June 12, 2026 • 51 mins
While you may have never heard of Cargill, you almost certainly have bought some of their products. Cargill is the largest privately held company in all of the United States. And,from their humble beginnings as a grain broker, they've expanded across the planet. Critics say they've also left a trail of cover-ups, corruption and conspiracies in their wake. Join Ben, Matt and Noel as they uncover the stuff this global corporation doesn't want you to know.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name's Nola.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Now, fellow Netflix conspiracy realist,
you may see that a couple of us are on
the road at this time.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
We are p Can you tell that?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
How can you tell?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Matt?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Probably by the fact that you specifically looked around at
your room where you're recording. We also were mentioning being
on the road because we are great fans of the globe,
We are great fans of travel, and we would like
you to travel with us this coming October. If this
is your first time tuning in to conspiracy stuff or
(01:18):
stuff they don't want you to know, why not hang
out with us live. We're going on the high seats.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
It is within your grasp.
Speaker 5 (01:26):
Reach out to Virgin Voyages and book you a cabin
on the Stuff themed cruise, or we're gonna be hanging
out with our buddies Josh and Chuck from Stuff you
Should Know and Annie and Sam from Stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Mom never told you. It's gonna be a good time.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's gonna be such a good crew. You guys. We
just need you. We just need you, so find that scratch.
It's not cheap. Look, we're not saying it's cheap to
join us on this cruise, but we are saying it's
gonna be worth your time. It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
October second through the seven. Yeah, join us. We're embarking
from New York. We're going all the way down to
the Caribbean, and we're getting into all sorts of shenanigans,
the type of stuff you can only experience if you're
on the vessel with us.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Well, guys, I mean I think it was. We were
all cruise virgins on Virgin cruises and this will be
our second cruise. And I didn't think I was a
cruise guy, but I sure am. It was a lot
of fun. They really do a good job at Virgin voyages.
It's adults only. They have all kinds of fun parties
and activities and excursions off the ship. And I don't know, man,
(02:36):
I'm not just saying this. I don't think any of
us are. We really had a great time and really
looking forward to this.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Oh yeah, just as a little taste last time around,
Ben and I got up at like nine a m.
To go do a realm tasting.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Again.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
No, I didn't know. We didn't know. It was that early.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Not know. And also that's part of the adventure, right,
uh yeah, knowing the spontaneous nature. And yes, I'll confirm it.
I will walk in the day on these cruises. I
a lot of sunscreen, man, a lot of like wrapping,
(03:21):
a lot, a lot of a lot of our good
friends asking hey, why do you always wear long sleeves.
It's because of my ancient nemesis.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
Ben has a closet full of that same suit jacket
like fifteen up.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It's true. Just like if you remember that Earnest franchise's
goes to Halloween a scared camp there, it is all
of those. Yeah, basically his closet.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
If I could say though too, I think this is
going to sound silly, but my favorite part of the
whole cruise experience was literally just hanging out on the
little balcony of my cabin in this incredible hammock and
just kind of chilling and watching the water. And it's
just incredibly serene and just a lovely way too unwind
and very meditative. And yeah, I'm going to be doing
a lot of that, but I'm also going to be
(04:08):
in about this casino.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Play a little black jack together, Let's do it, let's hang.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
My favorite part was watching nol on his balcony. I
would I would watch Freaky How did you see Me? Oh,
you can find you can find it. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
Spy gearing one of those mirrorge this little what do
they like?
Speaker 4 (04:30):
A periscope with a mirror on it?
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Kind of it was all the way up.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
We're old school fans of spy tech, both the toy
brand and the actual trade craft, because it helps you
dive into hidden things. And tonight is apparently your friends.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Sorry observe with.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Deserve in his naserve with Benevolent and tent and we
have we've recently, as you you know, if you've been
tuning into Netflix or your podcast platform a choice, we've
been delving into some pretty esoteric occult stuff outo We
hope you enjoyed those episodes as much as we do.
But while we were neck deep in magic with a
(05:15):
k cryptids of Lake Superior and tarot cards and numerology,
the great businesses of the world economy ground on in
every waking moment. Even as we're recording this on Friday,
June fifth, twenty twenty six. Billions of dollars not every day,
every moment, billions of dollars are moving around the planet
(05:36):
and weighs the general public often never sees, let alone
comprehends or understands. One of the biggest movers in this
field globally is a company a lot of people may
have never heard of, headquartered over in Minnetaka, Minnesota. It's
a little outfit called Cargill Car.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Have you ever wondered where your big Max come from?
Or your Whoppers? Or all that meat and Walmart or
food Lion? Where does it come from? How about all
the salt? Maybe all the steel? Where where does all
of this stuff come from?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
And maybe we maybe I you know what, we'll keep
it in. But maybe I should pronounce Cargill correctly the
way that William Wallace would Cargile.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
Walla.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
We'll get to it bart his mom. Brave hearts, Mom
yelled at him.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
That is, We'll be right back. Here are the facts. Okay,
you've probably heard the name, especially if you live in
the United States or one of several victimized areas across
the world. But don't feel bad if you've never actually
(06:53):
heard the name Cargill the company. Maybe we could do
just a brief introduction to what this corporation is and
why we're looking at it tonight.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
Yes, they are Cargill, a US based multinational corporation most
well known for their tremendous activity in the food sector.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
So they make.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
Grain, palm oils, vegetable oils, feed for animals, for livestock, starches, chocolate,
and glucose syrup, among other agricultural additives and ingredients. And
they're also heavily involved in the transport of livestock.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
That's good because I always running out of fingers to
count this on, I'd have to get the other fingers
out there.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Dale, You've need some more, baby, right right exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Weirdly enough, Cargill also has a big interest in financial services,
to the degree that it's almost a company nested within
this larger company of the trush Goodol, which all multi
national corporates are, their financial arm fascinatingly enough, is primarily
(08:06):
focused on quote, managing commodity market risk end quote. Just
for Cargill, why do you have a You're an agricultural company,
So why do you have your own inner cadre, your
own small army of finance boffins, just to keep an
eye on your own activities. It doesn't make sense at
(08:28):
first until we realize this is the largest privately owned
company in the United States by revenue.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
When I realized they were bigger than Coke Industries K Yeah,
as in the Coke Brothers. And then I realized, oh, well,
I've seen that logo before, with that little green leaf
thing right over the Cargill name. Yeah, I realized I've
seen it industrial sites in all kinds of different states
that I've been to, and I haven't traveled the world
(08:58):
very extensively, but just here in the US seen those
things everywhere. I talked to my partner, She's like, oh, yeah,
there's there's several big ones out where I used to live.
And I was like, what this is? They really are
just everywhere. You may not even notice them.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, because it's purposefullly A I would say a vague
logo because it goes so many places. It's ubiquitous. You
see a green leaf, you keep it moving, and you
help this company, Cargill, especially if you live in the US.
You help them generate an annual revenue of one hundred
(09:34):
and forty billion dollars in twenty twenty five alone. That's
actually a little bit less than the year before. In
twenty twenty four, they rated it one hundred and sixty
billion US dollars privately held corporation, five generations deep. At
this point, they have a full in their family, the
(09:55):
Cargill family. They have a full fourteen billionaires. It's going
to be a weird family reunion, you know, very I'm
picturing secession. Honestly, guys, I'm picturing a bunch of really
wealthy people having these high drama Shakespearean power things going
on and kissing the ass and hating the ass of
(10:18):
the patriarch.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Well, and let's just quickly remember that it is the
Cargill family, but it's the Cargill McMillan family, and then
there's like three or four other families that kind of
superfused together to become the airrors in Offspring and the
Cargill play. Yes, exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
The Cargill network. If I want to sound a little
more FBI about.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
It, Yeah, I found a timeline of the evolution of
their logo and their earliest one in eighteen sixty five
or from they had from eighteen sixty five to nineteen thirty.
And it's like the kind of thing you'd see on
the side of like a like a like a snake
oil medicine show wagon that says ww Cargill and bro
fun Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
For William Wallace Cargill.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
There you go, Yeah, William Wallace.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Yes, before we jump into the absolute origins of this,
when we're talking about just the amount of money that
this privately owned company is raking down, the number of
people are benefiting to the tune of billions of dollars,
and again generally through the stocks because you've just controlled
stocks for this long. Now you've got a hold of
or you control stocks that are worth billions of dollars,
(11:27):
which we'll get into. It gets a little tricky when
you're ready to take some of that billion of dollars
and then let's say transform it into a trust or
a fund or even something really good and philanthropic. It's hard,
it's hard to make that money into real money. Yes,
but there are at least last time I checked, and
(11:47):
I think from twenty twenty five, there were around one
hundred and fifty thousand employees of this company, which when
you just think about the number of human beings that
are directly working for this one giant organization that is,
of course hundreds of subsidiaries, but it's so many humans
that are not only toiling for the company. But then
(12:10):
when you imagine how many human beings on planet Earth
are touched by this company, it becomes unfathomable.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, agreed. I mean it wasn't always the case that
Cargill was such a juggernaut. Back when our buddy Willie
William Wallace Cargill IOK, we could be familiar with you, sir.
Back when this guy founds the company, it's in Conover, Iowa.
It's eighteen sixty five. A lot of stuff was happening
(12:40):
in the US at the time, and he got this
single grain warehouse kind of in the middle of nowhere.
