:::::: Adding information is one thing, removing plenty of information pertinent only to American Amway is another. Its wholesale changes. What I'm embarrassed that the more successful Asians are somehow represented by an American. No single distributor organization represents Amway. Its a worldwide phenomenon and its insulting to assume any one person as the definitive image bearer of the business. The 95% quote i got from the much vauted internet of yours, not from any tape. Here is the link and they quote the Small Business Association too: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/smallbusiness/a/whybusfail.htm 
 Whatever the numbers are, it still validates my point, taking your own numbers, its like blaming the top 39.5% for the failures of the rest. 
 Your insistence that the Amway business plan is a pyramid shows your POV in this matter. Firstly, the FTC (Federal Trade Commision) totally disagrees with you. This is from the FTC website "In In re Amway Corp.,(19) another landmark decision from the 1970's, the FTC distinguished an illegal pyramid from a legitimate multilevel marketing program." 
 http://www.ftc.gov/speeches/other/dvimf16.htm 
 Maybe its your lack of understanding of plan that is making this unclear to you. The downlines can be very rich and still the upline can fail in the business. It happens all the time and regularly at that.  
 Yes, the standing of the owners and founder of Amway has plenty to do with Amway Corp. If knew the history of the company, what Amway is today are totally based on the human principles put forward by their founder and owners. It is these very owners which were elected as the chairmen of Chamber of Commerce, showing the trust of the business community on the principles which are the foundation of Amway Corporation today.