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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Little-Known Link Between Multilevel Marketing and Project 2025
It's a scenario that's all too common in Instagram DMs and on Facebook Messenger: An old acquaintance with whom you haven't spoken in years messages you out of the blue, usually with something like, 'Hey hun!' But this person's not trying to catch up — they're trying to sell you something. And that's all because of the multilevel marketing business they recently joined. When you think of multilevel marketing, you probably conjure up images of the past few decades: Mary Kay makeup, Pampered Chef cookware, or Tupperware parties in '50s and '60s living rooms. But in her new book, Little Bosses Everywhere, NY Magazine journalist Bridget Read explains that the origins of MLM actually go back almost as far as the founding of America — and that, rather than exemplifying the American individualistic spirit, these companies helped shape the national identity. We spoke to Read about what most people get wrong about multilevel marketing, the difference between MLMs and fraudulent schemes, and this industry's global influence — and its close ties to Project 2025. Bridget Read: I did a short article for New York Magazine about multi-level marketing companies during the pandemic, and it left me with more questions than answers. In describing how MLM works for an article-length piece, I had to skip over so many things that don't make sense about the business model. Ultimately, I realized that you need a whole book to tell the story of multilevel marketing, because it's a story as old as the American project itself. That's definitely the industry's definition, but what I learned in my research is that what you're actually getting paid for are the purchases of sellers under you. The Multilevel Marketing Company is only tracking how much my 'downline,' the group of people I've recruited to sell more products, is buying. In theory, that could be a mix of customers and participants. However, there is considerable evidence that suggests most people buying inside MLMs are themselves participants. MLMS treat those purchases as sales because, in theory, an MLMer can go out and resell the products. That's what they're supposed to be doing. But in reality, most of them have a ton of products lying around at home. The revenue comes from recruiting people, and what those recruits are buying. So there really aren't product sales happening in the way you think there are. Just think about how strange that is: The idea that anyone would buy these expensive products in this weird way from a friend, where they're sort of harassing you online? It doesn't make any sense as a business model. The products can be good, but where MLM falls into fraud and certain companies have been prosecuted as pyramid schemes is the concept of the business opportunity. That's the part that, over and over again, has been found to be often fraudulent, because the idea that it's relatively easy to make money is not true. [They sell the idea that] with this little investment, you can then build a team where you're making a living from doing that. When really, the people who continue to make a living from doing it, statistically and overwhelmingly, do it by recruiting new participants. There's a lot of really intense in-group association that makes people compare MLMs to cults. You're using your own kind of language, and they're plying you with positive attention, so you feel like you're part of a family. Also, many of these companies have a policy against what they call crosslining, which is that you're not supposed to talk to anybody who's at your level. And you're definitely not supposed to send negativity down to your downline. That creates this sort of Draconian environment, where nobody's complaining and nobody shares when they're losing money. That makes it really hard to dissent, to ask questions, and ultimately, to leave. When people do leave, then there's a lot of pressure [for those still inside] to cut those people out. Most people I've spoken to who leave MLMs are cut out of chats; their friends stop talking to them. You really do feel like you're being cut out of your family, so that also makes people really afraid to speak out. Women's positions are much more precarious in the labor market than men, and have been for a long time. During the '60s and '70s, many more women went to work, but statistically in the United States they went to work in the industries and areas where labor is much more fragile: retail, the service industry, clerk-type work, secretaries. These jobs are not very secure, wage-earning jobs. The people in them are often independent contractors, or they're making minimum wage. They don't get benefits, and they're much more subject to the vicissitudes of the market, layoffs, things like that. So that means more women are stuck at home; often, they're doing childcare, too. They are simply more vulnerable to the pitch that you can make a living from home, that it's flexible, and that you're not subject to clocking in somewhere every day, which often does conflict with childcare. MLM flourishes among all kinds of women. According to the FTC, there is such a thing as legitimate multi-level marketing, which stems from a decision made by the FTC in 1979, called the Amway Decision. Amway