Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: A production of.
Speaker 3: IHEARTRADI Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 3: my name is Nol.
Speaker 2: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 2: super producer Paul Mission control deck, and most importantly you
Speaker 2: are here. And that makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 2: want you to know. We've got to give a big
Speaker 2: shout out to a good friend of ours, superproducer, the
Speaker 2: Heartbreaker of Knoxville, Dylan Fagan, for coming through and the clutch.
Speaker 2: All three of us went through some shyamalans to get
Speaker 2: to this recording today. Companies started by Colts Part two.
Speaker 2: You know, a while back, guys, we did we explored
Speaker 2: following Gong because I think we all wanted to go
Speaker 2: to the shen Yun Festival.
Speaker 4: For a while. I certainly did. It's fairly a delightful show.
Speaker 4: It is a delightful show.
Speaker 2: I here, and when we were doing that, this sort
Speaker 2: of triggered this other exploration about conspiracies. In company origin stories,
Speaker 2: we talked a lot about companies that appear to have
Speaker 2: been started or at the very least heavily influenced by
Speaker 2: associated with what we would call cults. And we knew
Speaker 2: we would find a few, but I think we're all
Speaker 2: surprised by just how many very successful businesses, and weirdly
Speaker 2: enough a ton of restaurants are in fact run by
Speaker 2: new religious movements the PC term. And we knew there
Speaker 2: would have to be a second chapter to this, as
Speaker 2: we'll see at the end of this evening's episode, there
Speaker 2: may need to be a third chapter. Anyway, Here are
Speaker 2: the facts. We're not going to waste too much time
Speaker 2: on the setup check out part one, because we've got
Speaker 2: a lot of crazy stuff to get to. You know,
Speaker 2: you never know who really owns something, right unless you
Speaker 2: dig into it.
Speaker 4: Can you own a song? Can you own the wind?
Speaker 4: It's possible if you want to ask Disney. They own
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff, as it turns out, But in
Speaker 4: a lot of situations, it is, to your point, been
Speaker 4: difficult to trace exactly where an organization begins. Perhaps you
Speaker 4: know who the parent company truly is. And it is
Speaker 4: true that a lot of companies are owned by some
Speaker 4: pretty bizarre groups, entities, organizations. The most immediate examples of
Speaker 4: this that we can think of are in the world
Speaker 4: of corporations, where single massive entities own an entire sector,
Speaker 4: you know, of the economy. Perhaps great example, Luxotica brands,
Speaker 4: for all intents and purposes, a monopoly on overpriced sunglasses.
Speaker 4: I'm a big jerk and own several pairs because they
Speaker 4: also somehow make you feel like you got to own
Speaker 4: them or else you're not really wearing Are you really
Speaker 4: wearing sunglasses if they're not ray Ban or something that
Speaker 4: Luxotica owns. I think they even own Sunglass Hut. It's
Speaker 4: like they own the means of production and the means
Speaker 4: of distribution. Weird.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well yeah, I mean there are so many huge
Speaker 3: brands like that that that if you look at the
Speaker 3: branching brands that you think of or buy on a
Speaker 3: regular basis, you'd be astounded. I mean, that's everything from
Speaker 3: Mars and Coca Cola, Nesley, what, Kellogg's, General Mills, PepsiCo.
Speaker 2: Or Unilever owns everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even Danin remember the yogurt brand Dan. But there's
Speaker 3: like what, that's hundreds of the things underneath there.
Speaker 4: And then you have like Procter and Gamble, for example,
Speaker 4: you know, they're like a giant chemical company essentially that
Speaker 4: owns all of these brands that are essentially fancy packaging
Speaker 4: of chemicals that you put in your body or on
Speaker 4: your face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and any if if you look at almost any
Speaker 2: food product, right, genre of food product, and what you'll
Speaker 2: see is there is a remarkably small number of players
Speaker 2: who are actually in the game. And that's because this
Speaker 2: is very good business for them.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Why would you want to own one team in the
Speaker 2: sport when you could own the sport itself, right, then
Speaker 2: you make money no matter who loses. So we looked
Speaker 2: at this and we see this reflected or related to
Speaker 2: some of the other stuff we explore with companies in
Speaker 2: part one of this series. We looked at companies that, honestly,
Speaker 2: I think we all assumed we're somewhat innocuous. Celestial Seasonings,
Speaker 2: Sleepy Time Tea, sell Us Academy, Onita Silverware. I think
Speaker 2: we all knew about going in. Some of us have
Speaker 2: personal experience with the Yellow Deli. Narking On is run
Speaker 2: by Scientology. Narcing On is Scientology adjacent. According to everyone
Speaker 2: except for Scientology, including the US government. Narcing On is
Speaker 2: run by Scientology.
Speaker 4: I mean speaking of innocuous and in the Sleepy Time tea,
Speaker 4: you got that lazy little bear. What could be wrong?
Speaker 4: He looks so lovely, you know, Celestial Seasonings all their branding,
Speaker 4: these companies and there they're forward facing. You know. Imagery
Speaker 4: and branding are designed to make you not question it, right, yeah, man.
Speaker 2: And while the particulars of each story may vary from
Speaker 2: case to case, you know, like Washington Times and the
Speaker 2: Moonies versus Narkana and Scientology and so on, they all
Speaker 2: have this one commonality. They internally share some sort of unifying,
Speaker 2: ideological or spiritual association. In some cases, these associations are
Speaker 2: hidden from the average consumer, and in some other cases
Speaker 2: they are openly presented to the consumer in the interest
Speaker 2: of proselytization. You know, we can maybe gather some new recruits.
Speaker 2: When you walk in to get a sandwich from Chick
Speaker 2: fil A. This might be your road to Damascus moment,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, even like in and out Burger and
Speaker 4: cook out for example, as to like kind of you know,
Speaker 4: regional burger chains, they have scripture printed kind of in
Speaker 4: fine print on some of their cups, and you know,
Speaker 4: paper kind.
Speaker 3: Of wares well and then others like one we're gonna
Speaker 3: talk about today. I guys, I happened to go to
Speaker 3: a store that sold some vegan food and I was
Speaker 3: excited about eating that vegan food, and I walked in,
Speaker 3: made my order, then kind of looked around near the
Speaker 3: front and just saw, huh, those are those are different
Speaker 3: magazines than I've ever seen they.
Speaker 2: Did they have the TV channel?
Speaker 3: I did not see a TV channel in the place.
Speaker 3: We're gonna talk.
