Thursday, 19 January 2017

Behind multi-billionaire Betsy DeVos, lurks the multi-billion dollar 'Amway' racket.

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Betsy DeVos is married to Dick DeVos Jnr. (the son, and heir, of Richard DeVos Snr. one of the 'Dutch Pentacostalist/Dominionist'  instigators of the blame-the-victim cultic racket known as 'Amway /Quixtar /Nutrilite'). Ms. DeVos is also the sister of ostensible 'Blackwater' instigator, Erik Prince.




 
 
      
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This week Ms. DeVos has been fending off questions from US Senators who have many serious concerns about her recent proposed appointment as US Education Secretary. Yet lurking behind this innocent-looking, well-groomed middle-aged woman are the DeVos and Van Andel crime families. For decades, these grinning racketeers have paraded with the Stars and Stripes in one hand and the Bible in the other, but behind this santimonious public act, they have been thieving from the public on a scale which almost beggars belief.




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For the benefit of all the journalists currently looking at Ms. DeVos, the following article is a brief history, and analysis, of the 'Amway/Qixtar/Nutrilite' racket.

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Carl F. Rehnborg (1887-1973)


Carl F. Rehnborg and his first family, circa 1920


Throughout the 1950s, 'Nutrilite' was a highly-controversial trademark owned by Carl F. Rehnborg a.k.a. 'Dr.' Rehnborg, a previously-penniless, American toothpaste-salesman (of German origin) who'd acquired a considerable fortune by reinventing himself as a historically-important, visionary-scientist, autodidactic scholar and philanthropic businessman. Lawyers from the US Food and Drug Administration Bureau of Enforcement, who successfully-challenged the authenticity of some of Rehnborg's many absurd lies in the federal courts during two decades, privately knew him to be nothing more than one of a trio of sinister quacks protected by an echelon of attorneys who had combined, and updated, the medicine show and Ponzi-scheme to reflect the spirit of the age. However, just like his contemporary, L. Ron Hubbard, Rehnborg was no ordinary charlatan; he exhibited the diagnostic criteria of severe and inflexible Narcissistic Personality Disorder. 


Former penniless science-fiction author, turned multi-millionaire, cultic racketeer, L. Ron Hubbard, posing as a historically-important,visionary scientist and philanthropist who had discovered the secret of how ordinary humans can become healthy, wealthy happy and free super humans. Hubbard was also prepared to share this secret with anyone (for a price).
The Nutrilite Story




Tellingly, Rehnborg's own comic-book version of his life and achievements (set-down in various published documents, including a book signed by his son, and heir, Sam Rehnborg), reads uncannily like the autobiography dreamt-up by 'Scientology' instigator, L. Ron Hubbard (a man who was once famously described as 'a combination of  Baron Münchausen and Adolf Hitler').

Unfortunately, just as with the followers and casual observers of Hubbard, the only information made available to the followers and casual observers of Rehnborg, has been carefully controlled.


Rehnborg, Circa 1927.

Thus, to date, the world has been led to believe that Rehnborg (who was born in 1887 in   Florida) :- 

- was a noted-child-prodigy who read voraciously and who amazed his teachers with his detailed knowledge of: philosophy, religion, history, politics, astronomy, mathematics, aerodynamics, chemistry and human rights. 

- was  fluent in many languages, including Chinese. 

- was not a believer, but he studied Christianity, making a boyhood pilgrimage to Palestine and Egypt.

- had a great passion in his teen-age years - the study of planet Earth, its population, its food reserves, and the 'technology of conservation of natural products, but his first love was always the science of nutrition. 

 - was, by the tender age of 27, already a 'doctor of chemistry' who had moved to Tianjin in China to work as an accountant for an American Oil company.

- ran a shipbuilding company, before becoming the representative of the 'American Dairy Company' and, eventually, the representative of 'Colgate Products Company' in Shanghai.

 - witnessed ‘mass-starvation’ in China, before surviving a ‘siege of Shanghai’ by supplementing his diet (and that of his starving friends) with an improvised, vitamin and mineral-enriched broth made from grasses, vegetables, powdered limestone, ground-up bones and rusty nails, etc.

- sailed across the Pacific (studying its many island-cultures on the way) and landed on the West Coast of the USA, where, despite having no money, he managed to establish a 'research laboratory’ in his modest loft-apartment on California’s Balboa Island.


- selflessly dedicated 6 years of his life (1927-1934) to develop a ‘Revolutionary New Food Supplement’ to save mankind from starvation, assisted only by his dutiful young wife, Edith.

- first naively tried to give his wonderful new formula away, but the cynical world wasn’t interested, so, in 1934, he reluctantly decided to create ‘California Vitamins Inc.’ 

- moved his flourishing  ‘Business’ to a ‘Manufacturing and Processing Facility’ in Buena Park, California, and created the ‘Nutrilite Products Company Inc.’ in 1939. 

- acting in association with a ‘Network Sponsoring Company’, ‘Mytinger and Casselberry Inc.’ (to whom he’d sold ‘Exclusive Nutrilite Distribution Rights’) created the ‘World’s First Multi-Level Marketing Scheme’

- had lived the American dream, starting from nothing to become an admired and respected millionaire through ‘Helping 15 thousands fellow Americans to build their own MLM Businesses.’ 


