Creating a pyramid scheme is very difficult. Somehow you have to convince a group of people to support a product/service that they originally knew nothing about. Let’s say you’re trying to sell magic pills that make you instantly lose weight. The way to go about this is to sell the product first from the scheming company to the sales reps, and then in turn it is their responsibility to sell this product to a consumer. In a pyramid scheme buy-in is very important. The top of the pyramid benefits while the bottom of the pyramid is likely to have a terrible life. An important part of a pyramid scheme as well is that the top of the pyramid does not care about the bottom of the pyramid.
How do you get to be very successful in a pyramid scheme? You get it to seem as legitimate as possible, and have the regulators support you. You create an exclusive accounting designation that relies on experience in your business. You require a certain term of service, say 30 months, before you can receive said designation. You try to limit all possible ways to get this exclusive designation without students going through you. It is in this way that you become the gatekeeper. You hold all the cards. Once you hold all the cards you can make decisions such as, the top of the pyramid benefits while the bottom of the pyramid suffers. An example of this would be difference in compensation. If the bottom of the pyramid earns 6% of what the top of the pyramid makes they will most likely be suffering (or living in their parents basement). While the top can afford houses, cars, vacations, etc, the bottom is struggling to pay for rent, car payments, and vacations they took and couldn’t afford. Combine this and any student debt they accumulated and you have a recipe for disaster.
Take Vancouver for instance where a new associate’s rent alone may eat up 46% of their income. Maybe you have student credits so you’re not paying taxes, but if you’re paying taxes easily another 15% could be used to support the government. What? You work late and may need a car to get around (read the firm expects you to have a car) there goes another 15%. You don’t like food do you? If you do it can easily add up to another 11% just for the bare essentials. Oh, so you’re too busy to prepare meals yourself from scratch so you go out occasionally? Too bad that’ll cost you an additional 9%. Need to exercise your fat audit butt, well you should, and it won’t cost you because most likely your firm has a fitness benefit. You like watching TV, have a phone, and enjoy the use of broadband internet, well that’s nice but it’ll cost you 5%. Well I could continue but what’s the point, we’re already over 100%, I guess that means the rest just goes on your line of credit. Other things you may like but not be able to afford include new clothing (your employer always expects you to look your best), gifts for family and friends (because even if you don’t see them as often as you like you should still give them gifts for their birthdays and Christmas), coffee (accountants don’t drink that do they?), going to the bar/pub (to wash away your sorrows from the week), etc, etc, etc.
Note: Wikipedia defines a pyramid scheme as”a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than from any real investment or sale of products or services to the public. Pyramid schemes are a form of fraud.” The use of pyramid scheme above is purely satirical.
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