On this thought-provoking Blog, Englishman, David Brear, guides us to the dark heart of a modern-day, totalitarian labyrinth and shines a piercing light on its manipulative rulers and manipulated inhabitants. First, he provides a spool of unbreakable thread so that we can all find our way safely home. Blog readers may contact David Brear via: axiombooks@wanadoo.fr
TikTok announced updates to its community guidelines this week, which include a new policy against content related to 'multilevel marketing,' Ponzi, and other "get rich quick" schemes.
In a statement to BuzzFeed News, a spokesperson for the company said it has "multiple measures in place to reduce the spread of misleading content, including content that aims to deceive people for financial gain."
On Tuesday, TikTok added to its "frauds and scams" guidelines a ban on "content that depicts or promotes phishing," "content that depicts or promotes Ponzi, multi-level marketing, or pyramid schemes," and "content that depicts or promotes investment schemes with promise of high returns, fixed betting, or any other types of scams."
The company hopes to protect users who are vulnerable to financial abuse.
Robert L. FitzPatrick is the author of 'Ponzinomics,' the Untold Story of Multi-Level Marketing (2020), a comprehensive history and analysis of the 'MLM' phenomenon, addressing its political influence, information monopoly/propaganda techniques and use of co-ordinated devious techniques of social, psychological and physical persuasion. Robert FitzPatrick is an expert in deception and fraud in Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes and bogus home-based businesses. He has served as expert or consultant in more than 30 court cases involving pyramid schemes and multi-level marketing. He is co-author of False Profits (1997), an examination of the values and beliefs that support the delusions of pyramid schemes. He was featured on NBC Dateline, ABC World News, and CBS 60 Minutes, the documentary film, Betting on Zero and the podcast, The Dream.
'Multi-Level Marketing'Warning. The following deconstructed analysis has been formulated to sharpen the critical and evaluative faculties of all unwary persons approaching so-called'Multi-Level Marketing'from the dangerous (subjective) point of view that it must be a business/industry, rather than from the safe (purely-objective) point of view that they don't really know what it is. _________________________________________________________________________
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 thatanyone 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%.
*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 isfactand fact is fiction,progressively cutting them offfrom 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.
**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 aprofitable 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 onfor a profitvia expanding networks of distributors based on value and demand. In reality, the underlying reason why it has mainly only been (transient) 'MLM' contractors 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 contractors.
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 thatthey are 'Independent Business Owners' and that any losses they incurred,must have been entirely their own fault for not working hard enough.
Blog readers should observe how (in the above linked-videos) chronic victims of 'MLM'cultsare 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 culticrackets 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.
'Monat' continues to be habitually described as a 'Multi-Level Marketing' company, although an increasing-number of journalists have begun to reveal the ugly reality lurking behind this thought-stopping term. That said, I would respectfully suggest that anyone genuinely wanting to know the full-truth about what Alexis Robinault (a.k.a. Alexis Sharkey) was involved in (as a deployable agent of the bosses of 'Monat')should read the following:
'Multi-Level Marketing'Warning. The following deconstructed analysis has been formulated to sharpen the critical and evaluative faculties of all unwary persons approaching so-called'Multi-Level Marketing'from the dangerous (subjective) point of view that it must be a business/industry, rather than from the safe (purely-objective) point of view that they don't really know what it is. _________________________________________________________________________
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 thatanyone 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%.
*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 isfactand fact is fiction,progressively cutting them offfrom 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.
**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 aprofitable 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 onfor a profitvia 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 thatthey are 'Independent Business Owners' and that any losses they incurred,must have been entirely their own fault for not working hard enough.
Blog readers should observe how (in the above linked-videos) chronic victims of 'MLM'cultsare 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 culticrackets 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.
Several years ago, I observed that, in respect of blame-the-victim 'Multi-Level Marketing' cultic racketeering, the USA has long-since become a de facto kleptocracy.
However, by hiding in plain sight posing as 'law-abiding philanthropic businessmen/women,' maintaining an absolute monopoly of information and by using a significant % their vast unlawful profits to infiltrate traditional culture, 'MLM' racketeers have become effectively above the law, not only in the USA, but also around the world. To date, the sinister crimes that they have been getting away with, have never been specifically-identified/prohibited by (honest) legislators and consequently, the 'MLM' phenomenon has never been accurately explained and tested in a court of law. However, as a result of the work of some courageous and well-informed observers, these crimes are finally beginning to be partly-exposed by the media and tested in the court of public opinion.
A growing-mountain of evidence proves beyond all reasonable doubt that 'MLM' racketeers have been guilty of the age-old crime of establishing a self-perpetuating, non-rational ritual belief system for the clandestine purpose of human exploitation. For decades, an increasing number of'MLM'racketeers have been secretly luring, and defrauding, endless-chains of de facto slave recruiters upon whom they have inflicted (without their fully-informed consent) co-ordinated devious techniques of social, psychological and physical persuasion designed to prevent 'MLM' victims from facing reality and complaining.