He made a very smart purchase because this was at
the very end of a railroad line called McGregor and Western,
which was set to expand westward his brothers. Two of
his brothers join up and another brother joins them later.
(13:04):
But when he starts, you know, powering up, getting his
avengers together. They expand in line with the railroads, so
every time the railroad makes a new connect, a new segment,
a new expansion, Cargill is right there. Eventually they relocate
to a place called albert Le, Minnesota. The business becomes
(13:26):
very popular with farmers. The railroad gets their money either way,
so they don't particularly care, but the local farmers are
impressed by the emphasis these guys put on being early
adopters multiple floors for their grainhouses, conveyor systems, elevators. As
(13:46):
a matter of fact, when Old WW dies, the company
is briefly renamed the Cargill Elevator Company. Most especially, what
farmers are in love with is the company's flexibility when
it comes to story, transporting, and most importantly, selling their crops.
They are innovators of tactics as well as technology. They
(14:11):
get super into vertical integration. That's where you you know,
instead of just saying, hey, farmers, sell me grain, I
sell the grain to some guy who takes it on
the train. They say, we want to run as much
of this as possible.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
When people hear the elevator company, Ben you're talking about, yeah,
my mind goes to, oh, like they built elevators for buildings.
How did they go from grain to that? Well, you
have to realize is that one of the big innovations
that we're talking about here are grain elevators. Yes, these
things you've likely I'm assuming you've seen them if you
live anywhere in the Midwest or a lot of places
(14:48):
is just more rural here in Georgia and other places
throughout the country or the world, you'll see these things,
grain elevators that actually move supply up to the silo
where it can go down into where it needs to go.
And that was a big deal. That was a really
big deal to be able to store foods, especially grains
(15:09):
in this way.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah, because you get more grain for your buck basically
with these very clever conveyor belts and this idea of
vertical integration. Ooh, it's a brilliant move. It reminds me
of the financial aspect of it reminds me of that
scene from Disney's Mary Poppins where they talk to the
(15:31):
banker and he's like, Oh, this is how money works,
you know where the arch creepy voice. This sets up
what Cargill ultimately becomes, which is a vast global connector
of transportation and of Earth's entire food supply. This is
a very big deal.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Well, and I think you already mentioned that it's a
privately held company, so it's like not publicly traded. They've
never done an EyeT at all. They've always maintained control
over it with in the family. I thought that was
kind of unusual for a company of that size and
financial magnitude.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Absolutely, I think.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
I misspoke when I said stocks. What I meant is
shares of the company. It is privately privately owned, so
it is not like on the stock market shares that
you try and liquidate or turn into cash. It's more like,
here are the private shares of this corporation.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Which is weirdulated too.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yeah, it's very different. It's interesting because it is very similar,
but it's also different just anyone who owns it and
how it's regulated. It's crazy to me that William Wallace
was twenty one when he made that first move on
the railway there with the grain supple, with the grain
storage unit, just thinking of someone that age making that
(16:46):
move and somehow seeing the future of where this rail
is going and how it's going to change things. And
then to be in the catbird seat in that moment
as it begins to truly morph into this new, fully
connected system of states.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah. And he also, we should say, bought a lumber
mill at the same time. Fast forward. There's more to
the history, obviously, but those are the broad strokes of
the origin story for our purposes tonight. What you need
to know is now, as of twenty twenty six, Cargill
employs well over one hundred and sixty thousand people in
(17:26):
sixty six countries, and they are active in more than
sixty six countries all told, officially seventy countries, and if
you check in with the United Nations, which we do
often because we're fun at parties, you will see that
there are an estimated one hundred and ninety I don't
(17:48):
want to get us in trouble, but there's more than
one hundred and ninety countries, which means that Cargill has
a huge footprint across the globe. They're responsible guys for
something like a quarter of all grain exports from the
United States. So you could literally go and count little
kernels of corn or pieces of wheat, and one out
(18:10):
of four of those little pieces would be touched by Cargill.
And also, you know, we talked about this, I think
in a strange news segment not too long ago. They
supply more than twenty percent of all of the US
meat in the domestic market. They're also the only people
who make the salt in the US that goes in
(18:33):
your favorite fast food joint. It's a thing called Alberger
Process salt. So yeah, they got there. They got a stranglehold.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It's crazy to look. You can look at Google Maps
in Newark, California. You can see one of the Cargill
salt plants, and you can look at it above from
above to see the pile of salt. They have two
parallel piles of salt that you don't understand and how
big it is until you zoom in and you see
(19:03):
what looks to be some form of bulldozer that is
going across the pile of salt, and then you understand
how massive that machine is and how tiny it looks
on this mountain of salt. And it's fascinating to know,
it's just ocean water that they process over like five
(19:24):
to ten years. It's crazy. It's a crazy prose, very interesting,
but it's nuts.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Forget banana for scale, this is bulldozer for scale stuff.
It's Cargill affects so many industries that when we talk
about their activities, it's actually easier to ask what they
don't do, because in addition to food for humans, in
addition to the livestock trade, they're also in BioHealth oh wait,
(19:52):
and beauty oh wait, and animal nutrition and oh oh gosh,
biofuel oh and trading and then also oh yeah, finance,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Steal steel very much.
So there's another unofficial activity for Cargill. As with most,
if not all companies of its size, Cargill also every
(20:13):
year produces a lot of what we can diplomatically call controversy.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
And they rack up a bunch of fines, which we'll
we'll talk about and get into the cost of doing
business in the way that a massive corporation like that's
with so many subsidiaries and folks who do work for
Cargill in different ways, a lot of finds a lot
of I don't know if you guys noticed some quite
a bit of slavery going on, at least alleged slavery
(20:40):
going on here.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah. Over the decades, Cargill has encountered criticism growing in
step with the growth of its economic portfolio. This is
what led Congressman Henry A. Waxman to go so far
as to call Cargill quote the worst company in the world.
Our question is, what does that mean exactly? If we
(21:03):
get past the slick pr campaigns, the sanitized history, the
company's website and timeline, what exactly has Cargill been up to.
We'll be back afterword from our sponsors. Here's where it
gets crazy, all right. According to the critics, Cargill has
(21:27):
been pretty busy doing all sorts of nefarious things. Not
the usual unfortunate could happen to anyone, accidents where failures
of function like accidentally spoiling or contaminating meat, but also
accusations of human trafficking, child labor, environmental degradation, and price fixing.
(21:51):
It's crazy, guys. It's by design to get away from
this because ninety percent of the company. We're talking about
this a little bit earlier, Cener the company is still
held by descendants of the Cargill clan, and they want
to be a private company. I would say they need
to be a private company because this means they don't
(22:11):
have to disclose all the detailed information that you would
require of a publicly traded company in the United States.
There is literally stuff they don't want you to know
at play here.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Yeah, and most of it's happening in Montana, where a
lot of the family lives quietly, secretly.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, and being a private company. Be quick to point
this out. It's not inherently illegal. The issue is oh yeah,
But the issue is a lot of the stuff laid
at Cargill's feet does in fact orbit around very illegal things.
Can we talk about the environment a little bit? Are
we all still fans of the environment? Where we are
(22:52):
that love it? Okay?
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Really back in, maintain it, preserve it, you know?
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Around yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, where we are with the rangutan fans, same scary though,
and that we'll rip your face off. Yeah, but they're
so chill.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Maybe that's more chimpanzees, but man, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
Range tanks can probably get a little whild too, but no,
they are very regal, majestic creatures and they should, you know,
be allowed to exist.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
They're like to me, they're like very very clever, goofy dudes.
Check out our check out our earlier episode on cryptids
you've never heard of, will be related orang petad.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Yeah, of course the orang mignac wasn't that one is right.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
But ben, if I'm not mistaken, a lot of the
initial controversy we're going to talk about revolves around something
that I think many folks might know is problematic in
its production, something called palm oil.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah, you nailed it. As we all know, palm oil
itself is a sticky wicket. We get to that in
a sec You're absolutely right. Ninety two percent of the
world's collective consumption of palm oil, which is used in
so many things, it comes from two countries, Indonesia and Malaysia.
(24:08):
You'll also see production in Papua New Guinea. By their
own admission, they can go to cargo and aslam yourself.
They'll say they operate twenty refineries, nine mills, three what
they call kernel crush plants, and nine palm plantations across
the globe. They also are quick to point out, hey,
(24:30):
palm oil one way or another. It's consumed in more
than one hundred and thirty three countries, sometimes as food,
sometimes in other applications like biofuels or of course cosmetics.
They're the largest US and border of palm oil. They
source it from twenty six producers in a proxy network
(24:53):
and they buy something right now, they buy something like
over ten percent of Indonesia's total palm oil output. But
it turns out there's a blood price to all these
palm oil profits t R O F I t S.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
But what there are a lot of problems. One of
them is child labor. That's a that's a whole thing
that gets into this. There's a lot of child labor
and forced labor that shows up in some Cargill's history.
It's usually we got to give them this a little bit, guys.
It's usually a supplier or an organization that is functioning
on behalf of Cargill. Right for Cargill do it like
(25:35):
getting the coca beans for Cargill or the palm oil
for Cargill. And it's not necessarily Cargill and employees doing it.
