1139 Weer een geweldig goede Newsletter van Peter Myers uit Australië..

UPDATE 26 APRIL

Ik  heb de video's van item 1 en item 2 beluisterd, en hoorde dat het Nederlandse versies waren. 'Vrouwen voor Vrijheid' als ik me goed herinner. Zij zijn een actiegroep die als reactie op Corona bekend is geworden.  Ik vind hun 'opsomming' redelijk goed, maar denk dat ze slechts de buitenste schil van de ui hebben afgepeld. De tekst die ze voorlezen is wellicht door ene Bill Sardi geschreven, van wie ik nooit eerder hoorde.  Hij zou een vaste schrijver op Lewe Rockwell zijn, en Lew is wel een man met een reputatie, een  vrijdenker , een libertarian, als ik me goed herinner.   Hier de website van Bill Sardi: https://knowledgeofhealth.com/

Daty bevalt me niet zo:  hij verdient aan medicijnen, en b9jvoorbeeld het artikel van 28 maart dat cortisol, kanker en vitamine C met elkaar verbindt,  daar kan ik geen brood van bakken.  

Ik had deze artikelen geplaatst omdat ik Peter Myers volledig vertrouw, maar had niet de tijd om ze goed te beluisteren.  Een kleine waarschuwing is wel op zijn plaats. 

Mogelijk niet voor niks dat Lew Rockwell de artikelen van Sardi van zijn site heeft verwijderd.

      ------------ einde update ------------------

Ook U kunt zich gratis abonneren: peter@mailstar.net

Als dat niet lukt, zet dat in de reacties op dit blog, dan zoek ik uit hoe je de Newsletter wel krijgt. 

Tot vorig jaar had ik iemand die alle Newsletters van Peter Myers op Blogspot zette voor mij (op mijn kosten) , maar die persoon werkt niet meer voor mij en zelf heb ik geen tijd...

Dat was op dit blog, waar U dus oude jaargangen kunt bekijken: 

 https://petermyersnewsletters.blogspot.com/

Hier de Newsletter van vandaag: 

Monopoly Capitalists back Great Reset, UN as world government;
"pandemic" was orchestrated to bring it about

Zes onderwerpen:

(1) Monopoly Capitalists back Great Reset, UN as world government;
"pandemic" was orchestrated to bring it about

(2) Who Runs The World? Blackrock and Vanguard; "Pandemic" was
orchestrated to bring World Government about - Bill Sardi

(3) Three corporations - BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street - owncorporate America

(4) State Attorneys General call for Dr. Mercola & RFKjr to be silenced

(5) The Disinformation Dozen

(6) 'Food Crisis' a myth pushed by Agribusiness; small farmers CAN feed
the world, provided prices are high enough for them to make a living

                                        ---------

(1) Monopoly Capitalists back Great Reset, UN as world government;
"pandemic" was orchestrated to bring it about

From: "Peter Williams" <peter29@rogers.com>

https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/monopoly-an-overview-of-the-great-reset-follow-the-money/

Monopoly: An Overview Of The Great Reset – Follow The Money

April 15, 2021

Summary (Peter M.):

The major corporations own each other, via interlocking share ownership.
The result is Monopoly.

The above video documents who owns whom.

These monopoly capitalists are pushing for the Great Reset, and the UN's
Agenda 30 too, even though it has a 'communist' touch. They are
promoting a synthesis of Communism and Capitalism.

But it's not a mix of the BEST side of Communism (full employment) and
the BEST side of Capitalism (free speech); rather, a mix of the WORST
side of Communism (totalitarianism) and the WORST side of Capitalism
(insecurity).

To implement Agenda 30,  the UN says we need a world government – namely
the UN, itself.

TRANSCRIPT

As you are watching millions fall into poverty because of the corona
measures of the past year, even if the greatest economic crisis in
history has not affected you yet, it will only be a matter of time until
the rippling effects will hit you, as well

This is not fear-mongering but it's a harsh reality. I also think we
might mitigate the damage and may even do better, provided we are
informed correctly about our situation. This is why I would like to show
you a few facts you can easily check facts that are of crucial importance.

Less than a handful of big corporations dominate every aspect of our
lives. That may seem exaggerated but from the breakfast we eat to the
mattress we sleep on and everything we wear and consume in between is
largely dependent on these corporations.

Those are huge investment companies that determine the course of money
flow. They are the main characters of the play that we are witnessing. I
know your time is valuable, so I summarize the most important data.

How does it work?

THE FOOD INDUSTRY

Let's take Pepsico as an example. It is the parent company of many soda
companies and snack companies. The so-called competitive brands are from
factories from a few corporations who monopolize the entire industry. In
the packaged food industry, there are a few big companies, like
Unilever, the Coca-Cola Company, Mondelez and Nestlé.

In the picture, you see that most brands in the food industry belong to
one of these corporations. The big companies are on the stock market and
have the big shareholders in the board of directors.

On sources like Yahoo Finance, we can see detailed company info, such as
who the biggest shareholders actually are. Let's take Pepsico again, as
an example. We see about 72% of stock is owned by no less than 3,155
institutional investors. These are investment companies, investment
funds, insurance companies, banks and in some cases, governments.

Who are the biggest institutional investors of Pepsico? As you can see,
only 10 of the investors own together nearly one third of the stock. The
top 10 of investors together amount to a value of $59 billion dollars
but out of those ten, only three own more stock than the other seven.
Let's remember them and look up who owns the most stocks of the
Coca-Cola Company, the biggest competitor of Pepsi.

The biggest lump of stock is again owned by institutional investors.
Let's look at the top 10 and start at the bottom six of them. Four of
these institutional investors we also saw at the bottom six of Pepsico.
These are Northern Trust, JPMorgan-Chase, Geode Capital Management and
Wellington Management. Now, let's look at the four biggest stock owners.
They are BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. These are the world's
biggest investment firms, so Pepsico and Coca-Cola are not competitors,
at all.

The other big companies that own a myriad of brand names, like Unilever,
Mondelez and Nestlé are from the same small group of investors. But it's
not only in the food industry that their names come up. Let's find out
on Wikipedia, which are the biggest tech companies.

BIG TECH

Facebook is the owner of Whatsapp and Instagram. Together with Twitter,
they form the most popular social media platforms. Alphabet is the
parent of all Google companies, like YouTube and Gmail but they are also
the biggest investor in Android, one of the two operating systems for
nearly all smartphones and tablets. The other operating system is
Apple's IOS. If we add Microsoft, we see four companies making the
software for nearly all computers, tablets and smartphones in the world.

