'Multi-Level Marketing' Warning
The following deconstructed analysis has been formulated to sharpen the critical and evaluative faculties of all unwary persons approaching 'Multi-Level Marketing' from the dangerous (subjective) point of view that it must be a business, rather than from the safe (purely-objective) point of view that they don't really know what it is.
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More than half a century of quantifiable evidence, proves beyond all reasonable doubt that:
- the widely-misunderstood phenomenon that has become popularly-known as 'Multi-Level Marketing' (a.k.a. 'Network Marketing') is nothing more than an absurd, non-rational, cultic, economic pseudo-science maliciously-designed to lure unwary persons into de facto servitude, dissociate them from external reality and not only steal their money, but also deceive them into unconsciously acting the role of bait to lure other unwary persons (particularly their friends and family members) into the same trap.
- the impressive-sounding made-up jargon term, 'MLM,' is therefore, the misleading title for an enticing structured-scenario of control which has been developed, and constantly acted out as reality, by the instigators, and associates, of various copy-cat, major and minor, ongoing organised crime groups (hiding behind labyrinths of legally-registered corporate structures) to shut-down the critical, and evaluative, faculties of victims, and of casual observers, in order to perpetrate, and dissimulate, a series of blame-the-victim 'Long Cons*' - comprising self-perpetuating rigged-market swindles**, a.k.a. pyramid scams (dressed up as 'legitimate direct selling income opportunites') and related advance-fee frauds (dressed up as 'legitimate: training and motivation, self-betterment, programs, recruitment leads, lead generation systems,' etc.).
- Apart from an insignificant minority of shills (whose leading-role in the 'Long Con' has been to pretend that anyone can achieve financial freedom simply by following their unquestioning example and exactly-duplicating a step-by-step-plan of recruitment and self-consumption), the hidden overall net-loss/churn rate for participation in so-called 'MLM income opportunities,' has always been effectively 100%.
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*A 'Long Con' is a form of fraud maliciously designed to exploit victims' existing beliefs and instinctual desires and make them falsely-believe that they are exercising a completely free-choice. 'Long Cons' comprise an enticing structured-scenario of control acted out as reality over an extended period. Like theatrical plays, 'Long Cons' are written, directed and produced. They involve leading players and supporting players as well as props, sets, extras, costumes, script, etc. The hidden objective of 'Long Cons' is to convince unwary persons that fiction is fact and fact is fiction, progressively cutting them off from external reality. In this way, victims begin unconsciously to play along with the controlling-scenario and (in the false-expectation of future reward) large sums of money or valuables can be stolen from them. Classically, the victims of 'Long Cons' can become deluded to such an extent that they will abandon their education, jobs, careers, etc., empty their bank accounts, and/or beg, steal, borrow from friends, family members, etc.
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** The enticing structured-scenario of control fundamental to all 'rigged-market swindles' is that people can earn income by first contributing their own money to participate in a profitable commercial opportunity, but which is secretly an economically-unviable fake due to the fact that the (alleged) opportunity has been rigged so that it generates no significant, or sustainable, revenue other than that deriving from its own ill-informed participants. For more than 50 years, 'Multi-Level Marketing' racketeers have been allowed to dissimulate rigged-market swindles by offering endless-chains of victims various banal, but over-priced, products, and/or services, in exchange for unlawful losing-investment payments, on the pretext that 'MLM' products/services can then be regularly re-sold for a profit in significant quantities via expanding networks of distributors. However, since 'MLM' products/services cannot be regularly re-sold to the general public for a profit in significant quantities (based on value and demand), 'MLM' participants have, in fact, been peddled infinite shares of their own finite money (in the false expectation of future reward).
Thus, in 'MLM' rackets, the innocent looking products/sevices' function has been to hide what is really occurring - i.e The operation of an unlawful, intrinsically fraudulent, rigged-market where effectively no non-salaried (transient) participant can generate an overall net-profit, because, unknown to the non-salaried (transient) participants, the market is in a permanent state of collapse and requires its non-salaried (transient) participants to keep finding further (temporary) de facto slaves to sustain the enticing illusion of stability and viability.
