Everybody wants to rule the world… Tears for fears knew that pretty well, but the reality check shows us that not everybody can actually do it (Thanks God for that!) Yet, there is a minimal number of companies that not only CAN rule the world, but ARE currently ruling the world. And this is happening without you even noticing it. Who are these five titans that hold absolute control of our world? Who are the five companies that rule the world?
Nestlé: This Swiss transnational corporation is the largest and biggest (in terms of revenues) food company in the history. Nestlé’s products include baby food, medical food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee and tea, confectionery, dairy products, ice cream, frozen food, pet foods, and snacks. Twenty-nine of Nestlé’s brands have annual sales of over US$1.1 billion, among them you can count Nespresso, Nescafé, Kit Kat, Smarties, Nesquik, Stouffer’s, Vittel, and Maggi. Nestlé has 447 factories and operates in 194 countries, employing around 339,000 people. This food company is also one of the main shareholders of L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics company.
Alphabet Inc: You use it every day, every minute, every second. Yes, this is for real. Even if you don’t recognize this company, most likely you will request its services an average of 1.000 times per day, unless you live in a cave, under a rock, with a bear for friend, and with no wifi of course. Google, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Street View, Niantic, GMail and other twenty well known internet related companies, startups and services, all belong to Alphabet Inc. The fact is that Alphabet Inc IS the former Google Inc. The company has grown so big in the later years, that Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided to restructure the american internet titan into a new company, branched all over the world, and currently holding the most used operating system in the planet: Android.
Total S.A.: Turn your car on. Turn the lights in your house on. Turn the heat on. Now you know who is Total S.A. This french oil empire is the most profitable oil and energy related company in the world. With the largest revenues (around 165.357 billions in revenues on 2015 alone) this monstrous oil empire has spread all over the world, operating in more than 180 countries and holding more than 2.000 subsidiary companies, some of them even among their own competition. Total S.A. currently provides work opportunities for more than 120.000 employees around the world.
McGraw-Hill: Do you know who holds the majority of shares on the financial markets all over the world? Oh yes… there is one ONE company that holds this unsurmountable amount of power: McGraw-Hill. This american financial corporation owns Standard dn Poor’s, Northwestern Mutual, Russell Investments, CME Group and Lehman Brothers, achieving by this around 90% of the stocks in the United States stock market (either directly or indirectly) and around 40% of the stocks worldwide. The network of companies, subsidiaries, hedge funds, funds, second level banks and a myriad of financial instruments, systems and institutions owned by McGraw-Hill is so deep and so global, that no one has been able to accurately assess the extent of this financial octopus.
Wal-Mart: It’s the “retail king”. Wal-Mart network of retail shops own the american market, and have achieve the first position as the most profitable company in the world not once, but twice in the prestigious Fortune 500 Global list. This company currently has operations in more than 26 countries, but their real power is on the incredible amount of goods they move globally, mostly from China factories and into European and American markets. And estimated number of around 200.000 jobs were lost in the USA but, at the same time Wal-Mart and its effects save shoppers more than US$200 billion a year, dwarfing such government programs as food stamps (US$28.6 billion) and the earned income tax credit US$34.6 billion).
