Heh, fair enough. There's a whole chess game with these sorts of things. I think it's probably very good advice to try to take a little money out of any investment before adding more to it, but it's also documented that con artists and pyramid schemes will sacrifice part of their take to maintain the illusion. Some investors get to take money out, so that the rest of the marks think they are going to get the same treatment. Or with a confidence scheme you might make a little money in step 1 and 2 and then in step 3 their phones are disconnected and they have skipped town.