Annie’s natural foods, Carlyle Group: same top shareholders
by Jon Rappoport
March 4, 2014
The images of these companies couldn’t be connected in your wildest dreams.
One, a natural foods outfit. The other a shadowy elite with big front men like George HW Bush and James Baker and John Major.
One company started in a garden and a home kitchen. The other started behind the curtain of global economics.
With Annie’s you get organic bunny fruit snacks. With Carlyle you get a business relationship with the bin Laden family. You get a major defense contractor, because Carlyle invested in defense corporations at a time when Bush Sr. was its PR star, and his son, in the White House, was jacking up the Pentagon budget.
The catch is, Annie’s and Carlyle are both publicly traded companies.
The second top shareholder, at the moment, in Annie’s is FMR, LLC, an investment fund. FMR holds 1,281,588 shares of Annie’s.
FMR is also the second top shareholder in Carlyle. It holds 4,081,247 shares.
The fourth top shareholder in Carlyle is Times Square Capital Management, LLC. It holds 2,195,000 shares.
Times Square Capital is the number-one shareholder in Annie’s:1,661,070 shares.
(Source on stats: Yahoo Finance)
What does this mean? What are the implications?
As I explained, when I published an article showing identical major shareholders in Monsanto and Whole Foods, it means big investment money travels far and wide.
It means investment funds cover the waterfront of companies.
These funds don’t climb down from their perch and suddenly start giving orders to the CEOs of Annie’s and Carlyle. They just buy and sell stock. They look to make profit.
Investment funds use algorithms and computer models and, based on the results, they buy stocks.
But…if they want to, if they perceive “something is wrong and needs correcting,” they can cast proxy votes and affect companies’ policies and actions. They can exert compelling influence.
These giant investment funds float like clouds over the financial landscape. They move, they drift. But they can coalesce and make it rain. If they want to. They have that ability.
They have that power. They manage and control enormous sums of money, which they invest.
Here are eye-popping figures. According to the 2013 Investment Company Fact Book, published by the Investment Company Institute, the “total worldwide assets invested in mutual funds” is:
$26.8 trillion.
“US investment company [investment funds] total net assets”: $14.7 trillion.
“US investment companies share of US corporate equity”: 28%.
US investment companies share of US municipal securities? 28%. Share of commercial paper? 42%. Share of US government securities? 12%.
Investment funds get their money from individuals, families, communities, governments, corporations, foundations, and they invest it.
In a crisis, in a “situation” where these funds deem a publicly traded company has “gone too far,” has “wandered off the reservation,” has, for example, developed a product which would “unsettle the economy”—like a new cheaper energy source—these funds could choose to descend from their thrones and crack the whip.
If tomorrow, the CEO of Annie’s woke up and decided that labeling GMOs was not enough, and what America really and urgently needed was a ban on all GMO crops, its investment fund shareholders could take out the whip and beat down Annie’s stock price.
If tomorrow, the bosses at Carlyle found a way to secure a greater stake in Russian natural resources, or further a US war against yet another foreign nation, its investment fund shareholders could smile and gobble up more Carlyle stock, driving up the price, and forwarding those imperial goals and objectives.
This is called a controlled economy. When it counts.
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
I used to live in Vermont when Annie’s was located there and ran the operation out of a small kitchen, it was Annie’s of Vermont at that time. I am sure “Annie” is long gone from the scene, if still alive she is living well off of the money she got for her company. Perhaps she doesn’t even trust anymore the products which bear her name.
Oh…I thought that living off the money she made from her company would be evil. That’s Capitalism you know…what a sell out.
Reblogged this on Johnsono ne'Blog'as.
Reblogged this on Lolathecur's Blog.
That the economy is controlled, for the most part anyway, I think is without question for a very long time now, but it’s good to be reminded now and then in a more detailed manner than just saying that the economy is controlled by the elites. That’s easy to say and many people wouldn’t understand what’s really meant. So, this article is a good one.
I’ve never been an Annie’s foods consumer. Have seen the products, but haven’t bought anyway. However, what about Eden Foods?
it all comes down to growing our own or at least knowing your grower…Here’s tip from way back when things were a little easier to see>…..
“Spanish Pipedream (Blow Up Your TV)”
She was a level-headed dancer on the road to alcohol
And I was just a soldier on my way to Montreal
Well she pressed her chest against me
About the time the juke box broke
Yeah, she gave me a peck on the back of the neck
And these are the words she spoke
[Chorus:]
Blow up your TV throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try an find Jesus on your own
Well, I sat there at the table and I acted real naive
For I knew that topless lady had something up her sleeve
Well, she danced around the bar room and she did the hoochy-coo
Yeah she sang her song all night long, tellin’ me what to do
[Chorus]
Well, I was young and hungry and about to leave that place
When just as I was leavin’, well she looked me in the face
I said “You must know the answer.”
