MLM Cults Explained…

The beauty of these schemes is after people fail (and the vast majority do fail), the scheme members who haven’t yet failed blame the victim for their failure. “You didn’t put in enough hours” “You didn’t do it right” “You’re just no good at this” The most sinister aspect of MLM scams is there is no ‘be your own boss’. You’re still working for someone else. That client list you built up after hundreds of hours of harassing coworkers, friends and family? It can likely be taken from you in an instant with no compensation. The most insulting aspect of MLM scams is they go out of their way to insult people working for a living.

It’s extremely ironic to me how the philosophy of almost every MLM is simply a facade of benevolence to cover up their deceitful tactics. Most MLM’s claim to want to help people improve their lives but immediately put them down and degrade them when they choose to call out the company and its tactics by saying “they didn’t work hard enough” or something of that sort.

The thing about MLMs and pyramid schemes is that they will inevitably implode on themselves, they’re unsustainable as a business model. Of course, by the time the company has collapsed in on itself, the people at the top have either a) retired to a nice island, or b) moved on to start another company with the same business model, often leaving those at the bottom with nothing to show for the months/years of their life they wasted other than debt and sometimes a criminal conviction. But please, tell me again how I can make thousands at home selling vitamin powder in a capsule.

Bottom line: If you need 40 people in your network to make a living, then only 1 in 40 people in that MLM can ever make a living.

Whey Protein = Whey Protein = Whey Protein

Protein shakes ARE a good way to get a lot of protein quickly – as opposed to eating piles of chicken breast or fish. However, whey protein is whey protein – and the stuff with fancy packaging and a price so high it allows people to try and win free trips to Mexico is the same as the stuff you can buy on Amazon for 75 cents per serving. Whey protein = whey protein.

Very delicious Rocky Road flavor – $53 for 72 servings. 24 grams of protein per serving and TWENTY delicious flavors! And I make ZERO money by giving you this information.

Another great option is Muscle Milk (also available on Amazon). This is $2.50 per bottle (25 grams of protein and 160 calories), in case you are too lazy to stir a powder into a drink. Of course, if you are too lazy to stir powder into a drink, then you are probably too lazy to do the large amounts of exercise that will enable you to lose 15 pounds in a month…which is why you believe fantastical tales of magic potions that “melt the fat away” in the first place!!

*Disclaimer: I am not trying to win a trip to Mexico by selling you this. Nor am I trying to recruit you into any MLM cult and who tells you to go out and recruit other cult members so I can make money off of everyone you recruit to sell wildly overpriced whey protein. I am just stating scientific fact that 25 grams or protein = 25 grams of protein no matter how fancy the box is.

Wanna Lose 500 Pounds and Make a Million Dollars??? PM Me!!

I feel like I’m living through the Salem Witch Trials…and the entire town has lost its mind. CorVive!! CorVive!! CorVive!!!

“Just take our powder and you’ll lose 50 pounds…all while eating bacon! Unless you want to bulk up and add muscle…then you will add a pound of muscle every 48 hours!! I swear by this…even though I’ve only been using the product for 16 days! Trust me! I know I’m overweight and just started using this product 120 hours ago…I’m not just trying to win a cheap trip to Mexico…I swear!! I just care about you and your long-term health!!”

Yeah, right.

Since I enjoy exposing fraud and stupidity, I must comment on this CorVive nonsense and hucksterism. My jurisdiction doesn’t end at City Hall.

Lest you feel the need to succumb to these outrageous MLM claims, let me expose some scientific truths about the human body when it comes to weight loss and/or muscle building…you might just save $1000 and STILL lose the weight:

First Rule: the only way to lose fat is to burn more calories than you consume. Period. The First Law of Thermodynamics (conservation of energy) states that energy cannot be created or destroyed….only transformed.

Fat is stored energy. In order to lose weight (fat), you must expend more energy than you consume. Period. End of sentence. Potions and pills and powders will not “melt fat”. It is literally impossible. Anyone who says otherwise is either deliberately lying or is too lazy/stupid to learn the basics of the human body and caloric intake/expenditure. Or maybe they are just trying to win a trip to Mexico! LOL. Seriously. MEXICO!!! The place they are reduced to begging people to travel to, due to drug murders.

A pound of fat contains roughly 3500 calories. If you wish to lose a pound of weight every week, you must run a caloric deficit of roughly 500 calories per day. In other words, you must eat 500 calories less than you burn. A calorie is a calorie. You can eat 2000 calories worth of McDonalds and Twinkies and as long as you burn 2500 calories…you WILL lose a pound a week. Period.

Likewise, if you eat 3000 calories of kale and spinach and cauliflower every day and burn 2500 calories, you will GAIN a pound a week. This is a scientific fact. It is not in dispute. Anyone who says otherwise has no idea what they are talking about. Or possibly retarded…or, trying to win a trip to Mexico.