Let's see who are the biggest shareholders of these companies. Take
Facebook: we see that 80% of the stock is owned by institutional
investors. These are the same names that came up in the food industry;
the same investors are in the top three. Next, is Twitter. It forms with
Facebook and Instagram the top three. Surprisingly, this company is in
the hands of the same investors, as well. We see them again, with Apple
and even with their biggest competitor, Microsoft.

Also, if we look at other big companies in the tech industry that
develop and make our computers, TVs, phones and home appliances, we see
the same big investors, that together own the majority of the stock.
It's true for all industries. I'm not exaggerating.

THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY (AND ENERGY & MINING)

One last example, let's book a holiday on a computer or smartphone. We
search for a flight to a sunny country on Skyscanner or Expedia. Both
are from the same small group of investors. We fly with one of the many
airlines. Many of which are in the hands of the same investors and of
governments, as is the case with Air France, KLM. The plane we board is,
in most cases a Boeing or an Airbus, also owned by the same names. We
book through Booking.com or AirBnB and when we arrive we go out for
dinner and place a comment on Tripadvisor.

The same big investors show up in every aspect of our trip and their
power is even bigger, because of the kerosene is from their oil
companies or refineries. The steel from which the plane is made comes
from their mining companies. This small group of investment firms and
funds and banks are namely also the biggest investors in the industry
that dig for raw materials.

Wikipedia shows that the biggest mining companies have the same big
investors that we see everywhere. Also, the big agricultural businesses,
on which the entire food industry depends; they own Bayer, the parent
company of Monsanto, the biggest seed producer in the world but they are
also the shareholders of the big textile industry. And even many popular
fashion brands who make the clothing out of the cotton are owned by the
same investors.

Whether we look at the world's biggest solar panel companies or oil
refineries, the stocks are in the hands of the same companies. They own
the tobacco companies that produce all the popular tobacco brands but
they also own all big pharmaceutical companies and the scientific
institutions that produce medicine. They own the companies that produce
our metals and also the entire car, plane and weapons industry, where a
great deal of the metals and raw materials are used. The own the
companies that build our electronics, they own the big warehouses and
online markets and even the means of payments we use to buy their products.

To make this video as short as possible, I only showed you the tip of
the iceberg. If you decide to research this with the sources I just
showed you, then you will see that most popular insurance companies,
banks, construction companies, telephone companies restaurant chains and
cosmetics are owned by the same institutional investors we have just seen.

BLACKROCK & VANGUARD

These institutional investors are mainly investment firms banks and
insurance companies. In turn, they, themselves are owned by shareholders
and the most surprising thing is that they own each other's stocks

Together, they form an immense network comparable to a pyramid. The
smaller investors are owned by larger investors. Those are owned by even
bigger investors. The visible top of this pyramid shows only two
companies whose names we have often seen by now. They are Vanguard and
BlackRock. The power of these two companies is beyond your imagination.
Not only do they own a large part of the stocks of nearly all big
companies but also the stocks of the investors in those companies. This
gives them a complete monopoly.

A Bloomberg report states that both these companies in the year 2028,
together will have investments in the amount of 20 trillion dollars.
That means that they will own almost anything

Bloomberg calls BlackRock "The fourth branch of government", because
it's the only private agency that closely works with the central banks.
BlackRock lends money to the central bank but it's also the advisor. It
also develops the software the central bank uses. Many BlackRock
employees were in the White House with Bush and Obama. Its CEO, Larry
Fink can count on a warm welcome from leaders and politicians. Not so
strange, if you know that he is the front man of the ruling company. But
Larry Fink does not pull the strings, himself.

BlackRock, itself is also owned by shareholders. Who are those
shareholders? We come to a strange conclusion. The biggest shareholder
is Vanguard. But now he gets murky. Vanguard is a private company and we
cannot see who the shareholders are. The elite who own Vanguard
apparently do not like being in the spotlight but of course they cannot
hide from who is willing to dig.

Reports from Oxfam and Bloomberg say that 1% of the world, together owns
more money than the other 99%. Even worse, Oxfam says that 82% of all
earned money in 2017 went to this 1%.

Forbes, the most famous business magazine says that in March 2020, there
were 2,095 billionaires in the world. This means that Vanguard is owned
by the richest families in the world. If we research their history, we
see that they have always been the wealthiest. Some of them, even before
the start of the Industrial Revolution, because their history is so
interesting and extensive, I will make a sequel.

For now, I just want to say that these families of whom many are in
royalty are the founders of our banking system and of every industry in
the world, these families have never lost power but due to an increasing
population, they had to hide behind firms, like Vanguard, which the
stockholders are the private funds and non-profits of these families.

NGOs AND FOUNDATIONS AND THEIR OWNERSHIP OF BIG PHARMA

To clarify the picture, I have to explain briefly what non-profits
actually are. These appear to be the link between companies, politics
and media. This conceals the conflicts of interests a bit. Non-profits,
also called "foundations" are dependent on donations they do not have to
disclose who their donors are they can invest the money in the way they
see fit and do not pay taxes as long as the profits are invested again
in new projects. In this way, non-profits keep hundreds of billions of
dollars among themselves according to the Australian government,
non-profits are an ideal way of financing terrorists and of massive
money-laundering.

The foundations and funds of the families that are the richest stay in
the background as much as possible. For issues that get much attention,
the foundation of philanthropists are used that are lower in rank but
very rich.

I want to keep it short, so I will show you the three most important
ones that connect all industries in the world. They are the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, the Open Society Foundation of the
controversial multi-billionaire, Soros and the Clinton Foundation. I
will give you a very short introduction to show you their power.

According to the website of the World Economic Forum, the Gates
Foundation is the biggest sponsor of the WHO. That was after Donald
Trump quit USA financial support to the WHO in 2020. So the Gates
Foundation is one of the most influential entities in everything that
concerns our health. The Gates Foundation works closely with the biggest
pharma companies, among which are Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson &
Johnson, Biontech and Bayer.

And we have just seen who their biggest shareholders are. Bill Gates was
not a poor computer nerd who miraculously became very rich. He's from a
philanthropist's family that works for the absolute elite. His Microsoft
is owned by Vanguard, BlackRock and Berkshire Hathaway. But the Gates
Foundation, after BlackRock and Vanguard is the biggest shareholder in
Berkshire Hathaway. He was even the member of the board there.

We would need hours if we wanted to uncover everything in which Gates,
the Open Society Foundation of Soros and the Clinton Foundation are
involved. They form a bridge to the current situation, so I had to
introduce them.