Speaker 4: About We're gonna play a clip of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we've got other and look, it's weird
Speaker 2: that there are a lot of restaurants doing this, but also,
Speaker 2: to be very clear, a lot of restaurants that just
Speaker 2: reflect the the owner's spiritual beliefs. That doesn't make them
Speaker 2: sinister at all. You know, I live up the street
Speaker 2: from a place called Sole Vegetarian. I go there pretty
Speaker 2: frequently because their food slaps.
Speaker 4: You, guys. I went to this pumpkin patch the other
Speaker 4: day called Bert's Pumpkin Farm or whatever that's called in
Speaker 4: North Georgia, and I went on my first hay ride
Speaker 4: and through a certain point on this hay ride you
Speaker 4: passed these like creepy animatronic pumpkins that like give you
Speaker 4: a little lesson in the lord. Oh like tribulation subversively.
Speaker 4: We're rather you know, in a subdued kind of comedic fashion,
Speaker 4: but you're almost like double take, Like wait a minute,
Speaker 4: they're trying to doctrinate me a little bit, or at
Speaker 4: the very least slip that message on in.
Speaker 3: I love that mentioned Ben. The hell houses are strong
Speaker 3: right now?
Speaker 2: Oh man, we should go well, I loved I loved those,
Speaker 2: that little slice of suburbia. You know, maybe we can
Speaker 2: go to one. Yeah, see, let's find one with a
Speaker 2: really big weird budget, you know, like the guys who
Speaker 2: get the car just to burn it.
Speaker 4: There was one in my hometown where they had like
Speaker 4: a wrecked car outside of the church like as and
Speaker 4: it was like featured in it where I guess somebody
Speaker 4: drunk drove and you know, killed all their friends and
Speaker 4: then the devil came and took them right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then oh man, the only thing is at
Speaker 2: the end they make you stop and listen to the
Speaker 2: you know, the moral of the story. Okay, so we
Speaker 2: always snuck off in the woods and did mischievous things,
Speaker 2: mischievous things. But the point of this that we're making.
Speaker 2: This is a very common thing. And when you look
Speaker 2: at the idea of companies quote unquote owned by cults,
Speaker 2: what we have to realize is that a cultic organization
Speaker 2: never calls itself a cult. Like, for instance, Delta, which
Speaker 2: is a huge airline here in the US. Well it's
Speaker 2: global airline, but it's based in Atlanta. Delta jokes about
Speaker 2: being called a cult because they have a very strong
Speaker 2: internal corporate culture. But they're not isolating people from their
Speaker 2: friends and family. They're not forcing people to buy stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, or give away all their worldly possessions.
Speaker 3: That's the big one.
Speaker 4: Can I just double back real quick and make sure
Speaker 4: it's clear that I was not implying that Christianity as
Speaker 4: a cult per se. I was just saying that there
Speaker 4: are ways that are analogous to the ways that these
Speaker 4: kind of messages can be slipped in through innocuous means,
Speaker 4: like a pumpkin ride or you know, a haunted house.
Speaker 2: Yea, or veggie tails or whatever it's called, like the
Speaker 2: or you know Narnia, right, that whole book series. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think you're absolutely right, and well, none of us
Speaker 2: are calling these things a cult. There are offshoots, there
Speaker 2: will always be sects that are considered heretical by the
Speaker 2: mainstream of a particular religion. But when we're talking about cults,
Speaker 2: we're really talking about tactics. And that's why some of
Speaker 2: these things, some of these entities will say, no, we're
Speaker 2: absolutely not a cult. Don't tell you what to believe, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we just listened to the Supreme Master and all
Speaker 3: that she says at all times.
Speaker 2: And do whatever they say, and you know, we buy
Speaker 2: her sacred bathwater true story. So what we're telling is this,
Speaker 2: it's alarmingly common for these products and entities to have
Speaker 2: their true ownership kind of played to the left. And
Speaker 2: a lot of these companies are everywhere in the West.
Speaker 2: You will run across them, or you can run across
Speaker 2: them in any major city. And we still wonder how
Speaker 2: many cases are out there, how many companies are run
Speaker 2: by cults. Here's where it gets crazy. Well, it turns
Speaker 2: out there are a lot of cases out there. There
Speaker 2: are a ton, not a literal ton, configurative ton, much
Speaker 2: bigger than a real literal ton, well.
Speaker 4: Enough to warrant a part two and a potential part three.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I mean each of these companies just to
Speaker 2: be completely fair. We're going to give you some of
Speaker 2: the accusations against them or criticisms, and then we're going
Speaker 2: to give you their side as well, and we can't
Speaker 2: wait to hear if you have firsthand experience. But please
Speaker 2: be aware they may not be outright owned by a
Speaker 2: cult or a religious sect, new religious movement if you prefer,
Speaker 2: but they're associated with these groups through either their founders
Speaker 2: or their current key influencers.
Speaker 4: And also, we know the C word can be a
Speaker 4: hot but an issue, especially to folks that participate in
Speaker 4: some of this stuff. I think I've mentioned my experience
Speaker 4: with the Bahai Faith in the past where I had
Speaker 4: some friends that remember of that, and there are certain
Speaker 4: folks who study this stuff who would classify that group
Speaker 4: as a cult. I found them to be very nice
Speaker 4: people until after the fact, didn't really realize how kind
Speaker 4: of culty it was, but you know they are. There
Speaker 4: are lovely people that participate in some of these things,
Speaker 4: and they're not all inherently insidious, right And a cult.
Speaker 2: You know, cults have it's got a bad connotation these days,
Speaker 2: but really there are two main definitions. A cult is
Speaker 2: a group that or a system that venerates or doors
Speaker 2: a particular figure or an object, right, and then the
Speaker 2: cult and the bad sense is a relatively small group
Speaker 2: of people who have insular beliefs and practices that the
Speaker 2: rest of the world thinks are kind of off. But
Speaker 2: in neither case is it necessarily bad. It's not like
Speaker 2: equated to being terrorist or something. Well.
Speaker 4: And it's also interesting how sometimes the size of the
Speaker 4: organization and the adherents, you know, in terms of you know,
Speaker 4: the general population can dictate whether something is considered a cult,
Speaker 4: because no one would ever say that Christianity or Catholicism
Speaker 4: or a cult, but they certainly worship one person, and
Speaker 4: there's a lot of cultic type things and knowledge and
Speaker 4: secrets that go along with it. But because it's so
Speaker 4: highly adopted, no one would ever call it that. I mean,
Speaker 4: some people might, you know, backhandedly, but I think a
Speaker 4: big hallmark of a lot of these things at their
Speaker 4: niche and kind of smaller and maybe off the radar.
