Posted on 11/03/2013 6:51:15 AM PST by Kaslin
PolicyMic has a very interesting chart that shows how 10 Corporations Control Almost Everything You Buy.
click on chart for huge image
The chart was posted on Reddit as illusion of choice. I could not locate the original source.
PolicyMic explains ...
Ten mega corporations control the output of almost everything you buy; from household products to batteries.
These corporations create the chain of supplies that flow from one another. Each chain begins at one of the 10 super companies.
Here's just one example: Yum Brands owns KFC and Taco Bell. The company was a spin-off of Pepsi. All Yum Brands restaurants sell only Pepsi products because of a lifetime deal with the soda-maker.
$84 billion company Proctor & Gamble owns companies that produce everything from detergent to toothpaste. Unilever produces everything from Dove soap to Klondike bars.
It's not just the products you buy and consume, either. In recent decades, the very news and information that you get has bundled together: 90% of the media is now controlled by just six companies, down from 50 in 1983, according to a Frugal Dad infographic from last year.
It gets even more macro, too: 37 banks have merged to become just four — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and CitiGroup in a little over two decades, according to this Federal Reserve map.
The nation's 10 largest financial institutions hold 54% of our total financial assets; in 1990, they held 20%. As MotherJones reports, the number of banks has dropped from more than 12,500 to about 8,000.
Media Consolidation
Everything You Think, Read, or Say
I always try to find a link to the original source, but none of the links to a Frugal Dad article work.
Regardless anything you read, watch, or buy is in the hands of fewer and fewer companies. The same applies to banks.
This is another reason we need an independent news network. One is actually in the works, started by Jeremy Scahill, National Security Correspondent for The Nation magazine, and Glenn Greenwald who broke the NSA spy story.
For details, please see War Against Journalists; "We Hit the Jackpot"
Question of the Day
How long will it be, before everything to think read or say is in the pill you took today?
Link if video does not play: Zager And Evans
Also, buy off brands at places like Aldi’s.
I do, of course, buy some items from one of the Big 10. It is impossible to completely avoid. But I have substituted those off brand items that are acceptable everywhere I can.
Read and watch whatever you like. Online, all you are *paying* is a blip in their stats. But don’t subscribe. In fiction, lately, I have been downloading whatever I find for free that I would have bought, anyway. I watch 2 programs/week on Hulu free. We watch 1-2 hours of TV/movies per night via Netflix, either DVD or streaming. Once in a blue moon, we will see a movie on the big screen, but that happens less and less....maybe once every year and a half.
I just purchased 8 paperbacks for .25/ea at my favorite thrift shop. We spent $40 this past year on a mountain of great top brand clothing, including a wonderful suede jacket at a consignment store’s semi-annual sale. I buy us both shoes online and mostly opt for savings by picking something on closeout or something discontinued. There are websites (& eBay stores) dedicated to selling discontinued styles, new with tags. As a bonus, they are often styles we really love and cannot even find elsewhere.
Toiletries are usually available in the Equate brand, which is Walmart, as opposed to L’oreal or whatever other brand.
It adds up and it is also a political statement.
During the end of the depression and during WWII, my grandparents lived on a small acreage with a great garden. That garden not only fed them, it helped to feed some of their children and grandkids.
My Granddad did the garden, and my grandmother raised strawberries and chickens/eggs which fed us and provided income. She, also, traded the chickens/eggs and strawberries for beef and pork.
Granddad built a little self service stand which he would stock up each morning before going to work where neighbors and strangers could by fresh produce. He was open to trade, and cash and trade were on the honor system. He hated squash and had a couple of signs noting “No Damn Squash!” on any trade or as a gift.
Those, who knew my grandmother would knock on her kitchen door to buy her strawberries/ chickens or trade whatever for them. She also took orders for pies and cakes which were sold for cash.
She and her married daughters and older grand daughters went into a home canning mode when the gardens produced more than they could eat, sell or barter.
I grew up picking fresh produce from their garden to snack on and for lunch and dinner.
My wife’s parents and grandmother also had great gardens.
So we grew up knowing where good food came from.
Our DIL and one of our sons live in a great farm area with an incredible farmer’s market lasting from late April to about now. Our grandkids have been selecting fresh fruit and produce to eat since they were toddlers. Our grandson on summer visits, likes going out in our back yard to pick our cherry tomatoes from the vines and the arugula from a trough and eating them as he picks them. Even as teenagers, they love to pack their own lunches with their selected fruit and vegies.
I charcoal grill most dinners from April about now. Besides grilling the game and seafood, I grill a lot of veggies and fruits. Visiting family members and close friends love to stop here. We, then go to their places to eat inside food during our winter months. I use about 300 pounds of charcoal each season.
Re the fresh figs, most mornings, my wife picks a small handful for each of us to be part or our breakfast.
“...Procter & Gamble...earned their position in the marketplace by doing a better job than their competitors.”
And making a deal with the Devil and putting Satanic signs on all of your products doesn’t hurt either! /s
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