The ONLY thing that matters is calories in versus calories out. Period.

Overpriced CorVive potions and powders and pills do NOT enter into the equation. Simply burn 500 more calories than you consume, and you WILL lose weight. I know that isn’t sexy. It is quite boring. But it costs nothing and it WORKS. If a clown tells you to spend hundreds of dollars on some fancy packaging of vitamin B12 and whey protein and you will lose 20 pounds a month? Well….that is a lie. It is a lie they tell you to get you into the scheme and make money for themselves…and maybe win a trip to Mexico. Seriously….MEXICO!!! LOL.

I ACTUALLY saw a CorVive video where one of their carnival barker huckster con men stated that most people are overweight in this country because their body “isn’t getting rid of all the waste” – and of course, you needed a “cleanse” to “detoxify” (they never specify what these “toxins” are, of course) and you need the CorVive detox to lose all that weight.

Statements like that are borderline fraud, in my opinion. You don’t need “cleanses” to “detox” your system. Your liver, kidneys and colon have been ridding your body of waste since the day you were born. If they didn’t, you’d be dead already. Cleanses and “detoxes” are absolute, 100% scams.

These hucksters of the latest fad or powders will never come right out and admit that you just need to eat less calories (partly because it doesn’t fit with their gimmick, partly because people don’t want to hear that they have to [GASP!] count calories or [GASP!] eat less of them, and partly because it’s hard to make money off of something that is simple, obvious and free.)

BUT every successful fat loss diet makes you do it anyway. How? By getting you to do things that just so happen to restrict or reduce your calorie intake. For example…

  • Eating less carbs means you’re eating less calories.
  • Eating less fat means you’re eating less calories.
  • Eating less “dirty” junk food means you’re eating less calories.
  • Eating less processed foods means you’re eating less calories.
  • Eating less grains means you’re eating less calories.
  • Not eating after 7pm causes you to eat less calories.
  • A raw food diet, vegan diet, paleo diet or any remotely similar diet eliminates many of the foods you were regularly eating, which means you’re now eating less calories.

Noticing a trend? In every single case, less calories end up being eaten. And like magic, it causes you to lose fat. But what some people incorrectly think is that it was the reduction in carbs, or fat, or grains, or sugar, or junk food, or processed food, or not eating after 7pm or ridiculously overpriced powders and pills or whatever else that made it happen.

It wasn’t.

It was the reduction in calories that indirectly came as a result of all of these other things. Sure, these “things” are what caused the deficit to be created, but the deficit itself is what actually caused you to lose fat.

Second Rule: It is literally impossible to gain four pounds of muscle per week. Even if you are a teenager who is just starting out lifting weights AND you are genetically predisposed to gaining muscle easily, the BEST you can hope for is MAYBE 3 pounds of muscle per MONTH. More realistic is 1-2 pounds of muscle per month…and that is still on the high end. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or on steroids. Or selling you something for their own gain. Telling beginners that they can gain massive amounts of muscle in one month is setting them up for failure and possibly injury.

If you STILL don’t believe me, and you think all that slick re-packaging of old ideas is REALLY all it takes to lose weight, then ask yourself why there are so many fat people walking around this country. If there was an easy potion to take and lose huge amounts of weight, obesity would be long gone. Clearly, it isn’t.

MLM structures have been around since the 1980s – Amway, Herbalife, Juice-Plus, etc, etc, etc…and ALL the people selling it thought they were going to make a fortune. 99% of them did not. Only the weasel circus barkers at the VERY tip-top make any big money. The rest of the suckers are left with empty bank accounts and disappointment. Don’t be a sucker.

Fun Fact: Harker Heights Spends FAR Less on Government Salaries and Benefits Than Lampasas Does

When I see our city government write a check for around $116,000 every single month to Scott and White (page 39 of City Council packet) for their gold-plated health care plan, I get to wondering if other cities are reaming their taxpayers just as hard. So I went looking.

Harker Heights is just about 35 miles down the road, so I figured that was a good place to start. They are 400% bigger than Lampasas, but located in the same general area. I was mainly curious about the city manager and information systems expenses, since that is where we seem to spend an exorbitant sum. They don’t break out those departments in quite the same way Lampasas does, but I was still able to find some startling facts.

Harker Heights lumps a bunch of people into the “Administration” department. According to their latest budget, that department includes 21 full-time employees (see pages 77 and 78 of the 2017/2018 approved budget) – including such titles as City Manager, Assistant City Manager, Human Resource Director, Technology Director, Assistant City Secretary, Human Resource Clerk, Records Management Coordinator, etc, etc.

