January 30, 2019 • 44 mins
Death is one of humanity's great unifiers. Before the dawn of recorded history our species and others like it venerated, feared and honored the dead. The practice of commemorating our loved ones continues today -- and it's become a big business. Join the guys as they delve deeper into the fact, fiction and controversy of the funeral industry to determine whether or not a secret monopoly is at play.
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Episode Transcript
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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 the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel. They call me Ben. We are joined
with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decade. Most importantly,
you are you, and you are for now here, and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Fun fact, everybody in the studio today, as far as
we know, is alive. But we're gonna die eventually, a
(00:47):
lot of us. He started it with a glass glass
half full scenario Ben, and then Matt, you made it
a glass half empty. Well, you know, there's some hope
at the end of the tunnel. But maybe that's a
show for a different day. I think it's just the
nature of the glass. It's really it was made. But
it's gonna die. Sure so uh right now, With maybe
(01:11):
one notable technical exception, dying is still the great equalizer.
Dying is for many of us listening, inevitable, and here
in the United States, dying is quite expensive. Uh. It's
a burden that your loved ones when they survive your
demise will often end up baring themselves. As of eighteen,
(01:32):
the average funeral costs between seven thousand and ten thousand dollars.
And that doesn't include everything, right, that that includes some stuff,
but like you know, it includes a viewing, burial, embalming, hearse, service,
transfer of remains, a service fee, because everything has a
service fee nowadays. Uh, but it doesn't include other things
(01:54):
like awake, that's on you, flowers that's on you. A
million other things are on you. And typically when people
are in this situation, it's one of the worst moments
or periods of time in their life, you know what
I mean. Yeah, the grief associated with that moment causes
a lot of these other things to be a little
more acceptable unfortunately. Yeah, it's almost like you want to
(02:18):
do right by your deceased loved one, and surely that
means forking out a bunch of money for an ostentatious casket. Often,
often survivors fall prey to unscrupulous business practices, and it
is a big business indeed, Given that everyone except where
(02:39):
Henrietta Lacks has so far died and Henrietta Lacks is
only technically kind of alive, this industry is an incredibly
reliable source of income for people in every strata of
the business, and given the incredibly, incredibly sensitive nature of
this situation, it's no surprise that aspects of the funeral
(02:59):
industry we often come under fire. But this leads us
to today's question, how much of this criticism is alarmist,
how much of it is warranted? And ultimately, is the
funeral industry crooked or corrupt? The old funeral industrial complex?
Yeahner from they were like big funeral and they were
(03:24):
pushing down the little mom and pops, like you know,
the fishers, buying them out, buying them out left and right. Yeah,
is industrial burial complex better? I like funeral industrial I
don't know, man, vote, how about you help us out? Listeners?
What was the first one funeral industrial complex and the
second one was industrial burial industrial complex? I don't know.
(03:47):
That's not as good. I like funeral. Let's go with funeral.
I like big death. But that's probably some that's really good.
Nearly insufferable musicians name you know d th h Yeah, right,
So what are what are the facts? Let's start there. Uh.
Not only is it going to cost between seven to
(04:09):
ten thousand dollars on average just to bury someone. But
that number indicates an increase, right, a trend. Yeah, Between
two thousand four and fourteen, the median cost of an
adult funeral increased twenty eight point six percent from five thousand,
five eighty two dollars to seven thousand, one d and
eighty one dollars. So that's over a ten year period, uh,
(04:34):
twenty eight almost thirty pc increase. That's pretty intense. And
that's according to the National Funeral Directors Association UM or NIFTA. Yeah,
NIFTA UM And that almost thirty percent might seem like
a hugely steep rate of increase, but between nineteen eighty
and nineteen eighty nine, just nine years, the average funeral
(04:54):
costs rose by eighty seven percent, a lot of eighties
in those numbers. There, it's true, and it sounds it
sounds quite precipitous, right, But what what does that include?
So let's see, you pay uh slightly higher than average
price for a funeral. What do you get for all that? Well, um,
(05:16):
let's break it down for you. A nominal fee goes
to the funeral director and the services that they provide.
