{"id":43586,"date":"2022-09-20T20:09:11","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T01:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=43586"},"modified":"2025-05-28T07:26:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T13:26:40","slug":"scams-in-zion-part-ii-mlms-and-utah-socio-religious-elites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2022\/09\/scams-in-zion-part-ii-mlms-and-utah-socio-religious-elites\/","title":{"rendered":"Scams in Zion, Part II: MLMs and Utah Socio-Religious Elites"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s sort of an open secret that Utah has a pyramid scheme<\/del> multilevel marketing\u00a0problem. MLMs prey on financially vulnerable people and get them to weaken their personal connections\u2013the most important thing in life and during a time when such precious connections are in increasingly short supply\u2013for very little money, and some MLMs layer dubious, snake-oil type medical claims on top of their immoral distribution approach. It\u2019s nauseating on so many levels.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While I have no reason to doubt the conventional wisdom of Utah having a lot of MLMs, I decided to back-of-the-envelope quantify it. We don\u2019t have access to the internal \u201cindependent distributor\u201d numbers, but we can look at how many of the large MLMs are based out of Utah. I looked at the 75 MLMs listed in Wikipedia (I know, I know, but for stuff like this Wikipedia is usually pretty good, and I figured that being listed in Wikipedia was a basic threshold for size and importance). Of the 75 listed, 12 of them are from Utah or are clearly LDS connected (e.g. LuLaRoe), or 16%. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Given that Utah and Latter-day Saints are both about 1% of the US population each (with a lot of overlap, obviously), we are very overrepresented. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So yes, we have a problem. Also, I\u2019m aware, as I\u2019ve said many times, that Utah does not equal the Church, but it\u2019s harder to argue against some underlying connection with Utah-Church culture when a lot of these MLM executives hold leadership positions in the Church (and many of them donate generously to signature Utah institutions, which is probably one major reason why it\u2019s gentile late night talk show<\/a> hosts that have to call us out on this and say what a lot of Utah’s social elites know but won’t say<\/span>).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

. From some cursory Googling around:<\/span><\/p>\n