us can know. You don't know for sure that he is one, and we don't know for sure that he isn't one. This is certainly true of any Ponzi scheme, but it is also true of any other business that has unnaturally high yields with seemingly low risk.

Luckily for us, people deal with uncertain situations like this every day, with a concept called risk. Most of the time, people talk about counterparty/credit risk or currency risk or the like. Everyone knows that high yields, in an efficient market, can only be explained by high risk. Given that pirateat40 has given us no reason to believe he has a high counterparty risk, I propose a new form of risk at play here: copumpkin et al.'s "too fucking good to be true" risk. This risk factor arises naturally from situations in which the traditional risk factors appear too small to support the observed level of reward. I'm sure that most Ponzi investors have considered a similar concept, possibly without the precise naming I used.

Anyway, "too fucking good to be true" risk is just another risk factor. We can observe the rewards, and can hypothesize on the degree of the individual risk factors, and can make a reasonably educated decision for ourselves about whether to "invest" in BS&T. Sure, we'd prefer to have more certainty about the uncertainty of BS&T's prospects, but so would most investors in risky businesses. If I buy junk corporate bonds, I'd love to know that the company doesn't have some skeleton in its closet that will cause it to lose me all my money, and if I buy Greek government bonds, I'd also love to know that Greece isn't going to default on its debt (or "restructure" or whatever).

We don't know that pirateat40 isn't going to default, or even that he's honest. So far he's shown himself to be an honest, friendly guy, but up until the mortgage crisis, nobody thought that real estate was going to crash so hard. Furthermore, I've gone my entire life without getting hit by a car! Tail risk is hard to predict We can make estimates, and you're right: from the outside, this does look like a Ponzi scheme. Hell, from the inside it might, too.

But consider for a moment the (possibly very small) possibility that he really has found an excellent way to make money. If you knew for sure that he was doing that, would you not invest with him? Do you think he'd tell people how he was doing it? Of course not! Do you think people would be screaming at you that it was too good to be true and that he was a Ponzi? Of course they would. The "the returns are too high and it isn't transparent" argument applies to any hypothetical business that has succeeded where everyone else has failed, in making craploads of money. Furthermore, as I explained earlier, that argument can't be falsified, so even if you are convinced of it, there's not much point in debating it (as I'm doing now?).

My basic point boils down to the following: every one of his lenders/depositors that I know are well aware that it could be a Ponzi. I know that I and several others of us are not putting more than we could handle losing, so this really boils down to a highly risky piece of speculation. If it pays off, it'll pay off very well, and if not, we'll just go do something else and possibly hunt pirateat40 down if the loss appears to be malicious. The risks are hard to assess (aren't all risks?) but we most certainly are factoring them into our decision, and having people on the forum assume that we haven't thought through all the obvious ramifications really doesn't help anyone. Face it: none of what you're saying is deeply insightful; it's just basic common sense. We all have it, and we're either blinded by greed or just making a risky investment.

Granted, you can apply what I'm saying to any other Ponzi scheme, and I'm sure others made similar arguments for Madoff and whatever. It doesn't matter: I'm not going to whine if he disappears. A venture capital fund invests in out-of-college startups knowing well that only a small fraction of the startups it invests in are going to make any money at all. It's not irrational to speculate on high-risk ventures. If you think the risk of him running off with your money is higher than the potential rewards, avoid it; we think the rewards are higher than the risk, so we put money in, and it really is that simple.

tl;dr: personal responsibility, different risk tolerances, respect

[hazek]

But consider for a moment the (possibly very small) possibility that he really has found an excellent way to make money.

Actually no, I will not consider that, like at all. ^ this does not exist on this planet. There is no "secret" way of making money with no risk, there is either legit based on sound fundamentals money making or there are frauds and scams. Every time someone discovers a new way to make money with such a high return it's almost always because they are the first to enter the market providing an actual good or service or they just discovered a significant technological advancement giving them a huge edge over the rest of the market, neither state of the market can last for a long period of time because competition soon follows and diminishes your slice of the market pie.

As for finances, finances are nothing but skimming off the top by providing less friction to the flow of money, if there's any place where unusual high returns aren't possible, it's finances, at least not without significant risk.

What pirate claims to be able to do is therefor quit likely impossible in the short term and absolutely impossible in the long term. The only possible explanation that I would consider is if he is involved in something governments made rules about forbidding it, something like the drug trade or weapons trafficking, ect.. all possibilities of which likewise carry significant risks.


So yeah.

Anyway, I'll be perfectly happy if he doesn't go bust and if all of you make a lot of money or if he does go bust and all of you "investors" just chalk up your loses to the risk you knew you were taking going in. I'm just afraid many will cry and scream and get hurt because they were under the false impression of just how risky their "investments" really were.

[Vandroiy]

Tell me this, then: what could anyone possibly do to prove that BS&T is not a Ponzi scheme? Describe a few more details of his business? Open up his books? Those can all be falsified.

This is simple. He just has to keep going without exponential growth of new deposits for a while.

A Ponzi only works with the influx of new people. Let it cool off, have a few people withdraw, see whether the money suddenly vanishes. If there's actually much less money in BS&T than claimed, it should not survive contraction. Growth of user base must be significantly lower than yield for a while, and some fraction of the investors should withdraw and not re-invest all the time.

The strange thing is that this hasn't happened on its own. BS&T looks like it has unlimited potential for abnormally fast growth, and that is suspicious in itself.

[hazek]

Is it still possible to bet on pirate going bust?