Charles Hughes Smith asked himself how much of his money goes to cartels and monopolies. The answer: most of it.
- Mortgage: Most mortgages are processed and serviced by a mere handful of big players, so regardless of who owns your mortgage now, the mortgage/banking cartel is more than likely collecting a nice piece of it, and a chunk of the origination fees as well.
- Utilities: For heat, water and electricity, your money likely goes to a monopoly.
- Telecom: Phone, Internet and mobile services are divvied up amongst a handful of major providers.
- Food: A handful of corporations dominate the supermarket business, a handful of businesses dominate food distribution, a handful dominate the market for bulk grain and commodities like sugar, and a handful of global food giants manufacture most of the packaged food in the supermarkets.
- Eating out: A huge percentage of meals-away-from-home are served by a handful of firms.
- Media: News and entertainment industries are dominated by a handful of global corporations, so whatever money you spend on media and entertainment flows to a cartel.
- Cars: A handful of global auto manufacturers also handle the majority of auto financing.
- Retail: Most discretionary and consumer spending is to a few chains.
- Medical: The big bucks flow through a handful of HMOs or insurers to a handful of hospital chains, and the vast majority of all those funny little pills you get by the boatload every month are manufactured and marketed by a handful of global pharmaceutical giants.
- Garbage: Waste Management dominates the trash-service market.
Your state and local governments are behaving like a cartel too. As are political parties.
Playing in the Presidium.
Yay for Ronald Reagan!
What free market?!