Online Business Opportunities Reviewed

I don't know how many times I have seen people cringe when I bring up the term "MLM" or "Pyramid Scheme".  It makes me laugh because those very same people who turn their noses up when they hear these terms are incredibly naive.  What they don't realise is they are already involved in one or more "Pyramid" or "MLM" situations in their very own lives, but they obviously have no idea.

I generally don't like to tell my friends what I am doing on the internet because of this "taboo".  The fact is the World is just one incredibly huge Pyramid scheme, with many smaller pyramids within it.  No one can escape this unfortunate fact.

How many times have you heard it said that 10% of the world control 90% of the world's money.  Why is that ? Because those 10% are at the top of the big "World Pyramid Scheme".

Let me break it down into smaller pyramids first to make it easier to understand.  First of all, if you are in any type of Sales job then that is the most obvious pyramid scheme out there.  I used to sell computers at a place called Future Shop.  A massive chain in Canada who were bought out by Best Buy.  We were minimum wage workers but we earned commission on our sales.  If our commissions were worth more than the minimum wage then we were paid commission.  If we didn't sell very much, then we were paid minimum wage for the number of hours we worked.

"Now hang on a minute !" I hear you say ! "Pyramid schemes don't pay anyone per hour.  That's a real job and not a pyramid scheme !" - Let me finish ... When I sold something I made a commission right ? Yes, but how did my department manager earn his salary ?  He never sold anything he only managed us.  So where is the money coming from that kept him in his lifestyle that was slightly above mine ? That money came from ME and my coworkers.  Do you see the pyramid forming yet ? What about the Store Manager ?  The guy who spent most of the day in his office watching the numbers go up and in turn his Salary.  Where did he get the cash to pay his paycheck - again from me and my coworkers.  We were the guys in the front line, in the trenches or in Pyramid Scheme terms at the bottom of the Pyramid.  The Dept Managers, Store Managers and in turn the District and Regional Managers and then eventually the CEO and share holders all made their money from me and my coworkers all over the country.  We were the one's making the sales, pushing extended warranties down the customers throats yet others were getting rich off our hard work.  If that's not a pyramid then what is ?

Yes, we had a guaranteed wage, however how many weeks do you think I would have been able to keep my job if my sales were always so low that the company had to pay me the minimum wage ? Not many let me tell you.  Anyone who made minimum wage was a liability to the company and it wouldn't be long until they were let go.  I never had this problem as I was always one of the top salesman in the store.  I made a pretty decent wage from my sales.  However, so did everyone else above me in the pyramid.

Sales jobs to me are just the most obvious mini pyramid scheme one can see in their everyday life.  Now let's look at another.

I don't know about you but I've never had enough money to buy a house so I have always had to rent.  If you rent a house then you are just at the bottom of another pyramid scheme.  Your monthly rent goes to your landlord who is one level above you in this pyramid scheme.  The landlord makes money off of you, but you have nothing to show for it in the long run.  Just a temporary place to live.  Now if that landlord has a mortgage then he has to use some or maybe all of that rent money to feed the next level above him in the pyramid scheme - the bank !  The bank of course is in itself another massive pyramid scheme with its own levels of minimum wage tellers to the managers, district managers CEO and shareholders etc.  Who is above them do you ask ? Well of course who is at the top of most of the mini pyramid schemes we see everyday ? The Government ie taxes !!!

But that's not the end of it.  Most of the population are at the bottom of MANY pyramid schemes.  For example where do you buy your groceries ?  You again are just feeding the "Grocery Chain Pyramid Scheme", and also the "Cable Company Pyramid" and the "Telephone Company Pyramid" etc etc

The only people that are likely part of the LEAST number of pyramid schemes are perhaps the Amish, or maybe natives living in the jungle who live off the land.  But even there I am sure if we analysed their lives we would find pyramids of some sort as there are always hierarchies no matter where we look.

What is worst about this Massive World Pyramid is it is incredibly hard to move up.  There is only so much money in the world and in order to move up the pyramid one or more people must move down.  It's absolutely impossible for everyone in the world to be rich.  We can only have rich by having poor.  No other way is possible.  So if you find yourself becoming more and more wealthy go out and thank a few homeless people for allowing you to have that privilege.

