Latest news with #MLM
The Citizen
3 hours ago
- Sport
- The Citizen
Hoedspruit hosts first Wildlife Haven Half Marathon
LIMPOPO – Marathons are a great way to challenge yourself, push your limits and raise money for great causes. This is according to Maruleng Local Municipality (MLM) Mayor Tsheko Musolwa after the municipality, together with Maruleng Athletics Club, hosted the very first Hoedspruit Wildlife Haven Half Marathon on, May 31. Runners from over 30 clubs, including Foskor, Maruleng, Mzanzi, Polokwane, PMC, SAPS Limpopo, Dwarsrivier Mine, Bush and University of Limpopo athletics clubs took on the 21.1km, 10 km and 5km distances. Tebogo Pulusa won the men's half marathon with a time of 01:05:48. Abednico Mashaba came in second with a time of 01:07:50, followed by Ribson Mothopi, who was first in last year's marathon with 01:08:00 on the clock. Rosaline Isaiah won the women's race with a time of 01:30:06. Elizabeth Hlutamo, who was first last year, came in second with 01:36:30.6 on the clock, followed by Thembi Mthetho in third with a time of 01:39:54.6. Musa Thuketana, who was second last year, won the men's 10km race with 0:32:32.9 on the clock, second was Prince Ndlovu with 0:35:05.7 and third was Sibonginkosi Maseko with a time of 0:33:59.9. In the women's 10km race, Sina Morongwa Malatji came in first with a time of 00:48:16.3, Phillipain Kalane was second with 0:50:36.1, and in third was Benny Nghulele with a time of 0:51:13.6. Musolwa ran the half marathon and hit the finish line with a time of 01:49:41.4, which he said is an improvement as he finished last year's with 02:32:12.8. Other participants included MLM Speaker Blantina Rakganya, and MLM Cllr Christine du Preez, among other Maruleng officials. Musolwa and the Maruleng Athletics Club thanked all athletes who participated in the event. 'We hope that this is the start of a long journey towards a healthy and socially integrated society,' he said. At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Bride 'Blew Her Entire Savings.' Now, She Expects Her Sister to Help Pay for Her 'Lavish' Wedding
A woman is questioning whether she's wrong to refuse to help her sister pay for her "dream wedding," after she lost money in a multilevel marketing scheme In a post on Reddit's "Wedding Shaming" forum, the woman shared that her sister has asked to use her savings to fund her wedding "She knows I have a decent chunk of change saved and she's been dropping not-so-subtle hints about how I'm 'so responsible with my money' and 'don't have a mortgage yet' so surely I can spare some cash for her big day," the Reddit user wroteA woman wonders whether she's wrong to refuse to help her sister pay for her "dream wedding." In a post on Reddit's "Wedding Shaming" forum, the 30-year-old woman opened up about her sister's "serious main character energy when it comes to her wedding." "The kicker — she expects me to foot a significant chunk of the bill after she blew her entire savings — $25k — on a ridiculous MLM [multilevel marketing] scheme," she explained. According to the OP (original poster), her sister, a 32-year-old named Chloe, has a history of being "terrible with money." "Think impulsive buys loans for trips, the whole nine yards," the OP wrote. "Meanwhile, I've been diligently saving every penny for a down payment on a house. Our financial approaches are polar opposites." "About a year and a half ago, Chloe got completely sucked into one of those 'boss babe' wellness drink MLMs," she continued, referring to the business model where participants earn money from both selling products or services and recruiting others into the network. According to the Federal Trade Commission, many MLM companies are illegal pyramid schemes. "I tried to warn her gently at first, then more forcefully as she sank more and more cash into inventory and training. She was convinced she'd be a millionaire. Spoiler alert: she's not," the OP added. "She flushed her entire $25k savings down the drain and is now financially back at square one." According to the Redditor, Chloe is engaged and has plans for a "massive, fairytale wedding — the kind that easily costs $50k+" — and she's asked her sister for help paying for the lavish event. "She knows I have a decent chunk of change saved and she's been dropping not-so-subtle hints about how I'm 'so responsible with my money' and 'don't have a mortgage yet' so surely I can spare some cash for her big day," the OP wrote. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Eventually, the sister "straight-up asked" for the money, and the OP was taken aback by her justifications for the bold request. " 'You know,' she said, 'if you even threw in like 10 grand it would make such a huge difference. You don't really need all that house money right this second and this is my one shot at the wedding I've always pictured,' " the OP wrote, recounting the conversation. The OP said she absolutely "lost it" after this request and promptly shut it down. "I told her, 'Chloe there is NO WAY I'm paying for your wedding. You literally flushed your savings down the drain on a scam, even though everyone told you not to and now you expect me to bankroll your fantasy. My savings are for MY future, not to bail you out of your past mistakes,' " she said. Her sister got upset, calling the OP "selfish" and "unsupportive." The sisters' mom also took Chloe's side, telling her other daughter: "Family helps family." "Honestly, I feel a little bad for making her cry and I do love my sister," the OP admitted. "But I also feel like I'm being put in an impossible position. She made her bed and now she expects me to pay for the luxury sheets." In the comments section, readers were quick to take the OP's side, agreeing that she shouldn't have to fork over her hard-earned savings just because she isn't getting married or buying a home right now. "Any time she brings it up, just remind her that 'no' is your final answer," one person advised. "If she wants a $50k wedding, then she and her fiancé had better start saving that." "I find it extremely audacious that you are being asked to give up or push back your dream because of your sister's poor financial decisions," another commenter said. "She needs to learn to live within her means. And right now, those means do not extend to a $50k wedding." Read the original article on People
