I think you are misrepresenting what a Ponzi scheme is. People actually get defrauded and are given phony fund statements and they are generally not aware at al

I think you are misrepresenting what a Ponzi scheme is. People actually get defrauded and are given phony fund statements and they are generally not aware at all that there is a Ponzi scheme occurring, they just think they happen to have a good fund manager. So it's not a good comparison.