was, and still is, the world's largest MLM, and the most politically powerful and influential one. Betsy DeVos's father-in-law, Rich DeVos, is one of the founders of Amway, along with his partner, Jay Van Andel. Amway comes from the same line of old MLMs that created some of the companies in the seventies that were found to be pyramid schemes. When the FTC sued, Amway argued that there were rules in place that kept the company from being a pyramid scheme. They claimed [as a seller] you had to have a certain amount of customers, you had to have 70% of your products resold, or you wouldn't get any commissions. They also claimed that Amway bought back any products you weren't able to sell, and the FTC decided that they would accept those rules without any evidence — Amway didn't have to prove that its rules were enforced. They didn't have to prove how many of their recruits make a living from actually selling the products. The FTC accepted Amway's word that it regulated itself. Herbalife was another huge MLM that the FTC eventually sued. Though the company settled, the FTC found that the overwhelming majority of Herbalife participants did not make money, and many of them lost money. Herbalife was sued for $200 million and supposedly restructured their business. But again, there's really very little evidence that the enforcement has changed much, and so the idea of legitimate MLM is still a gray area — which is why the FTC website basically warns people not to participate in them, even though they're technically allowed. Part of what led to the Amway decision was that, by the time the judge was making his ruling, DeVos, Van Andel, and Amway were already incredibly powerful political entities. They are Calvinist Christians from Michigan; the Congressman from their district was Gerald Ford. By the time Ford was president, they were very close to him and were big donors. Then they backed Ronald Reagan, who obviously became president in 1980. During that time they were very influential, sending a lot of money to the Republican party and to think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. Since then, they've continued to be one of the largest dark-money donors in the Republican party — just like the Mercers and the Kochs. Betsy DeVos, even long before she was confirmed as education secretary, said in a speech in the '90s, 'My family is one of the largest donors to the Republican party, and now we're going to get something in return.' So, they've used their influence to help pass the policies that they want, which largely hew to an ultra-conservative free-enterprise philosophy. That includes making the government very small, deregulating all kinds of industries, increasing privatization, and lowering taxes. They contributed money to Elon Musk's PAC this election cycle, and what DOGE is doing really closely aligns with their vision of the government. They also donate a substantial amount to the Heritage Foundation, and Project 2025 aligns closely with their views. So what we're seeing happening in the Trump administration is a big part of the ideology that powered multilevel marketing. Yes. Barb Van Andel-Gaby, who is Jay Van Andel's daughter, is the chairman of the board of the Heritage Foundation, and when she inducted Kevin Roberts — who wrote the introduction to Project 2025 — she literally said, 'He is going to increase our influence on Capitol Hill.' Project 2025 includes exactly what Betsy DeVos said about the Education Department, which is that she wanted to eliminate it. It has a whole section on independent contractors, and MLM relies on as loose independent contractor laws as possible. They want to significantly limit the FTC's ability to regulate private companies and private enterprises, which would obviously greatly benefit MLMs. I hope everyone picks up this book, because so much of what has happened in our country in the last 40 to 50 years in terms of the widening inequality gap actually comes from the ideology that multilevel marketing has spread throughout the United States — and now the world, since the majority of MLM participants are actually overseas. That ideology is one of ruthless individual pursuit of wealth, and that instead of critiquing that inequality gap, [MLM philosophy says] we can all just keep going in our own little side hustles, and we all have the chance to be our own kind of Bezos one day. MLM conventions are extremely insular events. Typically, you have to be part of an organization to attend. I did not join Mary Kay, but I ended up going to the convention, and relying on the fact that I'm a white blonde woman who can blend in with the crowd. It was a really wild experience, but it also made me feel much more sympathetic and empathetic toward the women who do it. I was moved by a lot of the stories of redemption and success, even though many of them are probably not true — I've spoken to and seen a lot of evidence of women in Mary Kay and other MLMs who've been celebrated for their sales, but end up actually having simply spent a lot of money. One woman whom I spoke to at length about her journey in Mary Kay was championed as a saleswoman, but she was just spending and spending and spending. She ultimately spent more than $75,000 on Mary Kay products over a decade. The post The Little-Known Link Between Multilevel Marketing and Project 2025 appeared first on Katie Couric Media.