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
4 Dangers of Trying To Build Wealth Fast
A notable Harris Poll survey conducted in 2022 found that as many as six in 10 Americans want to become a billionaire — and around 44% believe they have the resources to do so (with crypto investors making up a large portion of that group). This increasingly common mindset might be more harmful than you think. As tempting as it is to build wealth quickly, it can be incredibly dangerous for your financial well-being. Be Aware: Consider This: Trying to earn money as fast as possible leaves you vulnerable to lifestyle creep, overinvesting your savings falling into debt and other risks. Here are four common dangers of building wealth too quickly and how you can avoid them. If you've ever felt like you can never earn enough, you might be succumbing to 'lifestyle creep.' This phenomenon occurs when someone suddenly has more expendable income than they're used to. Without a careful budget, it's easy to slip into the habit of spending more to keep up with what you see as an ideal lifestyle, whether it's a nice car, a bigger house or little things like more subscription services and meals out. One of the risks of trying to build wealth quickly is that even if you succeed in the short term, if you don't take steps to avoid lifestyle creep, whatever you earn will still not feel like enough. This can lead you to continue spending or gambling with your earnings rather than securely saving them for the future. Here are some tips to keep lifestyle creep from draining your income: Stick to a monthly budget that sets aside at least 20% of your earned income for savings. Take pride in living below your means. Set annual savings goals and try to exceed them. Avoid comparing your lifestyle to others', especially on social media. Read Next: If an opportunity seems too good to be true, chances are it is. Common get-rich-quick schemes you might encounter today include: Investment scams promising a high return Multi-level marketing (MLM) recruitment offers Work-from-home opportunities requiring little or no experience These opportunities may not immediately stand out as scams. They may also be perfectly legal. For example, multi-level marketing is a legitimate business structure despite the fact that as many as 99% of MLM participants lose money, according to Forbes. Dolling out risky investment advice on social media is also legal even if it's unfounded. To avoid falling for dangerous get-rich-quick schemes, you may need to adjust your expectations. Take some time to research every opportunity you come across. Remember, if it were really that easy to earn fast money, everyone would be doing it. When you're eager to earn, you may be tempted to invest everything you have instead of saving. Around half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, meaning they don't have savings to fall back on in case of an emergency. Investing your money is almost always riskier than saving it. With no backup savings, a medical emergency or other unexpected cost could put you into serious debt, making it even harder to break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. Instead of investing everything you can spare, aim for the 50-30-20 rule: 50% of your income should go to monthly needs, 30% to things you want — which may include stocks and other investments — and 20% should go to savings. That ratio serves as a general guideline and can be adjusted if your monthly costs account for more than 50% of your income. For example, a ratio of 75-15-10 can also help you save while slowly building wealth. How much money do you have to invest? It might be less than you think. Remember that all forms of investment come with some level of risk. Whether you're putting money into real estate, stocks or a business, if something goes wrong, you likely have no way of getting those funds back. That's why it's important to set an investment budget before you enter any financial venture. Draw a line between money you can invest and money you can't. Avoid gambling with: Money you need to pay a monthly bill. The 20% (or whatever ratio best suits your budget) that should be set aside for savings each month. Borrowed money. Money that could be used to pay down debt. More From GOBankingRates Surprising Items People Are Stocking Up On Before Tariff Pains Hit: Is It Smart? 6 Big Shakeups Coming to Social Security in 2025 This article originally appeared on 4 Dangers of Trying To Build Wealth Fast Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
An Awkward Truth About American Work