Speaker 2: If there was one person there's just like one guy
Speaker 2: who practiced Buddhism, people would say he is weird. He's
Speaker 2: very chill, he's very cool, but he's he's weird. There
Speaker 2: are millions of Buddhists in the world. It is not
Speaker 2: treated as something eccentric. So you're right, there's a there's
Speaker 2: a measure of scope and size that affects the way
Speaker 2: the world regards these systems. Let's cut to Amway here
Speaker 2: we go. I was thinking about this. We did an
Speaker 2: episode on MLM's right, multi level marketing.
Speaker 3: We have Yeah, and didn't we talk about Amway in
Speaker 3: that a little bit, just like the origins of it without.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's the it's the biggest in the game, UH.
Speaker 2: And the critics of Amway call it the worst of
Speaker 2: all multi level marketing UH organizations. It's a former direct selling,
Speaker 2: where the idea is that everybody works for the thing
Speaker 2: is not really an employee. You are kind of like
Speaker 2: a contractor. You don't get a salary, you don't get
Speaker 2: a wage. And when MLMs go bad, when direct selling
Speaker 2: goes wrong, what happens is the emphasis becomes not on
Speaker 2: selling these products, but on recruiting people to sell stuff
Speaker 2: for you. And that is where that's where you get
Speaker 2: into all the tricky stuff of like distributors and down
Speaker 2: line and upline. That nomenclature can sound you know, kind
Speaker 2: of culty.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's definitely, uh, proprietary to that thing, right,
Speaker 3: not necessarily that specific MLM, but to MLMs in particular. Right,
Speaker 3: this it's using terminology that makes it when you've got
Speaker 3: somebody else who's also a part of that group, is
Speaker 3: super insular.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like reading internal conversations between people in scientology, right,
Speaker 2: or or internal conversations honestly in branches of government, lots
Speaker 2: of acronyms as get this or our emails sometimes.
Speaker 3: Man, you know, I was gonna say, yeah, like the
Speaker 3: radio slash podcast business right, all the all the terminology.
Speaker 3: Other people would just be like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Ill?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I almost apologize to you guys because we were running
Speaker 2: pretty quickly for the past few weeks and I realized
Speaker 2: I had shot off some email where it was like
Speaker 2: if you are a message. I can't remember what it was,
Speaker 2: but it was like one or two lines, and if
Speaker 2: you read it, it would sound like a weird code
Speaker 2: or a bunch of typos, like hey, are we okay
Speaker 2: with eod on stwytk native ad recopy it's a sixty second?
Speaker 3: Did we change that CTA or is it aoka?
Speaker 2: Yes, they're a drop to beat. So yeah, so you're right,
Speaker 2: that's a very important point. This is a common thing.
Speaker 4: Amway.
Speaker 2: Quick background, AMWAY is short for American Way Association, founded
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty nine by two grade school friends, j
Speaker 2: Van Andel and Richard DeVos. And just like Google in alphabet,
Speaker 2: Amway eventually created a parent company called Altacore to run
Speaker 2: all of its stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I wasn't sure, but I did just do
Speaker 4: a little googling myself and confirm that Richard DeVos is
Speaker 4: the father of Richard Marvin de Vos Junior, who is
Speaker 4: the husband of Betsy de Vos, who was the kind
Speaker 4: of weird Secretary of Education under Trump who seemed to
Speaker 4: have no real experience and did some kind of wacky stuff.
Speaker 2: So this tried to destroy the American education system.
Speaker 4: More or less you said it. But this is a line,
Speaker 4: you know, This is like essentially what you might call
Speaker 4: ben like American Royalty, you know, in terms of its
Speaker 4: control over business and policy. Right, because you can't just
Speaker 4: shove a you know, non experienced person into a role
Speaker 4: like that, a post like that without having some serious pull.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, And this company, this corporation, does have a
Speaker 2: lot of pool. It's sales top eight point nine billion
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen alone, like this total for ultimately yeah, right,
Speaker 2: and this they sell health and charity home products.
Speaker 4: Is it tied to charity though in some way or
Speaker 4: is it like the American Way Association, I mean, and
Speaker 4: that meant to like help people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you go to their website, you'll see a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff about like the American spirit and working hard.
Speaker 4: Kind of like the Hoover damn video exactly.
Speaker 2: It's a little it's a little hooverish they do.
Speaker 4: I just assume that because of the name the American
Speaker 4: Way Association and Amway and all that it sounds to
Speaker 4: me like the proceeds would go to helping you know,
Speaker 4: refugees or something, but that is not the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Refugee is like a top one percent distributor
Speaker 2: for Amway. Then yeah, they'll get a lot of money.
Speaker 2: It's it's weird. So, yes, they do have grants and
Speaker 2: I'm sure they have a lot of charitable activity. They
Speaker 2: have been investigated multiple times in multiple countries by a
Speaker 2: monopoly of organizations. They have never been found guilty of
Speaker 2: running an alleged pyramid scheme, which is you know, which
Speaker 2: is what people say about MLS so why.
Speaker 3: Are we talking about them? But they're not an MLM
Speaker 3: pyramid scheme. They're an MLM that's a regular.
Speaker 2: One direct sales, right, they're empowering you.
Speaker 4: They're an RLM regular level of marketing. Yeah, the scheme
Speaker 4: is implied. I think those controlling these types of things
Speaker 4: would take issue with using the word scheme.
Speaker 3: By the way, but Ben, you said they've never been
Speaker 3: found guilty. No, does that mean they've been found not guilty.
Speaker 2: They have been found guilty of some things, but not
Speaker 2: specifically being a pyramid scheme, and they have paid tens
Speaker 2: of millions of dollars repeatedly in out of court settlements.
Speaker 2: Oh squashed something so accused but never convicted. In nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy nine, the Federal Trade Commission here in the States said, okay,
Speaker 2: m wait, you're not a pyramid scheme, but you are
Speaker 2: very guilty of exaggerating income claims and you're also clearly
Speaker 2: fixing prices on products. So here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 2: Of course, no one gets in trouble because you're a corporate,
Speaker 2: but we want you to stop airing misleading commercials and
Speaker 2: advertisements and things like that, because you're making people who
Speaker 2: may be in desperate in desperate times, you're making them
Speaker 2: believe that they can instantly become millionaires when the truth
Speaker 2: is that the majority of people in your organization end
Speaker 2: up losing money over time.
Speaker 4: And this kind of smack of prosperity theology a little
Speaker 4: very much prosperity theology, yes, you know, but it's like
Speaker 4: really masquerading as something else because it doesn't come off
Speaker 4: as inherently religious like the seven hundred Club or whatever.
