I have a rather stupid question for people who are advocating this SE thing. They are promising more than 500% returns annually, if I'm not mistaken. Why doesn't James Phang or the company just take out a secured bank loan at a decent interest rate, or distribute equity with dividends at market rate?

Even with a 15% interest/dividend rate, and I think that's more than reasonable, he can enjoy 100% of the profits after paying back the loan, and there's no need to share the wealth with anyone else.