Warren Buffett denies all knowledge of the 'Herbalife (HLF)' racket.

N.B. This article was up-dated November 1st, 2013.


http://mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.fr/2013/11/warren-buffett-and-his-attorneys-still.html


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In almost all business matters, I would not be so presumptuous as to claim more experience than Warren Buffett. However, the pernicious fairy story entitled 'MLM Income Opportunity' (which I have been studying for many years), has precious little to do with 'business' (in the traditional sense of the word) and, unfortunately, Warren Buffett still has lots of green reasons at risk preventing him from facing this reality.

Warren Buffett (b. 1930) is an agnostic businessman from Omaha, Nebraska, who reportedly is worth $58.5 billions, but who likes to portray himself as just an average guy living modestly on his $100 000 annual salary as chairman and CEO of  'Berkshire Hathaway.' 

As a little boy (aged just 6), Buffett (the son of a Republican Representative) already displayed a marked aptitude for making, but not spending, money. He went door to door peddling: chewing gum (at a 2 cents profit per pack), Coca Cola (at 5 cents per bottle, making a profit of 5 cents on a 25 cent pack of 6 bottles) and weekly magazines. 

However, young Buffett was not acting entirely independently, because his wholesale supplier was, in fact, his grandfather, Ernest P. Buffett, who owned a long-established grocery store in Omaha. During his high school years, Warren Buffett continued to make money in his holidays and spare time by delivering newspapers, selling golf balls and stamps, and from various other traditional commercial enterprises. 

When Buffett filed his first income tax return in 1944 (aged just 13), he deducted $35 for the expenses of a bicycle and a watch - by claiming that these were items he needed to operate his paper round. 

In 1947, Buffett (aged 17) and a young associate, Donald Danly, started a company called 'Wilson Coin Operated Machines.' They bought a secondhand pinball machine for $25 which they installed in the local barber's shop. Their initial investment immediately generated a steady net-profit of $50 per week. Within a few months, Buffett and Danly had bought, and installed, a total of 3 secondhand pinball machines in barber's shops, but, in 1948, the pair sold 'Wilson Coin Operated Machines' for $1200.

Today, Warren Buffett is generally recognized as one of the most-influential people in the world. He has recently been treated (successfully) for prostate cancer. He has pledged to give away 99% of his personal fortune to philanthropic causes. 

How many times have I read thoughtless comments insisting  that 'Multi-Level Marketing' can't be a fraud because Warren Buffett owns an 'MLM' company? In fact, I once received a particularly absurd comment from a deluded 'Amway' adherent who was completely convinced that Warren Buffett owns at least 10 'MLM' companies and that he recommends 'MLM' as 'the best way for anyone to become a millionaire.'






It is a matter of public record that Warren Buffett's company, 'Berkshire Hathaway,' owns a kitsch, but apparently innocent, 'party plan direct sales' company known as 'The Pampered Chef (PC)' which has sold the public (mainly women) a so-called 'MLM income opportunity.'  However (as far as I am aware), 'The Pampered Chef' has not exhibited the universal identifying characteristics of a cult. Recently, the corporate officers of 'The Pampered Chef' were boasting annual sales of $400 millions via a sales-force of 60 000 persons. 



Even if the above, precisely-worded, passage of the 'MLM Income Opportunity' fairy story was entirely accurate, 'The Pampered Chef' would still be a far-from-ethical enterprise, in that its officers have been deliberately withholding key-information from the public in order to continue to exploit large numbers of non-salaried commission agents whilst, at the same time, requiring these ill-informed people to exploit their own ill-informed friends and relatives.

In theory:

participants in 'The Pampered Chef MLM Income Opportunity'  (i.e. persons who have signed a take-it-or-leave-it annually-renewable, contract in which they were arbitrarily-defined as  'Independent Consultants', and who have paid the $155 fixed price for the so-called  'Business Starter Kit'), can choose to make money via:

regularly organizing 'Cooking Parties' at which they can sell banal products (kitchen appliances, utensils, etc.) to their friends, neighbours, relatives, etc., for a straight percentage profit (20-31%).

or: 

an escalating system of percentage commission payments on the sales of further 'Independent Consultants' whom they have recruited, and on the sales of the recruits of their recruits, etc., ad infinitum.

