As much as I would like to believe, there are just no investments that generate anything like the return that is often promised by these "programs." Maybe if they did something almost sustainable like 1% a month rather than per day, but even that is not easy to achieve.
You're missing the point. You're not meant to believe.
The early "investors" make a good profit, the later ones lose everything.
The skill, such as it is, comes from only playing if you think it will keep running long enough that you'll make your profit from the people who come after you.
So long as all the people who play know the rules, and know that they lose their investment if they're too late, then I don't see a problem with it. What tends to happen though is that some people fail to look into what they're getting involved with, and don't realise that they are running a risk of losing their deposit. Usually that happens because the Ponzi operator lies to them about his scheme, but even in the thread I just linked to (where everything was clearly explained) I see it ended with a disappointed player who was surprised to get back less than he put in...