Speaker 4: Like you know a lot of these folks that have
Speaker 4: these infomercials selling buckets of you know, doomsday prep goods.
Speaker 4: But still, if you dig deep enough, wich is our
Speaker 4: whole point here, I think you know, from the intro
Speaker 4: you'll find that it very much employs sort of I
Speaker 4: don't know, like Jesus cult kind of tactics. I guess right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's going to get really weird in a second.
Speaker 2: So okay, if you're a typical member of Amway, they
Speaker 2: will call you an ibo independent business owner, right because
Speaker 2: you will have the power we are empowering you. There's
Speaker 2: a book called Amway The Cult of Free Enterprise, which
Speaker 2: you can read online for free. It looks a little
Speaker 2: bit hokey. I'm gonna be honest, but it was a
Speaker 2: different time and the author, Stephen Butterfield, has a lot
Speaker 2: of information about how, in his perspective, Amway as an organization,
Speaker 2: these different groups of distributors they use cult like tactics
Speaker 2: to attract members and retain control over them. So there's
Speaker 2: intense paran you can click by all like the classic
Speaker 2: slow jazz of how to make a working cult. There's
Speaker 2: paranoia toward anyone critical of the organization, internal or external.
Speaker 2: Matt you pointed out the specificity of jargon and nomenclature
Speaker 2: to make it increasingly its own language. To your point, Noal,
Speaker 2: a lot of the meetings and seminars apparently per this
Speaker 2: guy and other critics, they look more like religious revival meetings.
Speaker 2: And then even though most people appear to lose money,
Speaker 2: this idea, of this aspirational idea is enough to keep
Speaker 2: them leveraged and going into the organization. Like you'll read
Speaker 2: stories where they have to sell a certain number of
Speaker 2: things per month, and to not be a pyramid scheme,
Speaker 2: they can't just buy their own stuff. They have to
Speaker 2: sell it to like some percentage of it has to
Speaker 2: be sold to an actual customer is not them, and
Speaker 2: they get so desperate that they will This is true.
Speaker 2: They will order stuff to like a neighbor's address, to
Speaker 2: make it look like that neighbor bought it, and then
Speaker 2: they'll just sneak over and take it before you know,
Speaker 2: the Joneses find out.
Speaker 4: Are they worried about like getting you know, being on
Speaker 4: the hook for products or is it literally just about
Speaker 4: the being terrified of losing their membership in this what
Speaker 4: they consider prestigious organization that they feel very strongly about.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I would just say in going
Speaker 3: to the website right now, to Amway dot com, you
Speaker 3: can shop there on the website for products, and those
Speaker 3: appear to be direct sell products, like at least on
Speaker 3: this from this end, it looks like you are buying
Speaker 3: products from Amway, and I'm assuming as one of what
Speaker 3: did you call ben IBOs, I'm assuming as one of
Speaker 3: those individuals and operating your individual business, you would then
Speaker 3: resell the product you purchase. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not sure how the system works. I
Speaker 2: understand you would get wholesale products, and they've gone through
Speaker 2: a couple of different iterations. They had something that kickster
Speaker 2: or quick Ster or something that came out to focus
Speaker 2: entirely on online sales instead of in person sales. But
Speaker 2: it's it's the same thing, so there have been some
Speaker 2: evolution different iterations.
Speaker 4: It is interesting too because they have all these like
Speaker 4: exclusive brands, you know, like neutral Light for you know,
Speaker 4: plant based supplements, Artistry for skincare, and makeup Excess for energy,
Speaker 4: drinks and shakes, and then like a home kind of
Speaker 4: cleaning products and safer and gentler for all you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you get points, You get am Perk points
Speaker 3: every time you make a purchase. It's interesting stuff, guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you can find statements from a lot of
Speaker 2: the criticism comes from disgruntled former associates of Amway Right
Speaker 2: and different government organizations. So there was one bredditor and
Speaker 2: you can find the statement online who alleged that at
Speaker 2: its core, Amway is, in their mind a prosperity Jesus cult. Well,
Speaker 2: I say, once you're in the patina of fake professionalism
Speaker 2: sort of goes away and you're taught a kind of
Speaker 2: non denominational spirituality of a like a what was that
Speaker 2: thing Oprah Winfrey really loved, like manifesting the secret you're
Speaker 2: taught kind of a secret. Yeah, like words and thoughts
Speaker 2: have power. You can speak your dreams into existence if
Speaker 2: you quote have enough faith. If you don't succeed, if
Speaker 2: something doesn't work out up to an including like a
Speaker 2: non unpredictable medical condition, then it's kind of on you
Speaker 2: because you didn't have enough faith. You spoke negative things
Speaker 2: into existence. And then there's one thing that really stood out.
Speaker 2: This person says, I remember stories where they would literally
Speaker 2: tell doctors to keep their mouth shut if the doctor
Speaker 2: found a terminal illness and not say anything. I think
Speaker 2: they would still take medicine and so on, but they
Speaker 2: would literally tell the doctor not to speak the words,
Speaker 2: as if the doctor's words had magical powers that could
Speaker 2: cause the illness to take a foothold. So that's crazy,
Speaker 2: that's just scratching the surface. That's just one example. There
Speaker 2: are more examples of companies that are alleged to have
Speaker 2: these controversial tactics at the core of their being. We're
Speaker 2: gonna pause, take a word from our sponsor, who knows
Speaker 2: who it will be, uh, and then we'll be back
Speaker 2: with a We'll be back with another example that's a
Speaker 2: little more true crime actually.
Speaker 4: And we're back moving on to company number two of
Speaker 4: today's episode, True Value Out of Utah. What does Utah
Speaker 4: make you think of? New Caps, salt candy or the mountains? Both? Okay,
Speaker 4: salt flats, No caps salt flats. That should be a
Speaker 4: rap song comes next to something about cooking something up
Speaker 4: in the something that no get there you go the
Speaker 4: Kingston Clan. Tell us about the Kingston Clan that you
Speaker 4: taught to me makes me think of the Church of
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the big one right. So to our
Speaker 2: earlier conversation about sex and breakaway groups, the Kingston Clan
Speaker 2: is a insular, secretive breakaway group from the Church of
Speaker 2: Latter Day Saints, and internally it's called the Order with
Speaker 2: a capital O. They have several doctrinal disagreements with the
Speaker 2: mainstream LDS Church. They're very tight knit. They are a
Speaker 2: polygamous community. They have been practicing for decades and decades
Speaker 2: arranged marriages, often between underage girls and sometimes much older men,
Speaker 2: and not infrequently these folks are related to each other.
