... It to sell someone else a way to make money quick.
When what you are selling is in fact your own system, that's called a ponzi scheme or a pyramid scam and it's illegal.
However, "one level deep" pyramid scams are legal and very common. Probably the most common is the Real Estate Plan - "Make millions in real estate with no money down."
Of course, the people who are making the millions are the ones selling the plan. Otherwise, instead of TV info-mercials, they would be out buying real estate, wouldn't you think?
Another common one-level deep pyramid scam is the 2nd-or-3rd-Rate College-MBA scam. I'm sure you've heard the Ads on the Radio: "Earn your MBA Part-Time in about 6 months without leaving the comfort of your living room ..." these ads all but guarentee employment and a big salary once you get the MBA.
Of course, they also exist for BS/BA and AA programs - very often in Computer Stuff like networking or, my goodness, computer science.
Of course, there is a large group of people who are ... less than swift. For some reason or other, these people lack the skills to get and keep a high-paying job. What they desparately want is a "sure thing" - a degree or certificate to earn to "guarentee" them a high salary.
So, they go to Joe Schmoe College and earn an MBA. And, of course, they still lack interviewing skills - and - more importantly - analysis skills. So they can't really make use of the MBA. (It's from Joe Schmoe anyway, which isn't exactly Ivy League, so it's easy for employers to blow off.)
One big problem is that this increases the pool of available, incompetant MBA's - which decreases the percieved value of the MBA itself.
Simply put, this is essentially why I oppose Perl Certification. Eventually, training companies would spring up that will allow incompetants to pass the test - and hiring managers will begin to say "Perl? Nah, I think we should use Java. We hired some Perl certified programmers for the flim-boozle project and look what a mess they made ..."