In practise: 

'Pampered Chef' participants are obliged to invest their time and to pay all the considerable, allied, operational expenses, but exactly how much of their own resources this will inevitably involve, is not disclosed to new recruits.

most participants are generally able to organize one or two 'Cooking Parties' and use their existing relationships (based on love and trust) to sell some 'Pampered Chef' products to a few supportive friends and relatives, but no participant could be reasonably expected to generate a significant, and sustainable, net-income by paying to organize these kitsch sales meetings time after time, for many years.

no common-sense limit has been set on the number of 'Pampered Chef' participants operating in any given area, whilst the participants are clearly offered incentives to be their own best customers and to recruit any other customers as competitors. 

equivalent, or better quality, products to those offered by 'Pampered Chef' can be easily bought in all-manner of traditional retail outlets and On line.

all any free-thinking person (so desiring) has to do to obtain unused 'Pampered Chef' products, is go to the Internet, where there is always an unwanted mountain of the stuff going begging. (We are talking about many thousands of items listed on popular auction-Sites like e-bay each day, and at a substantial discount compared to their original fixed-price).


http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?_lncat=0&_sacat=0&_from=R40&_nkw=pampered+chef&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=pampered+chef&_lncat=0&_arm=1&_armm=94&_ruu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fsch%2FUnited-States-%2F261%2Fi.html%3F_from%3DR40%26_nkw%3Dpampered%2Bchef%26_arr%3D1&_armi=United+States

Thus, it seems that just as in 'Amway', 'Herbalife' , 'NuSkin', etc., a significant number of so-called 'MLM customers' have not been buying products from 'The Pampered Chef' in order to use them. On the contrary, the products might as well not have existed, because they appear to have been the classic 'MLM' wampum; the real function of which has been to launder unlawful investment payments made on the false-expectation of future reward.




http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/05/06/herbalife-makes-cameo-during-berkshire-hathaway-weekend/

Finally, the vital question of what distinguishes lawful direct selling from an unlawful pyramid scheme, was raised last weekend in public at 'Berkshire Hathaway's' annual shareholder meeting. 








Warren Buffett was asked by a concerned 'Berkshire Hathaway' shareholder if Bill Ackman’s $1.2 billions short-selling bet that 'Herbalife' is an effectively-valueless company hiding a cruel fraud, will have a detrimental effect on 'The Pampered Chef?,' and if Warren Buffett considers Bill Ackman's analysis of 'Herbalife' as a fraud, to be accurate?






Given his iconic status as the shrewdest investor in the world, and considering the irrefutable facts that:

the 'Herbalife' racketeers have steadfastly pretended that their business is based on selling products to thousands and thousands and thousands of 'end users,' 

'Herbalife' and 'The Pampered Chef' have been linked via the so-called 'Direct Selling Association,' and via an extensive, and precisely-worded, thought-stopping 'commercial' jargon (including the term 'MLM'),

the bosses of various other members of the so-called 'DSA' (which were subsequently closed-down by the FTC as pyramid frauds) also shared the same extensive, and precisely-worded, thought stopping 'commercial' jargon which they employed steadfastly to pretend that their 'businesses' were based on 'selling products' to thousands and thousands and thousands of 'end users,'

Warren Buffett's strangely-familiar and precisely-worded, responses to his shareholder's questions, demonstrate a staggering lack of knowledge of what actually constitutes economically-viable (and therefore, lawful) direct selling, and reveals the considerable risk he has taken (in this state of blissful ignorance) with his shareholders' money. Self-evidently, when the 'Herbalife' racket is finally closed-down as a pyramid fraud, whomsoever is left holding 'The Pampered Chef,' will also be in deep trouble.

Warren Buffett said:

'I have never looked at a Herbalife annual report and I do not know about its operation... Pampered Chef’s business is based on selling to the end user, and we have thousands and thousands and thousands of parties every week where people who are actually going to use the product buy from somebody. We are not making the money by loading up people and then having them leave the sales force…That should be the distinguishing characteristic if I were regulating the industry.'

Readers will observe that Warren Buffett very pointedly did not say that according to FTC guidelines, for any direct selling income opportunity to be lawful, it must involve its participants regularly retailing an overwhelming majority of products which they have bought from the sponsors (at least 70%) to the general public.