Speaker 2: I don't know to what degree. It's more like a
Speaker 2: cousin thing than I think a sibling thing.
Speaker 4: And They're again not to beat a dead horse here,
Speaker 4: but there are lots of good, lovely, law abiding folks
Speaker 4: that practice this faith and do not do any of
Speaker 4: those things, and in fact look at those behaviors as
Speaker 4: a black mark on their faith. You know, if you've
Speaker 4: ever seen the show Big Love on HBO, there's it
Speaker 4: kind of shows those two sides, and it's a very
Speaker 4: interesting world. So, I mean, I'm sure we have listeners
Speaker 4: that maybe grew up in the church and have thoughts
Speaker 4: about this. I just want to make sure we're being
Speaker 4: real clear that this is not everybody that's involved with
Speaker 4: LDS one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: Is it called True Value?
Speaker 2: True Value is one of the stores they own, And
Speaker 2: you would never know this because the Kingston Clan owns
Speaker 2: a ton of different businesses. True Value is like a
Speaker 2: franchise hardware store thing. They're based up north. They don't
Speaker 2: the Kingston Clan doesn't own the entirety of True Value.
Speaker 2: But that that was sort of how I began to
Speaker 2: find out about them. They also own We'll get to
Speaker 2: what they earn in a second. Let's talk more about
Speaker 2: their fundamentalist beliefs.
Speaker 3: Gotcha, I'm sorry, I was really confused because in my head,
Speaker 3: I saw a bunch of products called true Value, but
Speaker 3: it was actually just the Walmart brand great value I
Speaker 3: think products. I's so sorry about that.
Speaker 2: Oh well, I mean, are the Waltons at this level?
Speaker 2: Are they engaging in cult like activity?
Speaker 4: Unclear?
Speaker 2: Nor I don't Mark, So Walmart can move in and
Speaker 2: just break a town. It's we've seen. Everybody in the
Speaker 2: United States has seen that happen or knows about it.
Speaker 2: So anyway, if you look at members of the Kingston Clan,
Speaker 2: you will see that they don't appear anachronistic. They don't
Speaker 2: really stick out. They wear modern clothing. Female members of
Speaker 2: the Order are encouraged to get new last names for
Speaker 2: themselves and their progeny to downplay that existence of plural marriage,
Speaker 2: which is just another word for polygamy. And wives in
Speaker 2: the Order are also expected to work and pay their
Speaker 2: own bills. So it sounds a little bit feminist in
Speaker 2: that regard, But then you learn that this group, the
Speaker 2: Kingston Clan, preaches women or the property of their husbands
Speaker 2: and fathers. You got to follow the Dude's Order in
Speaker 2: every area of your life, including when you get married,
Speaker 2: whom you marry, when you get pregnant, whether or not
Speaker 2: you can go to school. And these are you know,
Speaker 2: typical and very dangerous fundamental beliefs.
Speaker 4: This is a lot of the stuff that's depicted in
Speaker 4: Big Love in terms of the compounds kind of out
Speaker 4: in the you know, the farther reaches of the country,
Speaker 4: I guess parts of Utah, not within the cities where
Speaker 4: they kind of have a law into themselves. And there's
Speaker 4: a prophet in the show named Roman who's sort of
Speaker 4: like this, the head of this and it is they
Speaker 4: don't they go out of there. You know, they don't
Speaker 4: make any bones about it. It's depicted as a cult
Speaker 4: in him as a cult leader.
Speaker 2: And with all that stuff which is important, which can
Speaker 2: be heartbreaking and of course dangerous sometimes fatal. With all
Speaker 2: that stuff put to one side, there's another thing that
Speaker 2: the Kingston Clan does. They're very very or they were
Speaker 2: very very good at business and they have a unique
Speaker 2: banking arrangement or system within the community. I mean, we
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about the Kingston Bank.
Speaker 3: It's weird. I don't know how you could ever convince
Speaker 3: me to do this. I don't know that you could. Maybe,
Speaker 3: but each member when you when you are working you
Speaker 3: have an income, your money doesn't go into Bank of
Speaker 3: America or Wells Fargo or one of these places. Your
Speaker 3: money goes into the organization's bank, the organization's bank that
Speaker 3: is controlled by what the high few in charge.
Speaker 4: So when you say the organization's bank, we're not saying
Speaker 4: the giant bank that they bank with. We're saying a
Speaker 4: bank founded and operated by the organization.
Speaker 2: Right Kingston Bank. Yeah, you have to give all your
Speaker 2: money to the bank if you're in the community, and
Speaker 2: if you want to withdraw money, then that you have
Speaker 2: to go to the bank. And imagine walking up to
Speaker 2: the teller at whatever, you know, your bank maybe or
Speaker 2: your credit union and saying I'd like to withdraw you know,
Speaker 2: five hundred dollars and then having to tell her to
Speaker 2: sort of cross their arms and go all right, why what.
Speaker 4: Are you gonna do?
Speaker 3: Or basically asking you for a pitch document, Well, what's
Speaker 3: your pitch? Why what do you want that money? What
Speaker 3: are you gonna use it for?
Speaker 2: Exactly? And if it's consensual and it's above board, that
Speaker 2: arrangement is totally legal. You know, the problem is what's consent.
Speaker 4: It's like when Britney Spears was under that protectorship or
Speaker 4: conservatorship or whatever, and had to like justify any expense
Speaker 4: that she, you know, wanted to go to Starbucks or
Speaker 4: take the kids out or something. She had to like
Speaker 4: explain it.
Speaker 3: Well, I think about like a co op or a
Speaker 3: trust of some sort, where we've got several of those
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, like land trust, land co ops and those
Speaker 3: kinds of things where everybody puts in right.
Speaker 4: Those are usually good though. Right they give first time
Speaker 4: homeowners the ability to buy a house, and there's positive
Speaker 4: things about them. But I see what you're saying.
Speaker 3: And then if you've got ideas to use some of
Speaker 3: those funds, you get together and you pitch an idea
Speaker 3: of why you're gonna use it. To me, I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe it is the same as that. Maybe it just
Speaker 3: feels different to me.
Speaker 4: Because we're on the outside, you know. I mean, I
Speaker 4: guess the question becomes one of consent, like are these
Speaker 4: people coerced into participating in this system or do they
Speaker 4: think that the leaders have their best interest at heart
Speaker 4: and they're happy to participate in this system.
