Matthew Gates http://notetoservices.com 10m 2,455 #theyruletheworld
The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
The following article does not reflect the opinions expressed by the website, www.theyrule.net.
Most people go through their lives, never understanding how the world operates, how it functions, how it is kept in check, how money is given value, how mass anarchy is actually prevented, and many more unanswered questions and information and knowledge they will never know, and were never meant to know. The following article is an attempt to educate readers. It is not an article that is meant to be biased or turn people to hate or boycott any of these companies – as boycotting any single one of them might mean moving off this planet, or to a remote island, where nothing and no one can be found.
You might think that there are a vast number of people making decisions, controlling the outcome of situations, and guiding the future by running the direction of world. In reality, there are about 100 to 200 corporations that influence everything that happens in the world, from the consumer market, to the pricing of gasoline, milk, water, foods, medicines and healthcare.
The majority of these corporations are run by Americans and are located in the United States but have an effect on the entire world. Every major decision in the world is made by a group of people who sit on a board for these corporations. These people are billionaires and millionaires in their own right, having inherited the position, or buying their way into the position. They may join or leave at different times in their lives or they may even remain on the board of a corporation for life and die. These individuals may control a dozen corporations or more at once. One can only wonder about their salary. It is rare that you or I will ever meet these people. There is probably a better chance of running into a celebrity than there is of meeting these powerful people who control and rule the world.
These corporations try to control the world because they control the media, our food, and the economy. They provide for us the knowledge we know and what we can know, what we can and will eat, and how much money we, as individuals can possibly make. With controlling the media comes the limiting of our knowledge to only know the information they want us to know, including government information, which is severely limited in order to control the mass hysteria that could arise if the human world population knew the truth. It has come to the point where many people know the government is lying to them, but do nothing about it. In times of crisis, the media is called upon to “control” the situation. By putting out specific messages to the world, the media can deliver any kind of information it needs in order to reach the masses of the entire world and keep them calm or put them in hysteria.
They also control the corporations that provide us with the nutritional foods we eat which affects our health and how long we actually can live on this planet. There are over 7 billion people on Earth, which is considered to be overpopulated and a natural drain on all of the world resources. There is about 1 – 2% of drinkable water on this planet for human and animal. Everyone is allowed a certain amount of time on this Earth, but to control who lives and who dies, is the reason why a majority of the most deadly diseases do not have a cure. It is the reason why HIV/AIDs and cancer still exist. The pharmaceutical companies have billions of dollars at their expense yet produce medicine that “cures while harming”, leaving side-effects and death. Hardly ever found is a cure, but rather a temporary solution until the individual dies or copes with their disease.
In regards to the economy, there was a massive increase of prices on every product after the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and through the 1980s, where everything had once cost less than or around a dollar, now began to rise to over three or more dollars, which was a 1000% increase in almost every existing product. Cost of living went up, yet labor wages failed to budge, and rise very slowly. Why is this? Did these products become better or did the companies providing these products use higher quality materials? Nothing changed, except the greed of the corporations, realizing they could get away with it, knowing the world would still pay for what they wanted and needed.
While there is mass hysteria and outrage over Facebook or Google privacy issues, with people worried about sharing information, the truth is that nearly every corporation already has every bit of data on every individual life with a Social Security Number or other number that has been registered into any corporation, from the diseases the individual has, how many family members they have, to the food they eat, to how much money they have in the bank, and even the car they drive. There is no information that is secret in the world. Everyone can be found at any time or eventually be found at some point in time.
Nearly all of these corporations dominate the world and the government will most likely bail them out because it cannot afford to see any of them fail since they do, in fact, rule the world. Most of these individuals work in or for the government. These corporations are so huge and powerful, affecting every aspect of our lives, and containing so much information on every individual human being, that nearly all governments, especially the American government, must work with the corporations to ensure their success, because failure would mean the entire world economy will fail and cause utter chaos and destruction of nearly every society that is not using any gold standard or any real forms of currency. More often than not, however, the corporations are always changing ownership, changing names, or merging, thus making failure almost inevitable. It is these corporation that give any value to human currency that humanity relies on, as it is these corporation that create the products and set the prices. The pricing of these products may fluctuate over time, but generally remain the same and rely on Supply and Demand.
