How many times does it need to be said that not all Pirate customers reinvest the interest?
True, but by far the most did.
That is the whole idea of offering 7% interest per week (equaling 3,300% per year). That put pink dollar notes over the eyes of "investors". They calculated that they could become rich with a relatively small initial "investment", but only if they compounded the interest.
If more had decided to collect their interest via auto-payout, the whole Ponzi scheme would not have worked so well, because the exponential growth curve would quickly have turned into a fundamental problem.
It did anyway, but a little later, because even the few auto-payouts grew roughly exponentially. The pirate then tried to flatten the exponential curve a little by lowering his rates, but that triggered more payouts, as predicted, and ultimately killed the Ponzi scheme instantly last week.
Now we can speculate how precisely the pirate foresaw the end, whether he was taken by surprise by the withdrawal reactions, and whether he had actually hoped to continue for several more months, but I tend to think he had his bailout planned quite a while ago already.
If indeed he had planned everything carefully, then we must assume that he is not Trendon T. Shavers, if that person actually exists at all. Somehow the name looks synthetic to me, something like, "I will create a trend to shave you."
Is Shavers a known last name at all? Do you know anyone named Shavers?
