Top Secret Writers – by Jeri Simpson
If you were to take a more in depth look around your house, you’d be shocked to find what corporations have a major impact on your daily life. Despite the variety of brands adorning your shelves, a surprisingly small number of corporations are responsible for these entities, which act as nothing more than subsidiaries of the larger corporations.
These corporations have found their way into every aspect of daily activities – often venturing into multiple avenues in which to target their potential clients. Each element of your life is impacted by these major corporations.
While flipping through your Super Mega Ultra TV package of hundreds of channels, you may be shocked to find out that the same companies own most of these channels. In fact, these companies control a whopping 90 percent of all media played across the United States (1).
Media monopoly is so strong that the powers in charge have been nicknamed “The Big Six.” These six corporations include Comcast, News-Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS.
Not only do these companies control every major entertainment channel, but they also control the news and are responsible for providing information to the masses in video format.
Media
To make this matter worse, these same businesses are also responsible for media that is heard or read. CBS is only second to iHeartMedia (formally Clear Channel Communications) who owns 1200 radio stations to CBS’s 117 stations (2)(3). This is contrary to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 created by the FCC that states a company may own no more than 20 AM and 20 FM stations, which has since been revised to be handled on a case-by-case basis (4).
Food & Health
Go to your pantry and rotate the bottles and boxes so you see the backside. You’re bound to see the likes of Kraft, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Mars, Johnson & Johnson, and Unilever (5). You may be shocked to find that many of these same names are also in your medicine cabinet. These ten companies own hundreds of subsidiaries that brand everything from shampoo to ice cream to toilet paper.
Many of the companies even own their competitors. Procter & Gamble owns Dawn, Ivory, Joy, and Cascade dish soaps, as well as Tide, Cheer, and Gain laundry soaps.
Beverages are no different. While PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have an expectedly large roll in the beverage industry, Kraft and Nestle aren’t far behind. Even the beer industry has been monopolized. Outside of the booming craft beer world, corporate giant InBev owns 200 brands worldwide (6).
Other Products
Our pets’ food falls victim to the same situation. In 2007, there was public outcry when melamine-tainted pet food was responsible for the deaths of thousands of family pets. This was due to Menu Foods, who produced pet food for 95 different brands. After the debacle, Simmons Pet Food, a subsidiary of Simmons Food, purchased Menu Foods, expanding their own manufacturing even further. Whether you’re buying a big name brand or the store brand, it’s likely manufactured by the same company (7).
Not to mention the major impact Monsanto has on agriculture – creating a situation where even our produce isn’t free from corporate power.
Pharmaceutical
No mention of conglomerate entities would be complete without a nod to the pharmaceutical industry. While you’re at your medicine cabinet, you can look for the names Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and GlaxoSmithKline that dominate the healthcare industry (8). These companies are responsible not just for internal medicines and treatments, but even the bandages applied.
Whether you’re suffering from a mild headache or undergoing chemotherapy, these major corporations are responsible for the products designed to nurse you back to health.
Computer and Software
Surely, as you’re seated in front of your laptop, we should explore the computer industry. The majority of devices including laptops, desktops, tablets, and smartphones are largely operating off of the same operating systems. Microsoft Windows, Google Android, and Apple iOS, dominate the industry.
Microsoft rules the laptop and desktop market with over 90 percent of devices pre-installed with their operating system. Google leads the tablet market with nearly 62 percent of tablets sold utilizing Android. This is largely in part to the large number of electronics manufacturers that use their software (9). Apple has conquered the U.S. market for smartphones with nearly 42 percent of users carrying iPhones (10).
It’s no question that we all encounter conglomerate-owned products throughout our day. While some products are seemingly unavoidable, it is possible to make an impact on the overall control these companies have on your life.
Turn to independent businesses – whether local or online – to break away from the major labels that make their way into every household.
References & Image Credits:
(1) Business Insider
(2) Wikipedia: iHeartMedia
(3) Wikipedia: CBS Radio
(4) 10 Corporations Control Almost Everything You Buy
(6) InBev Brands
(7) Simmons Pet Food
(8) PM Live
(9) Operating Systems Share
(10) Tech Times
Originally published on TopSecretWriters.com
Misleading title.
Corporations can’t ‘run’ anything. They are fictional entities, incapable of thought, word or action. You can’t hang a corporation.
Board members, on the other hand…
The term ” Corporation “, is a fictitious methodology of coercion as well as control which is legally designated as a ” person “. Are YOU a person ? I sure the F#@k am not. #1 is correct, you can’t sue a corporation and see any human be accountable. See Blacks Law Dictionary. Corporation in my book is equivalent to ” fiat CURRENCY “. A falsity of the Matrix we’ve been lured into and entrapped thereby. Willful entrance into a ” prison of the mind ” . . .
I see the corporations as facilitators of a much more clandestine and demonic level of control, with the ultimate goal of cheating God via Trans-humanism while destroying the rest of natural creation. Call me crazy, y’all won’t be the first . . .
Sure wish this article included a list of all these “independent businesses”. I try to find them and they usually turn out to be owned by the big pigs somewhere down the line or are in China or India or some such.
In my attempt to avoid supporting big corporations I have begun making my own soap, shampoo, conditioner and deodorant with products we already had or purchased online. This saves us money and we avoid putting all those unnamed chemicals from commercial products on our bodies.