Meanwhile an insignificant (permanent) minority direct the 'Long Con' - raking in vast profits by selling into the rigged-market and by controlling/withholding all key-information concerning the rigged-market's actual catastrophic, ever-shifting results from its never-ending chain of (temporary) de facto slaves.
Although cure-all pills potions and vitamin/dietary supplements, household and beauty, products have been most-prevalent, it is possible to use any product, and/or service, to dissimulate a rigged-market swindle. There are even some 'MLM' rackets that have been hidden behind well-known traditional brands (albeit offered at fixed high prices). Some 'MLM' rackets have included 'cash-back/discount shopping cards, travel products, insurance, energy/communications services' and 'crypto-currencies' in their controlling scenarios.
No matter what bedazzling product/service has been dangled as bait, in 'MLM' rackets, there has been no significant or sustainable source of revenue other than never-ending chains of contractees of the 'MLM' front companies. These front-companies always pretend that their products/services are high quality and reasonably-priced and that for anyone prepared to put in some effort, the products/services can be sold on for a profit via expanding networks of distributors based on value and demand. In reality, the underlying reason why it has mainly only been (transient) 'MLM' contractees who have bought the various products /services (and not the general public) is because they have been tricked into unconsciously playing along with the controlling scenario which constantly says that via regular self-consumption and the recruitment of others to do the same, etc. ad infinitum, anyone can receive a future (unlimited) reward.
I've been examining the 'MLM' phenomenon for around 20 years. During this time, I've yet to find one so-called 'MLM' company that has voluntarily made key-information available to the public concerning the quantifiable results of its so-called 'income opportunity'.
Part of the key-information that all 'MLM' bosses seek to hide concerns the overall number of persons who have signed contracts since the front companies were instigated and the retention rates of these contractees.
When rigorously investigated, the overall hidden net-loss churn rates for so-called 'MLM income opportunites' has turned out to have been effectively 100%. Thus, anyone claiming (or implying) that it is possible for anyone to make a penny of net-profit, let alone a living, in an 'MLM,' cannot be telling the truth and will not provide quantifiable evidence to back up his/her anecdotal claims.
Although a significant number of 'MLM' front-companies (like 'Vemma', 'Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing', 'Wake Up Now') have been shut-down by commercial regulators, some of the biggest 'MLM' rackets (like 'Amway' ,'Herbalife', Forever Living Products' ) have continued to hide in plain sight whilst secretly churning tens of millions of losing participants over decades.
The quantifiable results of the self-perpetuating global 'Long Con' known as 'Multi Level Marketing,' have been fiendishly hidden by convincing victims that they are 'Independent Business Owners' and that any losses they incurred, must have been entirely their own fault.
Blog readers should observe how (in the above linked-videos) chronic victims of 'MLM' cults are incapable of describing what they were subjected to in accurate terms. Even though they are no longer physically playing along with the 'Long Con's' controlling-scenario, they unconsciously continue to think, and speak, using the jargon-laced 'MLM' script - illogically describing themselves as 'Distributors.'
Chronic victims of blame-the-victim cultic rackets who have managed to escape and confront the ego-destroying reality that they’ve been systematically deceived and exploited, are invariably destitute and dissociated from all their previous social contacts. For years afterwards, recovering cult victims can suffer from psychological problems (which are also generally indicative of the victims of abuse):
depression; overwhelming feelings (guilt, grief, shame, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc.); dependency/ inability to make decisions; retarded psychological/ intellectual development; suicidal thoughts; panic/ anxiety attacks; extreme identity confusion; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; insomnia/ nightmares; eating disorders; psychosomatic illness, fear of forming intimate relationships; inability to trust; etc.
