Investment Fraud - Phew, that was close! Time for Operant Conditioning?

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at the CBC news item today about the arrest of two men for an alleged investment fraud. The key part of the item: "The investments were held out to be for the development of an automated trading system that promised unusually high rates of return," the OPP said in a release. It added the investigation "revealed that the funds solicited were not used in the manner promised, thereby defrauding the investors of their money." I see, so it is only because they did not use the money for an automated trading system that it is illegal? Had they invented an automated trading system of whatever useless nature and lost all the investors' money, that would have been ok. Whew! That was a close one, otherwise they could have got away with it.

To prevent this from, in the classic phrase of our time, "ever happening again", we could consider using Skinner conditioning techniques in schools so that as soon as the words "high rates of return" are mentioned in any investment sales presentation, people immediately get violently ill and verbally abuse whoever utters the phrase. If it works for pigeons and dogs, surely it could do for humans.....