After one month, Rupert Murdoch's 'Wall Street Journal' is still covering up the 'Amway' racket

From 'The Universal Identifying Characteristics of a Cult' ( Axiom Books, copyright David Brear 2005).

Self-appointed sovereign leadership. Pernicious cults are instigated and ruled by psychologically dominant individuals, and/or bodies of psychologically dominant individuals (often with impressive, made-up names, and/or ranks, and/or titles), who hold themselves accountable to no one. These individuals have severe and inflexible Narcissistic Personalities (i.e. they suffer from a chronic psychological disorder, especially when resulting in a grandiose sense of self-importance/ righteousness and the compulsion to take advantage of others and to control others’ views of, and behaviour towards, them).* They steadfastly pretend moral and intellectual authority whilst pursuing various, hidden, criminal objectives (fraudulent, and/or sexual, and/or violent, etc.). The admiration of their adherents only serves to confirm, and magnify, the leaders’ strong sense of self-entitlement and fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, ideal love, etc.

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Narcissus by Caravaggio c. 1599

* ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder,’ is a psychological term first used in 1971 by Dr. Heinz Kohut (1913-1981). It was recognised as the name for a form of pathological narcissism in ‘The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 1980.’ Narcissistic traits (where a person talks highly of himself/herself to eliminate feelings of worthlessness) are common in, and considered ‘normal’ to, human psychological development. When these traits become accentuated by a failure of the social environment and persist into adulthood, they can intensify to the level of a severe mental disorder. Severe and inflexible NPD is thought to effect less than 1% of the general adult population. It occurs more frequently in men than women. In simple terms, NPD is reality-denying, total self-worship born of its sufferers’ unconscious belief that they are flawed in a way that makes them fundamentally unacceptable to others. In order to shield themselves from the intolerable rejection and isolation which they unconsciously believe would follow if others recognised their defective nature, NPD sufferers go to almost any lengths to control others’ view of, and behaviour towards, them. NPD sufferers often choose partners, and raise children, who exhibit ‘co-narcissism’ (a co-dependent personality disorder like co-alcoholism). Co-narcissists organize themselves around the needs of others (to whom they feel responsible), they accept blame easily, are eager to please, defer to others’ opinions and fear being seen as selfish if they act assertively. NPD was observed, and apparently well-understood, in ancient times. Self-evidently, the term, ‘narcissism,’ comes from the allegorical myth of Narcissus, the beautiful Greek youth who falls in love with his own reflection.

Currently, NPD has nine recognised diagnostic criteria (five of which are required for a diagnosis):

·         has a grandiose sense of self-importance.

·         is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, ideal love, etc.

·         believes that he/she is special and unique and can only be understood by other special people.

·         requires excessive admiration.

·         strong sense of self-entitlement.

·         takes advantage of others to achieve his/her own ends.

·         lacks empathy.

·         is often envious or believes that others are envious of him/her.

·         arrogant disposition.

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Charles Ponzi                           Bernard Madoff

Imagine if a leading financial journalist had been granted an interview with either the high and mighty Charles Ponzi or Bernie Madoff, prior to them being exposed as absurd, but dangerous, economic alchemists running variations of the same outrageous, fake 'investment scheme' without any external source of revenue other than that deriving their own so-called 'investors.' Imagine if that journalist had been given a complete prior-explanation (at his own request) of what Mr. Ponzi or Mr. Madoff was doing, but then failed to ask the obvious key-questions which would have revealed their hidden criminal objectives.

With the benefit of hindsight, what conclusions would any free-thinking observer of such a friendly interview be forced to draw?

In reality, from what we now know of Mr. Ponzi and Mr. Madoff, neither of these severe and inflexible narcissists would have agreed to take part in any interview unless he was confident that the interviewer was financially illiterate, or unless the interview itself was part of the economic hocus-pocus and the interviewer a stooge.

Reed Elliot Slatkin, admired and respected 'Scientology Minister,' 
sentenced in California in 2003  to 14 years prison for
mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and obstructing justice.

Perhaps a more revealing analogy would be to imagine if a leading financial journalist had been granted an interview with Reed Slatkin, prior to him being exposed as a psychotic economic alchemist who secretly justified 25 years of financial crimes with the scripted lie that he was an enlightened 'Scientologist' - a superior being struggling to clear planet Earth of the invisible forces of evil.



So, how can the following be explained?

http://online.wsj.com/video/the-big-interview-questioning-the-amway-way/FE12F29C-D022-42B8-8ACD-16A114E0DA96.html

It is now one month since this 30 minute propaganda broadcast for the 'Amway' fraud, in the form of an 'interview'  appeared on the Net.