Speaker 2: And also the question of boundaries. So I know a
Speaker 2: lot of people in co ops right their relationship with
Speaker 2: the co op is quite is quite well defined.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: The difference I would posit here, Matt, is that in
Speaker 2: most co ops, the kind that we're thinking about, you know,
Speaker 2: like the hippie grocery store or whatever. Shout out to
Speaker 2: Sevenanda in little five points, that's a co op. And
Speaker 2: they're not telling people. They're not arranging marriages, right, they're
Speaker 2: not forcing child labor. They're saying, is this the best
Speaker 2: place for us to get avocados from? You know what
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 4: They voted on that, Yeah, where they exact where they
Speaker 4: source things from? Do they feel like these are organizations
Speaker 4: that uphold their values stuff like that? Right?
Speaker 2: And nobody knows how much money the Kingston Bank actually has.
Speaker 4: Nobody knows people.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure like there are eight dudes too, no people,
Speaker 2: But I mean this is not something that is i
Speaker 2: mean publicly available in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 4: I did not know that. That's very interesting. How are
Speaker 4: they allowed to exist without reporting to the irs and
Speaker 4: without like with this much small through there?
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, yeah, they found out, they have to found out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it takes time that sometimes.
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, the FBI rated multiple businesses owned by
Speaker 2: the Kingston Group during an investigation into allegations of tax fraud,
Speaker 2: high level tax fraud. It all orbits around this energy
Speaker 2: company that they controlled, and various reports that you could
Speaker 2: find publicly or in various public statements said altogether the
Speaker 2: Kingston Clan the Order has about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: to one hundred and seventy million dollars. However, if you
Speaker 2: got insiders to speak, and you can find them speaking anonymously,
Speaker 2: they would say that figure is laughably low. Because the
Speaker 2: Order's empire spans six different states. They have all sorts
Speaker 2: of seemingly unrelated businesses with very innocuous names, and we
Speaker 2: know what's up with innocuous names. Standard Restaurant Equipment Co,
Speaker 2: Fidelity Funding, Core, Fountain of Youth, Health and Athletic Club
Speaker 2: east Side Market. They get a coin machine distributor, Digital Systems,
Speaker 2: Family Stores True Value. They also have a mine that
Speaker 2: for a while was making a million a month. They
Speaker 2: have casino and tons of farms. And then the thing
Speaker 2: that got them in trouble was the Washshaiki Renewable Energy
Speaker 2: Company or the wr Group, because what they were doing
Speaker 2: is getting grants and government money for a biofuel project
Speaker 2: or subsidy, and they were cleaning up because they didn't
Speaker 2: spend any money actually making biofuel are making. They were
Speaker 2: making nine and ten year old children show up at
Speaker 2: the office and help forge documents like bills of lading
Speaker 2: and invoicing. They're super big on child labor.
Speaker 3: I thought that was the Montssori school, the Montessori school,
Speaker 3: the hand tasks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the Little Red Schoolhouse Montassori.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, the kid did Montessori for a while. It
Speaker 4: was weird, but it seemed really cool at the time,
Speaker 4: but then it was like, this is too much.
Speaker 2: So the Kingston Group has created this business empire without
Speaker 2: clear connections to them by design, they kind of want
Speaker 2: to stay out of the spotlight. They want to pursue
Speaker 2: their own belief system, and they were pretty good at it.
Speaker 2: You could walk through Salt Lake City and never know
Speaker 2: just how many things they actually oh, they can be
Speaker 2: traced back to them, But that seems to be changing.
Speaker 2: Just this year. In April, five Kingston associated individuals were
Speaker 2: sentenced to prison for what Uncle Sam calls a one
Speaker 2: billion dollar biofuel tax conspiracy. So they actually some of
Speaker 2: them did actually go to jail.
Speaker 4: It's pretty rare in these types of corporate cases. You know,
Speaker 4: it's usually there's a fall person or you know, somebody
Speaker 4: further down the line that gets sent to jail, or
Speaker 4: it's just a fine that is sort of laughable. So that,
Speaker 4: you know, I guess that's good, mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that it's troubling too because you can read
Speaker 2: statements of people who have escaped the cult or excuse me,
Speaker 2: the order, some of whom escaped because women are treated
Speaker 2: like things in the organization, some of whom were booted
Speaker 2: out forcibly because of their sexual orientation. And you can
Speaker 2: there's some great work on advice about this. You can read,
Speaker 2: and can read any number of stories from an outfit
Speaker 2: called the Cult Education Institute that talks about a lot
Speaker 2: of this. Just gird yourself and be ready because some
Speaker 2: of it is quite disturbing stuff, especially when you get
Speaker 2: into the alleged and proven sexual crimes of some of
Speaker 2: the leadership of the sect and they're still doing business,
Speaker 2: they're still making money and over fist, I propose we
Speaker 2: go to a ad break and we were thinking about this, guys.
Speaker 2: We wanted to end on something that was not as
Speaker 2: horrible ostensibly as you know, a religious sect of child abusers,
Speaker 2: which is what the Kingston plan is. We're going to
Speaker 2: go to something that has a creepy name in my opinion,
Speaker 2: but it's according to some people, it's pretty nice word
Speaker 2: from our sponsor. And then we'll enter the Loving Hut.
Speaker 2: We're back. We're in the Loving Hut.
Speaker 4: What is that You're in the Loving Hut? Matt tell
Speaker 4: us about.
Speaker 3: It's honestly purveyor of delicious vegan food. It was awesome.
Speaker 3: I really really enjoyed it when I went there, and
Speaker 3: I didn't really understand any of the stuff going on
Speaker 3: around it. But you know, look, this is my experience.
Speaker 4: Guys.
Speaker 3: I walked in, look at the menu, order some food,
Speaker 3: walk outside. When I walk back in, notice the magazines
Speaker 3: take my food, hang out with the magazines a little
Speaker 3: bit longer, and then realize, oh, there's something going on here.
Speaker 3: There's somebody they keep referring to as Supreme Master.
Speaker 4: There's a quote on their website from him, and it's
Speaker 4: just attributed to smc h. I'm guessing sm stands for
Speaker 4: Supreme Master, but so the quote sounds nice. We have
Speaker 4: to be compassionate again, we have to look into our
Speaker 4: heart to live the noble way that Heaven all caps
Speaker 4: or to all caps first letter caps intended us to live.
Speaker 4: I think you miss Ben's question. What was your order?
Speaker 4: That's what everyone wants to know.