Warren Buffett merely repeated part of the so-called 'Direct Selling Association's' effectively-meaningless 'definition of direct selling,' i.e.  'selling to end users,' which has been specifically worded in such a vague way, that it can be taken to mean participants in 'MLM' schemes themselves. 

WARREN BUFFET'S NAME IS BEING USED TO COMMIT WIRE FRAUD, because, for decades, effectively 100% of so-called 'Multi-Level Marketing Distributors' have been unable regularly to retail a significant quantity of fixed-price products, and/or services, to the general public for a profit, and have failed to generate an overall net-income from their so-called 'home-based businesses.'  

http://josephjmyoya.com/what-the-worlds-richest-men-says-about-network-marketing/

I have some common-sense questions for Warren Buffett:

• What percentage of 'Pampered Chef ' recruits have actually remained with your company for more than: 1 year?  3 years?  5 years?

• What has been the average annual drop-out rate for 'Pampered Chef' recruits?

• Apart from the $155 'Business Starter-Kit,' what is the approximate amount of additional money that 'Pampered Chef' recruits have been required to find, to finance their first 12 months, non-salaried activities on behalf of your company.  

• 'Pampered Chef's' corporate officers have recently claimed 'a sales-force of 60 000,' but since your company's instigation, how many different persons in total have bought their own 'Pampered Chef Independent Consultancy' from it, and, by extrapolation, what is the overall vanishing-rate for these so-called 'Businesses?'

• What lawful, and/or ethical,  reason can you put forward to explain why the key-information contained in the answers to the above questions has been withheld by your company from prospective 'Pampered Chef' recruits?

• Why is the Internet loaded with unused 'Pampered Chef ' inventory for sale?' 

• Hand on heart, would you personally recommend joining any so-called 'MLM income opportunity' (including 'The Pampered Chef'), as a viable and ethical means for ordinary people to earn extra income?

• Again, hand on heart, what would be your personal reaction if a member of your own family announced that he/she had signed up with 'Herbalife?'

• When you made your public statements relating to 'Pampered Chef' and 'Herbalife' at the recent 'Berkshire Hathaway' shareholders' meeting, were you aware that numerous, unsecured, Micro-Finance loans have been made to immigrants, and other poor persons, in the USA, via the 'Grameen Bank' (an institution which you were responsible for bringing to Omaha), in order that these vulnerable borrowers could start so-called 'MLM Businesses?'

• Before you made your investment in 'The Pampered Chef', had you actually seen any quantifiable evidence proving that more than 70% of 'Pampered Chef's' claimed 'multi-million dollar sale's' have been authentic external retail sales to members of the general public (based on value and demand)?

• Even if, as you claim, the (demonstrably-unethical) activities of the 'The Pampered Chef' are not (technically) unlawful in the USA, are you aware that, due to your acquisition of this member of the so-called 'Direct Selling Association,' your name and iconic status have been habitually-used by 'MLM Income Opportunity' racketeers, and their propagandists, in order to commit fraud and to obstruct justice all over the globe? 

I look forward to the day when, if asked for his opinion of 'Herbalife' by a 'Berkshire Hathaway' shareholder, Warren Buffett replies:

Based on my knowledge of the fundamental characteristic which identifies: Ponzi schemes, pyramid scams, money circulation games, chain letters, etc.  - namely, that all these frauds have no sustainable or significant source of revenue other than their own contributing participants - any so-called 'MLM direct selling income opportunity' in which the overwhelming majority of its declared annual revenue has not been derived from authentic retail sales to members of the general public (based on value and demand), but rather from the participants' purchases themselves (based on the false expectation of future reward), is a dissimulated closed-market employing endless-chain recruitment and, according to the FTC's own (70% retail) guidelines, fraudulent. Therefore, unless the corporate officers of 'Herbalife' can produce solid independent evidence that their so-called 'MLM direct selling income opportunity' really has had a significant and sustainable source of external revenue, no honest observer would be able to arrive at any other logical conclusion other than the bosses of 'Herbalife' are economic alchemists who, just like Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff, have been secretly peddling ill-informed people infinite shares of their own finite money.