But the company shot is benefiting from the works of
this kind of thing as well as the you know,
massive deforestation required to create these palm oil plantations.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah, through its various supplier networks, which we'll get into,
Cargill has been repeatedly for decades implicated in aiding and
abetting what we could diplomatically call Oh, I'm looking for
the right phrase, guys, social conflicts. I'm pulling that from
some international aid reports. And to your point there, Matt.
(26:18):
Their suppliers are groups like Wilmar International, Sinarmas and Duta Palma.
They're known for routinely breaking the law by burning vast
swaths of rainforest, you know where the orangutans live. And
one example we could do just very quickly to give
(26:38):
you a high level perspective on this, go to Sumatra
in twenty eleven. This is where Wilmar had employed security
forces and local police to use violence and intimidation against villagers. Oh,
and they also destroyed their homes. I think the local
(27:00):
police are in practice employed by Carkill. In this case,
they were conducting raids because a villager was had a
side hustle selling palm oil fruits and they said, well,
you've stolen this palm oil from us, and he was like, well,
I work at the place I live here, and they
were like, ah, burn down the neighborhood, use live fire
(27:23):
on these civilians. And that happened under Cargill's perfew.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Dare you poach the King's palms, price.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
The king's bums? It's something to think about next time
we get a hanker in for Natilla and like we're mentioning, no,
I'm sorry. It keeps getting stuck on this one. If
the violence against humans isn't quite bagging up your badgers,
think of all that massive deforestation in one of the
last truly diverse ecosystems on the planet. Think of how
(27:54):
the orangutites will soon have nowhere left to live well.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
And there's another thing we learned from the Mighty Earth,
and that Cargill the worst company in the world article
that came out a little while back. This comes from
their timeline September twenty twelve palm oil from child and
slave labor, And I'm just going to read this, it's
pretty short. Schuster Institute Senior Fellow e Benjamin Skinner, supported
(28:20):
by a team of journalists, traced Cargill's purchase of Indonesian
palm oil to Kuala Lumpur. The report published by BusinessWeek
found extensive evidence of workers, many of whom were children,
being defrauded, abused, and held captive by klk's labor management.
Just to add that on top, this is just a
thing that occurred in twenty twelve, and that is specifically
(28:45):
with the palm oil trade. If we get into other trades,
there are other very specific accusations of this exact type
of practice. Some of it is even more gruesome.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yeah, And to be fair, as we're wrapping up the
oil stuff, in two thousand and four, Cargil voluntarily became
a member of something called the Round Table on Sustainable
Palm Oil or RSPO. They set the ethical standards for
palm oil production. We can think of it kind of
(29:18):
like the Kimberly process for the diamond trade and how
that was supposed to stop the proliferation of child labor
and conflict sourced so called blood diamonds. But even now
RSPO routinely comes back and says there's a huge gulf
between what Cargill told us they were going to do,
what they agreed to do, and what actually does occur
(29:43):
under their purview today in the palm oil industry. Is
just the beginning. You could see the same story in
the Brazilian Amazon. Cargil is one of the largest controllers
of soybean production. This is also around the same time
we see Cargill condemned. In the first instance, we're having
coca suppliers, rural producers who provably practice child labor and enslavement.
(30:11):
Let's pause for a word for our sponsors. I think
we all need a quick breather before we get into
the really dark stuff, which may not be appropriate for
all audience members.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
And we've returned, and there's ben Tee's before the break,
a bit of a trigger warning here.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
This is going to get dark.
Speaker 5 (30:33):
It involves discussion of child abuse, child labor, human trafficking.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
And all kinds of nasty stuff. So here we go.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
So there have been repeated accusations of the aiding and
a betting of human trafficking and child labor by Cargil.
In addition to this seeming you know, beef have against
the regal orangutan. No, no, it's true. They're beefed up
(31:06):
with the orangutans. It would seem Cargill has run into
numerous accusations that three of their palm oil plantations in
Papua New Guinea are essentially using slave labor. Formerly independent
farmers got converted into essentially, you know, surfs, basically through
(31:28):
false premises of contributing to new infrastructure that would help
you know their communities, stuff that never actually comes to
fruition and purposefully complex debt schemes, company store type stuff
like in this sixteen tons song that we often reference.
In response to a two thousand and seven report, Cargill's
(31:49):
own management did admit that they couldn't guarantee that their
Papua New Guinea plantations were entirely free from child labor
or bonded servit to.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
They would do their best, though they said no, they
didn't say that either could not guarantee. Seems like a
thing you should be able to guarantee.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah, shout out to Nesle right in the worst possible way.
This approbrium as that you were kind of teasing as well,
And Nola's your point. Now, it's not limited to Papua
New Guinea. In twenty twenty three, an outfit called International
Rights Advocates sued Cargill on behalf of child plaintiffs in Ghana.
(32:29):
This is the one. This is one of the cases.
That's going to keep you up at night if you
haven't heard about it before. What they found is that
a lot of these partners or subcontractors for coca outfits,
especially in West Africa, they were enslaving children. Children as
(32:49):
young as five years old appeared to be put out
in the field working in the coca industry. This was
alleged by international national human rights nonprofits, It was verified
by independent journalists. CBS News looked into it, and this
lawsuit that international rights advocates brought on behalf of these children.
(33:15):
It came to US only after another court case occurred
where in the US Supreme Court, yep, the ring Braiths,
the creepy ring Braiths said Nesley USA and Cargill can't
be sued for child slavery on African farms where they
buy their coca from. And they said, this is why
(33:37):
they said the case can't go in US court. They
said most of the alleged conduct occurred abroad. The implication
being that if you were if you're a corporation, you
can go frickin' hay up, you can murder an enslave
as many people as you want, just don't do it
(33:57):
in Virginia, et cetera. Don't like it. I disagree with
the Scotis.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
Nope, don't like it and Scotis I don't know. Man,
they're increasingly problematic.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah, non ideal, No, I mean important.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
The Raiths are doing wraith stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
They're wraith and man, they're wraith and for wraitheon. And
to be fair, a lot of us in the audience,
especially the more cynical of us, may, with some validity,
imagine that these companies like Nesley and Cargill and specific
have used their enormous political and financial capital to exercise
(34:43):
influence upon the scales of justice. I want to be
careful how we say that. It hasn't been proven. Like
there's never been a current or former justice of the
Supreme Court who came out and said, you know, yeah,
Cargill gave me a sick RV. So I said, you guys,
do what you want. That hasn't happened yet. I hope
(35:04):
it does.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
In I'm just gonna read this. This is again from
the same report. In July two thousand and five, the
International Labor Rights Form filed suits against Cargill, Nessley, and
Archer Daniels Midland on behalf of Molly and children, alleging
they were trafficked into the Ivory Coast cot To to Ivory
and forced to work twelve to fourteen hours a day
with no pay, little food and sleep, and frequent beatings
(35:29):
on farms producing cocoa beans for Cargill. And there is
another little thing in here from twenty eighteen that goes back.
I think it's talking about one of the it's one
of the movements that you were just mentioning there ben
about who can get sued for this? Can US companies
like Cargill be sued by former slaves who were working
(35:50):
on one of these plantations Somewhere? I'm just gonna read
this short little thing. According to reports from the Courthouse
News Service, there were six plaintiffs whose case was allowed
to be moved forward. As ruled it was allowed to
be moved forward. They claimed they were kidnapped form Alia's children.
In the nineties, we talked about all this stuff, right,
they said, those same kids said that there were children
(36:12):
there who, when they tried to escape, were forced by
the I don't know what you would call them, the enforcers.
They're forced to drink urine. Often they would have their
feet cut so that they could not run away and
attempt to escape the plantation.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
This is like the kind of tactics that slave catchers used.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Like, I mean, yes, it's Pastinato is the word for
that specific type of torture method.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
They said, specifically that pepper would be rubbed into the
wounds on their feet, so it would be excruciating for them.
And then they're going to work twelve to fourteen hours
lifting heavy satchels of these these large fruits that have
the cocoa beans in them, and the most disturbing thing,
at least according to the children who were there who
(37:01):
are now trying attempting to sue Cargill in these other companies.
They said that Nesley and Cargill representatives would visit the
farms several times a year. And you know, these are kids,
but they are saying there was an awareness that there
were children working there producing the goods that would then
be sold on the cheap.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Exactly. Yeah, and we don't have to get into the
allegations of sexual abuse, but folks, you need to realize
those are part and parcel of this sort of dehumanization.
It just it goes on and on and on. And
you know, it'd be amazing and perhaps the right thing
to do for us to make a stuff they don't
want you to know, spin off series just about activities
(37:42):
from Cargill. There's way too much for one episode here,
but we should let you know a little bit about
how the system works. We want you to understand why
these conspiracies are so successful, why it is so easy
for multinational corporations to get away with stuff that would
put an individual in prison for life. Okay, the truly
(38:07):
big corporations, the multinationals, they're not usually one thing past
the boardroom. They're a rats nests of other subsidiaries, contractors,
separate companies, independent partners. It's a huge help for taxation
and sometimes, yes, trying to be fair, it can be
a necessity when you're operating in other countries with their
(38:29):
own laws and regulations. But with that tax structure, legal advantage,
crap comes hidden benefits, The liability moves with the autonomy.