Speaker 3: Oh man, I don't know that I could tell you
Speaker 3: it was. It was probably something with Soy. I'm sure
Speaker 3: Soy was involved, Like it was probably Tofu and Soy
Speaker 3: something cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to out us, but I think
Speaker 2: no one and I both pulled up the menu. You
Speaker 2: definitely we're reading it. Yeah, take out the Singapore and noodles.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Loving Hut. It's a chain of vegan restaurants
Speaker 2: all across the planet. I think for a while it's
Speaker 2: been the fastest growing vegan franchise in the world. And
Speaker 2: SMH is Supreme Master. Chinghai a seventy three year old
Speaker 2: Vietnamese born British business woman and she's got a restaurant empire.
Speaker 2: Time magazine once called her the Buddhist Martha Stewart. She's
Speaker 2: the she created a jewelry line, a clothing line. She
Speaker 2: has something called the Kuan Yin method or Kwanyin method,
Speaker 2: which is that's kind of what they're talking about in
Speaker 2: those magazines. That's kind of what the statement about compassion
Speaker 2: refers to she might have five hundred thousand followers. Nobody's
Speaker 2: really sure, because this is what is called a cyber sect,
Speaker 2: meaning a new religious movement that exists in spreads primarily
Speaker 2: online and unlike Oh oh and you can check out
Speaker 2: Supreme Master Television right now SMTV.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, yeah, like the acroam. I think Matt did
Speaker 4: say off Mike to us that they did not appear
Speaker 4: to have this network running twenty four to seven, but
Speaker 4: you might have just missed it.
Speaker 3: Again, maybe they did, and I just was completely oblivious
Speaker 3: to it, and I was like, oh, that that seems
Speaker 3: like a nice program.
Speaker 2: Oh and I okay, we went through again some plot
Speaker 2: twists through record today, So we're not going to play
Speaker 2: a clip, but do look up Supreme Master Television. It's
Speaker 2: worth it. It's got the captions on the bottom of
Speaker 2: the screen are in like fourteen languages.
Speaker 4: They are serious.
Speaker 2: About going global. The little caption thing is like the
Speaker 2: bottom half of the screen, and it's all about how
Speaker 2: you should need animals, how you should have how you
Speaker 2: should practice a dedication to a vegan lifestyle, which is
Speaker 2: a thing a lot of people can agree with.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, it's a live stream that we can, like,
Speaker 3: I can turn it on right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, click, can you watch it? See right now?
Speaker 2: We're are you seeing the one about the dog with.
Speaker 3: The icon, But did you see the person speaking?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a very strange look, isn't it.
Speaker 4: I was now gonna just seeing beauty shots of fields
Speaker 4: of trees and mountains with mists and the beautiful boats
Speaker 4: on on the seashore.
Speaker 2: The thing is, when we're saying this not as a
Speaker 2: ding because we are new to this world. The person
Speaker 2: who is the host of the like the news anchor person, oh,
Speaker 2: looks as though they were wearing acoustu yeah and being
Speaker 2: very diplomatic.
Speaker 3: But like full body, fake beard, fake mustache, even fake
Speaker 3: hair looking thing. And yeah, it's very strange.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's one of the more off putting things
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 4: There a bomb that haven't gotten to a shot of
Speaker 4: the anchor yet. I just see kitty cats right now?
Speaker 4: Any bunny rabbits and daisies?
Speaker 3: Wow, what's about animal husbandry laws? About it? From twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: I've been you weren't joking about the uh the cap
Speaker 3: titles here?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, good language tool, right.
Speaker 4: And if you're asking yourself. How could you possibly fit
Speaker 4: all of that in in one screen? Is because they're
Speaker 4: popping it up like three words at a time, and
Speaker 4: there's like ten different translations. They're just a zooming past.
Speaker 3: Let's let's read, let's read thems really quickly, be vegan,
Speaker 3: make peace, so be it.
Speaker 2: They've got other They've got other really weird, weird things
Speaker 2: that they get into with this.
Speaker 4: I feel like, are we seeing the same thing? Guys?
Speaker 4: This is honesty. It might not be honestly. Yeah, it's
Speaker 4: a little cartoon right now. That was there was a
Speaker 4: joke of today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, okay, I'm gonna be a little behind, but yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's it's continual. You can always check it out
Speaker 2: if you are interested. And look, you can say, maybe
Speaker 2: Chinghai seems like a cult leader, but also seems less
Speaker 2: outright dangerous than some other cult leaders. The emphasis on veganism, kindness, sustainability,
Speaker 2: so on. Those are all cool aspirational things. And every
Speaker 2: loving Hut has a lot of agencies. So like if
Speaker 2: the next time we're on the road, if we go
Speaker 2: to a loving Hut in California, it's gonna be completely
Speaker 2: different from the Loving Hut in Sandy Springs, which is
Speaker 2: a suburb a little bit north of Atlanta here. And
Speaker 2: that's because the franchises, as long as they follow the
Speaker 2: rules about veganism and as long as they are down
Speaker 2: with talking about the Supreme Master, they can put whatever
Speaker 2: they want on the menu. It's just like, how do
Speaker 2: you vibe? What do you feel like cooking?
Speaker 3: That's cool?
Speaker 4: Kind of similar to the Yellow Deli. Didn't they have it?
Speaker 4: Like there are some of those who were different, as
Speaker 4: long as they sort of like adhere to the main
Speaker 4: tenets of the whole philosophy.
Speaker 2: M Yeah, I think you're right. And that's in neither
Speaker 2: case is that typical cult stuff? Also, in the in
Speaker 2: Chinghai's defense, she hasn't been implicated in like mass suicides
Speaker 2: or sexual abuse, or kidnapping people and holding them hostage,
Speaker 2: all the other cult stuff that Netflix documentaries love. But
Speaker 2: she has been banned. Her organization has been banned in
Speaker 2: China and Vietnam, and she gets a lot of scrutiny
Speaker 2: and a lot of criticism because the idea is it's
Speaker 2: very much a cult personality. It's very centered on following
Speaker 2: her meditating, chanting your name for two and a half
Speaker 2: hours a day is recommended you want to purify yourself
Speaker 2: by drinking her spiritually imbued bath water.
Speaker 4: Oh oh boy?
Speaker 3: Wait yeah yeah, yeah, like she takes a bath in it.
Speaker 2: I believe something like that. Yeah, it's very b girl. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then they also tell you do things that will
Speaker 2: help you have a better physical lifestyle. Don't eat animal flesh,
Speaker 2: avoid dairy, don't drink booze, don't do a lot of
Speaker 2: mind altering, well any mind altering drugs, and then avoid
Speaker 2: something called sexual misconduct, which is kind of vague. I
Speaker 2: haven't seen anybody explain what that means, Like, does that
Speaker 2: mean is it an anti lgbt Q thing or is
Speaker 2: it just like I only have consensual sex.