“She said, “No but I’ll give it a try.”
And to this very day we’ve been livin’ our way
And here is the reason why
We blew up our TV threw away our paper
Went to the country, built us a home
Had a lot of children, fed ’em on peaches
They all found Jesus on their own
John Prine circa 1971
Just proves what a total sham all of this eco-granola BS is.
Not all of it. Just a lot of it.
Well Jon, you’ve got almost the entire picture here. There is just one thing missing in your analysis, and its the biggest thing of all…
The largest funding capital for the Carlyle Group comes from… drum roll please… GOVERNMENT!!! Your tax dollars are collected and invested into stock and given as low interest loans called “corporate bonds”.
Secondly, when you reference these massive investment funds, you must realize that these are major fronts for institutional investors, in other words… GOVERNMENT!!! Of 4 million shares held by a fund like Vanguard, Statestreet (a government corporation), FMR, and Times Square Capital, the largest percent of capital investment comes from government, especially in pension funds.
Thirdly, you are incorrect on one point. The collective shareholding of government, with over 230,000 different corporations calling themselves government (States, Counties, Cities, Districts, Authorities, etc.) in the United States, not to mention the $3 trillion pension investments of the military and other federal agencies and departments, is the majority shareholder in almost EVERY CORPORATION WORLDWIDE, especially when foreign governments are considered as collective shareholders. Those shareholders get to vote on such things a mergers and acquisitions, and also they get to elect the board of directors, which in turn elects the CEO. The great fallacy is that Bill Gates and other CEO’s run the corporation. But Bill is only a 2% shareholder. Institutional holders sit at over 70% ownership, and most of that is collective government. So… to control this massive corporate structure of Earth, governments around the country and the world pool their collective proxy shareholder votes when the want something done or want to replace a board or CEO.
In other words, government is in silent control of most corporations.
Here is just one example for greater understanding, which includes the Carlyle Group as an example of government investment. Feel free to share or reprint, as all my research is in public domain…
http://realitybloger.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/cafr-school-how-corporations-are-funded-by-taxpayers/
Thanks for all you do!
-Clint Richardson
Realitybloger.wordpress.com
TheCorporationNation.com
RepublicBroadcasting.org
Well Jon, you’ve got almost the entire picture here. There is just one thing missing in your analysis, and its the biggest thing of all…
The largest funding capital for the Carlyle Group comes from… drum roll please… GOVERNMENT!!! Your tax dollars are collected and invested into stock and given as low interest loans called “corporate bonds”.
Secondly, when you reference these massive investment funds, you must realize that these are major fronts for institutional investors, in other words… GOVERNMENT!!! Of 4 million shares held by a fund like Vanguard, Statestreet (a government corporation), FMR, and Times Square Capital, the largest percent of capital investment comes from government, especially in pension funds.
Thirdly, you are incorrect on one point. The collective shareholding of government, with over 230,000 different corporations calling themselves government (States, Counties, Cities, Districts, Authorities, etc.) in the United States, not to mention the $3 trillion pension investments of the military and other federal agencies and departments, is the majority shareholder in almost EVERY CORPORATION WORLDWIDE, especially when foreign governments are considered as collective shareholders. Those shareholders get to vote on such things a mergers and acquisitions, and also they get to elect the board of directors, which in turn elects the CEO. The great fallacy is that Bill Gates and other CEO’s run the corporation. But Bill is only a 2% shareholder. Institutional holders sit at over 70% ownership, and most of that is collective government. So… to control this massive corporate structure of Earth, governments around the country and the world pool their collective proxy shareholder votes when the want something done or want to replace a board or CEO.
In other words, government is in silent control of most corporations.
Here is just one example for greater understanding, which includes the Carlyle Group as an example of government investment. Feel free to share or reprint, as all my research is in public domain…
http://realitybloger.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/cafr-school-how-corporations-are-funded-by-taxpayers/
Thanks for all you do!
-Clint Richardson
Realitybloger.wordpress.com
TheCorporationNation.com
RepublicBroadcasting.org
It would seem that the Tragedy & Hope community has some pull with you Jon… thanks for posting the articles.
[…] Jon Rappoport […]
Came across this related article today, after reading this one, which reveals some of the history of the scam:
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/3/9_Investors_Need_To_Stay_Focused_With_Ukraine_Crisis_Unfolding.html
“During the 1970s a law was passed called ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Prior to ERISA it was not unusual for retirement funds to be managed in-house by companies. ERISA created severe penalties for violations of fiduciary duty and there was virtually no defense.
Fiduciaries at companies were forced to turn over the management of the funds to what have become the enormous financial institutions and mutual fund groups that we have today. Failure to do so exposed the trustees of the plans to unlimited liability…What the act accomplished was to concentrate enormous amounts of money on Wall Street away from Main Street.”
Now I want to know the specific interests and people behind ERISA. Talk about centralizing power!