Buzz Feed
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
People Who "Accidentally" Caught Their Spouses Cheating Are Exposing What Happened, And My Jaw Is On The Floor For Some Of These
A while back, we wrote about people who accidentally found out their partners were cheating, and the responses ranged from absolutely gut-wrenching to shocking. Then, some readers even shared their own W I L D stories with us, too. Here are the best ones: 1. "I was looking through the Instagram photos of a local event that had taken place the previous weekend. I came across a picture of his dog, but it wasn't me holding the leash." —Anonymous, 34, Maryland 2. "Got an email sent to my work email that said: 'Sorry, I didn't know he was married.' Found out later she was just one of many, including someone who was a close friend." —Anonymous, 43, US 3. "My husband of seven years and father of my two kids came home at lunch on Valentine's Day and used my computer to check his email. He accidentally left it logged in, he was emailing a coworker whom he had bought a pink iPod for Valentine's, and had called me a 'tax deduction.' I called him just as he was about to address his entire company and told him not to come home." —Anonymous, 50, Colorado 4. "I was at home watching TV when the evening news was broadcasting from the Horseshoe Bar for an annual festival. My husband was in the background with his friend and his fiancée, and with his arm around another woman. She was the cousin of his friend's fiancée, and she was the daughter of a local dentist. It had been going on for a while. She knew he was married. They had coupled up and went on vacation together to Chicago for a weekend, and were meeting up. I had given him a pager, and when I got the bill she had paged him over 600 times in the month. She called the house frequently and hung up. She was driving by my home. I'll never understand the women who seek out married men for attention." —Anonymous, 57, Cleveland, OH 5. "Back when Pampered Chef home parties were really popular, I bought their can opener. This particular brand worked differently from most can openers and took a little practice to learn how to use. The first day I had it, my husband pulled it out of the drawer and immediately used it correctly. No second thought. I immediately knew he'd been spending enough time at another woman's house that he knew how to use that can opener. Turns out I was right!" —Anonymous, 50, North Carolina 6. "After suspecting my wife, I went to the store and bought a small voice recorder. One evening, before heading out to play hockey, I placed it away from eyes' view to record. When I came back that evening, I listened to what was lo and behold, she had an intimate conversation over the phone with a coworker...I'll spare the content. I confronted her with confessed." —Anonymous, 58, Canada 7. "She had ordered DoorDash for us and fell asleep before our food was even picked up. I grabbed her phone to check the delivery status and absentmindedly started closing all the apps like I do with my own phone when I saw her texts open with some guy I didn't know. Turns out she had been hooking up with quite a few different people she met on dating apps. Crazy thing is: We were in an open relationship, and I was totally fine with her having other partners, so long as she was honest about it." —Anonymous, 32, California 8. "Married for 12 years. I found a file folder without a label when I was searching the file cabinet for something else. The unmarked folder had some forgettable papers that didn't mean anything, and a printout of an email exchange between my husband and another woman informing him she was pregnant with his child. It went on with a three-page back-and-forth, followed by a birth announcement for baby Eric, my husband's middle name. We stayed married until I was done with cancer treatment. Then I left him (with a note) and emptied the bank account. In retrospect, he may have been cheating the entire time I knew him. Dating, engagement, and marriage." —Anonymous, 57, US 9. "We'd spent a blissful summer together, he told me we were exclusive — then in August, he got sick with a pretty bad respiratory infection. I moved my home office to his house, took care of him, bought groceries, took him to the doctor, and got his meds. At the end of three weeks, he threw me out, saying that now that he was better, he needed some 'creative space.' Turns out he'd been on kink websites for months (in the car, at the lake, at his mother's, while I was taking care of him), communicating with multiple women, and he'd finally arranged a secret hookup with one of them. After the hookup, he called me, told me he missed me, and asked me to come over for dinner. While I was taking out his trash, I found all the evidence of his wild weekend. He confessed and gave me a song and dance about how sorry he was. Then he did exactly the same thing a month later." —Anonymous 10. "I came over to my friend's house an hour early, thinking it was no big deal. When I get to the front door, I knock on it. She didn't answer, so I looked into a window next to the door, and guess what I saw, my husband of one year is kissing my friend." —Anonymous 11. "He was showing me pictures from a work trip — he handed me the phone and told me to scroll. I then found screenshots of his convo with 'Sexxi Sammi,' a sex worker who was accusing him of being a cop. He screenshotted the texts to prove he wasn't the police — I still don't understand why. He was very confused when I explained to him that Sexxi Sammi was not genuinely into him, that she was doing it for money. We were engaged, and I was helping to parent his young kids during the lockdown. Sex work should be legal, and I hope Sexxi Sammi is thriving. I am!" —Anonymous, 40, Kansas City 12. "I was playing a game on his iPad while he was texting vacation plans with his girlfriend on his iPhone. He didn't realize that his Apple ID linked the two devices, so I could see everything in real time. Was married for 15 years and have three kids." —Anonymous, 57, South Carolina 13. "I'm an early riser. I entered my partner's office and noticed the fax machine was out of paper. After I reloaded the machine, it spewed out a lengthy love letter from another woman. I loaded up a rug I loved into my car and left. I took him back a few times and made each escapade more expensive. After a condo, a Mercedes, a big house, I finally left with $1M and called it quits." —Anonymous 14. "I had been very sick