Speaker 4: This reminds me a lot of the United House of
Speaker 4: Prayer for All People. I think we talked about that
Speaker 4: in the past, that there was a chapter of it.
Speaker 4: I guess in my hometown, and they have a really
Speaker 4: dope soul food restaurant and that's kind of how they
Speaker 4: get outsiders to come, you know, pass through. But then
Speaker 4: if you look in the restaurant part, there's a giant
Speaker 4: painting portrait of this guy named Bishop Charles Manuel Sweet
Speaker 4: Daddy Grace, and apparently he sells the water that's used
Speaker 4: to wash his feet to people in a similar fashion
Speaker 4: that I just remember hearing that, and it was very
Speaker 4: off putting. I think I just said not to go
Speaker 4: eat there anymore after that. But it was sure good.
Speaker 4: And forgive me if I'm getting that wrong. But this
Speaker 4: is a common thing, this idea of this is something
Speaker 4: from the leader directly. This is a substance, you know,
Speaker 4: from the body of the leader that you can now
Speaker 4: own a piece of, you know.
Speaker 2: And this the spiritual beliefs of Chinghai have not been
Speaker 2: without controversy by any means. You know, they're there are
Speaker 2: certain potentially harmful practices that the leader has advocated before,
Speaker 2: one of which being breath arianism. Will remember that one.
Speaker 2: It's the idea that if you get spiritually right and
Speaker 2: you're buttoned up, then you can cut food out of
Speaker 2: your diet. Then you can just live by breathing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it doesn't It doesn't work out for most people. Just
Speaker 2: to be super clear, we're not doctors, but it doesn't
Speaker 2: work out for most people.
Speaker 3: Well it works for a while.
Speaker 2: Wait, well, yeah, sure, anything works for a while. Jay,
Speaker 2: how long is that?
Speaker 4: While?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also there's a little bit of prosperity theology,
Speaker 2: because the Supreme Master tells her followers that you shouldn't
Speaker 2: be ashamed about making money. She said specifically, people make
Speaker 2: you feel guilty about making money dot it's none of
Speaker 2: their business. And that brings us to maybe the biggest controversies,
Speaker 2: which are all financial. She donated six one hundred and
Speaker 2: forty thousand dollars to the Bill Clinton Whitewater Defense Fund
Speaker 2: when he was in trouble for that thing, and they
Speaker 2: returned it because you know, it looks like you're taking
Speaker 2: Colt money and they're already in a pr crisis.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of money for a defense fund for
Speaker 3: the to defend against the Whitewater scandal.
Speaker 2: She was very a very outspoken supporter of former President Clinton.
Speaker 2: And also when she got she got a lot of
Speaker 2: this money from some of her followers in New York
Speaker 2: and they said, she just asked for donations to quote
Speaker 2: help someone in need, and they didn't know who it
Speaker 2: was until it hit the news and they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: the the guy from the White House. And the Taiwanese
Speaker 2: authorities have also targeted her businesses under suspicion of illegally
Speaker 2: moving money in and out of the country in some
Speaker 2: sketchy ways. She wanted to donate to. UNICEF turned down
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand dollars donation from her in two thousand
Speaker 2: and one after they investigated her organization, including Loving Hut.
Speaker 2: Apparently they've been in trouble. One of the reasons they
Speaker 2: were banned in China is because they used an electronics
Speaker 2: company as what the Chinese government is calling a front
Speaker 2: to recruit new members into this religion or this movement.
Speaker 2: But on a positive note, she doesn't ask people to
Speaker 2: cut ties with their loved ones, she doesn't ask them
Speaker 2: to hand over all their stuff. Her lectures are free.
Speaker 2: Followers are apparently allowed to leave at any time, So, honestly,
Speaker 2: as cults go, not bad. I mean, there are accusations
Speaker 2: of Loving Hut franchises using unpaid or underpaid or child labor,
Speaker 2: but in comparison to the stuff we explored earlier, I
Speaker 2: don't know, man, I it's just one thing we can
Speaker 2: say for sure. We're all going to a Loving Hut
Speaker 2: together at some point. You're invited. If you're hearing this
Speaker 2: and yeah and.
Speaker 4: Then bang banging menu, I mean, it really doesn't mean well,
Speaker 4: and they've.
Speaker 3: Got free TV that never stops.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's the main features.
Speaker 4: We can't wait to hear what you think of that
Speaker 4: TV channel.
Speaker 2: I used to have this series of websites or hubs
Speaker 2: that would go to where you could watch live television
Speaker 2: from around the world. And I gotta tell you it,
Speaker 2: GE's interesting. It's a good idea. Think it's interesting, you know.
Speaker 2: But but we know one thing for sure. There may
Speaker 2: be a part three company of this series. Companies started
Speaker 2: by cults. Just like last time, we ran into more
Speaker 2: and more companies. We didn't get to them today, places
Speaker 2: like Exjet, for instance, And oh, I thought it would
Speaker 2: be this is a cool one. Maybe we can end
Speaker 2: on an honorable mention. I was not aware. You guys
Speaker 2: might have known this before I did. But did you
Speaker 2: know that the Moonies run sushi in the US. They
Speaker 2: run the sushi game.
Speaker 4: The whole game, a lot of it. Can you elaborate then?
Speaker 2: Okay, So this is props to Daniel Frumson at The
Speaker 2: New York Times. There's a great article and actually really
Speaker 2: well designed article to read online. It's very visual, graphic.
Speaker 2: Novely and the Mooney's Reverend Sun Young Moon. He when
Speaker 2: he came to the United States he had already made
Speaker 2: a lot of money selling various things, and he plowed
Speaker 2: tens of millions of dollars into buying boats and processing
Speaker 2: plants because he wanted his church to get into the
Speaker 2: fish distribution business. The company is called True World Foods.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the measurements now, you'll see
Speaker 2: that True World Foods still supplies quote most good quality
Speaker 2: American sushi restaurants with more than a million kilos of
Speaker 2: fresh fish a year and there, wait for it, reeling
Speaker 2: in annual revenues of five hundred billion.
Speaker 4: Okay, has sushi? So how do you It's okay? So
Speaker 4: they're like up the supply chain then, I guess is
Speaker 4: the thing. So it's not like they're directly involved with
Speaker 4: our neighborhood sushi joint, but they are. They control the
Speaker 4: flow of sushi. Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 3: And this is the unification church that we're talking about, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, the big I think one of the things
Speaker 2: that are most famous for is those huge mass marriages.
Speaker 4: Wow yeah yeah. Ok.
Speaker 2: And during the COVID nineteen pandemic, True World Foods launched
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