Talk:MMM (Ponzi scheme company)

Pyramid or Ponzi?
Was MMM a pyramid scheme, or a Ponzi scheme? --GCarty (talk) 16:45, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yep, you nailed it. "Pyramid" is a "false friend" translation from Russian. Ponzi it is. `'Míkka>t 09:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, it was not a Ponzi scheme either. The company had an actual, tangible product, they were importing computers to Russia. What they did was that they aggressively marketed their shares and made sure that the supply of new shares is always below the demand, thus making the price go up constantly. So it was just a game of supply and demand, as today Bitcoin is. (Is Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme? Maybe.) MMM never used the received money to pay out dividends. I think they never even paid dividends and never promised any. People were just betting all their money on that the price would go up forever. And all that was completely legal under the law of the Russian Federation back then. (Therefore, Mavrodi could be charged later only with tax evasion and forgery.) Sundowner (talk) 07:45, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Can you support your claims with references to reliable sources? Actually they did pay for shares; That was the whole idea under Lyonya Golubkov adverts. To be a ponzi scheme it does not have to involve dividends. - Altenmann >talk 09:02, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Banknotes
apparently this company issued some sort of paper money. A translation of the name of the "currency" unit comes out as "biletof". Would it be worthwile to add mention of this in the article? I have one of these notes and could upload a picture if that would help.--Marhawkman (talk) 11:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, please.--79.111.114.97 (talk) 01:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It was not a currency but rather printed deposit receipts. This was a necessity in the early 1990s when the stock trade was not yet really developed and stock depots with banks for private people were unknown. Also other companies that issued shares in that time did so.
 * "Bilet" in that context means a document that gives the bearer the right to claim something. Also the vouchers issued in the first wave of privatization were "bilets". Sundowner (talk) 07:36, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Asd far as I understand 'bilet' is a shortening of Russian "кредитный билет", an archaic term for "banknote". The literal meaning of "bilet" is "ticket". - Altenmann >talk 09:06, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Why are there so many "citation needed" marks?
Doesn't that undermine the legitimacy of whoever put down the information? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:6000:9FC0:10:541A:FD50:EEEE:BBB (talk) 02:58, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I would like to know why Mavrodi is called a Russian "criminal", but somebody like Sozhenitsyn isn't. Both did time and both were incarcerated on fabricated charges. Why aren't we calling Mike Tyson, Martin Luther King or "Home Improvement"'s Tim Allen criminals? They did time, too. And the evidence of them committing their crimes is much more present than the first two. Any answer appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Akusmmm (talk • contribs) 03:13, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

That's the case of pushing shawdo instead of the substance. Anele Stanley (talk) 07:31, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

They're back.
They're back.
 * MMM Global
 * Russia Today article.
 * Eyewitness News (Zaire) John Nagle (talk) 19:05, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Not a good place to criticize Trump
I deleted a text that makes a comparison between Mavrodi and Donald Trump because this article is not about Donald Trump. Monty oso (talk) 02:45, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

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Distinguish template
Would it be worthwhile to add Template:Distinguish as to not confuse MMM with the company 3M, which has a stock symbol on NYSE "MMM", or does the title do enough for this? Sorry if this is a dumb question. XyNq (talk) 19:35, 26 April 2022 (UTC)