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA

We need to start the next topic with a question. Someone like me, who
never makes videos can, with an old laptop objectively show that only
two companies hold a monopoly in all industries in the world. My
question is, why is this never talked about in the media?

We can choose daily between all sorts of documentaries and TV programs
but none of them cover this subject. Is it not interesting enough or are
there other interests at play? Wikipedia, again gives us the answer.
They say that about 90% of the international media is owned by nine
media conglomerates. Whether we take the monopolist Netflix and Amazon
Prime or enormous concerns that own many daughter companies, like
Time-Warner, the Walt Disney Company, Comcast, Fox Corporation,
Bertelsmann and Viacom, CBS, we see that the same names own stocks.

These corporations not only make all the programs, movies and
documentaries but also own the channels on which those are broadcast.
So, not only the industries but also the information is owned by the elite.

I will show you briefly how this works in the Netherlands. To start
with, all the Dutch mainstream media are owned by three companies. The
first one is De PersGroep [DPG Media], the parent company of the
following brands (. Apart from the many newspapers and magazines, they
also own Sanoma, the parent company of some of the big commercial Dutch
channels. Many media outlets from abroad, like VTM are also owned by the
De PersGroep.

The second one is Mediahuis, one of Europe's biggest media concerns. In
the Netherlands, Mediahuis owns the following brands. Until 2017, also
Sky Radio and Radio Veronica were owned by Mediahuis, as were Radio 538
and radio 10.

And then there is Bertelsmann, which is one of the 9 biggest media
firms. This company owns RTL, that owns 45 television stations and 32
radio stations in 11 countries. But Bertelsmann is also co-owner of the
world's biggest book publisher, Penguin Random House.

The stocks of these companies are owned by private funds of three
families. Those are the Belgian Van Thillo family, the Belgian Leysen
family and the German Bertelsmann-Mohn family. All three families sided
with the Nazis in the War.

According to Wikipedia, for this reason, the Telegraaf, the Leysen
newspaper was temporarily forbidden in the Netherlands after the war.

THE FAKE NEWS

To complete this overview, look at where the news comes from. The daily
news of all these media outlets the diverse news media do not produce
news. They use information and footage from the press agencies, .ANP and
Reuters. These agencies are not independent. .ANP is owned by Talpa,
John de Mol. Thomson-Reuters is owned by the powerful Canadian Thomson
family.

The most important journalists and editors working for these agencies
are members of a journalism agency, like the European Journalism Centre.
These are one of the biggest European sponsors of media-related
projects. They educate journalists, publish study books, provide
training spaces and press agencies and work closely together with the
big corporations, Google and Facebook.

For journalistic analysis and views, the big media use Project
Syndicate. This is the most powerful organization in the field. Project
Syndicate and organizations like I mentioned are together with the press
agencies. The link between all worldwide media outlets when news anchors
reap from their autocues [teleprompters], chances are that the text
stems from one of these organizations. That is the reason that worldwide
media shows synchronicity in their reporting.

And look at the European journalism center, itself. Again, the Gates
Foundation and the Open Society Foundation. They are also
heavily-sponsored by Facebook, Google, the Ministry of Education and
Science and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Who sponsors the organization and press agencies that produce our news?
With Project Syndicate, we see the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
the Open Society Foundation and the European Journalism Centre. The
organizations that bring the news get paid by non-profit organizations,
of the same elite that also owns the entire media but also a part of
taxpayers money is used to pay them.

In Belgium, there are protests regularly, since Mediahuis and De
Persgroep receive millions of euros from the government, while many are
abroad…

THE DANGER WE ARE IN NOW

Well, this was a lot to chew on and I tried to make it as short as I
could. I only used examples that I thought were necessary to create a
clear overview. This helps to better understand our current situation,
that can shed new light on past events

There will be enough time to dive into the past, but now let's talk
about today but my goal is to inform you about the danger we are in now.
The elite governs every aspect of our lives, also, the information we
get and they depend on a coordination, cooperation to connect all
industries in the world to serve their interests. This is done through
the World Economic Forum, among others, a very important organization.

Every year in Davos, the CEOs of big corporations meet national leaders,
politicians and other influential parties, like UNICEF and Greenpeace.
On the supervisory board of the WEF is former Vice President, Al Gore,
our own minister, Sigrid Kaag, Feike Sijbesma, Chairman of the Royal
Dutch State Mines and the Commissioner of the Dutch bank, Christine
Lagarde, the Chairwoman of the European Central Bank. Also, politician,
Ferdinand Grapperhaus' son works for the WEF.

Wikipedia says that the annual fee for members is 35,000 euros "but over
half of our budget comes from partners who pay the cost for politicians
who otherwise could not afford membership."

According to critics, the WEF is for rich businesses to do business with
other businesses or with politicians. For most members, the WEF would
support personal gain instead of being a means to solve the world's
problems. Why would there be many world problems if the industry
leaders, bankers and politicians from 1971 onwards have gathered every
year to solve the world's problems?

Isn't it illogical, that after 50 years of meetings between
environmentalists and the CEOs of the most polluting companies, nature
is gradually doing worse, not better; that those critics are right, it's
clear, when we look at the main partners that together make up more than
half of the budget of the WEF. Because these are BlackRock, the Open
Society foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and many big
companies, from which Vanguard and BlackRock own the stocks.

Chairman and founder of the WEF is Klaus Schwab, a Swiss professor and
businessman. In his book, The Great Reset, he writes about the plans of
his organization. The coronavirus is, according to him a great
"opportunity" to reset our societies. He calls it "Build Back Better".
The slogan is now on the lips of all Globalist politicians in the world.

Our old society must switch to a new one, says Schwab. The people own
nothing but work for the state to have their primary needs met. The WEF
says it's necessary for the consumption society the elite forced upon us
is not sustainable anymore. Schwab says in his book that we will never
return to the old normal and the WEF published a video recently to make
clear that by 2030, we will own nothing but we will be happy.

THE GREAT RESET = THE NEW WORLD ORDER

You probably heard of the New World Order. The media wants us to believe
that this is a conspiracy theory, yet it has been talked about by
leaders for decades. Not just George Bush Senior, Bill Clinton and
Nelson Mandela but also world-famous philanthropists, like Cecil Rhodes,
David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and even George Soros.

The UN presented in 2015 their controversial Agenda 2030. It is almost
identical to the Great Reset of Klaus Schwab. The UN wants to make sure,
as does Schwab that in 2030, poverty, hunger, pollution and disease no
longer plague the Earth.

