TANSTAAFL - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

TANSTAAFL: the opposite of Money For Nothing, Other People's Money, Get Rich Quick

Robert A. Heinlein, most famous for his novels “Stranger in a Strange Land” and “Starship Troopers”, has been used in the Share-The-Profits scam as a proponent of pay-it-forward. Heinlein's idea was to give someone in need money, and they would help someone else sometime later, and so on, with no money coming back to the originator. It's the same idea Ben Franklin proposed. That's the real idea of pay-it-forward.

This scam falsely quotes Heinlein's and Franklin's pay-it-forward because it promised people would get more money back than they paid in – lots more money. This scam would have people purchase a trust for $100 (now $129.95), $50 of it paid forward to some other, unspecified trust, and the other $50 gone for "expenses". In return, you would receive $75 from some other trust if you reached Phase 2, or more in higher Phases. This is a pyramid scheme in action. Many more new trusts “gift” older trusts, or rather trusts at the top of the pyramid. Cleverly, instead of using people in the pyramid, the scam had people start an Irrevocable Trust, and the trusts participated in the pyramid.

Heinlein's and Franklin's pay-it-forward idea was to not to receive anything back. In fact, Heinlein had strong feelings about “free lunches”, getting anything for free without paying for it. In particular, his novel “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” specifically and forcefully spread the universal constant that “There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.” You may get lucky with a lottery, but how many people do you know have won big, and how many have paid $5 a week for this losing (for almost all people) bet, year after year?

I'm happy to say Robert A. Heinlein was no fool. Look him up on the web. He has written so many classic Science Fiction books that are insightful and promising about the human spirit. He did NOT believe you should or could make money from gifting it to others. Neither does the IRS.

TANSTAAFL sums up everything about this scheme. Thank you Robert A. Heinlein. We love you and your integrity. You have nothing in common with the Sharing-The-Profits scammers. We want these scammers to read your novels – in jail!