>>the originators of the pyramid make the most profit...as time passes and more and more "investors" enter the club more and more "product" is produced until in a "closed" customer base like we have...the market experiences a "glut"...esp. with animals that do well....the bottom fell out of the graybands and other mexicana...hypo coastals still hold value...but how many actually sell and survive??....unless you continually produce something new and market it ....reptile "investment" will usually be a downward spiral.....just my thoughts............

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Good points.



I agree, but you're describing a pyramid of buyers, the fact that there are more buyers at the base, who can afford inexpensive animals, then a mid-level where fewer but a significant number of buyers can afford more costly ones, and then a small number at the top who can afford/want to buy the very newest most exciting and rarest (and therefore most costly) animals. That's pretty standard, and it works hand-in-hand with the supply and demand principles. And as you observe, it results in prices gradually declining. With each decline there's a new group of buyers poised to act at that price point. Profits are possible for each level, because at each level people are investing less, and almost always the babies they produce will sell for less than they paid for the parents. The return on investment AS A PERCENTAGE may actually be the same, the difference is in the real dollars of the return: a 50% ROI over four years is a lot more bucks if the original investment was $10,000 than if it was $1,000. But as i say, the percentages can be similar.



"pyramid investments" is a term sometimes used to describe stock frauds where the seller peddles phony stocks and then reassures investors by selling more, and more, and using the returns from the additional sales to pay fake "dividends" to the original investors, making htem think their stocks are earning dividends when they're not. These ponzi schemes are quite different from the pyramid distribution of buyers at different sales levels, for an actual product.



peace

terry

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