'Will MMM crash?' is not the right question to ask, 'When or how will it crash?' is, because it definitely will; naturally or through government intervention. All pyramid scheme do.
I was twelve when someone introduced the first pyramid scheme to my dad. He was curious but registered. After a week, or so, he stepped up to level two. The level one bonus was a factory-made bar soap. At that time, it was a luxury in our house and it made my mom happy, and dad too.
To get to the next level, he registered five of us under him. That is what pyramid scheme is all about - getting people under you to move up the ladder. The level one bonus also came for the five of us he registered plus his level two bonus which was a bag of salt.
To climb higher, he needed to register more people. That was when mom suggested that he cannot do it alone. She volunteered to help in getting people to register. I can recall vividly the aggressive sweet tongue, beating of her chest and showing off of her benefits which she used to convince as many people needed for the bottom of the ladder.
Her favorite quote became, "Hold me if anything should happen to your money".
That was a verbal expression of how confident she was about the scheme (the same aggressiveness many people are using to disseminate MMM). Less than a month later the scheme crashed. My father stopped at level three (a 20-litres gallon of vegetable oil). Pyramid schemes always get saturated.
My mom had her face in the cup of her palm for months and walked with deflated ego. She felt betrayed, cheated. This was evident in the ways she talked little.
Fast-forward to my third year in the university. Pyramid schemes came out in great numbers that 8 in 10 of students was a member of one pyramid scheme or the other. Some even paid in dollars. At a point, it seemed like I was the only one in my class that did not belong to any. Reasons were that I survived on 5 thousand naira a month ( a story for another day) and that I still carried mom's bitter story in my head and heart.
Pyramid schemes are cropping up again and the king of them all is MMM. Though it is different in a number of ways––you can resign to living on the 30% bonus of your investment––but to earn more––10% of referral bonus––you need to register people. Who wouldn't want to earn more? That MMM came at a time of national recession makes it more interesting. That is what Ponzi does––feed on your greed.
However, if you have decided to risk it with MMM, then you have no reason not to be greedy. Let me explain.
MMM guarantees 30% bonus, right? Good. That means that the higher you invest, the higher your returns. Assuming you invest only 20 thousand, that means you will harvest 30something thousand––i.e. 30% of your investment plus a $20 first time bonus––at the end of the 30 days period. The bonus will drop drastically the second time because the $20 bonus will not be there. Minus your profit from your seed capital and what you have is a write-off. You will end up reinvesting your capital.
What if you invested 1million? You are guaranteed 1.3something million at the end of the 30 days duration right? That's some money. You can then pull off your seed capital and reinvest the 300k for a 90k bonus at the end of the 30 days period. That is something to live with. By trading with your profit, you have little to worry about even if the scheme should fall to the ground today compared to when you have your seed capital in it.
Life is a risk. The truth is that the higher the risk, in most cases (especially when it comes to finance), the higher the reward and vice versa. The choice is your call. If you have decided to take the risk anyways, there is no point being modest about it. Give it your all.
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