What the Whole Foods-Monsanto connection really means
by Jon Rappoport
February 26, 2014
Yesterday, I wrote and posted an article, “Top shareholders in Whole Foods and Monsanto: identical.” I laid out the five investment funds that hold huge numbers of shares of both companies, and, the ‘proxy voting guidelines’ of Vanguard (note: one of Vanguard’s investment funds is THE top shareholder of Monsanto and the fourth largest shareholder of Whole Foods).
This means very little to Monsanto. But to Whole Foods—that’s a very different story.
Suppose, for example, Whole Foods executives suddenly decided the best and most ethical approach to GMO crops is to ban them altogether. Not label them. (I know, it’s a fantasy, but just suppose.)
And suppose Whole Foods led such a movement.
Now, the investment funds that own all that Whole Foods stock could decide Whole Foods was going too far, and needed to be taught a lesson. The lesson could come in the form of unloading WF shares and sending the company’s stock price plummeting.
The message would be: “Look, if you want to label GMOs, it won’t make Monsanto and Dow and the other ag-bio-tech giants very happy, but they can handle the fallout from labeling. If you start to get serious, though, and go for an outright ban on GMO crops in counties across America…that’s a no-no. That’s a violation of the existing order, and we will punish you.”
In other words, if a company is playing in the field of the big boys, the money boys, who buy and sell shares in the millions and billions without blinking an eye, the game changes. The rules tighten. The options dwindle.
The men who came up with the money to back those GMO-labeling ballot initiatives in California and Washington? They were doing anti-GMO Lite. That’s the soft approach. That still leaves the majority of farm acreage in America with GMO crops—and genes drifting into non-GMO growing fields 24/7.
But a real movement, with money behind it, to ban growing GMO food? That’s anti-GMO Heavy. That’s going for the throat.
In the world of buying and selling stocks in publicly traded companies, companies are under a ceiling. The CEOs know serious activism of any kind, on any vital issue, can disturb Big Money, the kind of money the giant investment funds use to send the market up…and take it down.
All publicly traded companies willingly sign on to a tacit understanding. They’re “in the stock market.” They’re in that world. They’re in a space where the status quo is respected and acknowledged.
The boundaries are drawn.
That world, in certain respects, resembles one of those Club Feds, where white collar criminals and other Lite offenders are sent to serve out their sentences.
The convicts enjoy many privileges. Within those fences, they can move about with relative freedom. But if an inmate decides to hop the fence and go out into the wider world, and if he’s caught, he’ll find out what a real prison feels like.
In an interview I did years ago with Richard Bell, a financial analyst, Richard put it to me this way: “Imagine that a publicly traded energy company suddenly brought out a device that supplied enormous amounts of energy at a very, very cheap price.
“Among the many punishments that would be heaped on the company, its stock price would go into free fall. It would be taken down, amid accusations of fraud. It would be massacred in the market…”
Jon Rappoport
The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com
Wanna stay up tonight?
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/17/percy_schmeiser_vs_monsanto_the_story
Our “Democratic” gubmint gonna teach France! Oddly, the video clip explaining our “gubmints” plan to punish France for banning GMO’s on behalf of their masters @ Monsanto is no longer available, hmm….
If I understand correctly, then people should refrain from using such investment funds for placing their money. Instead, people should try to buy stocks in companies, individually. That’s what I’d want to do, but a problem with this is that while ordinary people could withdraw their money from such funds, it probably wouldn’t make much difference for these investment funds. Most of the people investing a lot in such funds would probably continue to do so.
The amount of money ordinary people may place in such funds is surely dwarfed, extremely little, when compared to how much wealthy people may invest. Plenty of the large investors would need to withdraw from these investment funds.
This is mostly just guessing, for I’m not an economy or financial expert. Still, I’d want to have no money in these funds that clearly can easily lead to the “Power corrupts, …” problem again.
Ordinary people could pull all their stocks and it would not make any difference, it is laughable. I left a comment on the other related article… All the corporations are basically “run” by the same shareholders, the top 1%. They are playing a little game up there, circulating 99% of the money over our heads.
Ordinary people don’t have to place their money in investment funds. They also don’t have to buy individual stocks or shares in any large corporations. They can buy shares in small and medium-sized companies. They can be selective, rather than not knowing what they’re fully invested in.
They can do the same with stocks in larger companies that operate ethically; if there are any.
Ordinary people can’t change what the “top 1%” do, but people can still make choices that differ from those of the “top 1%”.
It won’t make any serious difference for the investment funds the “top 1%” invest large amounts of money in, but that’s a present fact of life that presently that ordinary people can’t do anything about. That doesn’t mean they have absolutely no alternative choices for investing extra money they have. There must surely be some ways people can invest their money without doing it with unethical enterprises. If there aren’t any ways, then there’s always the option of not investing and just living with what you have.
Reblogged this on Jericho777.
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Of course, if Vanguard decides to “dump” WF and drives the price down other more savvy investors may see this an an opportunity, just like when Chipotle announced it’s now completely GMO Free and their stock took off. There’s “value” in being GMO-Free.
Very true. As long as there is money to be made the funds don’t care. They only care about ROI. I think it is like the bankers bankrolling both sides in a war. They don’t care who wins because they make money either way.
By the way Jeffrey Smith commented that executives (I can’t remember which company) said that getting the NON-GMO Project seal was a 15%+ boost in sales. Companies die for that type of increase in sales especially in the competitive market of processed foods.
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Is that why Whole Foods is 100 times more expensive then any other so-called natural produce market anywhere? I would seriously get broke very fast if I shopped there all the time. I probably would die from starvation. And is Monsanto playing both sides like the arms makers are doing in wars between countries. Who profits from wars? The military industrial complex. Duh! And who knows for sure there are no GMOs at Whole Foods. The shoppers (nature loving hippies) are the enemies of Monsanto.
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So Whole Foods Market should get rid of those shareholders, and make sure that their shares are not tradable publicly. Only with the consent of the Whole Food Market CEO’s consent.
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This is just really sad and depressing news for all of us. What can we do to have Whole Foods know that this is WHOLLY UNACCEPTABLE?
Lindsey
Hey hey hey, I guess it really IS true, what they say, that if you want good wholesome, non-GMO fruits and vegetables, you pretty much have to first, find out what seed companies are NOT secretly owned by the demonic Monsanto company ( right now, there are still a few ), and second, stock up on those precious non-GMO seeds , grow your OWN” fruits and vegetables, and PRAY PSALM 91 that the winds, the birds and the bees dont spread Monsanto GMOs to YOUR crops!!!! You know, … the REAL crime is that there’s NO GOOD REASON to turn our crops into bug resistant “franken-foods” that are also hazardous to HUMAN health!!! And … IT’S NO “ACCIDENT!!” You really shouldn’t be so “gullible” McFly!! In Israel, they have found ways to produce all natural pesticides that DO NOT HARM HUMAN OR ANIMAL HEALTH!!!! Question: When the hell are we going to shake off the mainstream media mind-control institution’s spell and WAKE UP?!!?