David Brear (copyright 2018)
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** The enticing structured-scenario of control fundamental to all 'rigged-market swindles' is that people can earn income by first contributing their own money to participate in a profitable commercial opportunity, but which is secretly an economically-unviable fake due to the fact that the (alleged) opportunity has been rigged so that it generates no significant, or sustainable, revenue other than that deriving from its own ill-informed participants. For more than 50 years, 'Multi-Level Marketing' racketeers have been allowed to dissimulate rigged-market swindles by offering endless-chains of victims various banal, but over-priced, products, and/or services, in exchange for unlawful losing-investment payments, on the pretext that 'MLM' products/services can then be regularly re-sold for a profit in significant quantities via expanding networks of distributors. However, since 'MLM' products/services cannot be regularly re-sold to the general public for a profit in significant quantities (based on value and demand), 'MLM' participants have, in fact, been peddled infinite shares of their own finite money (in the false expectation of future reward).
Thus, in 'MLM' rackets, the innocent looking products/sevices' function has been to hide what is really occurring - i.e The operation of an unlawful, intrinsically fraudulent, rigged-market where effectively no non-salaried (transient) participant can generate an overall net-profit, because, unknown to the non-salaried (transient) participants, the market is in a permanent state of collapse and requires its non-salaried (transient) participants to keep finding further (temporary) de facto slaves to sustain the enticing illusion of stability and viability.
Meanwhile an insignificant (permanent) minority direct the 'Long Con' - raking in vast profits by selling into the rigged-market and by controlling/withholding all key-information concerning the rigged-market's actual catastrophic, ever-shifting results from its never-ending chain of (temporary) de facto slaves.
Although cure-all pills potions and vitamin/dietary supplements, household and beauty, products have been most-prevalent, it is possible to use any product, and/or service, to dissimulate a rigged-market swindle. There are even some 'MLM' rackets that have been hidden behind well-known traditional brands (albeit offered at fixed high prices). Some 'MLM' rackets have included 'cash-back/discount shopping cards, travel products, insurance, energy/communications services' and 'crypto-currencies' in their controlling scenarios.
No matter what bedazzling product/service has been dangled as bait, in 'MLM' rackets, there has been no significant or sustainable source of revenue other than never-ending chains of contractees of the 'MLM' front companies. These front-companies always pretend that their products/services are high quality and reasonably-priced and that for anyone prepared to put in some effort, the products/services can be sold on for a profit via expanding networks of distributors based on value and demand. In reality, the underlying reason why it has mainly only been (transient) 'MLM' contractees who have bought the various products /services (and not the general public) is because they have been tricked into unconsciously playing along with the controlling scenario which constantly says that via regular self-consumption and the recruitment of others to do the same, etc. ad infinitum, anyone can receive a future (unlimited) reward.
I've been examining the 'MLM' phenomenon for around 20 years. During this time, I've yet to find one so-called 'MLM' company that has voluntarily made key-information available to the public concerning the quantifiable results of its so-called 'income opportunity'.
Part of the key-information that all 'MLM' bosses seek to hide concerns the overall number of persons who have signed contracts since the front companies were instigated and the retention rates of these contractees.
When rigorously investigated, the overall hidden net-loss churn rates for so-called 'MLM income opportunites' has turned out to have been effectively 100%. Thus, anyone claiming (or implying) that it is possible for anyone to make a penny of net-profit, let alone a living, in an 'MLM,' cannot be telling the truth and will not provide quantifiable evidence to back up his/her anecdotal claims.
Although a significant number of 'MLM' front-companies (like 'Vemma', 'Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing', 'Wake Up Now') have been shut-down by commercial regulators, some of the biggest 'MLM' rackets (like 'Amway' ,'Herbalife', Forever Living Products' ) have continued to hide in plain sight whilst secretly churning tens of millions of losing participants over decades.
