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Buy payphones and retire

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Re: Buy payphones and retire

#21

Post by VirusNewbie »

stult wrote: post #18
asveikau wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine that's even more attractive to them in the old days, when they dealt in coins and bills. A modern vending machine probably mostly gets credit card transactions, which are traceable.

It's easier to launder money with services than goods anyway because you don't need to dispose of excess merchandise to make the books balance. Like if you want to claim to have sold 10000 cans of soda despite only selling 1000, you need to buy 10000 cans of soda or even the most superficial review of your accounts will reveal the scheme. The ideal laundering mechanism is a service with a high ratio of price to varia…

>These days, it's almost trivial to launder via wash trades with the proliferation of online services with effectively zero marginal costs.

like an MS Paint drawing of a monkey, but on the blockchain.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#22

Post by phyalow »

thefourthchime wrote: post #15

[flagged]

Was very tempted too, but preempted that by evaluating that the effort of opening an extra browser tab -> navigation -> model selection (select 01-mini probably) -> then back/forth copy- paste, was mitigated by a very quick skim read/jump to the end.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#23

Post by hinkley »

asveikau wrote: post #12
hinkley wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ponzi schemes are pure financial instruments. If a product is involved it’s called an MLM.

I'd say that is a bit like splitting hairs, but the article does question the extent to which actual payphones and calls were actually involved..

Ponzi schemes are illegal. MLMs are legalized Ponzi schemes. The outcomes are similar but one has a veneer of legitimacy that makes it more dangerous for some people.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#26

Post by asveikau »

hinkley wrote: post #23
asveikau wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that is a bit like splitting hairs, but the article does question the extent to which actual payphones and calls were actually involved..

Ponzi schemes are illegal. MLMs are legalized Ponzi schemes. The outcomes are similar but one has a veneer of legitimacy that makes it more dangerous for some people.

It's instructive not to argue the finer points without acknowledging what TFA says about the operators of the scheme breaking the law:

> In 2006, Charles Edwards was convicted of 83 counts of wire fraud and sentenced to thirteen years in prison.

Then another company:

> By 2009, more than a dozen people had been convicted of fraud in relation to Prometheus.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#27

Post by maxwell »

stult wrote: post #18
asveikau wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine that's even more attractive to them in the old days, when they dealt in coins and bills. A modern vending machine probably mostly gets credit card transactions, which are traceable.

It's easier to launder money with services than goods anyway because you don't need to dispose of excess merchandise to make the books balance. Like if you want to claim to have sold 10000 cans of soda despite only selling 1000, you need to buy 10000 cans of soda or even the most superficial review of your accounts will reveal the scheme. The ideal laundering mechanism is a service with a high ratio of price to varia…

I was thinking the other day that self-storage facilities seem ideal: you don't even need to account for discrepancies in utility usage, as in missing water at car washes and laundromats. Just say units are rented and paid in cash. Not aware of any KYC laws but haven't looked recently.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#28

Post by bongodongobob »

Scoundreller wrote: post #4

> And what income is more passive than vending machine coin revenue? Automated vending has had a bit of a renaissance, with social media influencers buying old machines and turning them into a business. Iunno, where I grew up, vending machines were controlled by the mob. Up to mob hits in the HQ’s parking lot. Makes me wonder if pay phones are the same after the telco offloaded them.

Even if not the literal Mafia, there are companies that will get violent over territory. I used to work with a guy who had an arcade game side business in the 90s and would lease or whatever to bars. Starting out, he didn't know about the territories and put some machines where they shouldn't be. The group that "owned " the territory found out he was putting machines in their turf and started vandalizing his machines and warned him to pull out or they were going to vandalize him. He ended up slowly selling off his machines because the competition and craziness of it all was too much to deal with.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#29

Post by warner25 »

thefourthchime wrote: post #15

[flagged]

This author is a very good and entertaining writer. You're really missing out if you don't take the time to read every word. Make yourself a drink, find a nice place to sit, and enjoy.

I was introduced to his work through an HN post last year. I was hooked by that first piece, and I've often gone back to his archive whenever I've had the time to read something long-form for leisure.

Re: Buy payphones and retire

#30

Post by bongodongobob »

dleink wrote: post #16
TheRealPomax wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that there are loads of things that you can't keep working on after you retire. If your company had you in a position where you ran really interesting projects, all of those are the company's projects, not yours. You got to work on them because you worked there, and once you retire you can't just keep working on them, you can't even do the same work on your own because your contract made that pretty clear: now y…

The things I love are broader than "IP controlled by my company." I can see that if the thing you love is massive financial institutions or defense contracting or something?

Maybe he's a helicopter mechanic or a million other things you can't just do at home.
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