Carl F. Rehnborg  circa 1939


Exactly like L.Ron Hubbard, scant quantifiable evidence has been produced to prove that Rehnborg was qualified (let alone expert) in anything, other than lying to vulnerable people to get their money. There is even reason to doubt that Rehnborg (who apparently did once work for 'Colgate & Co') was in China in the exact period he claimed during, and after, WWI; whilst all the other exciting episodes in his various occidental and oriental odysseys are largely anecdotal. However, the truth about Rehnborg’s convoluted ‘Rags to Riches’ American fairy story is an entirely different matter.


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In 1934, Rehnborg (aged 48) legally-registered ‘California Vitamins Inc.’, allegedly to manufacture and distribute what he arbitrarily defined as 'the World’s First Multi-Mineral/Multivitamin Plant-Based Food Supplement - a Unique Combination of Vitamins and Minerals in a Special Base.’  At first, this so-called ‘Health Tonic’ was brewed up, and peddled as 'Vita-6'  a.k.a. 'Vitasol,' in insignificant quantities. Consequently, it was of no particular interest to regulators.





However, anyone with an ounce of common sense could immediately tell that Rehnborg’s ‘invention’ was just another essentially-inert potion (in the absurd tradition of the medicine show); a random mixture of cheaply-procured common substances with an expensive price tag. It had probably taken Rehnborg 6 hours to concoct, not 6 years.



Aerial View of Nutrilite Products Inc. Plant



By 1939, Rehnborg had spotted the existing term, 'Nutrilites' (probably in an old scientific magazine). So he legally-changed the name of his pay-to-play game of make-believe to the technical-sounding ‘Nutrilite Products Company Inc.’ and moved his quackery onto an almost unprecedented scale. Soon, Rehnborg was legally employing dozens of white-coated workers in purpose-built industrial buildings in Buena Park, California. He also acquired an alfalfa farm near to the city of Hemet in California's San Jacinto valley, but it is unclear exactly where he suddenly found all the necessary capital to pay for these impressive sites and their modern equipment. To his followers and casual observers, Rehnborg’s activity looked like any other lawful enterprise. His staff were ordinary honest folk, to whom the truth was also unthinkable.



At this time, Rehnborg rechristened his potion ‘Nutrilite Double X (‘XX’) Supplement.’ He now proposed to offer it as two ‘complimentary products’ in one pack -  comprising little green bottles of bright red ‘Multivitamin Capsules’ and boxes of pale-coloured ‘Multi-Mineral Tablets.’ The product was deliberately designed to look modern and scientific (like a proprietary medicine), but, tellingly, the price was fixed at just less than $20 a box (the equivalent of several hundred dollars today). 






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Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but in 1940 Charlie Chaplin's celebrated satire of 'Nazi' Germany, 'The Great Dictator', had transformed the Swastika into the 'Double Cross.'


Rehnborg claimed that the ‘XX’ brand-name was derived from the Roman numeral representing twenty. It should have been read as ‘double cross;’ for when the former toothpaste salesman’s pricey wampum was routinely analysed by independent chemists working for the FDA, it was discovered that (although it contained essentially what it said on the labels and was quite harmless) ‘XX Supplement’ really did mostly comprise a random mixture of cheaply-procured, common substances in which vitamins and minerals naturally occur (dried vegetable extracts: alfalfa; parsley; watercress; yeast; etc.). FDA experts later estimated that ‘XX Supplement’  cost no more than a few cents a pack to produce. Thus, FDA lawyers must have known that Rehnborg was, in fact, using authentic pharmaceutical equipment to mass-produce a precisely-measured, harmless placebo, but labelled as a ‘Health Tonic’ (a meaningless term), and peddling it at an exorbitant mark-up (certainly, more than 1000%). This crack-pot pseudo-scientific swindle, which was tantamount to a self-styled 'alchemist' stamping a valueless amalgam of base-metals, 'Pure Gold,' and selling it for the price of pure gold, could have been quickly nipped in the bud, simply by charging Rehnborg with criminal fraud. Apparently, prosecutors never considered the possibility that they might be dealing with someone with severe psychological problems whose own inflexible delusions were contagious. Instead, at first, FDA lawyers felt obliged to take no action; reasoning that, by truthfully listing the banal ingredients, but avoiding making any specific therapeutic claims, on his packaging, Rehnborg had found a loophole in federal laws concerning criminal misbranding of medicines. As result, an up-dated version of an age-old fiction was permitted to be mass-marketed as fact to an unsuspecting public. Unfortunately, the lack of any rigorous, official challenge only brought its author more credibility. Not surprisingly, a host of copy-cat 'Unique Vitamin and Mineral Health-Tonic’ scams quickly sprang up.