I sincerely hope that Warren Buffett's own view of himself, combined with his financial involvement with 'The Pampered Chef', will not prevent him from facing wider reality.

David Brear (copyright 2013)

'MMM India,' another, unoriginal, contagious fantasy of Sergei Mavrodi.

About 15 years ago, I coined the common-sense phrase: 'premeditated, or dissimulated, closed-market swindle,' in order to deconstruct all Ponzi schemes, pyramid frauds, money circulation games, chain-letter scams, etc. However, although a few commentators have used my term (sometimes without attribution), a 'closed-market swindle' is not yet defined in law. That said, it is universally accepted that lying to, or withholding key-information from, people in order to take their money, is fraud which is a form of theft. Common-sense also reveals that, by 'passing any law, but failing to enforce it, has the effect of authorizing the very crime which you are trying to prohibit.' 

The lie which is fundamental to all 'closed-market swindles' is that people can earn income by contributing their own money to participate in any alleged 'profitable commercial opportunity' which is secretly an economically-unviable fake, due to the fact that the alleged 'profitable commercial opportunity' has been rigged so that it generates no significant, or sustainable, revenue other than that deriving from its own participants. For more than 50 years, 'Multi-Level Marketing' racketeers have been allowed to dissimulate closed-market swindles by offering endless-chains of victims various banal, but grossly-over-priced, products, and/or services, in exchange for unlawful payments, on the pretext that 'MLM' products and/or services, can then be regularly re-sold for a profit in significant quantities. However, since no gang of 'MLM' racketeers has ever proved that 'MLM' wampum has actually been regularly re-sold to the general public for profit in significant quantities,'MLM' participants have, in fact, been peddled infinite shares of their own finite money.

In the final analysis, other than their ephemeral external presentations, internally there is no real difference between all closed-market swindles; for any alleged 'opportunity to make money,' wherein (when challenged, and/or rigorously investigated) the promoters are unable to provide independent quantifiable evidence to prove that their alleged 'viable commercial activity' has had any significant, and sustainable, source of revenue other than its own losing participants, is self-evidently a dissimulated closed-market swindle.


David Brear (copyright 2013)

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Sergei Panteleevich Mavrodi
(Сергей Пантелеевич Мавроди b.1955)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Mavrodi

If you search for Sergei Mavrodi on Wikipedia, you will find him initially described as a Russian 'businessman and financier.' However, the only truthful part of this exciting comic-book story is the fact that he was born in Russia; for, in reality, he is (without a shadow of a doubt) a megalomaniacal psychopath .

 i.e. 

Sergei Panteleevich Mavrodi is suffering from a chronic mental disorder resulting in paranoid delusions of grandeur and self-righteousness, and the compulsion to pursue grandiose objectives.

Classically, Mavrodi believes himself not only to be a historically significant businessman and a financier, but also a morally, and intellectually, perfect Russian super hero who has been chosen to free humanity from the slavery of the evil world financial system. Indeed, if you watch the above video from 2011 (in which Mavrodi quite-openly admits that he is on a mission to destroy the pyramid scheme known as the world financial system and that his chosen weapon of mass-financial-destruction, is another, even more powerful, pyramid scheme), it beggars belief that he is not already locked up in a secure hospital.

In the aftermath of the unexpected fall of the Soviet regime (which left millions of ordinary Russians, particularly pensioners, facing destitution as the buying power of the once-protected rouble collapsed, and hyper-inflation took-hold) Mavrodi (an importer of office equipment) stepped-forward in the role of economic saviour and instigated what was soon to become one of the most-extensive closed-market swindles of all time, known as 'MMM.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme) . It has been estimated that between 1992 and 1994, 30 millions ill-informed Russians were deceived into giving a total of several billions US dollars to Mavrodi and his criminal associates, in the deluded belief that they were all going to receive a future reward of 1000% (to be paid annually). 

Typically, Mavrodi began to make the truth increasingly unthinkable, by using some of his ill-gotten gains to buy media advertising (including a series of humorous television commercials) as well as obtain public association with popular Russian sports, charities, celebrities and opinion-makers. 

