You are careening from wall to wall here. So is BurtW an evil mastermind co-conspirator actively stealing vast sums, or a hapless simpleton to be preyed upon by the typical denizen of back alleys? You can't have it both ways.
Amazingly, you can have both. You can have people who are evil masterminds with respect to those they solicit investments from and hapless simpletons with respect to those they pay the money to. It's actually not an uncommon characteristic of Ponzi schemes.
It's the flipside of the fact that you will find both arguments that "Everyone knew it was a Ponzi scheme, so people who lost money weren't really scammed" and "We still don't know it's a Ponzi". You will even see these two completely contradictory arguments made by the same people within a few minutes.
The basic psychology is that on a rational level, you know that it is almost certainly a Ponzi. But you still believe irrationally that if you invest you will make money, likely because you think it's still early. So you act on the belief, that you really don't have, that you don't "really know" that it's a Ponzi "for sure". You convince yourself the on-paper profits you will never withdraw are real, so you start to believe that you are doing well and that convincing others to join will actually help them. And, of course, it will help you. Then you start using pressure and deception to solicit others, telling yourself it's to help them, but of course (coincidentally) it also helps you. However, you are still a sucker falling for a Ponzi scheme.
You really are both a hapless simpleton and an evil mastermind at the same time. Amazing but true.
Consider a PPT operator who says the equivalent of, "Yeah, I guess I knew it was probably a Ponzi scheme, but I still figured people could get in early enough that they'd still make money." Simpleton or mastermind?
