Mormonism and Multilevel Marketing Companies

Data point: I once went to an "employment presentation" by a member of local Mormon leadership, when I lived in PDX. The meeting was held at his large and rather conspicuous residence. The event had been pitched to church members.

It turned out to be a presentation on a health products MLM with some crazy amount of buy-in required up front. The presenter had a huge amount of the social capital that the research talks about. He was very charismatic in addition to holding the religious rank, so to speak.

Also relevant to another article on the front page, his wife walked in mid-presentation to show us the MLM pills she was taking to fight cancer.

I was very angry to realize that the meeting was MLM related. Meanwhile the local employment center run by the same church was staffed by a member of the boards of several high-profile fast food chains (you'd know them), and he basically showed us that there was a fax machine and computer we could use. He was a nice guy but this was very frustrating in comparison to the comparatively warm and attentive MLM pitch.