So quick thought, experiment and Dylan, I didn't check with
you in advance, so let me know if this is
off base man. Okay, guys, let's say, for example, our
(38:52):
best friend Dylan Faked has an international jellies and sweets
conglomerate called Tennessee Puddin'.
Speaker 6 (39:00):
Right, Okay, okay, just some down home sweets.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Just a down home Cambs flavor of course, best seller.
So okay, Tennessee pudding with no g because it's down home.
It's got a bunch of sugarcane from a supplier in
another country. That supplier turns out to be raising forests,
destroying local communities, enslaving the people and the children who
(39:29):
live there. And then Tennessee's legal department can say, guys,
we feel terrible too.
Speaker 6 (39:36):
Guys, we feel terrible too. We're surprised, as you, Tennessee
pudding is about a down home, locally supported business. We
can't keep our eye on every fallen sparrow of human rats.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Mm hm. And everybody stands up at collaps.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
I like that guy. He seems nice. She is a
wholesome and down home.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Well, he also has to commit to like a twenty
year plan to stop all the slavery. But it's gonna
take twenty years, though, but we're gonna do it.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
We'll get to it eventually. Yeah, you pull a proxy,
that's the system. You hide the hand, and often the
judge will agree with you. If the judge doesn't agree
with you, then wamp wamp wamp you pay a five.
You have no criminal charges. Right the other thirteen billionaire
members of your family are still billionaires. This is the
(40:25):
cost of doing business. And if downstream suppliers try to
bucket you, then they could get it too, you know
what I mean. I think it was still a mighty earth.
In multiple other reports, we found that there are other
corporations that you would rightly consider giants, places that own
(40:47):
multiple grocery stores. And they say they have to play
along with Cargill's Gate.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Oh yeah, because don't forget they have a oh god,
we didn't even talk about like the listeria outbreaks that
have had happened over the years from all of their
meat processing plants or what was the other one. There's
a huge one with their turkey production and their their
ground beef production, and just it's crazy the number of
(41:16):
people that have gotten super sick because of unsafe practices.
And because when you've got such a massive corporation, so
many moving parts, so many factories, so many human beings
that could potentially introduce a major problem, you know, where
you've got something like lasteria breaking out or e Coli.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeh are you're hiring children to clean the meat packing plant?
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah? That was the whole thing, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, well, here in the United States.
Speaker 5 (41:43):
It's kind of wild too that the other side of
their business model is a similar proxy situation, like with
the way that they supply other companies with their product,
but it basically ends up masquerading as a product that
that company is putting out.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
So there's a certain like remove right.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
One hundred percent. Yeah, you nailed it there. NOL look
at things like Ahold del Hayes. They're the owners of
food Lion, Hannaford giants, Stop and Shop. They say, look,
we want to provide responsible meat, but we can't do
it because Cargill's our main guy, so we kind of
(42:24):
have to go with what Cargill says. This means that,
you know, to the point you're making noal, Cargill's business
is not really directed you as an individual consumer, unless
their servants are of course enslaving your children instead. Cargil,
like you were saying, NOL supplies other companies making another firebreak, right,
(42:46):
another air gap, and those other companies are the ones
that sell you stuff, and they are beholden to cargild.
So one of the questions is what could be done.
And I know we were all talking with our friends
and family and partners off air about how to react
to this. I know the dopamine casino wants you to
(43:12):
think you can go on social media do a rage
post and say you're going to boycott, But how do
you boycott a company of this size with this bach,
especially when it is so embedded in so many supply chains.
Are we not just running to the ocean with a
bucket and saying I'm going to sort this out this afternoon.
Speaker 5 (43:32):
It's super tricky to get around that kind of stuff
with companies that have their tentacles in so many pies.
That's not the expression, but I think you get where
I'm going.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
It is a major problem because this is one of
the small number of massive corporations that provide vast quantities
of food for us humans. And there's so many billion
of us now we sure do need that food, and
it is amazing to have a company like this that
can produce so many soybeans and in so much you know,
(44:03):
name your grain, name your you know your bottle, well
you cattle's. But what I'm saying is it's just you're
they are producing so much food and there are problems
along the way. And I could totally see the viewpoint
of how can you look at these little things and
say that outweighs the amount of good and food that's
(44:25):
provided for humanity through a giant corporation like this, Right,
I see that. I get it, and and I get
that perspective of you know, they make a ton of money,
they employ so many people, and there there is positivity there,
and there's necessity probably that whole too big to fail
thing when you're when you're supplying this much food, it
(44:48):
is almost too big to fail unless you broke it
up into a bunch of smaller local companies, and then
maybe you wouldn't have as many insane problems. Sure, that's
my one thing, But you can also look at over
the years, like in two thousand and four, they got
accused of of doing that whole price fixing, price rigging
(45:10):
thing with hyprutose corn syrup. Yeah, so another one of
these cartel situations, and the company had to pay twenty
four million dollars to settle that. Oh no, well yeah,
well and then they were.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
They make a year one hundred and fifty billion.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
Yeah, and then you've got something like in twenty eleven,
Argentina accused them of evading taxes to the tune of
upwards of two hundred and fifty million dollars.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
So oh now and fifty million.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Well, and then also finds like seven million dollars for
devastating Tampa Bay with a bunch of pollutants and toxic things. Right,
but then they pay those little fines. We've talked about
those little fines right, right, what those little slaps on
the wrist, those way losts of doing business.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Right When the consequence of a cross time is fine,
the ultimately the crime is being poor.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
So we need an organization and a system to where
whenever profits are made via some illegal action and they
could not have been made without that illegal action, all
profits made from the point of the illegal action onward
that are associated with that illegal action have to be forfeited.
(46:27):
Has to be every single dollar that was made, and
it has to also have ten to twenty percent extra
added on as a don't do that again or else.
These companies are just going to continue to do this
stuff and get away with it because.
Speaker 4 (46:42):
The cost of doing business once again.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Yes, yeah, everybody check out Tennessee pudding versus the United
States US.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
I'm being one thousand percent serious. The only way you
can prevent this thing from happening is if we've there
is some type of regulating body that can say no,
you have to forfeit all of your profit.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
And that regulating body that's the pickle, because it would
have to itself be independent. And unfortunately, multiple countries' judiciaries
have failed to uh to enact the role that they
were created to enact. Really, they haven't, they haven't followed through.
I mean, this is where we have it. Yes, a
(47:24):
conspiracy is real here, folks. A secretive, massively successful company
has a strangler's grasp on the United States and on
the global economy. It just seems to grind on doing
business as normal. Of course, we looked at everything Cargill
has stated. We've looked at the court cases. They say
(47:45):
they're doing their best to have good faith efforts to
ensure there's no crime in their vast supply chain. Caveat Asterisk.
The thing is the water in Lake Minnetonka, Cargill's current
headquarters seems just fine. Nobody's burning down the forest over there,
but locals on the ground, from Indonesia to Ghana to
(48:07):
Brazil too far beyond to me packing plants even here
in the United States, they do not agree with Cargill's
various pretty statements. They're praying for things to change as
we record, and without sounding hyperbolic, I'll do this on
the air. Cargill's secret ingredient is crime. That is the
stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
Did you see there's a recent thing happening right now
in the end of May in Fort Morrigan, where in Colorado,
where there are seventeen hundred workers union workers locked out
of a plant. That's happening right now, and it's because
there's a labor union. You know, they're going into what
do they call that, guys, where they're discussing arbitration are Yeah,
(48:50):
they're they're going back and forth trying to decide through
negotiations what the new contracts will look like for laborers.
And you know, seventeen hundred people out of work, but
the union is paying them. That's just one tiny little thing.
And if you keep if you keep looking at the
stuff that they're doing, like land grabs, We talked about
(49:10):
that pretty recently. When we think about these million square
foot data centers and some of these huge land grabs
that are happening in the corruption that might be and
is occurring there with like state senators like other folks,
where the land ends up being the thing where the
corruption occurs. Check out land grab Columbia, OXFAM Cargill. Look
(49:35):
at that and see how they created thirty six subsidiary
like vaporware corporations, fake corporations to buy up a whole
bunch of land that's connected together, and it was just Cargill,
And then magically those get liquidated and now Cargill is
the owner of fifty two thousand hectares of land, which
(49:56):
was completely illegal in Columbia, but they just did it
and they got away with it, and they own the
land now.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Yeah. So once again, I don't think I'm being a
hyperbolic when I say Cargil's secret ingredient is crime. We
can't wait to hear your thoughts. Please, please, please give
us your experiences on the ground in any country in
the United States. We'd love to hear from you. Find
us on the lines, call us on the phone, or
send us an email.
Speaker 4 (50:22):
Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (50:23):
You can find us online at the handle's Conspiracy Stuff
our Conspiracy Stuff Show. Depending on which social media platform
is here favorite.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK. Do you
have anything you want to add to this subject or
you have an idea for a new subject in the future,
Why don't you give us a call. Just give yourself
a cool nickname and let us know if we can
use your name and message on the air. It'll show
up in one of our listener mail episodes. If you
want to send us an email, we are.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
The entities that read each piece of correspondence. We receive
one of the best ways to contact us twenty four
hours in evening, seven nights a week. You could take
the same rule for a voicemail if you wish it
doesn't have to be related to this. You can just
ask us for a random fact and we'll give you one.