For those 20 or 21 people (depending of whether you use the 2017 actual or the 2018 estimated number of employees), the City of Harker Heights spent the following (page 80 of approved budget):

  1. Salaries: $818,900
  2. Overtime $8,000
  3. Worker’s comp $6,500
  4. Health Insurance $76,900
  5. Social security $63,300
  6. Retirement $124,400

Somehow they managed to spend only slightly over $1,000,000 for salaries and benefits for those TWENTY important people! Amazing. Health insurance was only $77,000 for those employees for the entire year – or less than $4,000 per employee.

Lampasas now spends almost $1,400,000 per year on health insurance ($116,000 per month multiplied by 12) for roughly 110 employees – or over $12,000 per employee. Truly amazing.

The retirement number, even if you include the Social Security line item, works out to just over $9,300 per employee….as compared to over $14,000 for our “important people” (see below).

Let’s look at just FOUR of our “important people” as we have in the past.

All figures are taken from the most recent approved budget:

City Manager and Information Systems combined (4 employees):

  1. Salary $349,000 ($87,000 each)
  2. Insurance $49,689 ($12,422 each)
  3. Retirement $56,389 ($14,097 each)

Health insurance for just those four people is costing the city almost $50,000 per year…yet Harker Heights manages to provide insurance for their entire 20-person “Administration Department” (which includes many of the same titles) for only 50% more. Incredible.

I noticed that elections for Lampasas city council, mayor, etc are fast approaching and that many of the current members have re-filed and plan to run again. Here is a thought for those running: maybe this time around, you can all ask a few more questions about the huge sums of money being spent in our town and maybe take ten or twenty minutes to do a little research to see if all the stuff Finley throws on your plate is legit….rather than unanimously approving everything on the table? You know….stuff like $100,000 for an A/V system that originally bid out at $34,000. Or why we spend $1.4 million a year on health insurance.

Just a thought.

Another $54,580 to ASJ

A new year….a new change order for City Council to rubber stamp. This time for $54,580. A new roof here…”aesthetic upgrade” there….pretty soon you are talking real money! Don’t worry…just head on out back to the money tree and grab another 50k for the Old City Hall debacle. Plenty more where that came from.

Another unanimous decision (White absent) to torch taxpayer funds on the “wow factor” vanity project that is the hallmark of the Talbert administration.

Another Smoking Gun Found – IT Department Told To Re-Bid Contract in Jan 2017…That Never Happened

Well I have finally found the exact dates for our smoking gun.  It was well-hidden deep in one of Monica’s monthly IT Department reports.  Please turn your attention to City Council packets from January 23, 2017 page 80 and find the following from Monica’s report dated January 4th, 2017

Under “November and December projects” (in other words, this happened the previous month right at the end of 2016) it says:   “Contacted A/V vendor to discuss upcoming A/V project at old city hall/new scope/proposal“

Then under “January projects” it says: “Obtain (3) quotes for old city hall A/V project”

In other words, somebody on City council or at City Hall decided the project wasn’t fancy enough in December of 2016 (“new scope”) and wanted a bunch more bells and whistles for Christmas.  Monica was told to go obtain three NEW quotes…and Broadcast was clearly dumped right here.  That is bad enough.  But it gets worse….

So I went looking for these new quotes in the next few City Council packets.  The next packet, from February 23rd, shows nothing.  There are no monthly reports from the IT Department there nor does Finley mention anything.

The February 27th packet (page 100) shows more of the same – that her “February project” is to “obtain (3) quotes for old city hall A/V project“….as seen below:

There are no quotes in this packet.  Nor are quotes ever mentioned again.  The very next packet from March 13, 2017 starts talking about Azbell as if they have been there all along (pages 89-95 item 7.2)…to wit: “we have been working with Azbell Electronics on a concept and design for this project that will be brought to Council at a later date if Council so desires”

No mention of cost, of course.  That shocker comes much later.

So…somebody at the end of 2016 decided “we want more bells and whistles!  We want more TVs!  We WANT MORE COW BELL!!” and told Monica to get three new quotes.  Monica wrote this on her “to do” list several times.  I doubt she just invented that out of whole cloth.

Then, just as suddenly, Azbell is decided upon and no quotes are gotten.  Almost as if someone changed their mind and said “hey…don’t worry about it…I know a guy at Azbell who will set us up, man!”

If that IS how it went down, that would be very bad for that person.  As we know from before this would be grounds for dismissal, according to the City Personnel Handbook:

2.07 Gifts and Gratuities: A city officer or employee may not accept any gift or free services from contractors, vendors, or other persons that might tend to influence his or her official actions or impair his or her independence or judgement in performance of duties for the city.

2.08 Conflict of Interest: A member of city council, the mayor, or an employee of the city shall neither have financial interests, direct or indirect, in any contract with the city, not be financially interested, directly or indirectly, in the sale to the city of any land, materials, supplies or service.