These corporations that rule the world include McDonalds, Microsoft, Walmart, Apple, Goldman Sachs, CNN, FoxNews, the FDA, Kellogg’s, Viacom, Virgin Mobile, AT&T, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Walgreen Co., Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo, The Walt Disney Company, The Home Depot, Target Corporation, State Farm Insurance Company, Starbucks Corporation, Sunoco, Symantec, Sysco, Staples, Southwest Airlines, Rite Aid, Sara Lee Corporation, Sallie Mae, Progressive, PetSmart, Radioshack, Progressive, Aflac Incorporated, CitiGroup Inc., CoreLogic, Comcast Corporation, Chevron Corporation, Chesapeake Energy, Cigna, CMS Energy, Con-way, Conagra Foods Inc., Contentinental Airlines, Crown Holdings, Dana Holding, Caterpillar, Cardinal Health, Best Buy Co, Big Lots, BJ Services, BJ Wholesales Club, Cambell Soup, Capital One Financial Corporation, Broadcom, Google Inc., Bank of America Corporation, AutoZone, DollarTree, DTE Energy, DukeEnergy, DuPont, eBay Inc., Exxon Mobile Corporation, Progressive Energy, Prudential Financial Inc., PNC Financial Services Group Inc., Hess Corporation, Hertz Global Holdings, Hewlett-Packard, Dell Inc., Host Hotels & Resorts, Honeywell International Inc., IBM, Intel Corporation, Ford Motor, JP Morgan Chase & Co., General Motors Company, General Mills, GameStop, Frontier Oil Company, Foot Locker, FirstEnergy Corp., Family Dollar Stores, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Haliburton, Harley-Davidson, H. J. Heinz Company, Harris Corporation, Hershey, Wisconsin Energy Group, World Fuel Services corporation, Xerox, VISA, MasterCard Incorporated, WellPoint, Western Refining, WhirlPool Corporation, Whole Foods Market, Kimberly-Clarke, Liberty Global, Levi Strauss, Lincoln National, Limited Brands, Lockheed Martin corporation, Lowes Corporation, Lowe’s, Lubrizol, Macy’s, JCPenny, Sears Holdings Corporation, Marathon Oil Corporation, Marriott International, MedWestvaco, Medco Health Solutions, McKesson, McGraw-Hill, Discover Financial Services, Edison International, Dover Corporation, DISH Network, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Delta Air Lines, Electronic Arts, EMC Corporation, Emcor Group, Emerson Electric, Enbridge Energy Partners, Energy Transfer Equity, Dillard’s, Cummins, Dean Foods, Devon Energy Corporation, Deere & Company, El Paso Corporation, Dollar General, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Eastman Chemical, Eastman Kodak, Entergy Corporation, Enterprise Products Partners, Constellation Energy, Consolidated Edison, Consol Energy, Commercial Metals, Johnson & Johnson, Kinder Morgan G.P., Nestle, Kohl’s, Kroger, L-3 Communications Holdings, Land O’Lakes, Las Vegas Stands Corp., Lear, ITT Corporation, International Paper, Illinois Tool Works, Humana Inc., The Boeing Company, The Washington Post Company, The Western Union Company, Thermo Fisher Scientific, TravelCenters of America, TIAA-CREF, TRW Automotive Holdings, UGI, Union Pacific Corporation, United Continental Holdings, United Stationers, United Technologies Corporation, Universal American, Universal Health Services, Williams Companies, Winn-Dixie Stores, WR Berkley, WW Grainger, Xcel Energy Inc., Yahoo! Inc., YRC Worldwide, Yum Brands, Zimmer Holdings, Western Digital Corporation, Weyerhaeuser, US Bancorp, VF, Visteon, WellCare Health Plans, Wesco International, Western & Souther Financial Group, Verizon Communications, URS Corporation, The Interpublic Group of Companies, The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, The Procter & Gamble Company, The Southern Company, The Shaw Group Inc., The TJX Companies, The Travelers Companies, The Chubb Corporation, The Clorox Company, The Bank of New York Mellon COmpany, Tesoro Corporation, The Allstate Corporation, Tech Data, Telephone & Data Systems, Tenet Healthcare, Synnex, Supervalu, SunTrust Banks, Tutor Perini Corporation, TRW Automotive Holdings, Unisys, The Directv Group, Pulte Homes, Qualcomm, Qwest Communications International, Raytheon Company, Regions Financial, Republic Services, Reynolds American, Ross Stores, RR Donnelley & Sons, Ryder System, Safeway, SIEMENS, SAIC, Scana, Sealed Air, Sempra Energy, Sherwin-Williams, Smith International, Spectrum Group, Sprint Nextel, SPx, St Jude Medical, Publix Super Markets, Public Service Enterprise Group, Principal Financial Group, Polo Ralph Lauren, Nordstrum, Omnicare, Omnicom Group, Oracle, CenturyLink, Colgate-Palmolive, and the list goes on and on.