So join us before Cargill's legal team gets to us.
(51:13):
We'll see you out here in the dark conspiracy at
iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name's Nola.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Now, fellow Netflix conspiracy realist,
you may see that a couple of us are on
the road at this time.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
We are p Can you tell that?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
How can you tell?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Matt?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Probably by the fact that you specifically looked around at
your room where you're recording. We also were mentioning being
on the road because we are great fans of the globe,
We are great fans of travel, and we would like
you to travel with us this coming October. If this
is your first time tuning in to conspiracy stuff or
(01:18):
stuff they don't want you to know, why not hang
out with us live. We're going on the high seats.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
It is within your grasp.
Speaker 5 (01:26):
Reach out to Virgin Voyages and book you a cabin
on the Stuff themed cruise, or we're gonna be hanging
out with our buddies Josh and Chuck from Stuff you
Should Know and Annie and Sam from Stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Mom never told you. It's gonna be a good time.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's gonna be such a good crew. You guys. We
just need you. We just need you, so find that scratch.
It's not cheap. Look, we're not saying it's cheap to
join us on this cruise, but we are saying it's
gonna be worth your time. It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
October second through the seven. Yeah, join us. We're embarking
from New York. We're going all the way down to
the Caribbean, and we're getting into all sorts of shenanigans,
the type of stuff you can only experience if you're
on the vessel with us.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Well, guys, I mean I think it was. We were
all cruise virgins on Virgin cruises and this will be
our second cruise. And I didn't think I was a
cruise guy, but I sure am. It was a lot
of fun. They really do a good job at Virgin voyages.
It's adults only. They have all kinds of fun parties
and activities and excursions off the ship. And I don't know, man,
(02:36):
I'm not just saying this. I don't think any of
us are. We really had a great time and really
looking forward to this.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Oh yeah, just as a little taste last time around,
Ben and I got up at like nine a m.
To go do a realm tasting.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Again.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
No, I didn't know. We didn't know. It was that early.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Not know. And also that's part of the adventure, right,
uh yeah, knowing the spontaneous nature. And yes, I'll confirm it.
I will walk in the day on these cruises. I
a lot of sunscreen, man, a lot of like wrapping,
(03:21):
a lot, a lot of a lot of our good
friends asking hey, why do you always wear long sleeves.
It's because of my ancient nemesis.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
Ben has a closet full of that same suit jacket
like fifteen up.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It's true. Just like if you remember that Earnest franchise's
goes to Halloween a scared camp there, it is all
of those. Yeah, basically his closet.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
If I could say though too, I think this is
going to sound silly, but my favorite part of the
whole cruise experience was literally just hanging out on the
little balcony of my cabin in this incredible hammock and
just kind of chilling and watching the water. And it's
just incredibly serene and just a lovely way too unwind
and very meditative. And yeah, I'm going to be doing
a lot of that, but I'm also going to be
(04:08):
in about this casino.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Play a little black jack together, Let's do it, let's hang.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
My favorite part was watching nol on his balcony. I
would I would watch Freaky How did you see Me? Oh,
you can find you can find it. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
Spy gearing one of those mirrorge this little what do
they like?
Speaker 4 (04:30):
A periscope with a mirror on it?
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Kind of it was all the way up.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
We're old school fans of spy tech, both the toy
brand and the actual trade craft, because it helps you
dive into hidden things. And tonight is apparently your friends.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Sorry observe with.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Deserve in his naserve with Benevolent and tent and we
have we've recently, as you you know, if you've been
tuning into Netflix or your podcast platform a choice, we've
been delving into some pretty esoteric occult stuff outo We
hope you enjoyed those episodes as much as we do.
But while we were neck deep in magic with a
(05:15):
k cryptids of Lake Superior and tarot cards and numerology,
the great businesses of the world economy ground on in
every waking moment. Even as we're recording this on Friday,
June fifth, twenty twenty six. Billions of dollars not every day,
every moment, billions of dollars are moving around the planet
(05:36):
and weighs the general public often never sees, let alone
comprehends or understands. One of the biggest movers in this
field globally is a company a lot of people may
have never heard of, headquartered over in Minnetaka, Minnesota. It's
a little outfit called Cargill Car.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Have you ever wondered where your big Max come from?
Or your Whoppers? Or all that meat and Walmart or
food Lion? Where does it come from? How about all
the salt? Maybe all the steel? Where where does all
of this stuff come from?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
And maybe we maybe I you know what, we'll keep
it in. But maybe I should pronounce Cargill correctly the
way that William Wallace would Cargile.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
Walla.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
We'll get to it bart his mom. Brave hearts, Mom
yelled at him.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
That is, We'll be right back. Here are the facts. Okay,
you've probably heard the name, especially if you live in
the United States or one of several victimized areas across
the world. But don't feel bad if you've never actually
(06:53):
heard the name Cargill the company. Maybe we could do
just a brief introduction to what this corporation is and
why we're looking at it tonight.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
Yes, they are Cargill, a US based multinational corporation most
well known for their tremendous activity in the food sector.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
So they make.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
Grain, palm oils, vegetable oils, feed for animals, for livestock, starches, chocolate,
and glucose syrup, among other agricultural additives and ingredients. And
they're also heavily involved in the transport of livestock.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
That's good because I always running out of fingers to
count this on, I'd have to get the other fingers
out there.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Dale, You've need some more, baby, right right exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Weirdly enough, Cargill also has a big interest in financial services,
to the degree that it's almost a company nested within
this larger company of the trush Goodol, which all multi
national corporates are, their financial arm fascinatingly enough, is primarily
(08:06):
focused on quote, managing commodity market risk end quote. Just
for Cargill, why do you have a You're an agricultural company,
So why do you have your own inner cadre, your
own small army of finance boffins, just to keep an
eye on your own activities. It doesn't make sense at
(08:28):
first until we realize this is the largest privately owned
company in the United States by revenue.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
When I realized they were bigger than Coke Industries K Yeah,
as in the Coke Brothers. And then I realized, oh, well,
I've seen that logo before, with that little green leaf
thing right over the Cargill name. Yeah, I realized I've
seen it industrial sites in all kinds of different states
that I've been to, and I haven't traveled the world
(08:58):
very extensively, but just here in the US seen those
things everywhere. I talked to my partner, She's like, oh, yeah,
there's there's several big ones out where I used to live.
And I was like, what this is? They really are
just everywhere. You may not even notice them.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, because it's purposefullly A I would say a vague
logo because it goes so many places. It's ubiquitous. You
see a green leaf, you keep it moving, and you
help this company, Cargill, especially if you live in the US.
You help them generate an annual revenue of one hundred
(09:34):
and forty billion dollars in twenty twenty five alone. That's
actually a little bit less than the year before. In
twenty twenty four, they rated it one hundred and sixty
billion US dollars privately held corporation, five generations deep. At
this point, they have a full in their family, the
(09:55):
Cargill family. They have a full fourteen billionaires. It's going
to be a weird family reunion, you know, very I'm
picturing secession. Honestly, guys, I'm picturing a bunch of really
wealthy people having these high drama Shakespearean power things going
on and kissing the ass and hating the ass of
(10:18):
the patriarch.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Well, and let's just quickly remember that it is the
Cargill family, but it's the Cargill McMillan family, and then
there's like three or four other families that kind of
superfused together to become the airrors in Offspring and the
Cargill play. Yes, exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
The Cargill network. If I want to sound a little
more FBI about.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
It, Yeah, I found a timeline of the evolution of
their logo and their earliest one in eighteen sixty five
or from they had from eighteen sixty five to nineteen thirty.
And it's like the kind of thing you'd see on
the side of like a like a like a snake
oil medicine show wagon that says ww Cargill and bro
fun Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
For William Wallace Cargill.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
There you go, Yeah, William Wallace.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Yes, before we jump into the absolute origins of this,
when we're talking about just the amount of money that
this privately owned company is raking down, the number of
people are benefiting to the tune of billions of dollars,
and again generally through the stocks because you've just controlled
stocks for this long. Now you've got a hold of
or you control stocks that are worth billions of dollars,
(11:27):
which we'll get into. It gets a little tricky when
you're ready to take some of that billion of dollars
and then let's say transform it into a trust or
a fund or even something really good and philanthropic. It's hard,
it's hard to make that money into real money. Yes,
but there are at least last time I checked, and
(11:47):
I think from twenty twenty five, there were around one
hundred and fifty thousand employees of this company, which when
you just think about the number of human beings that
are directly working for this one giant organization that is,
of course hundreds of subsidiaries, but it's so many humans
that are not only toiling for the company. But then
(12:10):
when you imagine how many human beings on planet Earth
are touched by this company, it becomes unfathomable.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, agreed. I mean it wasn't always the case that
Cargill was such a juggernaut. Back when our buddy Willie
William Wallace Cargill IOK, we could be familiar with you, sir.
Back when this guy founds the company, it's in Conover, Iowa.
It's eighteen sixty five. A lot of stuff was happening
(12:40):
in the US at the time, and he got this
single grain warehouse kind of in the middle of nowhere.
He made a very smart purchase because this was at
the very end of a railroad line called McGregor and Western,
which was set to expand westward his brothers. Two of
his brothers join up and another brother joins them later.