Casket costs approximately but of course you can upgrade, you
can pimp your casket. Um, embalming, I think that's probably
pretty standard. Five dollars whicheems reasonable to me, and a
lot of work that goes into that process and a
lot of expertise. Uh. Cost for using the funeral home,
(05:38):
which is more of like an event services kind of thing,
five hundred bucks. I would think that that would be
less than the embalming because it's going to be more
really well, also, we have to keep in mind these
prices can vary depending on the home you go to.
Course of course. Then you've got the cost of a
grave site, which is a thousand dollars. I thought that
(06:00):
was on the low side. It does seem on the
lost side. Is that? Does that mean that's like the
do you own that land or are you renting it?
Are you? How does that work? Upkeep? Baby, it's just upkeep.
You gotta pay, so you have to buy the land
the plot first. This isn't even for the plot, this
is just the upkeep. Uh. There's probably two costs. That's
the that would be the initial cost. Yeah, that's right.
(06:21):
Then you've got the the old grave diggers fee and
that's six um. Then you know that's a deep hole.
That's worth you know, that's a lot of work. Um,
then you've got the cost of a grave liner or
outer burial containers. So it's a casket for your casket,
which which is a real thing. Very odd. Had no
(06:42):
idea that this was real, didn't either, And then I
assume it would. It would be to keep the casket
in pristine condition. So how would you get into that
if you were, let's say, a grave robber, how would
you crack into that outer? Is it like something that
has a lid as well? Yeah, it's it's pretty inconvenient.
You would have to break a seal part of it.
Part of it also has meant to contain the dangerous
chemicals in a corpse, as from leaping into the Yeah,
(07:06):
if it's been embalmed. And you said that was that
was one thousand bucks, right, a cool grand. And then
you've got the headstone, which is you that's a piece
of custom masonry, right, so you've got to have someone
that can carve it by hand. I gotta wonder do
you think there are mass like factory produced gravestones that
are little cheaper. Yes, those would often be the things
(07:28):
that have more like a plaque sort of situation, and
they're embedded into the ground, but they don't stand up. Uh.
In this example, which is wonderful example, the total cost
would approximate about nine thousand dollars. And again that's just
for the main items. There could be additional charges for
(07:48):
dozens of things. Placing the obituary in the newspaper that's
not free, buying the flowers that's not free. And just
for comparison, the cost of at least in my experience
when I owned a house, putting a brand new roof,
like stripping off the old roof, putting on a whole
new roof with good material about ten thousand dollars. And
that's supposed to last year, ten to twenty years. So
(08:10):
this is like I don't know, I just but this
is forever. Yeah, but I don't know. There's a lot
of very magical thinking that goes into this whole process. Well, also,
there's not a situation with the roof salesman where they say,
think about what your dead relatives would want. You know,
that changes the equation, It really does. So let's look
at another thing on the rise. Hesitate to call it
(08:32):
a hot trend. Cremation. According to Nifta, the median cost
of a funeral with cremation is a little bit cheaper.
It's six thousand, seventy eight dollars. That's fifteent cheaper than
the median cost of a funeral with a burial. Some
sources will put the average cost of a creation even lower.
They'll say you can find a deal for two thousand
(08:52):
to four thousand dollars, but that is still a lot
of money for the average person. I think I may
have said that's on the episode we just did. The
two part are on secret burial sites and lost bodies. Um,
my father was cremated, and they also cannot charge you
on that because they try to make you buy a
fancier receptacle. They call it a what do they call it?
(09:13):
And urn and earn, but there's a name of a vessel.
They call it a vessel. That's the funeral speak. Um.
And I think we went with something. We literally got
it in like a I mean, don't judge me here.
