> Now it seems the grifting-meta is to make promises around a product with no plans on delivering it, take in pre-order money, and then just park it in an investment account to grow during a bull market. By the time the grift comes due, your "investment" will have grown to a magnitude where even if you are forced to pay it back, you will have made a tidy profit.

There's never been a time where that would work. A damages theory can't make you cough up your stock market gains, but unjust enrichment will do it.

Put into an example, it's always been black-letter law that if I misappropriate $1,000 from you, put it on red 27, and turn it into $36,000, I owe you all $36,000. If I'm less lucky than that and turn it into $50, I owe you all $1,000.

> it's always been black-letter law that if I misappropriate $1,000 from you, put it on red 27, and turn it into $36,000, I owe you all $36,000.

Only if you "stole", and only if you get caught. If you asked $1,000 for an "investment" with the intention of putting it on red 27, then win, you can repay your investors and they'd be none the wiser.

Some people have argued that Sam Bankman Fried just had unlucky timing. If his Anthropic investment had an opportunity to mature everyone would have been happy.

I don’t subscribe, but I have seen the argument a few times.

In practice how often does that actually happen to well-heeled, well-connected fraudsters?

> been black-letter law

Only civil, though, right? IIRC criminal law seeks restitution, which would be the original $1000. Civil law is where unjust enrichment would come into play, to my understanding.

> Put into an example, it's always been black-letter law that if I misappropriate $1,000 from you, put it on red 27, and turn it into $36,000, I owe you all $36,000. If I'm less lucky than that and turn it into $50, I owe you all $1,000.

Instead of ending this sentence in a period, I would have ended it:

, if I get caught.