Telegram.com, August 13, 2020: Michelle Singletary: Structural racism helps schemers attract Blacks to pyramid scams
Institutional racism has created such a huge wealth gap in America that pyramid scheme promoters are able to persuade Blacks to put aside common sense with promises that they can have a piece of their denied American Dream.
Widely circulating in the Black community is a new version of the chain-letter pyramid scheme in which people are recruited and then encouraged to bring in others with assurances that they can all make three-digit returns in a matter of weeks.
Except the large payout is simply money collected from recruits. There’s no wealth building – only the shifting of money to people who got into the scheme earlier. Eventually, the enterprise collapses when not enough folks can be persuaded to join, which stops the flow of money.
