3 ms·

The premise is exactly backwards. Why should the government be able to put a company like Herbalife out of business? Adults should be able to decide for thems

The premise is exactly backwards. Why should the government be able to put a company like Herbalife out of business? Adults should be able to decide for themselves whether to buy products. If they make mistakes by our judgement, which is always very imperfect, that is their business.

p1necone 6y ago
Because Herbalife is not a legitimate business, it's a pyramid scheme with just enough details tweaked to not quite count as one under existing legislation. Do you think people should be able to buy in to Ponzi schemes, or give money to people running three card monte games on the roadside too?
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  Ponzi schemes require deception and fraud. Unless Herbalife is defrauding people, which MLM’s typically do not, there is no comparison. They are an inefficient allocation of resources for the person investing their time and money, but the same could be said of many, many other endeavors. I’d rather resource be spent to teach people how to properly calculate ROI and IRR.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
"Adults should be able to avoid scams/fraud" is a policy that only enriches scammers and fraudsters. There is zero upside to society for people to be parted from their money (further, for scammers to receive that money) because they don't know about every single scam or because they were unable to do adequate research. Btw, Herbalife points to the fact that it's not shut down as evidence that it's legit. And its onboarding process is 100% high-pressure sales wringer to make you feel like you're about to make big money. This crap is even more in-the-open here in Mexico, the same country with homeopathy "pharmacies" on every block staffed by people in white lab coats ready to sell you a vial of water that will cure your cancer.
millstone 6y ago
You have misunderstood. The victims here are not consumers, they are the employees - the sales agents. The main activity of Herbalife is recruiting. A Herbalife job posting may talk about selling supplements. But if you work for Herbalife, your real job is to find more people to work for Herbalife. The supplement sales are only a cover. The reason these companies should be put out of business is that they are pyramid scams, frauds to their very core.

p1necone 6y ago

Because Herbalife is not a legitimate business, it's a pyramid scheme with just enough details tweaked to not quite count as one under existing legislation. Do you think people should be able to buy in to Ponzi schemes, or give money to people running three card monte games on the roadside too?

lotsofpulp 6y ago
Ponzi schemes require deception and fraud. Unless Herbalife is defrauding people, which MLM’s typically do not, there is no comparison. They are an inefficient allocation of resources for the person investing their time and money, but the same could be said of many, many other endeavors. I’d rather resource be spent to teach people how to properly calculate ROI and IRR.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

"Adults should be able to avoid scams/fraud" is a policy that only enriches scammers and fraudsters. There is zero upside to society for people to be parted from their money (further, for scammers to receive that money) because they don't know about every single scam or because they were unable to do adequate research. Btw, Herbalife points to the fact that it's not shut down as evidence that it's legit. And its onboarding process is 100% high-pressure sales wringer to make you feel like you're about to make big money. This crap is even more in-the-open here in Mexico, the same country with homeopathy "pharmacies" on every block staffed by people in white lab coats ready to sell you a vial of water that will cure your cancer.

millstone 6y ago

You have misunderstood. The victims here are not consumers, they are the employees - the sales agents. The main activity of Herbalife is recruiting. A Herbalife job posting may talk about selling supplements. But if you work for Herbalife, your real job is to find more people to work for Herbalife. The supplement sales are only a cover. The reason these companies should be put out of business is that they are pyramid scams, frauds to their very core.