Word: amway
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...wealthy U.S. business executives, Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos, faced indictments last week on criminal charges that they had defrauded the Canadian government of more than $22 million in import duties between 1965 and 1980. Van Andel, 58, and DeVos, 56, are chairman and president of Amway, a large direct-selling organization that claims $1.5 billion in annual sales and at least 1 million distributors, mostly part-timers, who peddle the company's diverse line of products, from laundry detergents to health food...
...Andel and DeVos founded the company, and they and their families own the whole thing. Forbes calculated in September that together the executives were worth $550 million, which put them well up on the magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans. Though Amway has its headquarters in tiny Ada, Mich., Van Andel and DeVos are widely known for their espousal of conservative political and economic ideas. Moreover, Van Andel served in 1979-80 as chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. DeVos was the Republican National Committee's finance chief until he was fired in August...
...criminal charges, which were also brought against Amway itself and two other top company executives, appeared to take Van Andel and DeVos by surprise. But Amway's troubles in Canada are nothing new. Two years ago the Canadians brought suit against the company to collect $118 million in back customs taxes and penalties, arguing that Amway had understated the value of the goods it was importing for sale...
...much American housing, of course, is panoramicaily 11 sipidmass-stamped suburbs as standardized as boxes on super market shelves, the endless Amway and Tupperware America. It may be fatuous to envision new splendors of design in a nation going to condo and cluster. But interesting, occasionally bizarre ideas are turning up. In the Midwest some builders are digging underground houses with skylights and atriums and a thick dome of earth on top that eliminates abrupt temperature changes from season to season. Friends, even strangers, are getting together to buy a house and share it. Under some arrangements, two couples...
...spent years working for Davidson Rubber, earning $25,000 a year helping make dashboards for Chrysler cars. No more--now he sells a "line" for Amway Products. "You can order everything from perfume to chain saws," he explains. "It's the fastest growing company in the country. IBM sold them their biggest computer, and it works so hard it heats the whole plant." So now Ron works at home, packaging detergent and appliances in cardboard boxes in his kitchen so his wife can deliver them. "I may be making $10,000, but I'm doing it my way, and there...