The quantifiable results of the self-perpetuating global 'Long Con' known as 'Multi Level Marketing,' have been fiendishly hidden by convincing victims that they are 'Independent Business Owners' and that any losses they incurred, must have been entirely their own fault.
Blog readers should observe how (in the above linked-videos) chronic victims of 'MLM' cults are incapable of describing what they were subjected to in accurate terms. Even though they are no longer physically playing along with the 'Long Con's' controlling-scenario, they unconsciously continue to think, and speak, using the jargon-laced 'MLM' script - illogically describing themselves as 'Distributors.'
Chronic victims of blame-the-victim cultic rackets who have managed to escape and confront the ego-destroying reality that they’ve been systematically deceived and exploited, are invariably destitute and dissociated from all their previous social contacts. For years afterwards, recovering cult victims can suffer from psychological problems (which are also generally indicative of the victims of abuse):
depression; overwhelming feelings (guilt, grief, shame, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc.); dependency/ inability to make decisions; retarded psychological/ intellectual development; suicidal thoughts; panic/ anxiety attacks; extreme identity confusion; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; insomnia/ nightmares; eating disorders; psychosomatic illness, fear of forming intimate relationships; inability to trust; etc.
The quantifiable results of the self-perpetuating global 'Long Con' known as 'Multi Level Marketing,' have been fiendishly hidden by convincing victims that they are 'Independent Business Owners' and that any losses they incurred, must have been entirely their own fault.
Blog readers should observe how (in the above linked-videos) chronic victims of 'MLM' cults are incapable of describing what they were subjected to in accurate terms. Even though they are no longer physically playing along with the 'Long Con's' controlling-scenario, they unconsciously continue to think, and speak, using the jargon-laced 'MLM' script - illogically describing themselves as 'Distributors.'
Chronic victims of blame-the-victim cultic rackets who have managed to escape and confront the ego-destroying reality that they’ve been systematically deceived and exploited, are invariably destitute and dissociated from all their previous social contacts. For years afterwards, recovering cult victims can suffer from psychological problems (which are also generally indicative of the victims of abuse):
depression; overwhelming feelings (guilt, grief, shame, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc.); dependency/ inability to make decisions; retarded psychological/ intellectual development; suicidal thoughts; panic/ anxiety attacks; extreme identity confusion; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; insomnia/ nightmares; eating disorders; psychosomatic illness, fear of forming intimate relationships; inability to trust; etc.
David Brear (copyright 2018)
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Unfortunately, the author of this comment evidently hasn't read, or understood, my analysis; so here it is again.
President Donald J. Trump still plays a leading role in the 'MLM' controlling-scenario and his disgraceful behaviour (in promoting, and protecting, a criminogenic phenomenon that continues to deceive and damage countless millions of ill-informed victims around the world) fits into an overall pattern of ongoing major racketeering activity (as defined by the US federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act, 1970).
Although his statements were very carefully made in the present tense, Donald Trump has denied reality by insisting that to the best of his knowledge, he has nothing to do with Russia and that no person whom he deals with, has anything to do with Russia.
The evidence clearly shows that the 'ACN' racket, complete with Donald Trump's glowing endorsement, has operated in Russia.
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“I do not know the (ACN) company. I know nothing about the (ACN) company other than the people who run the (ACN) company... I’m not familiar with what they do or how they go about doing that.
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During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump gave an interview to the Wall St. Journal in which he denied reality, this time by pretending that he had never understood or endorsed ACN and that he'd only been paid to give a few general speeches at ACN events.