In 1994, Mavrodi's offices were raided and he was arrested for tax evasion, but although millions of angry victims were left out of pocket, he avoided being held to account by getting himself elected to the Russian parliament. During his election campaign Mavrodi steadfastly pretended that the Russian government was trying to destroy 'MMM' in order to steal the company's money, and that 'MMM' investors would only be paid out if he could influence the government from inside the political system. However, no pay-out was forthcoming, and Mavrodi's immunity from prosecution was cancelled in 1995. 'MMM' was finally declared bankrupt in 1997. Mavrodi then went of the run until he was arrested in 2003. During this time, he spread a rumour that he'd gone to USA. In reality, he'd probably never actually left Russia. Indeed, it is now believed that Mavrodi had been hiding in Moscow, protected by a well-rewarded gang of former Soviet intelligence agents/thugs/racketeers who had access to a labyrinth of safe-apartments.

With the help of a relative, Mavrodi instigated another closed-market swindle in 1998, this time known as 'Stock Generation.' His new scam was nothing less than an Internet-based counterfeit stock market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_Generation, but it was dissimulated as a 'lawful gambling game' and was targeted at greedy Americans and W. Europeans. Largely because of its deliberately-incomprehensible linguistic, and mathematical, presentation, the essentially-simple closed-market swindle known as 'Stock Generation,' initially duped a United States District Court in Massachusetts, but it was closed-down by the United States Court of Appeals, when common-sense was finally applied in 2000. Few of Mavrodi's estimated 20 000 and 275 000 victims, complained even though they lost a estimated total of at least US$5.5 millions.

Following his arrest in Russia in 2003, Mavrodi was initially sentenced to 13 months prison for holding a false passport.  He was subsequently convicted of fraud and tax evasion, and was released from a penal colony in 2007.






Since 2011, Mavrodi has been running a closed-market swindle known as 'MMM 2011' or 'MMM India,' in which countless victims have been deceived into buying effectively-valueless pieces of paper printed to resemble an authentic, valuable currency, the so-called 'Mavro.' 



There are even 'Mavro' coins.

Amazingly, Mavrodi openly-admits that 'MMM 2011/ India' is a pyramid scam. He is widely-quoted as saying : 'It is a naked scheme, nothing more ... People interact with each other and give each other money. For no reason!' However, since Mavrodi's 'MMM' organization has exhibited the universal identifying characteristics of a cult, his activities are neither original nor unique and, consequently, they cannot be fully-understood in isolation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Voegelin

Erich Hermann Wilhelm Voegelin (1901-1985), was a gifted German academic, who, in the decade preceding WW II (working largely-alone), produced an insightful explanation of ‘Nazism’ as a form of perverted religion or cult. Sadly, during the 1930s, few people took much notice of Eric Voegelin. 

Whilst teaching political theory and sociology at the University of Vienna, he published two books, ‘The Race Idea in Intellectual History’ and ‘Race and the State’. In these, he pointed out the elementary, mistakes which invalidated various, popular ‘racial theories’. In 1938, Voegelin (aged 37) tried to publish 'The Political Religions'. In this, he focused on contemporary totalitarian ideologies derived from the ‘racial theories’ which he’d previously criticised as absurd pseudo-science. He now pointed out the glaring structural similarities of these ideologies to religions. Courageously, Voegelin was comparing medieval pseudo-sciences and 'Gnostic' cults to the 'Völkish’ or ‘Pan-German’ movement and its terrifying post-WW I incarnation, the 'Nazi party'.

In 1938, the ‘Nazi’ leader, Adolf Hitler, had held absolute power in Germany for almost 5 years. He had just taken control of Austria. The self-gratifying ‘Aryan Master Race’ delusion was spreading like a virus. In essence, Hitler controlled his fanatical core-adherents with a  comic-book story in which he was a morally and intellectually perfect Aryan super hero, the 'führer,' on a mission to save his 'noble race' from the slavery of the world financial and political system which was controlled by an 'evil secret society of sub-human Jews, Freemasons,' etc.

The dozens of books, essays and reviews which Eric Voegelin published during his lifetime, are almost impossible for the average person to take in.

