May. 27, 2003 - 21:40 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

American Pyramids

A person can Google chain letters and read about the craze in the 1930's here in the United States.

As a kid I remember Mom and Dad reading chain letters they got in the mail. Somehow that sort of thing seemed too good to be true and sucker bait. They were good for a laugh at the promises they made.

Around our end of town there appeared store front operations based on the "chain effect," A person could go in, pay their money and have their name entered in the book and hope for money to come in. Seemed more on the up and up that way, and the more people you knew that you could persuade to come in and plunk down their hard earned dough the better the chance was that you would get a return eventually and after all, you were in the book.

I expect it was the same all over the country during those days of depression, the hope of getting big bucks back by investing a few was so attractive to persons eking out survival day by day.

It went on for quite some time in our neighborhood, folks going in to see how they stood in the books. Interest seemed to gradually dwindle as other somewhat more exciting interests took over the helm. Chain letters kept coming in the mail by the bunches too but they were pooh pooed as being worthless.

At that time there were far more pyramids in our country than ever dreamed of in ancient Egypt.

Pyramid schemes keep cropping up in one form or another nowadays and are usually shut down by the law.

The way Dad explained it to me, a pyramid represented the fallacy, the cap stone at the top represented the first guy in the list, he gained moola, but it was the layers under him that put him up in that spot. Dad then told me that the more people got in the chain, the less chance that the late ones would ever get any return at all. I expect that there are more esoteric explanations and historical accounts of the "chain effect," but to me it all boils down to the fact that soon there would not be enough people in the world to push that capstone any higher and that those underneath would get little back.

The storefront operations in our neighborhood ? They were apparently operating fair and square, but as new contributors began to wane, eventually the storefront was empty of the operator, table, book, pen and ink.

From things I have read pyramid schemes have been foisted on the public on a grand scale in history. And to my notion still are going in a certain form here, all based on sales and the recruiting of sales people -- oh so very complicated it is but to draw it to a ridiculous conclusion -- eventually everyone would be sales persons trying to sell to sales persons in the same organization.

For the most part the craze died out, except for the e-mail bit that seems to be based on luck, good fortune etc. --- send this letter to five people within 24 hours of receiving your copy and be astounded at the good luck that will shower down upon you.

So that was a quick short trip in the 1930's, through the American Pyramids . . . . . . . . . . . .

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