A few years ago, a cheeky meme made the rounds on the internet—a snappy rejoinder to a question about dream jobs: 'I do not dream of labor.' The witticism, sometimes misattributed to James Baldwin, began to spread a few months into the coronavirus pandemic, as the shock of mass layoffs started to give way to broader dissatisfaction with work. Before long, an untethering from office culture, combined with the security of a tight labor market, led many workers to quit their 9-to-5 jobs. Nobody, Kim Kardashian declared, wanted to work anymore—but that wasn't exactly true. More plausibly, the "Great Resignation" marked a shift—perhaps a permanent one—in when, where, and how people wanted to work. Moments of cultural change present openings for cons. Early in the pandemic, the number of multi-level-marketing schemes (or MLMs) exploded online. Such enterprises invite non-salaried workers to sell goods and then also earn commissions by recruiting more salespeople; the Federal Trade Commission has over the years outlined subtle legal differences between MLMs and pyramid schemes. As millions of Americans lost or quit jobs, MLM advocates on the internet made an enticing pitch: Work as we knew it wasn't cutting it anymore; other options were out there. Framing the chance to hawk leggings or makeup or 'mentorship' as an opportunity that could yield flexible income and a sense of community, they promised a kind of life that was too good to be true. A few years ago, the journalist Bridget Read started looking into the outfits behind such appeals. Initially, by her own account, Read couldn't really understand how MLMs worked. But some big questions stuck with her—among them, why exactly they were legal. She lays out what she's learned in her engaging new book, Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America, which exposes some awkward truths about the nature of American work. Weaving in sympathetic portrayals of women who lost money and friends after working with MLM schemes, she recasts them as victims of a multigenerational swindle. [Read: LuLaRich reveals a hole in the American economy] MLM participants surely drive their friends and family crazy with their hard sells; they are also, in Read's telling, marks. She cites a 2011 analysis that found that 99 percent of participants in one MLM lost money, and she exhaustively catalogs the predations of the sector writ large. Read writes with scorn about the industry's early architects, who made outrageous health claims and touted their companies' 'profits pyramid,' and about right-wing opportunists who expanded MLMs' power and reach—especially the founders of Amway, a massive company with connections to Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. But she never disparages her sources, whose stories of drained bank accounts and dashed dreams she portrays only with empathy. She threads the tale of a pseudonymous Mary Kay seller, a military veteran struggling to make ends meet, throughout the book. The woman loses more than $75,000. These vignettes keep the human toll of the schemes top of mind. Read's indictment of MLM outfits is predictable enough, but her research also reveals how much corporate America has in common with this shady economy, which has long been dismissed as a kooky sideshow. Corporations have borrowed from the methods of MLM companies—hiring large, contingent workforces; pushing employees to think like entrepreneurs; and lobbying hard for friendlier regulations. MLMs turn out to be more closely aligned with the center of corporate life (and political power) than many people might like to think. A key innovation of the industry was to rely on a fleet of temporary workers. During the Great Depression, when Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration was expanding the social safety net and implementing muscular work protections, an organization then called the National Association of Direct Selling Companies agitated for a carve-out that would designate salespeople as 'independent contractors' rather than employees. Historically, such contractors had occupied a tiny niche, but in a time of expanding regulation, classifying workers in this way became a handy loophole. This category later set the template for tech start-ups, including Uber and DoorDash, that challenged traditional full-time employers. As of July 2023, about 4 percent of the American workforce had temporary jobs as their main or only role, and an additional 7.4 percent of Americans were independent contractors, according to a survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That percentage may seem small, but it encompasses millions of workers and outnumbers many sectors of employment; other surveys find that tens of millions of Americans do such work for supplemental income too. As Read writes, 'The part-time, low-paid work that direct selling pioneered' now 'defines our current labor market rather than covers its gaps.' The low quality of many legitimate jobs has long provided cover for shadier schemes. Squint, and an MLM racket doesn't look all that different from the work of an influencer or telemarketer or door-to-door-salesman. If a major indictment of MLMs is that many of their contractors don't seem to actually sell much at all, well—the same could be said of many other jobs today. And the gig economy isn't walled off from the rest: Many Americans still have full-time, union-eligible jobs, but a lot of them dip into temporary or part-time work to make ends meet. The Mary Kay annual meeting features a special cheering moment for teachers who sell makeup on the side. [Read: When multilevel marketing met Gen Z] Many of the messages that MLMs adopt to reel in workers rely on a central contradiction, criticizing the corporate grind while extolling the free market. Amway recruiters, for one, have explicitly used anti-establishment language in their pitch: When you're working a 9-to-5, you are in the 'rut,' but when you break free and set your own hours, you are living 'the dream.' In fact, you are often forsaking security for precarity—or worse. As Read and others have written, the opportunity quickly becomes a disaster for all but a very lucky few. MLMs and their boosters deny that the companies are pyramid-shaped—Amway, according to one hagiographer, is shaped more like 'a flower.' But each, in Read's telling, also takes the form of a fun-house mirror. Throughout the history of MLMs, contractions and collapses in the broader economy have been good for them. Direct selling was hailed as 'counter-cyclical' and 'depression-proof' during the 1930s, Read notes. In the 1970s, widespread white-collar layoffs and looming stagflation presented another opening. 