and was limited in the distance I could travel at one time. My husband took our 3 and 4-year-olds camping to the town where we were married, just an hour from home. I would pick the kids up at my in-laws' (30 minutes from home), as my husband would ride them up on the bike path. I could not get hold of my husband, so I asked my mother-in-law to tell her son I would stop by to grab the car seats. When I showed up at the campground, my husband was sitting, eating, and drinking wine with another woman. I told my sister I thought he was having an affair! My sister asked if I was sure. I said, 'We've been together for 15 years, and at this point, I'm pretty darn sure!'" "When we arrived at my mother-in-law's house to pick up my children, my kids got in the car, and I asked them about their camping trip. My son was telling me about going on a bat exploration the night before, and that they had camped, and I said, 'Oh, when I was at the campground, their daddy had a friend there.' I asked if she had stayed with them. My oldest child responds, 'Well, yes, of course, Mommy, she always sleeps with us!' I then asked him if she had a nice tent to sleep in, and his comment was, 'Mommy, she always sleeps with us!' So, I asked who she slept with as we had a pop-up camper with two beds, and his response was, 'Oh, Daddy always sleeps with her!' We went back to my sister's house, and her mother-in-law watched my children. After dark, we returned with a huge flashlight to the campsite, catching my husband and his mistress sleeping in the pop-up tent. I asked him to open the camper door, and it took him forever shuffling around. I pulled the top part of the door back and shone the flashlight in, and they had the sleeping bags zipped together and were completely naked. He opened the door and told me that I was being disrespectful to him and his mistress! I went back to my sister's house after I told him that he was no longer welcome at our home, and he called me later that night, telling me that I should be ashamed of myself because his girlfriend went home in tears!" —Anonymous, 60, Ohio 15. "My wife of 35 years was having problems texting our daughter on her iPhone. She handed me her phone and asked me to try to fix it. The problem was the Android vs. iPhone thing, where you had to occasionally resend a text as a SIM. I futzed around with the settings awhile, then decided to scroll recent text to see if there were any I needed to resend. I came across a text thread between her and one of my employees. My stomach sank as I read my wife's words to another man, saying 'I love you, I want you, I need you,' and asking him to come to her as soon as possible. End of story, end of marriage." —Anonymous 16. "I went into his phone to check something. His Telegram account opened up with steamy messages. He'd already been caught a few months ago chatting with this same woman and had gone to therapy and told me he'd shut things down. They'd met online. They were sleeping together shortly after his dad died, and my mom was in the hospital with a broken hip. He'd done the same thing two years before that, too. We're divorced now." —Anonymous, 39, Mumbai 17. "My mom received a phone call asking for her husband. She asked who the caller was and was told 'Mrs. Martin.' He was an over-the-road truck driver and with several women. My mom stopped investigating after finding Mrs. Martin #5. She never spoke to him again. It devastated her." — shaysmith3 18. "We had a great relationship, but I started to notice that he was getting more distant, so I called his mom and asked if she knew if anything was going on, and she said, 'I thought you and him broke up,' and I was like, Hmm, that's weird, 'cause we were still together. She ended up telling me that she walked in on him and my friend about a month earlier." —Anonymous, 29, New York 19. "I went to a concert with friends. He decided to stay home because he didn't want to be out that late. After the concert, I decided to go eat and went to a local restaurant for pick up. There he was in the outside seating area kissing, holding hands, and having dinner with another woman. Needless to say, I lost my appetite and ruined their dinner immediately confronting him." —Anonymous, 61, Indiana 20. "The narcissist boyfriend promised to get a ring and commit after cheating. Instead of getting the ring, he came back on a new motorcycle. As I followed him back to his house, he crashed the motorbike in front of my car and broke his back. In an astonishing example of instant karma, I found out at the hospital that he was full of HPV warts, herpes, and all the rest. I stayed for the surgery and drove away. He lured the other woman back to care for him and pay his bills. I was not infected with his diseases, but I know she is." —Anonymous, 64, LA 21. "Had a woman I lived with for three years tell me that she's spending the night with her sick mother, only to have her 'sick' mother stop by at our house looking for her. I then found a love letter to a guy she worked with. Found his house and caught them both there." —Anonymous 22. "I had gotten back in town after a weekend away. In the morning, I felt something under the covers by my feet. I pulled out a pair of panties that weren't mine. He tried convincing me they were mine, and he even gave me his phone to prove his innocence. This was years ago, and iPhones had only just introduced the hidden folder in the Photos app. I got in there, and there were hundreds of nude photos and evidence of many different women." "He then tried to convince me that it was nothing with one of the girls, by showing me a conversation with her on Instagram chat. He was getting her to prove that they do not talk to each other, and therefore, he never could have cheated. Later, I found on his laptop browser history 'fake Instagram chat generator.' He made the screenshots using a generator to try to get away with his affairs. After we broke up, he continued dating the main girl, whose undies I found by my feet. I wonder if she knew about all the other girls, too." —Anonymous, 29, St Louis 23. And lastly, "I caught my boyfriend of more than two years cheating while I was in the hospital, having just given birth to our baby hours before. His (not-so-ex) wife called my phone asking if the newborn in the photo was his." — unreadysauce405 Did you accidentally catch your partner cheating? What happened? Tell us in the comments below. Or, if you want to remain anonymous, leave a comment using the form below.
