The two companies that own practically EVERYTHING

And how they keep you distracted with false conflicts

There is plenty of online speculation about mattress stores. Many people have grown suspicious of the never-ending proliferation of mattress stores — sometimes two or three on the same city block. Here’s what I know about it:

Mattress stores may have different names, but many of them are owned by the same company: Mattress Firm. So, let’s say you go into a Mattress Firm and don’t get the price you want. Brimming with indignation, you march out and enter Sleepy’s right across the street. You get a 10 percent better deal and make a purchase. You probably feel pretty darn good about yourself, too. A few things to remember:

• Mattresses are expensive and are also marked up at least 50 percent, so it doesn’t take many sales to make a nice profit for an individual store

• Mattress stores have a low overhead — minimum wage/commission workers and a slow turnover rate of inventory, so there’s virtually no downside to opening “too many” stores

• Mattress stores owned by the same company can afford to “compete” with each other on the edges of their profit margins, while giving you the impression that capitalism is smoothly operating as designed

All of the above may or may not be interesting to you. But I feel certain this next section will grab your full attention.

The mattress industry scam is but a microcosm of how monopoly capitalism works. Currently, a mere handful of massive companies own practically everything while keeping you genuflecting at the altar of the “free market.” Let’s briefly explore the biggest of the big: two incestuous asset management companies named BlackRock Fund Advisors and Vanguard Group.

For starters, please consider that together, BlackRock and Vanguard own 13 percent of Pfizer and 11 percent of Moderna. To help keep all the pro-Big Pharma going strong, consider these examples of their collective media holdings:

• 18 percent of Fox

• 16 percent of CBS (which includes 60 Minutes)

• 13 percent of Comcast, which owns NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and the Sky Media group.

• 12 percent of CNN.

• 12 percent of Disney, which owns ABC and FiveThirtyEight

• Between 10 and 14 percent of Gannett, which owns more than 250 Gannett daily newspapers, plus USA Today

• Ten percent of the Sinclair local television news, which controls 72 percent of U.S. households’ local TV

In terms of policy-making, President Joe Biden chose BlackRock global head of sustainable investing Brian Deese to serve as his director of the National Economic Council. Deese had served in the Obama administration before he joined BlackRock in 2017. Another BlackRock alum, Adewale Adeyemo, will join Biden’s team as deputy Treasury secretary. Previously, Adeyemo was president of the Obama Foundation. Also, BlackRock chief investment strategist Mike Pyle was chosen to serve as the chief economic advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris.

BlackRock alone is the world’s largest money manager — with roughly $10 trillion currently under management. This is larger than the world’s largest bank: the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. If BlackRock were a nation and we counted its $10 trillion in holdings as GDP, it would rank third in the world — behind only the U.S. and China — and growing.

“How did this happen?” asks investigative journalist Jeannette Cooperman. “The best explanations do not show up on Fox or CNN or CBS or ABC or NBC or USA Today or 60 Minutes, but in academic journals.”

Recap: You debate the merits of Coke and Pepsi. BlackRock and Vanguard own major chunks of both. You choose whether CNN or FOX “represents” you. BlackRock and Vanguard own major chunks of both. 

The culture is teeming with false conflicts like this — to keep us preoccupied, e.g., Democrat vs. Republican, Russia vs. Ukraine, etc. The general public stays emotionally engaged by these seductive “stances” while those with elite power continue carving up assets until there is literally NOTHING left for the rest of us.

We are left to act like the bull in a bullfight. We chase the elusive red cape. We are distracted from the real target through an attractive image or illusion. Our energies are so poorly focused that we offer no threat to the status quo. In fact, we willingly contribute by assuming our role as a consumer. Meanwhile, the moves towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Great Reset, a digital economy, social credit systems, and transhumanism continue apace. 

Do you think perhaps it’s time to get informed and reject your pre-scripted role?