Are people really that naive? There was one some guy tried talking to me about for a prepaid legal service. I told him no way and to leave me along. Usually these people would ask me on Myspace, Facebook or at a bar about "changing my life." They usually give me the same story of, "Never have a boss again" or "You will make six figures while on vacation!"

Seems like popular ones are about legal services and nutritional products like antioxidants or energy drinks. Anybody else listen to these gimmicks?

Because there are too many fools falling for them.

bigdinkel said:EvilCapitalist said:Because there are too many fools falling for them.
I figured that but there has to be more of a detailed reason.

In general, people are lazy and want to believe the "get rich quick" schemes. They want to be talked into it because they're too lazy to work for it.

EvilCapitalist said:bigdinkel said:EvilCapitalist said:Because there are too many fools falling for them.
I figured that but there has to be more of a detailed reason.

... and fool's money has better uses in a pocket of a lesser fool.

Good answer

Blah.. MLM's, I know too many people who try to "get back in touch" and have me "do a coming home party" for them and invite over all the old pals only to find out "they're in business for themself just like me in an Internet business!" and want to use this "party" to pitch their crap. So far, three times this year..

lonestarguy said:The govt even sponsors one -- social security. Just wait, you haven't seen anything yet.Social security's purpose is to provide a pension for people too old to work. It only needs a small fix which is indexing the retirement age to life expectancy.

Simply put, you work X years while paying Y% of your income into social security while enjoying a pension during the final Z years of your life span. If you keep the ratio X/Z constant, you don't have to raise Y. Right now we keep X constant (retirement age=65), and Z is increasing, then Y will need to rise a lot.

Crazytree said:because they're too stupid and lazy to go make business in an honest way.

says the lawyer....

nycll said:Social security's purpose is to provide a pension for people too old to work. It only needs a small fix which is indexing the retirement age to life expectancy.

Actually, its purpose was to prevent persons of very advanced age from staving or freezing in the streets. It came about during the depression, when those too old to work did not have the resources or family to care for them.

It began as a form of social insurance, to protect those who could no longer work from falling into poverty and homelessness.

It was never designed as a pension scheme, and only became one after several generations of Americans thought the government would take care of them in old age, and failed to save appropriately as a result.

bigdinkel said:Are people really that naive?...Apparently more so than ever.

staci86 said:It was never designed as a pension scheme, and only became one after several generations of Americans thought the government would take care of them in old age, and failed to save appropriately as a result.It works exactly like a defined benefit pension program. But you can call it social insurance and I don't have a problem with that. The issue is it is on an unsustainable path due to demographic shift. The most fair and sensible way is to raise retirement age, specifically, indexing it to life expectancy.