Dennis K. Berman

Let's be quite clear about this, unless he really is a financially illiterate dope (which is very difficult to believe, considering his job), Dennis Berman (Deputy Bureau Chief, Money and Investing, at Rupert Murdoch's 'Wall Street Journal') conducted a sham interview maliciously designed to obstruct justice and cover up ongoing major racketeering activity; for despite being supplied (at his own request) with a full and accurate deconstruction of how all so-called 'MLM income opportunities' have actually been closed-market swindles (a.k.a. Ponzi schemes, dissimulated behind effectively-unsaleable products, and or services, and based on the specious economic theory that endless-chain recruitment + endless purchases by the recruits = endless profits for the recruits), Dennis Berman failed to ask Messrs. DeVos and Van Andel the obvious questions that might have revealed their hidden criminal objectives:

Excluding all the 'Amway' corporation's own unsubstantiated documentation, and all unsubstantiated verbal statements made by yourselves and by your alleged 'sales force,' what independent evidence can you produce that would prove that your enterprise's alleged 'permanently profitable and expanding Multi-Level Marketing income opportunity' has actually had any significant external source of revenue other than that deriving from its own constantly-churning participants? i.e. Can you produce the audited accounts of a significant number of persons who have been under contract to 'Amway' as alleged 'business owners,' showing that their alleged 'businesses' have been authentic and that these persons have paid income-tax on profits accruing lawfully from their having regularly retailed a significant quantity of 'Amway' products, and/or services, directly to the public? 

Self-evidently, during the alleged interview, Dennis Berman behaved like a grinning stooge feeding scripted gag-lines to two grinning comedians. Laughably, at no time did he challenge any unsubstantiated statement made by Messrs. DeVos and Van Andel whom he kept addressing as 'you guys.' 

After approximately 14 minutes of sycophancy, Dennis Berman asked the 'Amway' bosses what percentage of their '$10.8 billion annual sales' are to the general public? He was first told that according to 'Amway's' own estimates, 50%, but in almost the same breath, this 50% figure was quickly qualified as referring to 'customers and end-users.'  However, again almost in the same breath, the 'Amway' bosses made the absurd claim that 100% of 'Amway sales are to customers and end-users, because Amway distributors are all customers and end users.' In other words, 'Amway' adherents have been both buyers and sellers in an economically-unviable closed-market. To the ill-informed,  this mystifying economic hocus-pocus might sound impressive. However, it is a classic piece of Orwellian 'double-think,' but then, the quantifiable evidence proves that 'MLM income opportunity' lie has been maintained, by shutting down the critical and evaluative faculties of its victims using co-ordinated devious techniques of social, psychological and physical persuasion (without their fully-informed consent). Indeed, in a recent lawsuit brought by a group of distressed American 'Amway' adherents, an internal report (from 2006) was produced as evidence. This unchallenged document (which had been deliberately withheld from the public) showed that less than 4% of alleged 'Amway sales' were, in fact, authentic retail transactions to the public. However, even this ridiculously low score is a distortion of reality, because most 'Amway customers,' who have not been adherents of the organization, turn out to have been relatives or close friends of adherents. 

Rupert Murdoch

After Dennis Berman's comic charade with the billionaire 'Amway' bosses appeared on the WSJ Website, for obvious reasons, both Robert FitzPatrick (President of the Pyramid Scheme Alert http://pyramidschemealert.org/) and I contacted him with our many concerns. Furthermore, we also contacted Dennis Berman's Bureau Chief at the WSJ, and I took the trouble to contact Rupert Murdoch (the billionaire boss of 'News Corporation'). Indeed, I spoke to Rupert Murdoch's personal assistant, Nancy Porto, at length, and she requested that I send my concerns about Dennis Berman (in the form of an e-mail) to her, to be given to her boss.

After one month, neither Robert FitzPatrick nor I, have received so much as an acknowledgement, let alone an intelligible reply, from any employee or officer of the 'WSJ' or  'News Corporation.' 


In this instance, Rupert Murdoch cannot say that he was completely unaware that a 'News Corporation' employee has been participating in corrupt activities. 

William H. McMasters

It is interesting to note that one of Ponzi's 'business' associates/employees, a sharp-witted publicist, William H. McMasters (who, for 10 days during 1920, helped Charles Ponzi, to expand his fraud dramatically by arranging for him to be interviewed by wide-eyed journalists who then published articles which were the equivalent of free advertisments), sold the explanation of what Ponzi was really doing to the 'Boston Post,' and that this publication later received the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for its reporting of the story. McMasters saw that Ponzi was a blithering idiot who couldn't even add up. He immediately applied common sense, and deduced that what Ponzi said (that his 'Securities Exchange Company' had been sending millions of dollars of its investors' money to a network of agents who had been buying international postal reply coupons in countries with currencies weakened by WWI, and then shipping them to the USA, where he had exchanged them for equivalent US postage stamps which he had then sold for a 400% profit) was far too good to be true. McMasters, who was not an economist, simply observed that all Ponzi was doing was taking his later victims' money to pay out imaginary 'profits' to his earlier contributors. Ponzi wasn't actually sending money abroad or trading in anything. He was peddling his victims infinite shares of their own finite money. It was later discovered that Ponzi had only ever bought a handful of international postal coupons (which could not be redeemed for a profit), and that the entire world supply of these documents was vastly-inferior to the phenomenal quantity which Ponzi had claimed to have traded.  
http://www.fraud-magazine.com/article.aspx?id=4294970026

In the case of Bernie Madoff, as most people now know, no one seems to have taken much notice of the independent whistle-blower, Harry Markopolos, who applied common sense and came up with essentially the same absurd explanation as McMasters had, 80 years previously. 

Bernie Madoff's narcissistic lie entitled, 'the world's largest hedge fund' (but which appears almost insignificant in comparison with the narcissistic lie entitled 'MLM income opportunity'), had been allowed to grow to such titanic proportions, that the truth had become almost unthinkable.




David Brear (copyright 2012)