Sounds nice but wait till you read the small print. The plan is that
Agenda 2030 will be paid by us, the citizens. Just like they ask of us
now to give away our rights for public health, they will ask us to give
away our wealth to battle poverty. These are no conspiracy theories. It
is on their official website. It comes down to this: The UN wants taxes
from Western countries to be split by the mega corporations of the elite
to create a brand new society. The new infrastructure, because fossil
fuels are gone in 2030.

For this project, the UN says we need a world government, namely the UN,
itself.

The UN agrees with Schwab that a pandemic is a golden chance to
accelerate the implementation of Agenda 2030.

It is worrisome that the WEF and the UN openly admit that pandemics and
other catastrophes can be used to reshape society. We must not think
lightly about this and do thorough research.

END TRANSCRIPT. The Transcript is included in Bill Sardi's article (item
2) - which has since been removed from https://www.lewrockwell.com/



                -----------------------

(2) Who Runs The World? Blackrock and Vanguard; "Pandemic" was
orchestrated to bring World Government about - Bill Sardi

From: JUDY schuchmann <judyschuchmann1@gmail.com>

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/04/no_author/who-runs-the-world-blackrock-and-vanguard/

It's no longer at
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/04/no_author/who-runs-the-world-blackrock-and-vanguard/

But I found it at
https://web.archive.org/web/20210421042442/https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/04/no_author/who-runs-the-world-blackrock-and-vanguard/

Who Runs The World? Blackrock and Vanguard

By Bill Sardi

April 21, 2021

If you've been wondering how the world economy has been hijacked and
humanity has been kidnapped by a completely bogus narrative, look no
further than this video by Dutch creator, Covid Lie.

What she uncovers is that the stock of the world's largest corporations
are owned by the same institutional investors. They all own each other.
This means that "competing" brands, like Coke and Pepsi aren't really
competitors, at all, since their stock is owned by exactly the same
investment companies, investment funds, insurance companies, banks and
in some cases, governments. This is the case, across all industries. As
she says:

"The smaller investors are owned by larger investors. Those are owned by
even bigger investors. The visible top of this pyramid shows only two
companies whose names we have often seen…They are Vanguard and
BlackRock. The power of these two companies is beyond your imagination.
Not only do they own a large part of the stocks of nearly all big
companies but also the stocks of the investors in those companies. This
gives them a complete monopoly.

A Bloomberg report states that both these companies in the year 2028,
together will have investments in the amount of 20 trillion dollars.
That means that they will own almost everything.

Bloomberg calls BlackRock "The fourth branch of government", because
it's the only private agency that closely works with the central banks.
BlackRock lends money to the central bank but it's also the advisor. It
also develops the software the central bank uses. Many BlackRock
employees were in the White House with Bush and Obama. Its CEO. Larry
Fink can count on a warm welcome from leaders and politicians. Not so
strange, if you know that he is the front man of the ruling company but
Larry Fink does not pull the strings himself.

BlackRock, itself is also owned by shareholders. Who are those
shareholders? We come to a strange conclusion. The biggest shareholder
is Vanguard. But now he gets murky. Vanguard is a private company and we
cannot see who the shareholders are. The elite who own Vanguard
apparently do not like being in the spotlight but of course they cannot
hide from who is willing to dig.

Reports from Oxfam and Bloomberg say that 1% of the world, together owns
more money than the other 99%. Even worse, Oxfam says that 82% of all
earned money in 2017 went to this 1%.

In other words, these two investment companies, Vanguard and BlackRock
hold a monopoly in all industries in the world and they, in turn are
owned by the richest families in the world, some of whom are royalty and
who have been very rich since before the Industrial Revolution. Why
doesn't everybody know this? Why aren't there movies and documentaries
about this? Why isn't it in the news? Because 90% of the international
media is owned by nine media conglomerates.

Covid Lie asks, "Who sponsors the organization and press agencies that
produce our news? With Project Syndicate, we see the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, the Open Society Foundation and the European
Journalism Centre. The organizations that bring the news get paid by
non-profit organizations, of the same elite that also owns the entire
media but also a part of taxpayers money is used to pay them."

Or, as George Carlin said, "It's a small club and you ain't in it."

So when Lynn Forester de Rothschild wants the United States to be a
one-party country (like China) and doesn't want voter ID laws passed in
the US, so that more election fraud can be perpetrated to achieve that
end,what does she do?

She holds a conference call with the world's top 100 CEOs and tells them
to publicly decry as "Jim Crow" Georgia's passing of an anti-corruption
law and she orders her dutiful CEOs to boycott the State of Georgia,
like we saw with Coca-Cola and Major League Baseball and even Hollywood
star, Will Smith. In this conference call, we see shades of the Great
Reset, Agenda 2030, the New World Order.

The UN wants to make sure, as does Schwab that in 2030, poverty, hunger,
pollution and disease no longer plague the Earth. To achieve this, the
UN wants taxes from Western countries to be split by the mega
corporations of the elite to create a brand new society. For this
project, the UN says we need a world government – namely the UN, itself.

And it is clear that the "pandemic" was orchestrated in order to bring
this about. This video does an incredible job of explaining how it is
all being done.



            ------------------------------


(3) Three corporations - BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street - own
corporate America

https://theconversation.com/these-three-firms-own-corporate-america-77072

These three firms own corporate America

May 10, 2017 4.14pm AEST

by Jan Fichtner,
Eelke Heemskerk and
Javier Garcia-Bernardo

A fundamental change is underway in stock market investing, and the
spin-off effects are poised to dramatically impact corporate America.

In the past, individuals and large institutions mostly invested in
actively managed mutual funds, such as Fidelity, in which fund managers
pick stocks with the aim of beating the market. But since the financial
crisis of 2008, investors have shifted to index funds, which replicate
established stock indices, such as the S&P 500.

The magnitude of the change is astounding: from 2007 to 2016, actively
managed funds have recorded outflows of roughly US$1,200 billion, while
index funds had inflows of over US$1,400 billion.

In the first quarter of 2017, index funds brought in more than US$200
billion – the highest quarterly value on record.

Democratising the market?
This shift, arguably the biggest investment swing in history, is due in
large part to index funds' much lower costs.

Actively managed funds analyse the market, and their managers are well
paid for their labour. But the vast majority are not able to
consistently beat the index.

So why pay 1% to 2% in fees every year for active funds when index funds
cost a tenth of that and deliver the same performance?

Some observers have lauded this development as the "democratisation of
investing", because it has significantly lowered investor expenses.

But other impacts of this seismic shift are far from democratising. One
crucial difference between the active fund and the index fund industries
is that the former is fragmented, consisting of hundreds of different
asset managers both small and large.