'In the direct selling business hard times are good times,' the founders of Amway wrote in a 1974 edition of their corporate magazine. In more recent decades, the sector's free-market ethos dovetailed with new cultural moods: MLMs both shaped and reinforced the values of the greed-is-good 1980s, as well as the self-help-obsessed aughts and the 'grindset' ethos that followed the 2008 recession. Seizing opportunities to grow businesses is, of course, what companies have always done. But this industry seized them to advance practices that flirted with, and sometimes qualified as, outright fraud. Read ably explains why these businesses have appealed to generations of underpaid and insecure American workers, and she argues that it's not greed or stupidity that drives people (especially women juggling family responsibilities) into the arms of the schemes but the decline of middle-class stability. MLM opportunities promise what American jobs used to: security, freedom, dignity. Those promises have consistently failed to materialize. But the fact that so many are desperate to get in on the schemes each year is not a credit to the broader job market. A person well served by the economy is unlikely to salivate at the prospect of making extra cash by pushing lipsticks on the side. Today, many workers at more conventional jobs face the havoc of just-in-time scheduling and inconsistent shifts; these employees seek out more flexible arrangements in spite of their downsides. In Read's telling, MLMs are a toxin masquerading as a cure. Among their many ruses is their insistence on a message of empowerment: that participants are 'bosses' or 'owners.' What makes this easier to pull off is the fact that MLM outfits don't have the kind of central, visible leader the public associates with many higher-profile schemes—no Sam Bankman-Fried or Bernie Madoff or Elizabeth Holmes. Read names the leaders who benefit, and in doing so, she delivers a damning portrait of those who take advantage—and she humanizes the people they rip off. Investigating an industry notorious for doublespeak and euphemism, she calls things what they are. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
21-05-2025
- Business
- Atlantic
The Shadowy Industry That Shaped American Work
A few years ago, a cheeky meme made the rounds on the internet—a snappy rejoinder to a question about dream jobs: 'I do not dream of labor.' The witticism, sometimes misattributed to James Baldwin, began to spread a few months into the coronavirus pandemic, as the shock of mass layoffs started to give way to broader dissatisfaction with work. Before long, an untethering from office culture, combined with the security of a tight labor market, led many workers to quit their 9-to-5 jobs. Nobody, Kim Kardashian declared, wanted to work anymore—but that wasn't exactly true. More plausibly, the "Great Resignation" marked a shift—perhaps a permanent one—in when, where, and how people wanted to work. Moments of cultural change present openings for cons. Early in the pandemic, the number of multi-level-marketing schemes (or MLMs) exploded online. Such enterprises invite non-salaried workers to sell goods and then also earn commissions by recruiting more salespeople; the Federal Trade Commission has over the years outlined subtle legal differences between MLMs and pyramid schemes. As millions of Americans lost or quit jobs, MLM advocates on the internet made an enticing pitch: Work as we knew it wasn't cutting it anymore; other options were out there. Framing the chance to hawk leggings or makeup or 'mentorship' as an opportunity that could yield flexible income and a sense of community, they promised a kind of life that was too good to be true. A few years ago, the journalist Bridget Read started looking into the outfits behind such appeals. Initially, by her own account, Read couldn't really understand how MLMs worked. But some big questions stuck with her—among them, why exactly they were legal. She lays out what she's learned in her engaging new book, Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America, which exposes some awkward truths about the nature of American work. Weaving in sympathetic portrayals of women who lost money and friends after working with MLM schemes, she recasts them as victims of a multigenerational swindle. MLM participants surely drive their friends and family crazy with their hard sells; they are also, in Read's telling, marks. She cites a 2011 analysis that found that 99 percent of participants in one MLM lost money, and she exhaustively catalogs the predations of the sector writ large. Read writes with scorn about the industry's early architects, who made outrageous health claims and touted their companies' 'profits pyramid,' and about right-wing opportunists who expanded MLMs' power and reach—especially the founders of Amway, a massive company with connections to Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. But she never disparages her sources, whose stories of drained bank accounts and dashed dreams she portrays only with empathy. She threads the tale of a pseudonymous Mary Kay seller, a military veteran struggling to make ends meet, throughout the book. The woman loses more than $75,000. These vignettes keep the human toll of