As WWII drew to its close, ‘Nutrilite’ had lost its novelty, so Rehnborg (who was approaching 60) had teamed-up with two respectable-looking associates, Lee S. Mytinger and William S. Casselberry (later described by FDA officials as a ‘cemetery-plot salesman’ and a ‘psychologist’). The result was ‘Mytinger and Casselberry Inc.,’ a second corporate structure peddling ‘Exclusive Commission-Agency Rights’ to ‘Distribute XX Supplement’ using (what was first defined by the company’s owners as) a ‘New Business Model.’ In theory… you could try to sell ‘XX  Supplement’ to your social contacts for a small profit, but, if you wanted to make big money, you didn’t need to sell anything… you could buy a monthly quota of ‘XX Supplement’ yourself and sign-up your social contacts to do the same… your ‘Sponsored Recruits’ would then ‘Sponsor’ their own social contacts, etc., ‘compensation’ would automatically multiply in an infinitely-expanding geometric progression. 

‘Mytinger and Casselberry Inc.’ offered a mind-numbing ‘contract’ in which the ‘company’ undertook to pay its ‘Independent Distributors’ an escalating ‘monthly commission’ on the totality of their escalating ‘Business Volume’(i.e. their own regular monthly purchases, falsely defined as ‘sales’, added to the regular monthly purchases, falsely defined as ‘sales’, of their ‘Sponsored Recruits’, and those of the recruits of their recruits, etc. etc. ad infinitum).





In reality, the new set-up was merely the original mystifying lie with a second mystifying chapter added, but to casual observers ‘Nutrilite Products Company Inc.’ appeared to be exclusively manufacturing for, and wholesaling ‘XX Supplement’ to, ‘Mytinger and Casselberry Inc.,’ whose commission agents, in turn, appeared to be retailing it to the public for a profit. Although ‘XX Supplement’ was presented as ‘Unique,’ it mostly comprised substances which could easily be bought at a fraction of their exorbitant, assembled fixed-price, in traditional retail outlets. The product was effectively-impossible to sell to the general public for a profit on the open market. Therefore, the overwhelming majority of its final customers were merely the non-salaried agents of the second corporate structure, which itself was the sole agent of the first corporate structure. In order for them to maintain the false hope that if they signed-up further contributing participants they would automatically become rich, the participants in this dissimulated money circulation game were obliged by its rules to keep handing-over a monthly payment to Mytinger and Casselberry, to be shared with Rehnborg. From all rational points of view (medical, economic, legal, etc.), ‘XX Supplement’ might have well not existed; for it was just a convenient means of laundering illegal losing investment payments in a closed-market swindle, or pyramid scheme,  based on the crack-pot, non-rational theory that endless-chain recruitment + endless payments by the recruits = endless profits for the recruits. New victims were supplied with a $49.50 ‘Business Kit’ (i.e. a large cardboard box stuffed with a month’s supply of ‘XX Supplement’ and a fat folder containing page after page of mind-numbing pseudo-economic/medical presentations and diagrams, and instructions in how to go about remembering, contacting and recruiting everyone they’d ever known during their lives). These presentations contained the concrete evidence which FDA lawyers could use to prosecute Rehnborg, Mytinger and Casselberry. Contributing participants were being instructed to smile, project excitement and enthusiasm, and to recite a precisely-worded script which proclaimed ‘Nutrilite XX Supplement’ to be ‘good value,’ because it could ‘cure or prevent,’ virtually any known human illness.


William W. Goodrich
William W. Goodrich

http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/87/650/2011431/

Even though it wasn’t his area of responsibility, FDA Legal Counsel (1939-1971), William W. Goodrich, was probably the first senior US law enforcement agent to deduce that the innocent baby that Rehnborg, Mytinger and Casselberry had baptised a ‘New Business Model’ (later to become known as: ‘Multi-Level Marketing’) was actually the same old delinquent previously known a 'pyramid scam.’ Again, anyone with an ounce of common-sense could work out immediately that, since Rehnborg had been peddling medical alchemy, the strong likelihood was that Mytinger and Casselberry were peddling economic alchemy. The sinister trio of quacks were obviously acting in association, but agents of the Food and Drug Administration and those of the Federal Trade Commission acted independently. At this time, anti-racketeering legislation did not yet exist in the USA. However, in the late 1940s, the rapidly-expanding ‘XX Supplement’ dossier was already in the hands of FTC lawyers. Apparently, prosecutors still never considered the possibility that they might be dealing with persons suffering from severe psychological problems and whose own inflexible delusions were contagious. Instead, they still felt obliged to take no action; this time reasoning that Mytinger and Casselberry appeared to have found a loophole in federal law prohibiting fraud. For even today, the fundamental identifying characteristic of all pyramid scams and Ponzi schemes, has not yet been accurately defined by legislators. As a result, another updated version of an age-old fiction was permitted to be mass-marketed as fact to an unsuspecting public. Yet again, the lack of any rigorous official challenge only brought its authors more credibility. Not surprisingly, a host of copy-cat 'income opportunity' swindles (camouflaged by banal, but pricey, wampum) quickly sprang up.