The fast-growing index sector, on the other hand, is highly
concentrated. It is dominated by just three giant American asset
managers: BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street – what we call the Big Three.

Lower fees aside, the rise of index funds has entailed a massive
concentration of corporate ownership. Together, BlackRock, Vanguard and
State Street have nearly US$11 trillion in assets under management.
That's more than all sovereign wealth funds combined and over three
times the global hedge fund industry.

In a recently published paper, our CORPNET research project
comprehensively mapped the ownership of the Big Three. We found that the
Big Three, taken together, have become the largest shareholder in 40% of
all publicly listed firms in the United States.

In 2015, these 1,600 American firms had combined revenues of about
US$9.1 trillion, a market capitalisation of more than US$17 trillion,
and employed more than 23.5 million people.

In the S&P 500 – the benchmark index of America's largest corporations –
the situation is even more extreme. Together, the Big Three are the
largest single shareholder in almost 90% of S&P 500 firms, including
Apple, Microsoft, ExxonMobil, General Electric and Coca-Cola. This is
the index in which most people invest.

The power of passive investors
With corporate ownership comes shareholder power. BlackRock recently
argued that legally it was not the "owner" of the shares it holds but
rather acts as a kind of custodian for their investors.

That's a technicality for lawyers to sort. What is undeniable is that
the Big Three do exert the voting rights attached to these shares.
Therefore, they have to be perceived as de facto owners by corporate
executives.

These companies have, in fact, publicly declared that they seek to exert
influence. William McNabb, chairman and CEO of Vanguard, said in 2015
that, "In the past, some have mistakenly assumed that our predominantly
passive management style suggests a passive attitude with respect to
corporate governance. Nothing could be further from the truth."

When we analysed the voting behaviour of the Big Three, we found that
they coordinate it through centralised corporate governance departments.
This requires significant efforts because technically the shares are
held by many different individual funds.

Hence, just three companies wield an enormous potential power over
corporate America. Interestingly, though, we found that the Big Three
vote for management in about 90% of all votes at annual general
meetings, while mostly voting against proposals sponsored by
shareholders (such as calls for independent board chairmen).

One interpretation is that BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street are
reluctant to exert their power over corporate America. Others question
whether the Big Three really want this voting power, as they primarily
seek to minimise costs.

Corporate American monopoly
What are the future consequences of the Big Three's unprecedented common
ownership position?

Research is still nascent, but some economists are already arguing that
this concentration of shareholder power could have negative effects on
competition.

Over the past decade, numerous US industries have become dominated by
only a handful of companies, from aviation to banking. The Big Three –
seen together – are virtually always the largest shareholder in the few
competitors that remain in these sectors.

This is the case for American Airlines, Delta, and United Continental,
as it is for the banks JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and
Citigroup. All of these corporations are part of the S&P 500, the index
in which most people invest.

Their CEOs are likely well aware that the Big Three are their firm's
dominant shareholder and would take that into account when making
decisions. So, arguably, airlines have less incentive to lower prices
because doing so would reduce overall returns for the Big Three, their
common owner.

In this way, the Big Three may be exerting a kind of emergent
"structural power" over much of corporate America.

Whether or not they sought to, the Big Three have accumulated
extraordinary shareholder power, and they continue to do so. Index funds
are a business of scale, which means that at this point competitors will
find it very difficult to gain market shares.

In many respects, the index fund boom is turning BlackRock, Vanguard and
State Street into something resembling low-cost public utilities with a
quasi-monopolistic position. Facing such a concentration of ownership
and thus potential power, we can expect demands for increased regulatory
scrutiny of corporate America's new "de facto permanent governing board"
to increase in coming years.


                 -----------------------------





(4) State Attorneys General call for Dr. Mercola & RFKjr to be silenced

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/22/attorneys-general-censor-mercola.aspx

State Attorneys General Threaten to Silence Dr. Mercola
by Dr. Joseph Mercola
April 22, 2021

While, for many years, I’ve been a popular target for Big Pharma smear
campaigns, 2020 onward has really given new meaning to what it means to
be under attack. I’m not alone, by any means, as censorship of
anti-propaganda narratives have ratcheted up to unprecedented levels for
many others seeking to uncover the truth.

These days, even elected government officials misuse their positions of
power to openly call for censorship of certain groups, organizations and
individuals in direct violation of Constitutional law — the highest law
of the land.

The latest in this series of attacks comes from two state attorneys
general, Letitia James of New York and William Tong of Connecticut, who
in an April 8, 2021, op-ed1 in The Washington Post stated, right in the
headline, that "Anti-vaxxers put us all at risk," and that "Facebook and
Twitter must ban them."

According to James and Tong, COVID-19 vaccine availability marks "the
end of the pandemic and the start of our recovery," but "vaccine
availability means nothing without vaccine acceptance."

This lack of acceptance of novel gene therapy technology, they claim, is
all because a small group of individuals with a social media presence —
myself included — are successfully misleading the public with lies about
nonexistent vaccine risks.

"The solution is not complicated. It’s time for Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to turn off this toxic tap and
completely remove the small handful of individuals spreading this
fraudulent misinformation," they write.2

‘The Disinformation Dozen’
The basis for their censorship push is a report by two previously
unknown groups called the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and
Anti-Vax Watch, both of which are opaque in the extreme as to their
history and funding.

According to that report,3 "The Disinformation Dozen," a mere 12
individuals "are responsible for a full 65% of anti-vaccine content on
Facebook and Twitter," Tong and James write, again stressing that "they
must be removed from the platforms."4

But, just who are these "social media researchers" whose word Tong and
James take as gospel? An online search for "Anti-Vax Watch" delivers a
single hit for a site called antivaxwatch.org, which is nothing but a
simple news aggregator. Its "About" page provides no names, no
indication of who is part of this group, or who funds them.

The CCDH is only marginally better. As detailed in "Pressure Mounts to
Ban My New Book From Amazon," the CCDH is a one-man organization with
undisclosed funding and connections to technocrat-led institutions that
support the Great Reset.

By way of its board members, the CCDH can be linked to the Trilateral
Commission, the Atlantic Council, the European Council of Foreign
Relations, Save the Children Fund (funded by the Gates Foundation and a
partner of Gates’ GAVI Vaccine Alliance), the British Parliament, the
CIA and Reuters. CCDH chairman Simon Clark even has ties to a
participant of Event 201 (former CIA deputy director Avril Haines).

