[jacksoncarter]

It's not a ponzi scheme, because additional wealth is created by the investment of the capital. That capital buys factories, jobs, and marketing.

In a ponzi scheme, the investment goes solely to pay off previous investors -- that's it.

Wall Street is not a ponzi scheme.

[mkramlich]

Not true. Some of the money the Ponzi operator takes in is siphoned off to himself, in the form of "fees" or whatever. That's the reason he's in it for, in part, along with hopefully absconding with ideally the entirety of the last big round just before he folds it and runs and or gets exposed. Ideally, he just keeps it going for a long time and and his fees grow since it's a percentage.

Wall Street refers to this big amorphous blob comprised of many individual entities and transactions and businesses. Some of them do very much resemble Ponzi schemes. All of them? Of course not. Some? Yes.