Wow, that comparison with Madoff's returns is so sleazy that the person who created that image has to know they're being a dishonest scumbag. For context, the suspicious thing about Madoff's returns wasn't just the size of the returns, it was that his Ponzi scheme returned that amount consistently year after year, seemingly risk free, regardless of what the markets did. That was the part that was "too good to be true" - the average returns of Madoff's scheme were pretty unremarkable. Also I'm pretty sure that's comparing apples to oranges, or rather return on investment with profit-to-income ratio.