(13:04):
But when he starts, you know, powering up, getting his
avengers together. They expand in line with the railroads, so
every time the railroad makes a new connect, a new segment,
a new expansion, Cargill is right there. Eventually they relocate
to a place called albert Le, Minnesota. The business becomes
(13:26):
very popular with farmers. The railroad gets their money either way,
so they don't particularly care, but the local farmers are
impressed by the emphasis these guys put on being early
adopters multiple floors for their grainhouses, conveyor systems, elevators. As
(13:46):
a matter of fact, when Old WW dies, the company
is briefly renamed the Cargill Elevator Company. Most especially, what
farmers are in love with is the company's flexibility when
it comes to story, transporting, and most importantly, selling their crops.
They are innovators of tactics as well as technology. They
(14:11):
get super into vertical integration. That's where you you know,
instead of just saying, hey, farmers, sell me grain, I
sell the grain to some guy who takes it on
the train. They say, we want to run as much
of this as possible.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
When people hear the elevator company, Ben you're talking about, yeah,
my mind goes to, oh, like they built elevators for buildings.
How did they go from grain to that? Well, you
have to realize is that one of the big innovations
that we're talking about here are grain elevators. Yes, these
things you've likely I'm assuming you've seen them if you
live anywhere in the Midwest or a lot of places
(14:48):
is just more rural here in Georgia and other places
throughout the country or the world, you'll see these things,
grain elevators that actually move supply up to the silo
where it can go down into where it needs to go.
And that was a big deal. That was a really
big deal to be able to store foods, especially grains
(15:09):
in this way.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah, because you get more grain for your buck basically
with these very clever conveyor belts and this idea of
vertical integration. Ooh, it's a brilliant move. It reminds me
of the financial aspect of it reminds me of that
scene from Disney's Mary Poppins where they talk to the
(15:31):
banker and he's like, Oh, this is how money works,
you know where the arch creepy voice. This sets up
what Cargill ultimately becomes, which is a vast global connector
of transportation and of Earth's entire food supply. This is
a very big deal.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Well, and I think you already mentioned that it's a
privately held company, so it's like not publicly traded. They've
never done an EyeT at all. They've always maintained control
over it with in the family. I thought that was
kind of unusual for a company of that size and
financial magnitude.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Absolutely, I think.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
I misspoke when I said stocks. What I meant is
shares of the company. It is privately privately owned, so
it is not like on the stock market shares that
you try and liquidate or turn into cash. It's more like,
here are the private shares of this corporation.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Which is weirdulated too.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yeah, it's very different. It's interesting because it is very similar,
but it's also different just anyone who owns it and
how it's regulated. It's crazy to me that William Wallace
was twenty one when he made that first move on
the railway there with the grain supple, with the grain
storage unit, just thinking of someone that age making that
(16:46):
move and somehow seeing the future of where this rail
is going and how it's going to change things. And
then to be in the catbird seat in that moment
as it begins to truly morph into this new, fully
connected system of states.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah. And he also, we should say, bought a lumber
mill at the same time. Fast forward. There's more to
the history, obviously, but those are the broad strokes of
the origin story for our purposes tonight. What you need
to know is now, as of twenty twenty six, Cargill
employs well over one hundred and sixty thousand people in
(17:26):
sixty six countries, and they are active in more than
sixty six countries all told, officially seventy countries, and if
you check in with the United Nations, which we do
often because we're fun at parties, you will see that
there are an estimated one hundred and ninety I don't
(17:48):
want to get us in trouble, but there's more than
one hundred and ninety countries, which means that Cargill has
a huge footprint across the globe. They're responsible guys for
something like a quarter of all grain exports from the
United States. So you could literally go and count little
kernels of corn or pieces of wheat, and one out
(18:10):
of four of those little pieces would be touched by Cargill.
And also, you know, we talked about this, I think
in a strange news segment not too long ago. They
supply more than twenty percent of all of the US
meat in the domestic market. They're also the only people
who make the salt in the US that goes in
(18:33):
your favorite fast food joint. It's a thing called Alberger
Process salt. So yeah, they got there. They got a stranglehold.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It's crazy to look. You can look at Google Maps
in Newark, California. You can see one of the Cargill
salt plants, and you can look at it above from
above to see the pile of salt. They have two
parallel piles of salt that you don't understand and how
big it is until you zoom in and you see
(19:03):
what looks to be some form of bulldozer that is
going across the pile of salt, and then you understand
how massive that machine is and how tiny it looks
on this mountain of salt. And it's fascinating to know,
it's just ocean water that they process over like five
(19:24):
to ten years. It's crazy. It's a crazy prose, very interesting,
but it's nuts.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Forget banana for scale, this is bulldozer for scale stuff.
It's Cargill affects so many industries that when we talk
about their activities, it's actually easier to ask what they
don't do, because in addition to food for humans, in
addition to the livestock trade, they're also in BioHealth oh wait,
(19:52):
and beauty oh wait, and animal nutrition and oh oh gosh,
biofuel oh and trading and then also oh yeah, finance,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Steal steel very much.
So there's another unofficial activity for Cargill. As with most,
if not all companies of its size, Cargill also every
(20:13):
year produces a lot of what we can diplomatically call controversy.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
And they rack up a bunch of fines, which we'll
we'll talk about and get into the cost of doing
business in the way that a massive corporation like that's
with so many subsidiaries and folks who do work for
Cargill in different ways, a lot of finds a lot
of I don't know if you guys noticed some quite
a bit of slavery going on, at least alleged slavery
(20:40):
going on here.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah. Over the decades, Cargill has encountered criticism growing in
step with the growth of its economic portfolio. This is
what led Congressman Henry A. Waxman to go so far
as to call Cargill quote the worst company in the world.
Our question is, what does that mean exactly? If we
(21:03):
get past the slick pr campaigns, the sanitized history, the
company's website and timeline, what exactly has Cargill been up to.
We'll be back afterword from our sponsors. Here's where it
gets crazy, all right. According to the critics, Cargill has
(21:27):
been pretty busy doing all sorts of nefarious things. Not
the usual unfortunate could happen to anyone, accidents where failures
of function like accidentally spoiling or contaminating meat, but also
accusations of human trafficking, child labor, environmental degradation, and price fixing.
(21:51):
It's crazy, guys. It's by design to get away from
this because ninety percent of the company. We're talking about
this a little bit earlier, Cener the company is still
held by descendants of the Cargill clan, and they want
to be a private company. I would say they need
to be a private company because this means they don't
(22:11):
have to disclose all the detailed information that you would
require of a publicly traded company in the United States.
There is literally stuff they don't want you to know
at play here.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Yeah, and most of it's happening in Montana, where a
lot of the family lives quietly, secretly.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, and being a private company. Be quick to point
this out. It's not inherently illegal. The issue is oh yeah,
But the issue is a lot of the stuff laid
at Cargill's feet does in fact orbit around very illegal things.
Can we talk about the environment a little bit? Are
we all still fans of the environment? Where we are
(22:52):
that love it? Okay?
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Really back in, maintain it, preserve it, you know?
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Around yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, where we are with the rangutan fans, same scary though,
and that we'll rip your face off. Yeah, but they're
so chill.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Maybe that's more chimpanzees, but man, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
Range tanks can probably get a little whild too, but no,
they are very regal, majestic creatures and they should, you know,
be allowed to exist.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
They're like to me, they're like very very clever, goofy dudes.
Check out our check out our earlier episode on cryptids
you've never heard of, will be related orang petad.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Yeah, of course the orang mignac wasn't that one is right.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
But ben, if I'm not mistaken, a lot of the
initial controversy we're going to talk about revolves around something
that I think many folks might know is problematic in
its production, something called palm oil.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah, you nailed it. As we all know, palm oil
itself is a sticky wicket. We get to that in
a sec You're absolutely right. Ninety two percent of the
world's collective consumption of palm oil, which is used in
so many things, it comes from two countries, Indonesia and Malaysia.
(24:08):
You'll also see production in Papua New Guinea. By their
own admission, they can go to cargo and aslam yourself.
They'll say they operate twenty refineries, nine mills, three what
they call kernel crush plants, and nine palm plantations across
the globe. They also are quick to point out, hey,
(24:30):
palm oil one way or another. It's consumed in more
than one hundred and thirty three countries, sometimes as food,
sometimes in other applications like biofuels or of course cosmetics.
They're the largest US and border of palm oil. They
source it from twenty six producers in a proxy network
(24:53):
and they buy something right now, they buy something like
over ten percent of Indonesia's total palm oil output. But
it turns out there's a blood price to all these
palm oil profits t R O F I t S.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
But what there are a lot of problems. One of
them is child labor. That's a that's a whole thing
that gets into this. There's a lot of child labor
and forced labor that shows up in some Cargill's history.
It's usually we got to give them this a little bit, guys.
It's usually a supplier or an organization that is functioning
on behalf of Cargill. Right for Cargill do it like
(25:35):
getting the coca beans for Cargill or the palm oil
for Cargill. And it's not necessarily Cargill and employees doing it.