How do you think the world would function if one day all the minimum wage workers decided not to go to work ? What would all the rich people do ? How could they enjoy their wonderfully rich lifestyles without minimum wage workers to keep the "machine" running and continuing to make them rich ?

Think about your average minimum wage worker.  Does he have any money left over at the end of the month ? He's lucky if he even has enough to live off of nevermind money for spending.  He spends 50% or more on rent and the rest goes to buy food, clothes and various necessities.  All the money he earns from being at the bottom of a Corporate Pyramid is just used to feed other Corporate Pyramids which in turn make someone ELSE RICHER.

This world has been set up to keep people in that position also.  For example look at the Gas companies.  They make gross amounts of profits each month.  Can they afford to drop their prices ? Of course they can, but why should they ? People need gas and are willing to pay almost any price to get it.  Could they afford to pay the minimum wage gas attendants more money ? Of course, but why would they cut their profits ?  If everyone works together and co-operates then we can keep the world just the way it is - unfair !

The internet opens up a whole new virtual world whereby one can possibly change their stars.  Because it's fairly new ground and fairly open territory it's possible someone who is on the bottom of a corporate pyramid in the real world can rise up to the top of an online virtual pyramid.  But the principles here are just the same.  In order to make a living or become rich online you need to make a lot of people a little bit poorer. ie get them to part with some money for one reason or another.  In the real world it's daily necessities like food, electricity and water that pyramids exist around and make the people at the top rich.  On the internet it's not exactly necessities as we don't really have any online neccessities.  But there are many products like web hosting, e-books etc.

The world's resources and fortunes are a bit like what I learned in Physics class about energy.  Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change form.  The world's money is a lot like that.  We cannot create or destroy money but can only change the way in which it is distributed.  So we just end up pushing and shoving for a bigger piece of the pie, but there's only so much pie.  By getting a bigger piece you merely deprive someone else of theirs.

The pattern of course is not poor people taking pieces of the pie from the rich and evening out the playing field, but it's the rich taking more and more from the poor and just widening the gap.

To illustrate this just ask your parents or Grandparents a simple question.  What PERCENTAGE, don't ask for figures as this doesn't work, but what PERCENTAGE of their pay went to their rent or mortgage ? What PERCENTAGE was required to buy a loaf of bread, or a car or a litre of gas ?  I am quite certain you will find it's a lot less then what we pay now.  I remember my father telling me he could have bought a house for the equivalent of 1 years salary, and he was just an average carpenter.  Do you think a Carpenter could buy a house today with one years salary ?

What does that tell you ?  It shows that the rich have just squeezed more out of the masses to make themselves even richer.

Something that really winds me up is these TV shows asking people for money to help the poor.  Then the rich celebrities appear on these shows as heros going to Africa and what not, handing out mosquito nets or whatever.  After all that what do they do ? They appeal to the MASSES to donate money.  Holy Crap ! That rich celebrity is one of the main reasons why those people in Africa are starving !!! If all the rich were to pool their resources together and distrubute it evenly to the world, we wouldn't have any starving people.  We would just have a world full of people who all had the same size house and same size car etc, but no one would be starving or dying of easily curable diseases etc.  I really dislike it when the rich ask the poorer people to solve the problems the rich have created.  It just adds insult to injury.

But like the Lemmings that we are we still donate because we want to help the people who are poorer than us.  Oh, but maybe you would like to defend the celebrities that do this humane work.  Don't they give money themselves to help ? Yes many of them do, but how much do they actually give ? If one of those celebrities appears on the TV and makes themselves out to be a hero, and maybe even give a few hundred thousand of his/her own money.  What happens ? First of all they get at least half back as a tax break you can be sure about that.  Further you can be sure that album sales will get a nice boost after that appearance as people go out and buy their album.  So in the long run, charity appearances can actually turn out to be quite profitable.  How ironic !

So next time someone mentions they are involved in a Pyramid Scheme or a Multi Level Marketing Scheme, don't be so quick to turn your nose up.  They aren't doing anything other people aren't already doing in the real world (all be it more disguised).  We shouldn't look down upon them for trying to climb up the Massive Pyramid Scheme we call this world.  We all want to climb up higher, but just remember in order to do so, you need to take some food from someone else mouth.   Further, it's more likely that mouth will be someone who is not already rich.