3.08 Employment of Relatives (Nepotism): Nepotism is the showing of favoritism toward a relative.  The city forbids the practice of nepotism in hiring personnel or awarding contracts.  A person who is related within the second degree by affinity (marriage) or within the third degree by consanguinity (blood, including adopted relatives) to any member of the city council or to the city manager may not be hired.

 

Who Gave The Order to Dump Broadcast Works and Give No-Bid $96,000 Monstrosity to Azbell Instead?

So…I have searched every set of minutes and City Council packets from August 2014 (when Broadcast Works was awarded a $34,000 A/V contract for the new council chambers) all the way up to March 2017 (when Monica Wright appeared in a city council meeting and informed us all that Azbell would be doing the (no bid) work…which ended up being quoted at $84,000 – which quickly became $96,000)…and guess what?

Not a SINGLE mention of Azbell Electronics in all those thousands of pages.  Not one.  No mention in the minutes…the packets…Monica’s monthly IT report (where it lists everything she has been up to, like buying refrigerators)….nowhere at all.  It apparently just happened magically one day.  Everyone just woke up one morning and forgot about Broadcast Works simultaneously, I guess.

That tells me this decision had to happen in one of those “closed-door, executive council sessions” I keep reading about.  Far away from the prying eyes of taxpayers.  There is simply no way Monica would be allowed to make this big of a decision on her own.  It had to come from City Council, the mayor and/or Finley deGraffenreid.  There is no other possibility.

So, the question is….who and why?

 

More Money Spent in 2014 For Fancy Chambers That Still Isn’t Done. TVs, Computers and Refrigerators. So….Where Are They Now?

After awarding a $34,000 A/V contract to Broadcast Works in August of 2014, Monica and the IT Department went on a spending spree….you know, to “use up our funds by year end” and so forth.

First were the 100 stackable chairs, bought from Church Partners for $12,780 (but at least she got three bids and went with the lowest one!).  Who knows where the chairs are now.  Collecting dust somewhere in a rented storage unit?

Then, Monica made several purchases from CDW Government LLC on September 5th, 2014.  Including “Chambers A/V PC and RAM for $975.68” and “TVs for New Chambers $2730.30”

Looks like more “let’s spend our budget by year end so we don’t get less money next year” kind of bullshit to me.  I have requested copies of those receipts so I can see what exactly was bought.  Quick question: since it is over four years later and the project is not even close to finished…where are these TVs and computers?  Sitting in a dusty closet with the 100 stackable chairs?  In Monica’s living room?  Finley’s garage?  Already obsolete??  Just more waste and stupidity from a Department rife with it.

Oh…and Monica also went out and “bought a refrigerator for the new Council Chambers executive session room” that same month.  More pissing away of money!  I can’t find a receipt for that purchase, but there it is listed in Monica’s monthly report (Oct 27, 2014 page 43).  How much was it?  Where is it now?

I seem to remember some poor bastard county official recently being crucified here in town for “stealing” a tiny mini fridge or something.  People went bananas.  Yet here we have the city buying thousands of dollars worth of stuff FOUR YEARS before the “house is built,” so to speak.  Would you buy a bunch of furniture and computers and TVs and a fridge before you even broke ground on your house?  No, you wouldn’t.  Only an idiot or a lunatic does that.  You wait until it’s all done and THEN you furnish it.

Unless you are trying to waste a ton of money and pad your budget, I guess.

Here in April 2015, Broadcast Works apparently still has the bid it was awarded at $33,983…so I will keep working forwards from here to see where it all went wrong.  Stay tuned.

More Damning Evidence Uncovered….IT Department Should Be Very Worried

What happens when it is cold and crappy out all day?  I go sleuthing ever-deeper into the mess that is the Azbell Electronics no-bid $100,000.00 “Ferrari of A/V Systems”” debacle.  And after 5 hours of digging, I found a few more HUGE nuggets….which will be posted later today.

Bottom line is this: in August 2014, Monica got three bids for an A/V system.  I have found all three bids in the August 25, 2014 City Council packet – the winning bid from Broadcast Works is on pages 187 through 200.  The Azbell and Whitlock bid sheets follow that one.

Broadcast Works even drew up a fancy little schematic…just like Azbell:

At some point between that day and March 13, 2017, Broadcast Works was dropped, Azbell was chosen, and the price zoomed from $34,000 (Broadcast Works original bid), past $43,000 (Azbell original bid) to $96,000 (Azbell final price which was NEVER BID). Somewhere in the council packets, the answer must lie.

So I thought of a new angle to pin down these slippery weasels: start by requesting and searching for every actual check that was written by the City during that time period (I have made a records request for copies of all checks).

The City is also required to post all these checks and they show up in the first packet to City Council every month.  I still haven’t found a check written to Broadcast Works but I found a lot of other interesting things – more money wasted and more questions raised.  The noose continues to tighten around the IT Department and some of their highly questionable purchases.  Stay tuned…more to come today.