http://www.acnpyramidscheme.com/http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/22/donald-trump-earned-huge-speaking-fees-from-company-alleged-to-be-a-pyramid-scheme-video/
In 2006, Donald Trump began accepting large quantities of stolen cash to front the blame-the victim 'MLM Income Opportunity' cultic racket known as 'ACN' (instigated 1993 as the 'American Communications Network'). As a celebrity opinion-maker, Mr. Trump ( a member of the 'Screen Actors Guild') was specifically chosen by the bosses of the 'ACN' racket not only to facilitate the perpetration of their 'Long Con,' but also to obstruct justice by preventing victims of the 'Long Con' from facing reality and complaining. Once you now how the 'MLM' trick has been pulled, 'ACN' is revealed as an essentially-ludicrous criminogenic organisation with bosses who have steadfastly pretended that they sell exclusive technologically-advanced products and services to customers and end users (based on value and demand) via a network of non-salaried commission agents. In reality, because 'ACN's' products and services have been effectively-unsaleable on the open-market (to persons with fully-functioning critical and evaluative faculties) the overwhelming majority of this fake 'direct selling' company's revenue has derived from a never-ending chain of victims' losing investment payments (based on the false-expectation of future reward) laundered as 'sales.'
Around 7 years ago, the 'ACN' racket was partially exposed by French network television, but (not least because of Trump's participation) this version of the pernicious 'MLM income opportunity' fairy story, carries on regardless all around the globe.
Donald Trump peddled the 'ACN' racket on his kitsch television shows, 'The Apprentice' and 'Celebrity Apprentice.'
To date, the UK Mainstream media has taken little interest in the 'ACN' racket, despite the fact that a significant number of British Muslims have already fallen victim. Yet it seems to be common-knowledge amongst the Muslim community that 'ACN' is something far more sinister than just a financial swindle.
Via the peddling of effectively-valueless materials bearing his name, Donald Trump has also been lining his pockets at the expense of countless victims (internationally) of many other kitsch variations of the pernicious 'MLM' fairy story. As far as I'm aware, neither Donald Trump nor anyone in his entourage, has made any statement to explain the President's conflict of interest regarding this particularly dodgy channel of income. Furthermore, to date, no journalist has bothered to ask Donald Trump about his ongoing revenues from book-sales to vulnerable 'MLM' adherents.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html
In the past, when Donald Trump's titanic casino business was sinking in the Atlantic (City), he managed to abandon ship (his pockets stuffed with other people's cash) leaving everyone else to drown. Although Carl Icahn's name features prominently in media reports as one of Trump's major casino business investors, I suspect that his actual role in this earlier chapter of the ongoing Trump tragicomedy, will never be fully-explained.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/01/icahn-conflicts-of-interest-trump-white-house.html
For a while following the 2016 election, it was rumoured that Carl Icahn would be appointed to President Trump's Cabinet, but in the end, it was announced that the 80+ year old tycoon was 'the President's unofficial advisor on regulatory reform.' Yet, in this democratically-unaccountable made-up role, Icahn's conflict of interests almost beggared belief, because at that time, his investment in the effectively-valueless 'MLM' cultic racket known as 'Herbalife,' topped more than US$ one billion.
Since Donald Trump can now appoint new senior federal regulators whom he knows will turn a blind eye to 'MLM' rackets, you would have to be pretty stupid, and/or deluded, not to foresee that the President will heed the 'advice' of his greedy buddy, Carl Icahn, and continue to betray his fellow citizens (and those of America's allies) by doing everything in his power to protect the pernicious, 'MLM' fairy story.
Apart from all the stolen cash that 'MLM' racketeers have invested buying influence in Washington, how did 'MLM' cults help Donald Trump to become US President?
First of all, it should be clearly understood that 'MLM' cults can also be described as, 'Prosperity Gospel' cults, and that the bosses of these organisations have been employing co-ordinated devious techniques of social, psychological and physical persuasion in order to shut down their victims' critical and evaluative faculties and prevent them from facing reality and complaining. In this way, for decades, 'MLM' cult bosses have been hiding the evidence of their crimes in order to continue to perpetrate them
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/15/the-true-mission-of-donald-trump-s-pastor.html
Donald Trump's connections with the so-called 'Prosperity Gospel' go all the way back to his youth.
