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Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!osu-eddie!karl
From: karl@osu-eddie.UUCP (Karl Kleinpaste)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Social Security and other pyramids
Message-ID: <854@osu-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Nov-85 07:55:26 EST
Article-I.D.: osu-eddi.854
Posted: Thu Nov 21 07:55:26 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 26-Nov-85 21:27:41 EST
References: <645@drutx.UUCP>
Reply-To: karl@osu-eddie.UUCP (Karl Kleinpaste)
Organization: OSU
Lines: 27
Keywords: Amway as pyramid: Probably not.

In article <645@drutx.UUCP> dlo@drutx.UUCP (OlsonDL) writes:
>>Social Security has several important differences from pyramid schemes
>>such as Amway.
>
>SS is still a pyramid.  Bringing up Amway as another does not change
>that.

I suggest that you look up the legal findings of several U.S. courts
with respect to Amway's supposed pyramid tendencies.  They have won
such battles at least twice that I am aware of (I have a friend who
was an Amway distributor for some time; he kept me informed of such
details).  The difference between Amway and a pyramid is that, under a
pyramid, the inductee at the bottom has no hope of recovering his
money *unless* he gets other suckers to join in.  Amway, on the other
hand, sees to it that even the highest level distributors (with many
people under them) still have to sell merchandise themselves, and at
some minimum amount in order to keep their distributor-ownership
status.  Thus, these high-level distributors can still make a living
*without* those other underlings; they are not strictly dependent on
underlings.  That's why Amway has successfully fought such claims in
the past.

I seem to recall that Amway was actually found guilty of being a
pyramid once in Canada, but the definition of a pyramid in Canada is
somewhat different from the U.S.' definition.
-- 
Karl Kleinpaste