By 1947, Rehnborg, Mytinger and Casselberry were steadfastly pretending  ‘15 000 Successful Distributorships in the USA,’ with ‘sales’ totalling ‘$500 000 dollars per month.’ They had also organised the production of a ‘Free’ booklet, ‘How to Get Well and Stay Well’, in which they further pretended that ‘Nutrilite Double X Supplement’ had ‘cured or greatly helped such common ailments’ as : ‘Low blood pressure, Ulcers, Mental depression, Pyorrhoea, Muscular twitching, rickets, Worry over small things, Tonsillitis, Hay Fever, Sensitivity to noise, Underweight, Easily tired, Gas in stomach, Cuts heal slowly, Faulty vision, Headache, Constipation, Anaemia Boils, Flabby tissues, Hysterical tendency, Eczema, Overweight, Faulty memory, Lack of ambition, Certain Bone conditions, Nervousness, Nosebleed, Insomnia, Allergies, Asthma, Restlessness, Bad skin colour, Poor appetite, Biliousness, Neuritis, Night blindness, Migraine, High blood pressure, Sinus trouble, Lack of concentration, Dental caries, Irregular heartbeat, Colitis, Craving for sour foods, Arthritis, Rheumatism, Neuralgia, Deafness, Subject to colds.’



Carl.F. Rehnborg circa 1947

Rhenborg now cast himself in the role of ‘Scientific Adviser’ to ‘Mytinger and Casselberry Inc.’ He toured the USA preaching the gospel to wide-eyed ‘Distributors’ - ‘for less than $20 a month’, ‘Nutrilite Double X Supplement’ was the ‘Answer to Man’s Search for Health.’ After both companies’ owners were approached by FDA officials and warned that they could face criminal prosecution for misbranding, the booklet was ‘revised.’ Specific therapeutic claims were supposed to be eliminated. ‘All illnesses’ suddenly became a ‘state of nonhealth’ produced by ‘chemical imbalance’.… ‘Nutrilite XX Supplement’ cured nothing, it merely ‘enabled people to Get Well and stay Well’ by themselves. However, pages 41-52 of the booklet still recounted alleged case-histories explaining that ‘Nutrilite brought relief from such ailments as diabetes, feeble mindedness, stomach pains, sneezing and weeping.’ Not surprisingly, the FDA officials were not impressed, so they finally launched a number of raids, and seizures of ‘Nutrilite XX Supplement’ and associated publications.





In 1951, after a series of lawsuits, appeals and counter suits (in which Mytinger and Casselberry hired top lawyers who portrayed their clients as American capitalist heroes being crushed by Soviet-style bureaucracy), the FDA obtained (on behalf of the people) a permanent Supreme Court injunction against ‘Mytinger and Casselberry Inc.’ preventing ‘Distributors’ from referring to 50 publications making false claims about ‘Health Tonics and Food Supplements’ (including various ‘Revised Editions’ of ‘How to Get Well and Stay Well’). FDA agents soon found that the injunction was being flouted. As a result of mounting complaints, they infiltrated the organization (as potential recruits) and recorded deluded proselytisers chanting the same cure-all mantra about ‘XX Supplement.’ Faced with more litigation and fearing that their monopoly of information might be lost, in 1954, Rehnborg, Mytinger and Casselberry hired a leading advertising agency which handled the clean-cut, but fading, Hollywood star, Alan Ladd. Along with his wife and children, Alan Ladd then briefly-featured in a kitsch 'Nutrilite' advertising campaign - published in various mainstream magazines right up until 1959.  




Alan Ladd (who secretly suffered from chronic depression and who had problems with alcohol and narcotics) was, however, soon to be air-brushed out of the 'Nutrilite' fairy story.



 
The charlatan-trio, 'Mytinger, Casselberry and Rehnborg,' also paid a team of Hollywood professionals to produce a 20 minute colour propaganda film, ‘From the Ground up’ (featuring themselves as three nice ordinary American guys turned philanthropic scientists and industrialists), and they began to publish their own propaganda magazine, ‘Nutrilite News'’ (stuffed with colour photos of happy, healthy and wealthy ‘Distributors'’). 


Amway Co-Founders Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel (bottom row, second and third from the right, respectively) and their group of senior key agents pose with Nutrilite Founder Carl F. Rehnborg and his wife Edith Rehnborg, in front of their tour bus, 1956.
Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel (2nd and 3rd from the right, front row), Carl F. Rehnborg (immediately behind Van Andel, second row), circa 1950.

Soon, the 'Nutrilite' show was touring the USA on a motor coach (like a 'Tent Revivalist' group).  Mytinger, Casselberry and Rehnborg had begun organizing pay-to-enter ‘Rallies and Seminars'’ (addressed by allegedly ‘Successful Christian Distributors’ like Rich De Vos and Jay Van Andel). No quantifiable evidence (in the form of audited accounts) was ever produced to prove what percentage of claimed ‘sales'’ were authentic retail transactions to the general public for a profit (based on value and demand), or how many people who’d signed a ‘contract'’ with ‘Mytinger and Casselberry Inc.'’ had actually received an overall net-profit from the operation of what its instigators arbitrarily defined as an ‘MLM income opportunity’. Excluding the tiny percentage of grinning shills at the top of the pyramid, the hidden, rolling insolvency/churn-rate was 100%. Since there was no significant or sustainable external revenue, participants were actually buying infinite shares in their own finite money. 


 Richard DeVos                                                    Jay Van Andel

Circa 1950
circa 1965

In 1959, when it seemed that ‘Mytinger and Casselberry/Nutrilite Products Inc.’ might finally be shut down (under the ‘Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act 3381-3383’, rather than anti-fraud legislation) De Vos and Van Andel hid behind familiar, patriotic words and images stolen from contemporary popular culture. They created the ‘American Way Association’ - the first of what was to become a shoal of red, white and blue herrings.