But the company shot is benefiting from the works of
this kind of thing as well as the you know,
massive deforestation required to create these palm oil plantations.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah, through its various supplier networks, which we'll get into,
Cargill has been repeatedly for decades implicated in aiding and
abetting what we could diplomatically call Oh, I'm looking for
the right phrase, guys, social conflicts. I'm pulling that from
some international aid reports. And to your point there, Matt.
(26:18):
Their suppliers are groups like Wilmar International, Sinarmas and Duta Palma.
They're known for routinely breaking the law by burning vast
swaths of rainforest, you know where the orangutans live. And
one example we could do just very quickly to give
(26:38):
you a high level perspective on this, go to Sumatra
in twenty eleven. This is where Wilmar had employed security
forces and local police to use violence and intimidation against villagers. Oh,
and they also destroyed their homes. I think the local
(27:00):
police are in practice employed by Carkill. In this case,
they were conducting raids because a villager was had a
side hustle selling palm oil fruits and they said, well,
you've stolen this palm oil from us, and he was like, well,
I work at the place I live here, and they
were like, ah, burn down the neighborhood, use live fire
(27:23):
on these civilians. And that happened under Cargill's perfew.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Dare you poach the King's palms, price.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
The king's bums? It's something to think about next time
we get a hanker in for Natilla and like we're mentioning, no,
I'm sorry. It keeps getting stuck on this one. If
the violence against humans isn't quite bagging up your badgers,
think of all that massive deforestation in one of the
last truly diverse ecosystems on the planet. Think of how
(27:54):
the orangutites will soon have nowhere left to live well.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
And there's another thing we learned from the Mighty Earth,
and that Cargill the worst company in the world article
that came out a little while back. This comes from
their timeline September twenty twelve palm oil from child and
slave labor, And I'm just going to read this, it's
pretty short. Schuster Institute Senior Fellow e Benjamin Skinner, supported
(28:20):
by a team of journalists, traced Cargill's purchase of Indonesian
palm oil to Kuala Lumpur. The report published by BusinessWeek
found extensive evidence of workers, many of whom were children,
being defrauded, abused, and held captive by klk's labor management.
Just to add that on top, this is just a
thing that occurred in twenty twelve, and that is specifically
(28:45):
with the palm oil trade. If we get into other trades,
there are other very specific accusations of this exact type
of practice. Some of it is even more gruesome.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yeah, And to be fair, as we're wrapping up the
oil stuff, in two thousand and four, Cargil voluntarily became
a member of something called the Round Table on Sustainable
Palm Oil or RSPO. They set the ethical standards for
palm oil production. We can think of it kind of
(29:18):
like the Kimberly process for the diamond trade and how
that was supposed to stop the proliferation of child labor
and conflict sourced so called blood diamonds. But even now
RSPO routinely comes back and says there's a huge gulf
between what Cargill told us they were going to do,
what they agreed to do, and what actually does occur
(29:43):
under their purview today in the palm oil industry. Is
just the beginning. You could see the same story in
the Brazilian Amazon. Cargil is one of the largest controllers
of soybean production. This is also around the same time
we see Cargill condemned. In the first instance, we're having
coca suppliers, rural producers who provably practice child labor and enslavement.
(30:11):
Let's pause for a word for our sponsors. I think
we all need a quick breather before we get into
the really dark stuff, which may not be appropriate for
all audience members.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
And we've returned, and there's ben Tee's before the break,
a bit of a trigger warning here.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
This is going to get dark.
Speaker 5 (30:33):
It involves discussion of child abuse, child labor, human trafficking.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
And all kinds of nasty stuff. So here we go.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
So there have been repeated accusations of the aiding and
a betting of human trafficking and child labor by Cargil.
In addition to this seeming you know, beef have against
the regal orangutan. No, no, it's true. They're beefed up
(31:06):
with the orangutans. It would seem Cargill has run into
numerous accusations that three of their palm oil plantations in
Papua New Guinea are essentially using slave labor. Formerly independent
farmers got converted into essentially, you know, surfs, basically through
(31:28):
false premises of contributing to new infrastructure that would help
you know their communities, stuff that never actually comes to
fruition and purposefully complex debt schemes, company store type stuff
like in this sixteen tons song that we often reference.
In response to a two thousand and seven report, Cargill's
(31:49):
own management did admit that they couldn't guarantee that their
Papua New Guinea plantations were entirely free from child labor
or bonded servit to.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
They would do their best, though they said no, they
didn't say that either could not guarantee. Seems like a
thing you should be able to guarantee.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah, shout out to Nesle right in the worst possible way.
This approbrium as that you were kind of teasing as well,
And Nola's your point. Now, it's not limited to Papua
New Guinea. In twenty twenty three, an outfit called International
Rights Advocates sued Cargill on behalf of child plaintiffs in Ghana.
(32:29):
This is the one. This is one of the cases.
That's going to keep you up at night if you
haven't heard about it before. What they found is that
a lot of these partners or subcontractors for coca outfits,
especially in West Africa, they were enslaving children. Children as
(32:49):
young as five years old appeared to be put out
in the field working in the coca industry. This was
alleged by international national human rights nonprofits, It was verified
by independent journalists. CBS News looked into it, and this
lawsuit that international rights advocates brought on behalf of these children.
(33:15):
It came to US only after another court case occurred
where in the US Supreme Court, yep, the ring Braiths,
the creepy ring Braiths said Nesley USA and Cargill can't
be sued for child slavery on African farms where they
buy their coca from. And they said, this is why
(33:37):
they said the case can't go in US court. They
said most of the alleged conduct occurred abroad. The implication
being that if you were if you're a corporation, you
can go frickin' hay up, you can murder an enslave
as many people as you want, just don't do it
(33:57):
in Virginia, et cetera. Don't like it. I disagree with
the Scotis.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
Nope, don't like it and Scotis I don't know. Man,
they're increasingly problematic.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah, non ideal, No, I mean important.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
The Raiths are doing wraith stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
They're wraith and man, they're wraith and for wraitheon. And
to be fair, a lot of us in the audience,
especially the more cynical of us, may, with some validity,
imagine that these companies like Nesley and Cargill and specific
have used their enormous political and financial capital to exercise
(34:43):
influence upon the scales of justice. I want to be
careful how we say that. It hasn't been proven. Like
there's never been a current or former justice of the
Supreme Court who came out and said, you know, yeah,
Cargill gave me a sick RV. So I said, you guys,
do what you want. That hasn't happened yet. I hope
(35:04):
it does.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
In I'm just gonna read this. This is again from
the same report. In July two thousand and five, the
International Labor Rights Form filed suits against Cargill, Nessley, and
Archer Daniels Midland on behalf of Molly and children, alleging
they were trafficked into the Ivory Coast cot To to Ivory
and forced to work twelve to fourteen hours a day
with no pay, little food and sleep, and frequent beatings
(35:29):
on farms producing cocoa beans for Cargill. And there is
another little thing in here from twenty eighteen that goes back.
I think it's talking about one of the it's one
of the movements that you were just mentioning there ben
about who can get sued for this? Can US companies
like Cargill be sued by former slaves who were working
(35:50):
on one of these plantations Somewhere? I'm just gonna read
this short little thing. According to reports from the Courthouse
News Service, there were six plaintiffs whose case was allowed
to be moved forward. As ruled it was allowed to
be moved forward. They claimed they were kidnapped form Alia's children.
In the nineties, we talked about all this stuff, right,
they said, those same kids said that there were children
(36:12):
there who, when they tried to escape, were forced by
the I don't know what you would call them, the enforcers.
They're forced to drink urine. Often they would have their
feet cut so that they could not run away and
attempt to escape the plantation.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
This is like the kind of tactics that slave catchers used.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Like, I mean, yes, it's Pastinato is the word for
that specific type of torture method.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
They said, specifically that pepper would be rubbed into the
wounds on their feet, so it would be excruciating for them.
And then they're going to work twelve to fourteen hours
lifting heavy satchels of these these large fruits that have
the cocoa beans in them, and the most disturbing thing,
at least according to the children who were there who
(37:01):
are now trying attempting to sue Cargill in these other companies.
They said that Nesley and Cargill representatives would visit the
farms several times a year. And you know, these are kids,
but they are saying there was an awareness that there
were children working there producing the goods that would then
be sold on the cheap.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Exactly. Yeah, and we don't have to get into the
allegations of sexual abuse, but folks, you need to realize
those are part and parcel of this sort of dehumanization.
It just it goes on and on and on. And
you know, it'd be amazing and perhaps the right thing
to do for us to make a stuff they don't
want you to know, spin off series just about activities
(37:42):
from Cargill. There's way too much for one episode here,
but we should let you know a little bit about
how the system works. We want you to understand why
these conspiracies are so successful, why it is so easy
for multinational corporations to get away with stuff that would
put an individual in prison for life. Okay, the truly
(38:07):
big corporations, the multinationals, they're not usually one thing past
the boardroom. They're a rats nests of other subsidiaries, contractors,
separate companies, independent partners. It's a huge help for taxation
and sometimes, yes, trying to be fair, it can be
a necessity when you're operating in other countries with their
(38:29):
own laws and regulations. But with that tax structure, legal advantage,
crap comes hidden benefits, The liability moves with the autonomy.
So quick thought, experiment and Dylan, I didn't check with
you in advance, so let me know if this is
off base man. Okay, guys, let's say, for example, our
(38:52):
best friend Dylan Faked has an international jellies and sweets
conglomerate called Tennessee Puddin'.