In truth, a syndicate of fabulously-wealthy'MLM' racketeers have been prosecuting, and easily winning, a psychological and economic war against humanity.
One of the greatest victories in this war, was the installation of an agent of'MLM' racketeers in the White House 4 years ago. Indeed, it is a matter of public record that around 20 years ago, Donald Trump first learnt how to manipulate the existing beliefs and instinctual desires of a large live deluded audience, as the pitchman for the 'MLM' cultic racket known as 'ACN.'
For at least 10 years, Donald Trump was paid millions of stolen $ to peddle the 'ACN' racket to vulnerable people all around the world, including in Russia. For obvious reasons, today, it remains a widely held-belief that Donald Trump, is one of several celebrity billionaires, who endorse 'MLM' as a proven pathway to achieve wealth.
Currently, another untested question has arisen as to whether the current US president has the power to pardon himself and, thus, place not just himself, but all future US presidents above the law. In his recent 46 minute rant, Donald Trump really did make this outrageous claim; almost certainly in the deluded-expectation that the US Constitution grants him this unlimited power and that the US Supreme Court will, therefore, automatically uphold his claim to it.
In reality, although the US Constitution does not specifically state that the president does not have the power to pardon himself of federal crimes, or persons committing federal crimes at his direction, it does state that that 'the president shall take care that the laws shall be faithfully executed.' Thus, if US presidents knew that, once sworn into office, they had the absolute power to pardon themselves, and their cronies, of any federal crime (no matter how heinous), then there would be no reason for them to uphold this key-section of the Constitution. Under such imaginary circumstances, US presidents would quite literally have the right to kill, and without any risk of ever being held to account.
Quite obviously, Donald Trump's claim to be above the law is worthless nonsense; for even the briefest examination of the US Constitution reveals that, in fact, its framers prohibited (albeit not in so many words) US presidents from committing crimes, or ordering cronies to commit crimes, and then granting themselves, or their cronies, pardons.
Indeed, even though Donald Trump is evidently suffering from increasingly-paranoid delusions of grandeur, no member of the US Supreme Court can be unaware that the main intention of the framers of the US Constitution was to establish a rational (republican) system of government which would guard against any risk of the people again becoming ruled, and exploited, by a self-appointed-tyrant pretending absolute moral and intellectual authority, whom they could not remove peacefully via the ballot box.
Trump family urges U.S. appeals court to move marketing scam lawsuit to arbitration
By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawyer for Donald Trump on Tuesday urged a federal appeals court to halt a lawsuit accusing the U.S. president of exploiting his family name to promote a marketing scam targeting poor and working-class people.
The lawyer, Thomas McCarthy, told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan the plaintiffs were “done in by the allegations of their own complaint,” and that their proposed class action concerning the multi-level marketing company American Communications Network belonged in arbitration.
Four plaintiffs, including a hospice worker, accused Trump, his adult children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka and an affiliate of their family company of promoting ACN in exchange for millions of dollars in secret payments from 2005 to 2015.
The plaintiffs said ACN charged $499 to sell videophones and other goods, and the Trump family conned them into thinking Donald Trump believed their investments would pay off.
Trump and his children have called the civil lawsuit, one of many against the president, politically motivated, saying they had no control over ACN and that Trump’s endorsement was merely his opinion.
Some defendants prefer arbitration to litigation because evidence can be harder to come by, costs can be lower, and proceedings are often confidential.
U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield refused in April to send the ACN case to arbitration, saying the plaintiffs had no reason to believe their arbitration agreements with ACN covered the Trumps.
In Tuesday’s arguments before a three-judge panel, Circuit Judge Denny Chin appeared to agree with Schofield’s conclusion that it was unfair for the Trumps to demand arbitration only after she had dismissed a racketeering claim.
“You waited eight months before asking to compel arbitration,” Chin told McCarthy. “You requested and obtained substantive relief ... In those circumstances, why isn’t the right to arbitration, to the extent it exists, waived?”
McCarthy responded that the claims against the Trumps and ACN were intertwined, that only “minimal” time had passed, and that the lawsuit was still in its early stages.
Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, countered that arbitration is “fundamentally a matter of consent,” and that her clients never expected to battle the Trumps in arbitration.
“This is a fraud case,” she said. “This is about what Donald Trump said.”
The case is Doe et al v Trump Corp et al, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Nos. 20-1228, 20-1278.
'Multi-Level Marketing'Warning. The following deconstructed analysis has been formulated to sharpen the critical and evaluative faculties of all unwary persons approaching so-called'Multi-Level Marketing'from the dangerous (subjective) point of view that it must be a business/industry, rather than from the safe (purely-objective) point of view that they don't really know what it is. _________________________________________________________________________
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 thatanyone 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%.
*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 isfactand fact is fiction,progressively cutting them offfrom 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.
**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 aprofitable 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 onfor a profitvia 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 thatthey are 'Independent Business Owners' and that any losses they incurred,must have been entirely their own fault for not working hard enough.
Blog readers should observe how (in the above linked-videos) chronic victims of 'MLM'cultsare 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 culticrackets 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 2020)
