EXCERPT: Ten mega corporations control the output of almost everything you buy; from household products to batteries to food. According to this chart via Reddit called The Illusion of Choice, these corporations create the chain of supplies that flow from one another. Each chain begins at one of the 10 super companies. Heres 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. Its 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 nations 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.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 03:01:45 +0000
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