the schemes top of mind. Read's indictment of MLM outfits is predictable enough, but her research also reveals how much corporate America has in common with this shady economy, which has long been dismissed as a kooky sideshow. Corporations have borrowed from the methods of MLM companies—hiring large, contingent workforces; pushing employees to think like entrepreneurs; and lobbying hard for friendlier regulations. MLMs turn out to be more closely aligned with the center of corporate life (and political power) than many people might like to think. A key innovation of the industry was to rely on a fleet of temporary workers. During the Great Depression, when Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration was expanding the social safety net and implementing muscular work protections, an organization then called the National Association of Direct Selling Companies agitated for a carve-out that would designate salespeople as 'independent contractors' rather than employees. Historically, such contractors had occupied a tiny niche, but in a time of expanding regulation, classifying workers in this way became a handy loophole. This category later set the template for tech start-ups, including Uber and DoorDash, that challenged traditional full-time employers. As of July 2023, about 4 percent of the American workforce had temporary jobs as their main or only role, and an additional 7.4 percent of Americans were independent contractors, according to a survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That percentage may seem small, but it encompasses millions of workers and outnumbers many sectors of employment; other surveys find that tens of millions of Americans do such work for supplemental income too. As Read writes, 'The part-time, low-paid work that direct selling pioneered' now 'defines our current labor market rather than covers its gaps.' The low quality of many legitimate jobs has long provided cover for shadier schemes. Squint, and an MLM racket doesn't look all that different from the work of an influencer or telemarketer or door-to-door-salesman. If a major indictment of MLMs is that many of their contractors don't seem to actually sell much at all, well—the same could be said of many other jobs today. And the gig economy isn't walled off from the rest: Many Americans still have full-time, union-eligible jobs, but a lot of them dip into temporary or part-time work to make ends meet. The Mary Kay annual meeting features a special cheering moment for teachers who sell makeup on the side. Many of the messages that MLMs adopt to reel in workers rely on a central contradiction, criticizing the corporate grind while extolling the free market. Amway recruiters, for one, have explicitly used anti-establishment language in their pitch: When you're working a 9-to-5, you are in the 'rut,' but when you break free and set your own hours, you are living 'the dream.' In fact, you are often forsaking security for precarity—or worse. As Read and others have written, the opportunity quickly becomes a disaster for all but a very lucky few. MLMs and their boosters deny that the companies are pyramid-shaped—Amway, according to one hagiographer, is shaped more like 'a flower.' But each, in Read's telling, also takes the form of a fun-house mirror. Throughout the history of MLMs, contractions and collapses in the broader economy have been good for them. Direct selling was hailed as 'counter-cyclical' and 'depression-proof' during the 1930s, Read notes. In the 1970s, widespread white-collar layoffs and looming stagflation presented another opening. 'In the direct selling business hard times are good times,' the founders of Amway wrote in a 1974 edition of their corporate magazine. In more recent decades, the sector's free-market ethos dovetailed with new cultural moods: MLMs both shaped and reinforced the values of the greed-is-good 1980s, as well as the self-help-obsessed aughts and the 'grindset' ethos that followed the 2008 recession. Seizing opportunities to grow businesses is, of course, what companies have always done. But this industry seized them to advance practices that flirted with, and sometimes qualified as, outright fraud. Read ably explains why these businesses have appealed to generations of underpaid and insecure American workers, and she argues that it's not greed or stupidity that drives people (especially women juggling family responsibilities) into the arms of the schemes but the decline of middle-class stability. MLM opportunities promise what American jobs used to: security, freedom, dignity. Those promises have consistently failed to materialize. But the fact that so many are desperate to get in on the schemes each year is not a credit to the broader job market. A person well served by the economy is unlikely to salivate at the prospect of making extra cash by pushing lipsticks on the side. Today, many workers at more conventional jobs face the havoc of just-in-time scheduling and inconsistent shifts; these employees seek out more flexible arrangements in spite of their downsides. In Read's telling, MLMs are a toxin masquerading as a cure. Among their many ruses is their insistence on a message of empowerment: that participants are 'bosses' or 'owners.' What makes this easier to pull off is the fact that MLM outfits don't have the kind of central, visible leader the public associates with many higher-profile schemes—no Sam Bankman-Fried or Bernie Madoff or Elizabeth Holmes. Read names the leaders who benefit, and in doing so, she delivers a damning portrait of those who take advantage—and she humanizes the people they rip off. Investigating an industry notorious for doublespeak and euphemism, she calls things what they are.