Previously, the two up-and-coming charlatans, Mytinger and Casselberry, gravitated towards the established (but ageing) Rehnborg, and vice versa. Rehnborg seems to have reflected the pair's own narcissistic delusions as reality and behaved as though they were important businessmen/psychologists, whilst the pair treated him as though he really was an important and respected scientist/ philanthropic businessman. This was the point at which'Nutrilite Inc.' (a legally-registered, and industrialized, pseudo-scientific swindle), began to transform into a highly-organized, self-perpetuating, blame-the-victim 'Prosperity Gospel' cultic racket - tailor-made to fit the existing beliefs and instinctual desires of a broad range of people - peddling a perversion of the 'American Dream' whilst giving victims the illusion that they were making free choices. 

Evidently, US law enforcement agents never fully-understood that Rehnborg, Mytinger, Casselberry, DeVos, Van Andel and their close-associates, were dangerous manipulators who magnified each others' narcissistic delusions. The longer they went unchallenged: the more adherents they ensnared and the more-capital they acquired. The more capital they acquired: the easier it became to deceive more adherents and the more severe, and inflexible, their own delusions became. Sadly, and exactly like L. Ron Hubbard, the more convinced of their importance Rehnborg, Mytinger, Casselberry, DeVos and Van Andel became: the more convincing they became.


On September 6th 1949 (along with Michael Pacetti), two, clean-cut, hitherto-unremarkable USAAF veterans of Dutch Protestant origin, Richard DeVos (aged 23) and Jay Van Andel (aged 25), registered the ‘Ja-Ri Corporation.’ However, throughout the 1950s, this (apparently independent) company was the agent of both ‘Nutrilite Products Company Inc.' and of  'Mytinger and Casselberry Inc.'

The two Pentacostalists, DeVos and Van Andel spent ten years perfecting their own sanctimonious 'MLM' act, before finally setting up a copy-cat 'income opportunity' racket.

 'Amway' frst operated as an affinity fraud targetting the flag-waving adherents of Evangelical Churches in the Bible Belt. Most early 'Amway' adherents were already trained to defer systematically to the moral and intellectual authority of their pastors - so De Vos and Van Andel simply dressed up, and behaved, exactly likerespectable Church pastors. They taught their male followers to duplicate their clean-cut example. Thus, alcohol, cigarettes and even beards were forbidden. Amway men had to wear a suit and tie, whilst Amwaywomen were forbidden to wear pants or anything too sexy. Indeed, until relatively recently, 'Amway Network Leaders' were commonly referred to as 'Black Hats.'


The classic movie, 'Elmer Gantry' (released in 1960), was written and directed by Richard Brooks and is loosely-based on a novel of 1927 by the Nobel prize-winning author, Sinclair Lewis. In the Movie, 'Gantry' (played by Burt Lancaster) is a grinning charlatan in a loud suit - a hard-drinking whore-chasing travelling-salesman, who, for sexual and financial motives, attaches himself to the beautiful 'Sister Sharon' (played by Jean Simmons), the focus of a profitable 'Tent Revivalist' group working the Bible-Belt during Prohibition (1920-1933). 'Elmer Gantry' keeps his grin, but he dons a sombre suit and black hat, and is reborn as 'Brother Gantry' 'Charismatic Preacher' and 'Moral Crusader'. He soon discovers that he has the power to create mass-hysteria, and reap tens of thousands of dollars, by manipulating individuals' existing beliefs and instinctual desires. At a key-moment in the movie, a Protestant Minister (bedazzled by 'Brother Gantry's' offer to fill his church coffers) abandons the traditional Christian message and proclaims: 'Business is business, that's the American Way'.


Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but at almost exactly the time that the
 ‘American Way Association' 
first appeared, ‘Elmer Gantry' was playing to packed movie-theatres all over America.


Initially (and with an irony that is close to exquisite), in order to dodge being drawn into the ongoing FDA investigation of 'Nutrilite,' De Vos and Van Andel got rid of the pills and potions and now laundered all the unlawful investment payments into their copy-cat, dissimulated, closed-market swindle, behind the claim that they were selling a laundry detergent  (i.e. banal, but effectively-unsaleable, non-'medicinal' pseudo-scientific wampum of their own fabrication). Again, the updated snake oil stain remover was deliberately designed to look modern and scientific, whilst De Vos and Van Andel grinned from ear as they too steadfastly pretended that these strangely-familiar, cheaply-procured mixtures of common substances, were all-American, exclusive, good-value and unique.



  


The original 'Nutrilite' lie was progressively-absorbed back into the spin-off 'Amway' (aka 'Quixtar') lie, 1972-1994, where it still is peddled as the truth.