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| Donald Trump (left) with brothers and sisters. |
Little Donald, and his siblings, were taken along by their father to Pastor Norman Vincent Peale's 'Reformed Dutch Protestant Marble Collegiate Church' in Manhattan. Donald Trump has never hidden his life-long adherence to Pastor Peale's philosophy.
There has been a lot written about Pastor Peale (1898-1993), but essentially all he did was syphon an existing deep well of credulity to make himself rich. It has to be said that Peale was a highly convincing, word-perfect, performer. He re-wrote, updated and peddled (as his own philosophy) long-established religious concepts (blind faith, power of prayer, paradise, etc.) in a non-religious format ('positive thinking, visualisation, success,' etc.). Cleverly, Peale used the exemplary wealth and success of a few of his followers (like Donald Trump's father) as the proof that his philosophy worked, but he also employed co-ordinated devious techniques of social, psychological and physical persuasion in order to convert other followers to the guilt-inducing belief that a person can only achieve wealth and success by excluding all doubt and totally believing that he/she will achieve wealth and success. In other words, when any of Peale's unquestioning adherents failed to achieve wealth and success, it was child's play to convince them that their failure must have been entirely their own fault for not believing totally.
This, in a nutshell, is the destructive, closed-logic, controlling scenario which has been lying at the heart of all 'MLM' rackets since they first appeared in the late 1940s. Countless millions of victims of dissimulated closed-market swindles (a.k.a. pyramid schemes) have been silenced simply by convincing them that they made a free choice to participate and that they could have made money, if only they had duplicated their leaders' perfect example and not quit. It's little wonder that Peale's books and recordings have been, and still are, widely-peddled by 'MLM' racketeers to their victims.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Hill
Pastor Peale was only one of several copy-cat 'Positive Thinking/ Prosperity Gospel' quacks who all found hordes of desperate takers for their re-branded cocktail of psychological + religious + economic snake oil, during the Great Depression. Many politicians (including Presidents) were also bedazzled by their optimistic message and they didn't want to recognise its inherent danger. Again, for obvious reasons, the works of persons like Napoleon Hill have also been, and still are, widely-peddled by 'MLM' racketeers to their victims.
There have been countless, unoriginal, parasitic 'Positive Thinking/ Prosperity Gospel' quacks who have attached themselves to 'MLM' rackets down the decades. All of them have employed co-ordinated devious techniques of social, psychological and physical persuasion.
Donald Trump cut his political teeth performing live to deluded 'MLM' cult adherents. Trump witnessed first hand how (just like Norman Vincent Peale) 'MLM' shills recite a ritual script - pretending affinity with vulnerable people by acting the roles of ordinary men and woman turned super men and women via their access to a secret step-by-step 'positive' plan which can enable anyone to achieve the American Dream of freedom, wealth and success. In 'MLM,' cultic rackets the shills are always prepared to share their knowledge with anyone (for a price - part of the price being the surrender of the adherents' critical and evaluative faculties).
At times of mass-alienation (following: wars, natural disasters, economic crises, etc.), history proves that would-be demagogues steadfastly pretending moral and intellectual authority whilst pursuing hidden criminal objectives, who at other times would have been almost universally-recognised as absurd charlatans, have found it much easier to become widely-accepted as authentic Messiahs.
David Brear (copyright 2018)
Can you post one of your analysis article about 'Trump Network' please?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - I have some notes about 'Trump Network' which can be quickly turned into an article. In the meantime, have you have read this article in the Washington Post? Also Wikipedia's 'Trump Network' article is quite informative.
Deletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/23/the-trump-network-sought-to-make-people-rich-but-left-behind-disappointment/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e556c8df7e41
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trump_Network
I was in ACN and we were constantly told to think of it "our family" and to pity "losers" outside with jobs
ReplyDeleteACN is a cult!
Anonymous - Can I ask you in what country were you in 'ACN?'
DeleteHave you ever tried to file a complaint?