Eric Voegelin

To give readers some idea of the scale of his thinking, Voegelin’s Major work, ‘Order and History’, began to be published in the USA in 1956 when he was aged 54, but it remained unfinished when he died 31 years later. In simple terms, Voegelin was as a philosopher-historian who took an elevated, and broad, view. He observed that, throughout human history, there have been periods of mass-alienation... following wars, revolutions, plagues, natural disasters, economic depressions, etc. ... during these periods, dangerous manipulators (acting like ancient, Gnostic Prophets by pretending moral and intellectual authority and offering some form of Utopian existence in the here and now) who at other times might be dismissed as absurd crackpots and charlatans, have found it much easier to become accepted as authentic Messiahs and to acquire a mass-following.

Thus, Voegelin, not only described, but also predicted the arrival of the latest generation of economic alchemists, like Sergei Panteleevich Mavrodi.


David Brear (copyright 2013)


http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/russian-riddle-113041200530_1.html

http://www.moneylife.in/article/mmm-india-another-mlm-taking-people-for-double-your-money-ride/32367.html

http://www.firstpost.com/investing/grow-rs-5000-to-rs-3-4-cr-in-a-yr-is-mmm-the-biggest-ponzi-scheme-ever-700184.html

http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/russian-financial-scheme-for-rural-india-113040600017_1.html

http://www.business-standard.com/article/markets/the-only-rule-in-a-russian-roulette-113040800507_1.html

http://qz.com/71919/forget-bitcoin-this-virtual-currency-doubles-your-money-every-month/

http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/ap-police-caution-people-against-mavrodi-scheme-113042400727_1.html

http://www.business-standard.com/article/finance/investors-blink-as-mavrodi-slashes-rates-of-mavro-113042600234_1.html

Hyderabad: 

Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department (CID)  on April 21 cautioned people not to fall prey to the new online fraud unleashed by Sergei Mavrodi.

Additional Director General of CID T Krishna Prasad said that Sergei Mavrodi has been promoting Mavrodi Mondial Moneybox (MMM) scheme through the Website www.mmmindia.in, promising 100 per cent interest per month on the investments made by the people.

The CID chief said that the scheme was already prevailing in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Punjab and was likely to enter Andhra Pradesh. Hence, he appealed to the people of the State not to fall prey to the bogus scheme.

The 'Herbalife' (HLF) racket - how a US Senator, Orrin Hatch, obstructed justice.

Orrin Hatch (b. 1934) 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orrin_Hatch

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/ex_fda_exec_said_lawmaker_killed_7UyAEakBD09XYRiBnJJmPI

It has recently been reported by the mainstream media that, according to a remarkably-frank interview (given 30 years ago by a former, senior US government official, Mervin Shumate),  the federal Food and Drug Administration was prevented from launching a massive operation simultaneously to raid 5 'Herbalife' warehouses and seize their contents (on the grounds that the company had been making fraudulent claims about its pseudo-medical products), by the sudden intervention of the 'Mormon' Republican Senator for Utah, Orrin Hatch (who, at that time, was the head of a powerful Senate Committee to which the FDA was accountable).

READ SHUMATE'S FULL INTERVIEW (PDF)



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/us/politics/21hatch.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

It is my considered opinion that Orrin Hatch (who has made a habit of taking large bundles of stolen cash from 'MLM Income Opportunity' racketeers, and who, on numerous shameful occasions has turned up and enthusiastically participated in promoting their frauds) should be facing corruption charges. His only defence is possibly one of ignorance; for if he sincerely believes that  'Herbalife' , 'Xango' , 'Nuskin', 'Forever Living Products,'  etc., have all been entirely lawful enterprises, then Senator Hatch is probably too stupid to be held to account. Sadly, he is far from being the only morally, and intellectually, feeble US politician to have been co-opted by 'MLM' thieves. 

William W. Goodrich

Interview with William W. Goodrich, Office of General Counsel, 1939 - 1971

Readers of this Blog, should be interested to learn that I obtained a copy of Mervin Shumate's 1987 'Herbalife'/Orrin Hatch testimony several years ago. It was attached to a copy of an equally shocking 'Multi-Level Marketing' testimony made by another former senior FDA official, William W. Goodrich.

http://mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.fr/2012/02/origins-of-big-mlm-lie.html

(N.B. For some reason, William W. Goodrich also appears on the Net. as Wiliam H. Goodrich)

Even though it wasn’t his area of responsibility, FDA Legal Counsel (1939-1971) Goodrich, was (in the late 1940s) probably the first senior US law enforcement agent to apply common-sense and deduce that the apparently innocent baby that had been baptised a ‘New Business Model’ (later to become known as: ‘Multi-Level Marketing’) was actually the same old delinquent previously known as a 'pyramid scam.’ 