Event 201 was a coronavirus pandemic exercise held in October 2019 that
foreshadowed and "played out" the draconian countermeasures implemented
when COVID-19 appeared mere months later. Curiously enough, a primary
focus of that exercise was how to best censor and counteract problematic
narratives about the virus, public disagreement with pandemic measures
and doubts about vaccine safety.

You would think that if public health were the primary concern and
impetus behind such an exercise — as opposed to wealth transfer,
economic destruction and societal reformation — it would focus on the
medical and scientific strategies of how to best contain and control the
actual virus, and not how best to contain and control information about
the virus. Infectious disease control science would have been the key
feature, not the science of social engineering.

"Let us be clear — nothing is wrong with asking questions and
researching vaccine effectiveness and safety," Tong and James write.5
"We are not in any way looking to limit the ability of individuals to
ask these important questions, but the small handful of people we’re
talking about are simply promoting dangerous lies …"

People in search of vaccine information should "seek out legitimate
medical experts … and official sources, such as local departments of
public health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," they
say, adding that:

"As the chief law enforcement officers of our states, we can say that
there is no First Amendment right to spread disinformation on social media."

What Is Disinformation?
The problem with this argument is that what they perceive and label as
"disinformation" is entirely subjective. The definition of
"disinformation" provided by the American Heritage dictionary is:
"Deliberately misleading information" and "Dissemination of
intentionally false information to deliberately confuse or mislead."

I — and, as far as I know, none of the others on the CCDH’s hit list —
am not engaging in the dissemination of "intentionally false"
information with the "deliberate intent" to confuse or mislead. We
provide information — the other side of the story — that "official"
sources and mainstream media not only refuse to share but social media
platforms will ban them for sharing. We provide a counterbalance to the
wholly one-sided official narrative.

With respect to my own site, my articles are fully referenced to
publications in the medical literature, and I make every effort to
clearly indicate where I insert my own opinions.

I’ve also published my own research in peer-reviewed journals, the last
of which was a scientific review6 on the impact of vitamin D in
COVID-19, co-written with William Grant, Ph.D., and Dr. Carol Wagner,
both of whom are part of the GrassrootsHealth expert vitamin D panel.
You can read the paper for free on the journal’s website.

Opinions are protected speech under the First Amendment, as is reporting
on published science — even if that science is later found to be flawed,
incomplete or, in worst case, outright fraudulent. The fake
hydroxychloroquine study in The Lancet, which was ultimately retracted
after being exposed, is a perfect example.

This study, which was found to be completely fraudulent, was reported as
fact, worldwide, by virtually all mainstream media and continues to
serve as the basis for the WHO’s discrediting of hydroxychloroquine. If
opinion and scientific reporting were not protected speech, Tong’s and
James’ own op-ed could be banned, as could every single mainstream media
report on scientific findings that has ever been published.

No one has unequivocal rights to the truth. No one "owns" the truth.
There is no single group or organization on this earth that knows
everything, has all the facts and tells the unbiased truth. Tong and
James would like you to believe otherwise. They want you to listen to
select sources only — sources which, curiously, only present one side of
any given argument. This is what social engineering is all about.

"Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime," Lavrentiy Beria once
said. Beria, described7 as "the most ruthless and longest-serving secret
police chief in Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror," claimed he could prove
criminal conduct on behalf of anyone, even people who were completely
innocent.

Indeed, anyone can be made to look like a crook. Facts can be twisted
through clever wording salted with hidden bias. But, usually, truth
tends to win in the end. You just have to survive long enough.

Illegal Attacks on Free Speech
In their op-ed, Tong and James admit they intend to use their official
powers to force social media companies to comply with their demand to
censor certain individuals. If platforms refuse to violate the free
speech of select people, they will find something to prosecute. Does
this sound unethical to anyone else but me?

The government cannot accomplish through threats of adverse government
action what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly. ~ Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas
As noted by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in an April 5, 2021,
ruling8 in which he weighed in on the ability of social media giants to
control free speech:

"The government cannot accomplish through threats of adverse government
action what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly … Under
this doctrine, plaintiffs might have colorable claims against a digital
platform if it took adverse action against them in response to
government threats."

As attorneys general, Tong and James are government officials and, as
such, they are legally barred from accomplishing "through threats of
adverse government action what the Constitution prohibits [them] from
doing directly."

In other words, they do not have the legal right to pressure social
media companies into violating the First Amendment rights9 of Americans
when they do not have the legal right to censor or "abridge"10 free
speech themselves. Put yet another way, it is illegal for government
officials to pressure private companies into censoring free speech on
their behalf or at their request, since they as government officials do
not themselves have the right to infringe on free speech.

‘Free Press’ Pushes for Censorship, and More
The fact that attorneys general are now getting involved and calling for
censorship is to me a sign of just how desperate Big Pharma and the
Great Reset interests are getting. There’s no room for free speech and
the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment in that New World Order.

To their credit, they have, over the decades, masterfully infiltrated
and now appear to control all the required areas of influence, from
media, Big Tech and Hollywood, to nongovernmental organizations with
global influence, government agencies and intelligence agencies of all
stripes.

In a sane, free world concerned with democratic processes, we simply
would not see a "free press" calling for the censorship of books,11 we
would not see public officials calling for the selective elimination of
free speech (as has been done by several congressmen and senators in
recent months12,13,14), and writing legislation aimed at penalizing
social media companies that refuse to censor.15

We would not see a dozen state attorneys general — chief law enforcers —
calling for the selective elimination of First Amendment rights by
private companies,16 and we would not see intelligence agencies using
sophisticated cyberwarfare tools to aid in the elimination of select
speech online.17,18,19

In a free world, all of these would stand squarely on the side of free
speech rights. So, that must mean we no longer live in a free world
where democratic processes and Constitutional rights are given their due
consideration.

Decentralized Uncensorable Web Is Part of the Answer
In his legal commentary,20 Supreme Court Justice Thomas presents an
intriguing idea for how to address the monopolistic power over speech
currently wielded by social media giants like Facebook and Twitter,
which would be to treat them as public utilities that, like phone
service providers, must serve all customers, without discrimination.21

That’s certainly one way to go, and would probably be a positive
strategy. Beyond that, however, we really need a more censor-proof web
in general. This is something a decentralized, blockchain-based web can
provide. I am currently working with some of the brightest minds in the
tech space who are committed to preserving your personal freedoms and
liberties.

The technology22 focuses on maintaining data sovereignty, giving you
control over your data and privacy, and undoing the current system of
surveillance capitalism where Big Tech profits off your personal data
and uses it against you at the same time. In this Web 2.0, tech
monopolies also will no longer have the ability to censor.