You can view the remaining list at www.theyrule.net.
These corporations touch every aspect of all human life on the entire planet and at every single age from birth until death. Even those who are living in more remote countries such as places in Africa and South America are affected by the decisions of these corporations. These corporations run the entire world the way they see fit. The individuals who sit on the board of these large corporation number to less than 1% of the entire population of the world, but they control the behavior, actions, and lifestyle of almost 100% of the world. Their faces and names remain almost hidden. They may be called lobbyists or just people of great influence, but whether they influence governments or not, the world will always be effected by the choices these huge corporations make for the entire world. They rule the world.
Visit www.theyrule.net for more information on these corporations, find out who runs them, and how they connect to everything.
Overview
They Rule aims to provide a glimpse of some of the relationships of the US ruling class. It takes as its focus the boards of some of the most powerful U.S. companies, which share many of the same directors. Some individuals sit on 5, 6 or 7 of the top 1000 companies. It allows users to browse through these interlocking directories and run searches on the boards and companies. A user can save a map of connections complete with their annotations and email links to these maps to others. They Rule is a starting point for research about these powerful individuals and corporations.
Context
A few companies control much of the economy and oligopolies exert control in nearly every sector of the economy. The people who head up these companies swap on and off the boards from one company to another, and in and out of government committees and positions. These people run the most powerful institutions on the planet, and we have almost no say in who they are. This is not a conspiracy, they are proud to rule, yet these connections of power are not always visible to the public eye.
Karl Marx once called this ruling class a ‘band of hostile brothers.’ They stand against each other in the competitve struggle for the continued accumulation of their capital, but they stand together as a family supporting their interests in perpetuating the profit system as whole. Protecting this system can require the cover of a ‘legitimate’ force – and this is the role that is played by the state. An understanding of this system can not be gleaned from looking at the inter-personal relations of this class alone, but rather how they stand in relation to other classes in society. Hopefully They Rule will raise larger questions about the structure of our society and in whose benefit it is run.
The Data
We do not claim that this data is 100% accurate at all times. Corporate directors have a habit of dying, quitting boards, joining new ones and most frustratingly passing on their names to their children who not entirely coincidently are also found to be members of US corporate boards. There is no single easily parsed single authoritative public record containing these shifting datasets. Luckily there is LittleSis.org a community of obsessive data miners who specialize in “profiling the powers that be.” Little Sis has very generously made their data available to They Rule through their API. If you see something that is incorrect you can contribute to both projects by signing up at Little Sis and editing the data there. That correction should become immediately available on They Rule, however, it will not be instantly updated in the auto-mode or in saved maps.
Credits
This site was made by Josh On with the indispensable assistance of LittleSis.org. Special thanks to Matthew Skomarovsky of Little Sis who really went out of his way to help make the data from Little Sis work with They Rule. The latest version of They Rule would not have happened were it not for a fellowship from Renew Media (now Media Artists).
Thanks to Amy Balkin of Public Smog for her help and encouragement. Thanks to Amy Franceschini and Futurefarmers for their support. Thanks to the Mission branch of the International Socialist Organization for putting up with my complete spaciness as I was consumed in the production. Thanks to Media Temple for their great and generous hosting.
Project History
2001
The first version of They Rule was a static set of data gathered from the websites of the top 100 companies.
2004
They Rule was updated to include the top 500 US companies, and added the ability to find the connections between any two of these companies.
2011
They Rule was connected to LittleSis.org and provided users with the ability of users to interface with the top 1000 US companies. It also added the auto-mode which automatically browsed through the interlocking directories with out user intervention.
Source: www.TheyRule.Net
About the Author
Matthew Gates is a freelance web designer and is passionate about writing, psychology, and philosophy.
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