Only after the 'MLM' virus had spread to almost every State of the Union, did the US Federal Trade Commission finally make a half-hearted attempt to close-down 'Amway.' After receiving a significant number of complaints,  FTC prosecutors, advised by specialist economists, recognised that what they were faced with, was not a direct selling scheme, but as a classic pyramid scam, without a significant or sustainable source of revenue other than its own victims, but hidden behind a smokescreen of products. However, after years of investigations and hearings, in 1979, a naive, and/or corrupt, federal judge ruled that although 'Amway' had previously been massively in breach of the law and would have to pay fines, the company would be allowed to continue to trade. This was because the judge accepted the latest unbelievable chapter of the 'MLM' fairy story. i.e. That 'Amway' s owners were respectable Christian businessmen who were vehemently opposed to  pyramid schemes and that, consequently, they had stopped fixing prices and introduced their own rules which would, henceforth, oblige the members of 'Amway's' sales force to sell at least 70% (by value) of the products which they had bought wholesale from the company, to at least 10 customers, before they could receive commission payments. Amazingly, no independent, common-sense mechanism was created to ensure that this latest twist in the fairy story was true, and that 'Amway' would now be in compliance with the law.

Not surprisingly, this tragicomic judgement was seen as an open-invitation to thieve, and, consequently, a whole host of 'Amway' copy-cat 'MLM' rackets soon began to appear.   
Today the so-called 'Direct Selling Association,' is a demonstrable lie financed and controlled by the bosses of a classic, organized crime syndicate.

David Brear (copyright 2017)

Friday, 13 January 2017

"Master' - a South Korean movie depicting an 'MLM' racket - tops the box office.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/master-961501


Courtesy of CJ ENTERTAINMENT


Ui-seok Jo’s high-stakes thriller stars ‘The Magnificent Seven’s’ Byung-hun Lee as a ruthless corporate con artist with high-level connections in South Korean politics.

Multilevel marketing companies have earned a sketchy reputation worldwide, due to their pyramidal organizational structure and payout schemes, but rarely have they been portrayed as ominously as the South Korean corporation at the center of Master. This timely financial thriller could benefit from a worldwide wave of dissatisfaction with elected officials and multinational corporations after topping the domestic box office over the Dec. 23 weekend.
As South Korea struggles through a major political scandal involving allegations of corporate malfeasance and high-level influence peddling that have led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye, the obsessive commitment of Master’s anti-corruption investigator Kim Jae Myung (Dong-won Gang, A Violent Prosecutor) appears especially appropriate. Closing in on multilevel marketing operation One Network, Kim’s financial-crimes investigation targets CEO Jin Hyun-pil (Byung-hun Lee) for defrauding his company’s sales staff in order to line his own pockets, with the assistance of his young tech expert, Park Jang Goon (Woo-bin Kim, Twenty). Without sufficient hard evidence to convict Jin, however, Kim is forced to try recruiting Park by threatening him with arrest and offering a plea deal if he’ll turn over computer evidence and documents incriminating his boss.
Park finds it impossible to outmaneuver Kim’s combination of law-enforcement experience and legal expertise, so he agrees to implicate Jin by pilfering his boss’ ledger containing information on all of the cops, judges and politicians he routinely bribes to ignore One Network’s shady operations. With the contributions of thousands of investors at stake, Kim’s drive to bring down the company comes up against Jin’s ruthless business tactics when he liquidates the operation and disappears with $3 billion. Having failed to entrap Jin, Park goes into hiding and Kim receives a humiliating demotion, but the sudden reappearance of their rival six months later offers the pair another shot at bringing Jin to justice.
After this first hour of running time, director Ui-seok Jo and co-writer Hyun-deok Kim then reboot the plot and set their characters loose to pursue one another around the slums of Manila, Philippines, for the remainder of the film as Kim attempts to finally collar Jin, whatever the cost to his own reputation and career. Master continues the trend of recent South Korean anti-establishment thrillers that questions and deconstructs the authority and competence of domestic law enforcement, corporations and political elites, but also echoes a broader wave of popular dissatisfaction with the status quo that’s challenging conventional leadership from Washington to Brussels and around the world.
Jo and Kim amplify the perceived menace of corporations like One Network and both the acumen and the dedication of law enforcement for dramatic purposes, lending the narrative a recognizably melodramatic edge. A succession of twists and double-crosses among the characters keeps the plot simmering at an occasionally overheated pace, however, eventually stretching credibility as the manhunt for Jin expands overseas.
Remaining aloof at the center of all of these machinations, Lee’s Jin character basks in the cult of personality surrounding his status as One Network’s CEO, keeping one step ahead of the authorities and only interacting with his staff to resolve a crisis or consummate a crooked deal. His determined disengagement provides the opportunity for Kim to stand out as the company’s conflicted traitor, Park, who’s never sure where he stands with his boss or his law-enforcement handlers, but still risks exposure by scheming at double-crossing them all. Following his role as a con man on the opposite side of the law in A Violent Prosecutor, Gang’s dull performance as the lead investigator drags on both the pace and the tone of Master, which is far too procedural in the first half and not nearly manic enough in the second.
In his fourth feature, Jo demonstrates cool control of tone and visual style throughout, but the film is often so deterministically plotted that a sense of creative detachment hangs over far too many scenes, leaving an impression that the filmmakers may sometimes be more interested in making grand statements than in engaging interest.
Production company: Zip Cinema
Distributor: CJ Entertainment America
Cast: Dong-won Gang, Byung-hun Lee, Woo-bin Kim, Dal-su Oh, Ji-won Uhm
Director: Ui-seok Jo
Screenwriters: Ui-seok Jo, Hyun-deok Kim
Producer: Eugene Lee
Executive producer: Tae-sung Jeong
Director of photography: Yoo Yok
Production designer: Elhen Park
Costume designer: Sang-kyung Cho
Editor: Min-kyung Shin
Music: Young-kyu Jang
143 minutes

Copyright Hollywood Reporter 2017

Wednesday, 11 January 2017

FTC issues a mountain of cheques to compensate 'Herbalife (HLF)' victims (in the USA).