In the meantime, consider ditching social media networks that erode your
civil liberties, and to join those that promote freedom of speech
instead. For example, free-speech alternatives to Facebook and Twitter
include Gab, MeWe, Minds and Parler. Uncensored alternatives to YouTube
include Bitchute, Rumble, Brighteon, BrandNewTube, Banned.video and
Thinkspot.

For content creators and alternative news sources that no longer have a
social media presence due to censoring, subscribe to their newsletter if
available, and/or mark their website in your favorites and check back on
a regular basis.


- Sources and References
1, 2, 4, 5 Washington Post April 8, 2021
3 CCDH, The Disinformation Dozen
6 Nutrients October 31, 2020;12, 3361; doi:10.3390/nu12113361
7 Oxford Eagle May 9, 2018
8, 20 Ruling for writ of certiorari, President Joe Biden v. Knight First
Amendment Institute at Columbia University, April 5, 2021 (PDF)
9, 10 History, First Amendment
11 Sky News March 5, 2021
12 Glenn Greenwald Substack February 23, 2021
13 Yahoo March 25, 2021
14 JonathanTurley.org March 24, 2021
15 KSRO April 9, 2021
16 AG Letter to Tech CEOs March 24, 2021 (PDF)
17 The Times November 9, 2020
18 UK Defense Journal November 10, 2020
19 The National News November 9, 2020
21 Matt Stoller Substack Why Is Clarence Thomas Attacking Google?
22 The Conversation February 5, 2021




                       - - ----------------------------------

(5) The Disinformation Dozen

Why Platforms must act on Twelve Leading Online Anti-Vaxxers

Center for Countering Digital Hate

and Anti-Vax Watch

https://252f2edd-1c8b-49f5-9bb2-cb57bb47e4ba.filesusr.com/ugd/f4d9b9_b7cedc0553604720b7137f8663366ee5.pdf

2
Contents
Introduction
......................................................................................................................................................4
Executive
Summary.......................................................................................................................................
5
The Disinformation Dozen are responsible for up to 65% of anti-vaccine
content ...............6
The Disinformation Dozen account for up to 73% of Facebook’s anti-vaxx
content..............7
Facebook is underestimating the influence of leading anti-vaxxers
..........................................8
Up to 17% of anti-vaccine tweets feature the Disinformation
Dozen..........................................9
Platforms must act on the Disinformation Dozen
............................................................................
10
Platforms must do more to protect users from harmful
misinformation...................................11

Appendix: The Disinformation Dozen
....................................................................................................12
1 Joseph
Mercola........................................................................................................................................12
2 Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
...........................................................................................................................14
3 Ty & Charlene
Bollinger......................................................................................................................
16
4 Sherri
Tenpenny...................................................................................................................................
18
5 Rizza
Islam...............................................................................................................................................21
6 Rashid
Buttar.........................................................................................................................................24
7 Erin Elizabeth
.........................................................................................................................................25
8 Sayer
Ji....................................................................................................................................................
28
9 Kelly
Brogan............................................................................................................................................31
10 Christiane Northrup
...........................................................................................................................33
11 Ben
Tapper.............................................................................................................................................35
12 Kevin
Jenkins.......................................................................................................................................
38

3
The Center for Countering Digital Hate is a not-for-profit NGO that
seeks to disrupt the
architecture of online hate and misinformation. ...

Anti-Vax Watch is an alliance of concerned individuals who are seeking
to educate the
American public about the dangers of the anti-vax industry.

Comment (Peter M.):

Meryl Nass and Peter Koenig might be offended at not being included.
Must be because they're on websites but not FB or Twitter.

                           ------------------------------

(6) 'Food Crisis' a myth pushed by Agribusiness; small farmers CAN feed
the world, provided prices are high enough for them to make a living

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/small-farms-can-feed-world/?

04/21/21

What Big Ag Doesn’t Want You to Know: Small Farms Can Feed the World

According to a new peer-reviewed paper, "The Myth of a Food Crisis,"
corrupt philanthropic and academic sectors in agriculture and
development perpetuate the lie that Big Ag is the only way to feed the
world.

By Jonathan Latham, Ph.D.

Sustainable, local, organic food grown on small farms has a tremendous
amount to offer.
The Defender is experiencing censorship on many social channels. Be sure
to stay in touch with the news that matters by subscribing to our top
news of the day. It's free.

Sustainable, local, organic food grown on small farms has a tremendous
amount to offer. Unlike chemical-intensive industrial-scale agriculture,
it regenerates rural communities; it doesn’t pollute rivers and
groundwater or create dead zones; it can save coral reefs; it doesn’t
encroach on rainforests; it preserves soil and it can restore the
climate. Why do all governments not promote it?

For policymakers, the big obstacle to global promotion and restoration
of small-scale farming (leaving aside the lobbying power of
agribusiness) is allegedly that, "it can’t feed the world." If that
claim were true, local food systems would be bound to leave people
hungry and so promoting them becomes selfish, short-termist and unethical.

Nevertheless, this purported flaw in sustainable and local agriculture
represents a curious charge because, no matter where one looks in global
agriculture, food prices are low because products are in surplus.

Often, they are in huge surplus, even in the hungriest countries.
Farmers will tell you they are going out of business because, as a
result of these surpluses, prices are low and continuously falling.
Indeed, declining agricultural prices are a broad trend continuing, with
the odd blip, for over a century, and applying to every commodity. This
downward trend has continued even through a recent biofuel boom designed
to consume some of these surpluses. In other words, the available data
contradict the likelihood of food shortages. Despite the rising global
population, food gluts are everywhere.

Global food models

The standard justification for claiming that these surpluses will one
day turn into global food shortages comes from various mathematical
models of the food system. These models are based on food production and
other figures supplied to the UN by national governments. Whereas
anecdotal or local evidence is necessarily suspect, these models claim
to be able to definitively assess and predict the enormous, diverse and
highly complex global food system.

The most prominent and most widely cited of these food system models is
called GAPS (Global Agriculture Perspectives System). GAPS is a model
created by researchers at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in
Rome. These models — and most often GAPS — are thus what is being cited
in any quantitative discussion of future food needs. GAPS, for example,
is the basis for the common ‘60% more food needed by 2050’ prediction,
what Britain’s chief scientist John Beddington called "a perfect storm"
facing humanity.

How reliable are these food system models?

In 2010 Professor Thomas Hertel of Purdue University gave the annual
presidential address of the U.S. Agricultural and Applied Economics
Association. He chose to discuss the ability of mathematical models like
GAPS to predict future supplies (this work was subsequently published).
Hertel told his audience that those models are faulty.