Speaker 6 (39:00):
Right, Okay, okay, just some down home sweets.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Just a down home Cambs flavor of course, best seller.
So okay, Tennessee pudding with no g because it's down home.
It's got a bunch of sugarcane from a supplier in
another country. That supplier turns out to be raising forests,
destroying local communities, enslaving the people and the children who
(39:29):
live there. And then Tennessee's legal department can say, guys,
we feel terrible too.
Speaker 6 (39:36):
Guys, we feel terrible too. We're surprised, as you, Tennessee
pudding is about a down home, locally supported business. We
can't keep our eye on every fallen sparrow of human rats.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Mm hm. And everybody stands up at collaps.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
I like that guy. He seems nice. She is a
wholesome and down home.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Well, he also has to commit to like a twenty
year plan to stop all the slavery. But it's gonna
take twenty years, though, but we're gonna do it.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
We'll get to it eventually. Yeah, you pull a proxy,
that's the system. You hide the hand, and often the
judge will agree with you. If the judge doesn't agree
with you, then wamp wamp wamp you pay a five.
You have no criminal charges. Right the other thirteen billionaire
members of your family are still billionaires. This is the
(40:25):
cost of doing business. And if downstream suppliers try to
bucket you, then they could get it too, you know
what I mean. I think it was still a mighty earth.
In multiple other reports, we found that there are other
corporations that you would rightly consider giants, places that own
(40:47):
multiple grocery stores. And they say they have to play
along with Cargill's Gate.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Oh yeah, because don't forget they have a oh god,
we didn't even talk about like the listeria outbreaks that
have had happened over the years from all of their
meat processing plants or what was the other one. There's
a huge one with their turkey production and their their
ground beef production, and just it's crazy the number of
(41:16):
people that have gotten super sick because of unsafe practices.
And because when you've got such a massive corporation, so
many moving parts, so many factories, so many human beings
that could potentially introduce a major problem, you know, where
you've got something like lasteria breaking out or e Coli.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeh are you're hiring children to clean the meat packing plant?
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah? That was the whole thing, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, well, here in the United States.
Speaker 5 (41:43):
It's kind of wild too that the other side of
their business model is a similar proxy situation, like with
the way that they supply other companies with their product,
but it basically ends up masquerading as a product that
that company is putting out.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
So there's a certain like remove right.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
One hundred percent. Yeah, you nailed it there. NOL look
at things like Ahold del Hayes. They're the owners of
food Lion, Hannaford giants, Stop and Shop. They say, look,
we want to provide responsible meat, but we can't do
it because Cargill's our main guy, so we kind of
(42:24):
have to go with what Cargill says. This means that,
you know, to the point you're making noal, Cargill's business
is not really directed you as an individual consumer, unless
their servants are of course enslaving your children instead. Cargil,
like you were saying, NOL supplies other companies making another firebreak, right,
(42:46):
another air gap, and those other companies are the ones
that sell you stuff, and they are beholden to cargild.
So one of the questions is what could be done.
And I know we were all talking with our friends
and family and partners off air about how to react
to this. I know the dopamine casino wants you to
(43:12):
think you can go on social media do a rage
post and say you're going to boycott, But how do
you boycott a company of this size with this bach,
especially when it is so embedded in so many supply chains.
Are we not just running to the ocean with a
bucket and saying I'm going to sort this out this afternoon.
Speaker 5 (43:32):
It's super tricky to get around that kind of stuff
with companies that have their tentacles in so many pies.
That's not the expression, but I think you get where
I'm going.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
It is a major problem because this is one of
the small number of massive corporations that provide vast quantities
of food for us humans. And there's so many billion
of us now we sure do need that food, and
it is amazing to have a company like this that
can produce so many soybeans and in so much you know,
(44:03):
name your grain, name your you know your bottle, well
you cattle's. But what I'm saying is it's just you're
they are producing so much food and there are problems
along the way. And I could totally see the viewpoint
of how can you look at these little things and
say that outweighs the amount of good and food that's
(44:25):
provided for humanity through a giant corporation like this, Right,
I see that. I get it, and and I get
that perspective of you know, they make a ton of money,
they employ so many people, and there there is positivity there,
and there's necessity probably that whole too big to fail
thing when you're when you're supplying this much food, it
(44:48):
is almost too big to fail unless you broke it
up into a bunch of smaller local companies, and then
maybe you wouldn't have as many insane problems. Sure, that's
my one thing, But you can also look at over
the years, like in two thousand and four, they got
accused of of doing that whole price fixing, price rigging
(45:10):
thing with hyprutose corn syrup. Yeah, so another one of
these cartel situations, and the company had to pay twenty
four million dollars to settle that. Oh no, well yeah,
well and then they were.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
They make a year one hundred and fifty billion.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
Yeah, and then you've got something like in twenty eleven,
Argentina accused them of evading taxes to the tune of
upwards of two hundred and fifty million dollars.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
So oh now and fifty million.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Well, and then also finds like seven million dollars for
devastating Tampa Bay with a bunch of pollutants and toxic things. Right,
but then they pay those little fines. We've talked about
those little fines right, right, what those little slaps on
the wrist, those way losts of doing business.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Right When the consequence of a cross time is fine,
the ultimately the crime is being poor.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
So we need an organization and a system to where
whenever profits are made via some illegal action and they
could not have been made without that illegal action, all
profits made from the point of the illegal action onward
that are associated with that illegal action have to be forfeited.
(46:27):
Has to be every single dollar that was made, and
it has to also have ten to twenty percent extra
added on as a don't do that again or else.
These companies are just going to continue to do this
stuff and get away with it because.
Speaker 4 (46:42):
The cost of doing business once again.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Yes, yeah, everybody check out Tennessee pudding versus the United
States US.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
I'm being one thousand percent serious. The only way you
can prevent this thing from happening is if we've there
is some type of regulating body that can say no,
you have to forfeit all of your profit.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
And that regulating body that's the pickle, because it would
have to itself be independent. And unfortunately, multiple countries' judiciaries
have failed to uh to enact the role that they
were created to enact. Really, they haven't, they haven't followed through.
I mean, this is where we have it. Yes, a
(47:24):
conspiracy is real here, folks. A secretive, massively successful company
has a strangler's grasp on the United States and on
the global economy. It just seems to grind on doing
business as normal. Of course, we looked at everything Cargill
has stated. We've looked at the court cases. They say
(47:45):
they're doing their best to have good faith efforts to
ensure there's no crime in their vast supply chain. Caveat Asterisk.
The thing is the water in Lake Minnetonka, Cargill's current
headquarters seems just fine. Nobody's burning down the forest over there,
but locals on the ground, from Indonesia to Ghana to
(48:07):
Brazil too far beyond to me packing plants even here
in the United States, they do not agree with Cargill's
various pretty statements. They're praying for things to change as
we record, and without sounding hyperbolic, I'll do this on
the air. Cargill's secret ingredient is crime. That is the
stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
Did you see there's a recent thing happening right now
in the end of May in Fort Morrigan, where in Colorado,
where there are seventeen hundred workers union workers locked out
of a plant. That's happening right now, and it's because
there's a labor union. You know, they're going into what
do they call that, guys, where they're discussing arbitration are Yeah,
(48:50):
they're they're going back and forth trying to decide through
negotiations what the new contracts will look like for laborers.
And you know, seventeen hundred people out of work, but
the union is paying them. That's just one tiny little thing.
And if you keep if you keep looking at the
stuff that they're doing, like land grabs, We talked about
(49:10):
that pretty recently. When we think about these million square
foot data centers and some of these huge land grabs
that are happening in the corruption that might be and
is occurring there with like state senators like other folks,
where the land ends up being the thing where the
corruption occurs. Check out land grab Columbia, OXFAM Cargill. Look
(49:35):
at that and see how they created thirty six subsidiary
like vaporware corporations, fake corporations to buy up a whole
bunch of land that's connected together, and it was just Cargill,
And then magically those get liquidated and now Cargill is
the owner of fifty two thousand hectares of land, which
(49:56):
was completely illegal in Columbia, but they just did it
and they got away with it, and they own the
land now.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Yeah. So once again, I don't think I'm being a
hyperbolic when I say Cargil's secret ingredient is crime. We
can't wait to hear your thoughts. Please, please, please give
us your experiences on the ground in any country in
the United States. We'd love to hear from you. Find
us on the lines, call us on the phone, or
send us an email.
Speaker 4 (50:22):
Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (50:23):
You can find us online at the handle's Conspiracy Stuff
our Conspiracy Stuff Show. Depending on which social media platform
is here favorite.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK. Do you
have anything you want to add to this subject or
you have an idea for a new subject in the future,
Why don't you give us a call. Just give yourself
a cool nickname and let us know if we can
use your name and message on the air. It'll show
up in one of our listener mail episodes. If you
want to send us an email, we are.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
The entities that read each piece of correspondence. We receive
one of the best ways to contact us twenty four
hours in evening, seven nights a week. You could take
the same rule for a voicemail if you wish it
doesn't have to be related to this. You can just
ask us for a random fact and we'll give you one.
So join us before Cargill's legal team gets to us.
(51:13):
We'll see you out here in the dark conspiracy at
iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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