Warning

More than half a century of quantifiable evidence, proves beyond all reasonable doubt that what has become popularly known as 'Multi-Level Marketing' is nothing more than an absurd, cultic, economic pseudo-science, and that the impressive-sounding made-up term 'MLM,' is, therefore, part of an extensive, thought-stopping, non-traditional jargon which has been developed, and constantly-repeated, 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 closed-market swindles or 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.).

David Brear (copyright 2017)


________________________________________________

http://kfoxtv.com/news/local/ftc-sends-checks-to-those-cheated-by-herbalife

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-herbalife-checks-20170110-story.html

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/money-back-350000-herbalife-distributors

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2017/01/redress-checks-compliance-checks-lessons-ftcs-herbalife

  • US 'Herbalife' victims who lost their time and money will get only a bit of their money back.


US federal trade regulators are currently posting a mountain of compensation cheques to around 350 000 US citizens who all wasted their time and money in the 'Amway' copy-cat blame-the-victim 'Direct Selling/MLM Income Opportunity' cultic racket known as 'Herbalife' which, for decades, has been hiding in plain sight behind effectively-unsaleable, pseudo-medical (wampum) products.
However, no one now seriously disputes the overall number of persons who have been defrauded by the bosses of the 'Herbalife' racket (since the organisation was first instigated) runs into tens of millions around the globe; whilst the amount of money stolen totals many billions of dollars .
The cash being given to these relatively few US victims comes from the mere $200 millions of stolen funds that the 'Herbalife' racketeers eagerly agreed to hand back last July in order to settle a short-sighted complaint by the Federal Trade Commission that their company had duped the American public by claiming that anyone could get rich. After a two year investigation, federal trade regulators finally concluded that effectively every single US 'Herbalife' participant has failed to generate an overall net-profit. However, I would contend that this is the common-sense point from which the federal investigation into 'Herbalife' should have started, not finished.
Most of the compensation cheques are only for sums between $100 and $500. The largest payments are more than $9,000. These payments only take into account what victims have directly handed over to 'Herbalife,' not their own expenses or money lost in allied frauds. They certainly don't take into account any related emotional/social damage.
Amazingly, regulators say they relied 'Herbalife's' own records to estimate which victims in the United States lost the most. Those currently receiving refunds, handed over at least $1,000 to 'Herbalife' between 2009 and 2015.


'Herbalife's' bosses pretended at the time of the FTC settlement in July 2016, that many of the FTC’s allegations were completely unfounded, but that they had decided to settle to avoid 'the financial cost and distraction of protracted litigation.'
NB. 'Herbalife' Victims don’t need to file a claim with the FTC. 
The FTC has said that people should automatically receive their compensation cheques by Jan 20th. Those who believe they should have received a refund, but haven't, can get information at ftc.gov/herbalife or by calling (844) 322-8146.
With an irony close to exquisite, this week the FTC has warned the American public to :
be wary of so-called multi-level marketing programs in which recruiters claim you don’t have to worry about successfully selling the company’s products, because you can make money by recruiting others into the business.

David Brear (copyright 2017)

Monday, 9 January 2017

'MLM' racketeering to feature in George Clooney-produced, US television tragicomedy.

Warning

More than half a century of quantifiable evidence, proves beyond all reasonable doubt that what has become popularly known as 'Multi-Level Marketing' is nothing more than an absurd, cultic, economic pseudo-science, and that the impressive-sounding made-up term 'MLM,' is, therefore, part of an extensive, thought-stopping, non-traditional jargon which has been developed, and constantly-repeated, 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 closed-market swindles or 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.).

David Brear (copyright 2016)

-------------------------------

Kirsten Dunst to Star in Dark Comedy About Multilevel Marketing for AMC





607577596-actress-kirsten-dunst-arrives-for-the-68th-emmy-awards
Kirsten Dunst at the 68th Emmy Awards in 2016.
Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
Kirsten Dunst has been cast in the lead role in an hour-long dark comedy series about a multi-level marketing firm, according to Deadline. The series, How To Be a God In Central Florida, was written by Robert Funke and Matt Lutsky and will be directed by The Lobster’s Yorgos Lanthimos. George Clooney and Grant Heslov are producing through Smokehouse Pictures.
Dunst will play a financially-ruined widow who is scraping by at a minimum-wage job at an Orlando water park. The series will follow her quest to rise through the ranks of the pyramid scheme/multilevel marketing company that conned her to exact her revenge. In an encouraging sign for the quality of the show, the company has the pitch-perfect name “Founders American Merchandise” (see, e.g., United Sciences of America, Market America, and of course, Trump favorite American Communications Network). In other words, this show has a great premise, and the role seems perfect for Dunst. Florida’s been ground zero for fraudsters since the first swampland sale—the man who oversaw one of the biggest scams of the 1990s recently got elected governor—and Orlando’s second-tier amusement parks are an ideal setting to dive into capitalism’s seediest back alleys.
The show is coming at the right time, too. Multilevel marketing is having a moment right now: John Oliver gave it 30 minutes in November, Slate’s Helaine Olen looked at Donald Trump and Ben Carson’s ties to the industry, and Andrew Kahn and Shon Arieh-Lerer built a simulator to give everyone a taste of being ripped off by an MLM. It’s unclear why the country is so fascinated by transparent cons that promise riches but only improve things for people at the very top. Apropos of nothing, here’s President-elect Donald Trump to tell you about an exciting business opportunity!