What Hertel highlighted is that economic analysis has plainly shown that
food supplies respond to long-term prices. That is, when prices for food
items increase, food production also increases. For example, when prices
increase, it becomes more worthwhile for farmers to invest in boosting
their yields; but when prices are low there is little such incentive.
Other actors in the food system behave similarly.

Yet global food models, noted Hertel, have adopted the opposite
interpretation: they assume global food supplies are insensitive to prices.

In the firm but diplomatic tone expected of a presidential address,
Hertel told his audience:

"I fear that much of this rich knowledge has not yet worked its way into
the global models being used for long run analysis of climate, biofuels
and agricultural land use … it is not clear that the resulting models
are well-suited for the kind of long run sustainability analysis
envisioned here."

This is rather important. Since the whole point of these models is
long-term prediction, if global food models underestimate the ability of
food systems to adjust to higher demand, they will tend to predict a
crisis even when there isn’t one.

Like all mathematical models, GAPS and other food system models
incorporate numerous assumptions. These assumptions are typically shared
across related models, which is why they tend to give similar answers.
The reliability of all such models therefore depends crucially on the
validity of shared assumptions like the one Hertel focused on.

Hertel’s analysis therefore prompts two important questions. The first
is this: If GAPS contains an assumption that contradicts the collective
wisdom of conventional agricultural economics, what other questionable
assumptions hide in global food models?

Surprisingly though, given the stakes, scarcely any attention has been
devoted to rigorous independent testing of these crucial assumptions.

The second question is this: Is it significant that the error identified
by Hertel will tend to generate predictions that are unnecessarily alarmist?

Critiquing the critical assumptions

In a new peer-reviewed paper, "The Myth of a Food Crisis," I have
critiqued FAO’s GAPS — and by extension all similar food system models —
at the level of these, often unstated, assumptions.

"The Myth of a Food Crisis" identifies four assumptions in food system
models that are especially problematic since they have major effects on
the reliability of modeling predictions. In summary, these are:

1. That biofuels are driven by ‘demand.’

As the paper shows, biofuels are incorporated into GAPS on the demand
side of equations. However, biofuels derive from lobbying efforts. They
exist to solve the problem of agricultural oversupply. Since biofuels
contribute little or nothing to sustainability, land used for them is
available to feed populations if needed. This potential availability
(e.g., 40% of U.S. corn is used for corn ethanol) makes it plainly wrong
for GAPS to treat biofuels as an unavoidable demand on production.

2. That current agricultural production systems are optimized for
productivity.

As the paper also shows, agricultural systems are typically not
optimized to maximize calories or nutrients. Usually, they optimize
profits (or sometimes subsidies), with very different results. For this
reason, practically all agricultural systems could produce many more
nutrients per acre at no ecological cost if desired.

3. That crop "yield potentials" have been correctly estimated.

Using the example of rice, the paper shows that some farmers, even under
suboptimal conditions, achieve yields far in excess of those considered
possible by GAPS. Thus the yield ceilings assumed by GAPS are far too
low for rice and probably other crops too. Therefore GAPS grossly
underestimates agricultural potential.

4. That annual global food production is approximately equal to global
food consumption.

As the paper also shows, a significant proportion of annual global
production ends up in storage where it degrades and is disposed of
without ever being counted by GAPS. There is thus a very large
accounting hole in GAPS.

The specific ways in which these four assumptions are incorporated into
GAPS and other models produces one of two effects. Each causes GAPS to
either underestimate global food supply (now and in the future), or to
overestimate global food demand (now and in the future).

Thus GAPS and other models underestimate supply and exaggerate demand.

The cumulative effect is dramatic. Using peer-reviewed data, the
discrepancy between food availability estimated by GAPS and the
underlying supply is calculated in the paper. Such calculations show
that GAPS and other models omit approximately enough food annually to
feed 12.5 billion persons. That is a lot of food, but it does perfectly
explain why the models are so discrepant with policymakers’ and farmers’
consistent experiences of the food system.

The implications

The consequences of this analysis are very significant on a number of
fronts. There is no global shortage of food. Even under any plausible
future population scenario or potential increases in wealth, the current
global glut will not disappear due to elevated demand. Among the many
implications of this glut is, other things being equal, global commodity
prices will continue to decline. The potential caveat to this is climate
chaos. Climate consequences are not factored into this analysis.
However, for people who think that industrial agriculture is the
solution to that problem, it is worth recalling that industrialized food
systems are the leading emitter of carbon dioxide. Industrializing food
production is therefore not the solution to climate change — it is the
problem.

Another significant implication of this analysis is to remove the
justification for the (frequently suggested) adoption of special and
sacrificial ‘sustainable intensification’ measures featuring intensive
use of pesticides, GMOs and gene edited organisms to boost food
production. What is needed to save rainforests and other habitats from
agricultural expansion is instead to reduce the subsidies and incentives
that are responsible for overproduction and unsustainable practices.

In this way, harmful agricultural policies can be replaced by ones
guided by criteria such as ecological sustainability and cultural
appropriateness.

A second implication stems from asking: if the models err on such
elementary levels, why are critics largely absent? Thomas Hertel’s
critique should have rung alarm bells. The short answer is that the
philanthropic and academic sectors in agriculture and development are
corrupt. The form this corruption takes is not illegality — rather that,
with important exceptions, these sectors do not serve the public
interest, but their own interests.

A good example is the FAO, which created GAPS. The primary mandate of
FAO is to enable food production — its motto is Fiat Panis — but without
an actual or imminent food crisis there would hardly be a need for an
FAO. Many philanthropic and academic institutions are equally
conflicted. It is no accident that all the critics mentioned above are
relative or complete outsiders. Too many participants in the food system
depend on a crisis narrative.

But the biggest factor of all in promotion of the crisis narrative is
agribusiness. Agribusiness is the entity most threatened by its exposure.

It is agribusiness that perpetuates the myth most actively and makes
best use of it by endlessly championing itself as the only valid bulwark
against starvation. It is agribusiness that most aggressively alleges
that all other forms of agriculture are inadequate. This Malthusian
spectre is a good story, it’s had a tremendous run but it’s just not
true. By exposing it, we can free up agriculture to work for everyone.

Originally published by Independent Science News.
<https://www.independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/agricultures-greatest-myth/>

END.

Agribusiness has Hijacked the UN Food Summit:
https://newint.org/features/2021/03/17/business-interests-have-hijacked-un-food-summit-emergency

1