We got it like in a plastic box and within
and in like a bag inside of it. And I
still have some of that. It's in my closet. That's
that's a little dark I'm sorry. No, I don't think
you should be sorry. It's actually but let's let's also
(09:37):
remember that this we're we're looking at the average price
for a one and done kind of thing. But almost
one point eight million people are buried every year in
this country alone. That amounts to a fifteen billion a
year industry. And we have some interesting comparisons about what
that means with the modern burials, not green burial or
(10:01):
in cremation. So there's enough embalming fluid that gets buried
every year to fill eight Olympic size pools. Mmmm. There
is more steel used in caskets alone than was used
to build the Golden Gate Bridge every year. We're talking
a yearly basis here, and enough reinforced concrete to construct
(10:23):
a two lane highway from New York City to Detroit. Yeah,
boggles the mind. That's every year. And also, you know,
just to be very very clear here, we're not being
glib or disrespectful to those who have passed on. This
industry has problems, right uh. And I love that we
(10:45):
got to the six ft under example because that's one
of the big plots of the show. What was it
started with a sea? What was the name of the
crowner so croner in in this isn't spoiling six ft under,
which is, however, many years old. Now, Uh, this is
not important to the character development the show, but it
does paint this alarming picture. It makes us think maybe
(11:08):
of other industries wherein monopolies have taken over, right, maybe
something like Amazon now, or maybe Walmart with supermarkets, or
like internet service providers. Yeah, exact I was thinking the
same thing, right. Uh. Luckily, if you're an opponent of
trust and monopolies, you will be glad to learn that
(11:29):
in the United States, at least for now, most of
the nineteen thou so funeral homes in the country are
still small, mom and pop family owned uh, family owned
operations that have been in the family for you know,
multiple generations. For now, at least, we'll be back after
a word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy.
(12:00):
Don't even let yourself be fooled by these uh this
idea that these small funeral homes are gonna be there
forever McDonald's, Sons and all the other ones. Big business
wants a piece of this pie. They want this industry
in their grasp, and large companies have been making some
serious inroads. Here are some of the biggest companies that
control currently the death industry death oh Man or the
(12:26):
funeral funereal industrial complex. I like that funarial funeral different.
Uh Walmart. Walmart might not be a big surprise. Walmart
sells a ton of stuff. They're the world's largest retailer
brick and mortar. At least they helped begin the trend
of selling low priced caskets online. Wait do they still
do this? Yeah? I believe so. Yeah, there's a The
(12:51):
name seems kind of ghosh. But when they came out
with was a ar casket called the Dad Remembered Steel
Casket with eighteen gauge steel high gloss silver blue finish.
That model may not be around anymore, but they are
still selling caskets. I just found it at Sky Caskets.
I found it on walmart dot com. This one's called
(13:13):
funeral casket. It's called the Briar Rose. Oh. I just
feel like Dad Remembered as a terrible name. I read
it as Dad remembered Steel, like Dad remembers his steel.
He knows. I read it kind of his dad. Comma,
remember that's what it should be. But there's no punctuation.
(13:34):
I feel like, for that much, for that much money,
there should be some proof reading involved. Why am I
so blown away that I was just able to pull
up like a catalog page on Walmart with like browsing caskets.
It never occurred to me you can buy caskets from Walmart?
How about overstock dot com. Walmart's taking a share of
the deathcare industry away from those traditional manufacturers and funeral homes.
(13:59):
And according to the various trade groups in the casket industry,
the impact of these brick and mortar stores is still
kind of small, but it's definitely growing. It's good that
it's there. I guess, well, that's what a lot of
people say about Amazon. Yep, Amazon, enter you Amazon old Bezos.
(14:28):
He's old Bezos. It sounds like he hunts a gigantic
white whale. It all sounds. It also sounds like some
kind of thing you put in a soup. I'm just
hit it with a dash of bezos. It's like creole season. Wow. Okay,
So Amazon has this thing it's called revenue, and they've
got seven point six billion of it. Uh that's in
(14:51):
US dollars. And it's often said that, you know, they
sell everything. Well, guess what if Walmart sells caskets. You
gotta believe Amazon's all over there. I just searched. I
couldn't find it. You're kidding me, I'm not kidding you. Caskets.
I found a lot of movies, as one called Help,
I'm Possessed, The Closer, the complete third season, and of
course Six Steed under seasons one through a completion. But no,
(15:14):
I can't buy an I don't see any Amazon caskets.
My man, it would be fun to watch a group
of drones trying to deliver one of them. You know what, al,
Amazon doesn't sell sex toys. WHOA, yeah, they they they
they've got they've got their their boundaries, all right. You
gotta go to Adam and Eve dot com for that
not brought to you by Adam and even it looks
like now they've they've taken those off the market and
(15:37):
they just have pet caskets. Oh imagine, was somewhat less
offensive maybe or somewhat less problematic from a shipping standpoint.