Matthew Dessem (copyright 2017)



Tuesday, 3 January 2017

Donald Trump and 'Herbalife (HLF)' champion, Carl Icahn, love Indonesia.





Carl Icahn is one of the people who bank-rolled Donald Trump when he was facing bankruptcy in Atlantic City way back in the early 1990s. However, the story of Trump and Icahn's on/off relationship is long and twisted, as well as being far from over.




See original image



http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-names-billionaire-carl-icahn-special-advisor-regulation-vows-shred-n698866

Blog readers will no doubt remember how Mr. Icahn (the largest owner of effectively-valueless 'Herbalife' shares) has recently been appointed to the unofficial (new) post of President-Elect Trump's special adviser on regulatory reform. This would seem to be the equivalent of appointing a notorious pyromaniac to be a special adviser on fire prevention and on the choice of who should be Fire Chief.








It takes quite a lot to shock me these days, but the above video (which begins to detail Messrs. Icahn and Trump's Indonesian connections) made my jaw drop.


See original image

Donald Trump began to flaunt his Indonesian connections during his Presidential campaign.

https://www.revealnews.org/article/trumps-indonesia-hotel-deals-hint-at-his-form-of-foreign-relations/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/02/donald-trumps-indonesian-business-partner-considers-running-for-president


See original image

See original image

Carl Icahn is the largest share-holder of Freeport McMoRan Inc. - a company which owns around 90% of the truly-staggering Grasberg Mine in Indonesia and which is Indonesia's largest corporate tax-payer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasberg_mine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeport-McMoRan


David Brear (coptright 2017)


French Disabled-Access Fraud.




Happy New Year to all Blog readers.


________________________________________________

For a long time, I've been saying that we are sinking in a sea of fraud and that law enforcement agencies are already completely swamped. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As if to prove the validity of the above statement, yesterday I was contacted by a friend - the owner of a small business in rural France - who had just received a worrying telephone call from a legally-registered Paris-based company. 


http://www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/-Accessibilite-.html


A quick Google-search revealed that this call was the initial approach in a classic advance-fee fraud and that French government agencies have been warning business owners not to fall for it and inviting those approached to file complaints.

Classically, part of the fairy story being peddled, is true.

A couple of years ago, legislation was enacted in France which made the owners/operators of certain businesses (open to the public) responsible for ensuring that the disabled (particularly wheelchair-bound persons) have access to their premises (via: ramps, wide doors, elevators, etc.) and have other specially adapted facilities provided for them (toilets, parking, floor surfaces, etc.). At this time, the French business owners/operators in question were required to confirm to local government agencies that their premises were either already in compliance with the new legislation, or file a technical report, and/or make planning applications, proving that they would soon be in compliance. 

Obviously, the list of common-sense exemptions to the new French disabled-access legislation, is vast. However, many small business owners remain unaware of its existence, let alone of their obligations to it (if any). Consequently, the legislation has spawned an insidious advance-fee fraud which involves agents of front-companies contacting French business owner/operators by phone and attempting to convince them that:


  • they are not in compliance with the new disabled-access legislation.



  • French government officials will soon be visiting their premises to conduct an inspection.



  • they must immediately file a comprehensive technical report, and/or make planning applications, with local government agencies to avoid all risk of financial penalties up to 45 000 Euros. 


The crook who called my friend yesterday recited the above threatening bullshit and left a name and telephone number after offering to help with compiling a disabled access technical report in exchange for 700 Euros. This person also falsely-implied that the 700 Euro payment comprised a mandatory handling-charge to French government agencies. 

It almost goes without saying that the next step in the fraud comprises obtaining the intended victim's bank details.

This morning, I called the 09 (unidentifiable) French telephone number which had been given to my friend and discovered a highly-sophisticated operation complete with an official-sounding recording repeating elements of the fairy story being peddled. I was then automatically put through to an inflexible young woman who (suspiciously) knew (or guessed) the name of the business owner on whose behalf I was calling (even though I specifically didn't mention it), but who refused to identify herself. She did not appreciate my blunt reaction to the fraud. This young woman posed as an innocent victim of false accusations, even though I referred her to French government Websites describing her company's unlawful modus operandi and warning the public. 

In the end, this robotic liar hung up after arrogantly telling me that I was blocking her company's phone lines and preventing her, and her colleagues, from working.

This afternoon, a French government official confirmed that in the first few days of 2017, hundreds of new complaints have been logged about this type of fraud and that numerous front-companies are involved. 


David Brear (copyright 2017)