For more than a week, I have been enjoying the discussion ignited by Virginia Sole-Smith’s article on the pink pyramid scheme, Mary Kay Cosmetics. Naturally, Mary Kay Inc. has come forth with some flimsy excuses that do nothing to help them save face. These excuses included things along the lines of “most women don’t want to make money in Mary Kay!” and “we buy back the products if they want to quit!”.

Sadly, these excuses don’t even scratch the surface regarding the problems with multi-level marketing. The gigantic problem is that MLM is a system designed for failure. A tiny fraction of 1% of distributors make a respectable living, but only do so because the 99% below them are losing money in the scheme. Continue reading