Back in the '90s, wasn’t emu (or ostrich?) farming supposed to be the next big lucrative thing?
More recently, I had a coworker who had a side job at home, raising, feeding, shoveling shit from, and not making any money off of alpacas.
Indeed, there was a small farm near my parents’ old house with rheas, I think actually, and I stayed in a b&b on the Olympic peninsula that had been suckered into the llama thing (apparently they would be used as sheep dogs: their appearance letting them fit in with the herd, but their size and pugnacity defending the herd from predators, although presumably not mountain lions, who subsist on them in South America).
Still, some people made lemonade:
Do you know where that .gif is from? I feel the urge to watch any instructional videos she’s made.
I’ve been seeing a rise in hybrid house flipping MLM outfits lately. It’s gotten bad enough that they are almost as popular a form of phone pole litter as regular house flipping.
good podcast about “mlm” schemes here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/stitcher/the-dream
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
If you need multi-level marketing to sell your mousetrap, then it’s not a better mousetrap.
Also obligatory:
Easy.
The schemer: “I can make you rich! Guaranteed!”
The mark: (runs away)
At the last Job Fair I attended, all the businesses there were just taking resumes and/or directing people to apply on their websites. Complete waste of time.
One company, however was talking to people and asking them to come to a “second interview” right afterwards.
A half dozen others and I met at an office of Primerica and we all sat in the same classroom. Quickly I realized that this was not a job, but a pyramid. I stood up, asked a few pointed questions, which were avoided, and announced to the other “applicants” what was going on, and left.
No one else left. These were desperate, out-of-work people, who refused to be made aware that they were not going to become Financial Advisors. They were to become cold-calling salespeople, with no office, no list of leads, and who would have to pay for their “training” and monthly for access to computer time.
And of course, any sales commissions they made would go primarily to other people.
Multiple people stopped me on my way out to ask me to reconsider. It was all I could do to not punch them out, one by one.
this is a pdf of an article about how pyramid schemes destroyed the albanian economy in the 90s. unfortunately for them, they thought this represented capitalism.
jarvis.pdf (208.9 KB)
Scroll up a few posts, I’ve linked to her youtube channel.
Though if you’re watching her cause she’s “hot”, you’ll likely be disappointed to know she’s a mortician who talks about death, corpses, and dying.
That’s… not what she does.
AFLAC is very much a legitimate insurance company, and no, I don’t work for them. It’s a sales business, and they pay on a 1099, but that is true of every insurance company everywhere. With exceptions.
@Professor59 Primerica is a little more pyramiddy than most, but they are a legit insurance company too. They sell real insurance with pretty much the same prices and the same features as everybody else. They do push the recruiting idea pretty hard, which makes them kind of shady, but if you joined and sold a ton of life insurance and never recruited a soul you’d make a good living. They do make you pony up a few bucks to pay for your background check, but you don’t have to buy product to be hired.
Twenty years ago I started an annual “Donner Party Memorial Potluck Lunch” at my place of employment.
I left there in 2007. The event is still going strong, bigger than ever.
Were they really wrong?
i thought about that after i put up my comment.
??? but it does.
actually, that is kinda hot. at least in my humble opinion.
Great historical book by Mitch Horowitz on the origin of all of this stuff, self help, creative visualization, prosperity gospel the whole shebang: (previously on BoingBoing) https://boingboing.net/2009/09/08/occult-america-the-s.html