David Brear (copyright 2013)

David Beckham, Paris Saint Germain (PSG) and 'Herbalife (HLF).'

http://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/spokesman-distances-beckham-herbalife-sponsorship-260906#.UTDODoy9KSM

Simon Oliveira (Global PR for David Beckham)

Four years ago, Simon Oliveira, assured the world that David Beckham has no personal connection with 'Herbalife' 




A couple of days ago, this Blog received a provocative enquiry from an anonymous person who wants to know if I can confirm that 'Herbalife' will be sponsoring the famous French soccer club, Paris Saint Germain and its new mid-field star, David Beckham?

http://www.leparisien.fr/psg-foot-paris-saint-germain/un-nouveau-sponsor-dans-les-bagages-de-beckham-07-02-2013-2547085.php

Three weeks ago (February 7th, 2013), a story - written by Arnaud Hermant - appeared on the sports pages of the French newspaper, 'le Parsien,' in which it was claimed that

as a direct result of the transfer of David Beckham from Los Angeles Galaxy to Paris Saint Germain, the corporate officers of PSG had employed the American-based consultancy firm of 'Gallagher Sports' to conduct negotiations on their behalf with the corporate officers of 'Herbalife' in the USA - to obtain the same sponsorship deal as that already existing between L.A. Galaxy and 'Herbalife.' 

http://www.sofoot.com/arnaud-hermant-paris-est-exceptionnel-pour-se-mettre-dans-la-merde-162299.html




http://www.lagalaxy.com/news/2012/03/la-galaxy-and-herbalife-announce-record-10-year-extension

Almost 12 months ago, it was announced that 'Herbalife' had signed a $44 millions deal to extend the organization's existing sponsorship deal with L.A. Galaxy until 2022. 




It was also announced that a proportion of this 'Herbalife/L.A. Galaxy' cash was going to be given to children's charity.

Now at this point, before any intellectually-castrated worshippers of the 'Herbalife' racketeers decide to contact this Blog to enquire how I can possibly accuse the objects of their unquestioning devotion of being crooks, when they have given so much to charity?, the grown-up answer to their childish question is as follows: 

During the course of my research into 'income opportunity' racketeers, I have discovered that all of them have attempted to prevent, and/or divert, investigation of their hidden criminal activities by steadfastly pretending to be 'philanthropists.' When seen in isolation (by casual observers), the creation of, and the giving of money to, charities can appear to be perfectly lawful activities. However, in the case of numerous gangs of  copy-cat  'income opportunity' racketeers ('Amway', 'Herbalife', 'NuSkin', 'Xango', 'Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing', 'Lyoness', 'Forever Living Products,' etc.) when the wider picture is examined, these same activities are revealed as a blatant attempt to obstruct justice, forming part of an overall pattern of ongoing major racketeering activity.    

Without any qualification or irony, Monsieur Hermant (who is also the author of 'PSG Confidentiel,' and co-author of 'Le PSG, Le Qatar et L'Argent,' and who has built up many contacts with the staff of PSG over a 10 year period) repeated various elements of the absurd 'Herbalife' fairy story, describing this kitsch corporate-front for 'income opportunity' racketeering  as:

 'an American company specializing in nutritional products.'

Sports reporter, and PSG specialist, Arnaud Hermant.

Interestingly, Monsieur Hermant also reported that, when contacted, 'Herbalife's' head of communications in France, Jean-Christophe Danchaud, claimed to have absolutely no knowledge that his employers are about to sign a € multi-millions sponsorship deal with PSG.

In recent weeks, Monsieur Hermant's report of David Beckham and PSG's imminent sponsorship by 'Herbalife,' has been repeated all over the Internet, again without any qualification or irony.

Meanwhile, I have yet to receive any confirmation from Monsieur Hermant of exactly who fed him the absurd 'Herbalife' fairy story or why he didn't bother to check its authenticity.


David Brear (copyright 2013)