That's probably the closer answer. Didn't they have a some
kind of I don't know, agreement with another company or something.
Maybe maybe that's why they were temporarily selling them. They
(15:58):
used to sell more than fifty different varieties of caskets
or coffins, and they sold a steel embalming table. They
sold pet turns uh and oh yeah yeah. They had
a partnership with Best Priced Caskets dot com and then
it went south. That deal is pushing up daisies. Some
(16:20):
of these pet caskets are pretty posted. This one's called
Pause Rest Premium pet casket Comma small how much is it? Nine? Wow?
Which you know again, when a pet passes, it's still
in many cases, just as damage has loved it was
absolutely again for some reason, the idea of a pet
(16:40):
casket I find comical. My cousin. My cousin has the
most tasteful burial plots for her cats. It is incredible
it If anyone would ever spend that much care on
me after I die, I would be I mean, I
wouldn't be, but I think everybody else would be really
happy about it and moved by it. Yeah, it's incredible.
(17:04):
She care. She loves those cats so much. This she
like makes these beautiful almost it's almost like, um, I
don't even know how to describe it. It's it's almost
like having a tribute. Landscaping is beautiful, That is lovely
and in your backyard. I mean, I'm all about that.
That's a place you can, you know, wander through and
go and visit. And I mean, I have no problem
(17:27):
with the idea of burial of humans, of loved ones
at all. The part that I get hung up on
is the exorbitant cost in the whole, you know, because
I was gonna mention off Mike that I had heard
a piece on Hidden Brain actually where I was talking
about um lifestyle choices and the idea of being an
influencer and and this, that and the other, and one
of the segments was about funerals, and I said out
(17:48):
loud to my girlfriend, I said, I bet poor people
spend more money on funerals than rich people. And it
was that's exactly what the stat was, on average, on
average in this country. Well. Also, there's a privatized insurance
industry that springs up around this, and the same things
that occur in medical billing occur in the UH in
(18:12):
the in the funeral industry. Saying for it forever. A
lot of the major players in this industry also have
very very innocuous names. Carriage services Incorporated. Does it sound
like the maybe the company that has the horse drawn
carriages in downtown areas what I was thinking? Does it
sound like maybe they repair transmissions or something in fleets
(18:37):
of commercial vehicles. Uh? No. In two thousand eleven, they
were the fourth largest publicly traded entity in the deathcare industry.
They operate. As of that time, they operated on seven
funeral homes in twenty five states, thirty three cemeteries in
twelve states. Uh. They make a lot of money in
what are called pre funded funeral and aerial services. This
(19:02):
is where you plan ahead. Let's say ten thousand of
pop is too much, but you kind of put your
death ritual on layaway. It's pre need pre need, that's
what they call it in six ft under. I know
all these terms from watching the show The pre need. Wow.
I mean, I guess that's smart. Does in advance they
don't have to worry about it. It's almost like doing
a living will or something like that. Right. Can I
(19:24):
tell you guys a quick quick story please? So, um,
it's no secret my my wife's family is not that
well off, but they have lots and lots of family
in there. They're just wonderful awesome they have. They have
wonderful um communities like connection I guess right. So um,
when my wife's grandfather died, all of these people showed up,
(19:47):
almost every single person showed up with a roll of
cash and just handed it to my my wife's grandmother
and they were all paying for the funeral. In that
moment with cash, everybody together is amazing. And that's another
part of the hidden brain staff. The reason that people
but typically with less money, spend more on funerals because
it becomes this community thing. Whereas rich people it's a
(20:08):
much more segmented, small affair they might just do because
you know, they don't. They're not bringing people in from
far and wide for this funeral. It's much more of
a like their privacy or whatever. Whereas people with less
money they make it an event where the family comes
in from all over and it's an excuse to get
everyone back together again, you know. Again, specifically in the US,
absolutely absolutely So. It's interesting too because a lot of
(20:31):
families that come from generational wealth, which happens quite often
here in the States, a lot of those families will
already have dedicated older plots, so they actually have may
have fewer upfront costs. It's expensive. Uh, it's expensive to
be impoverished in this country. Right. Uh. There's another company
called Hill and Brand Incorporated. I like, I if we're
(20:56):
just making up things based on the name, I would
like to think that they sell those gift baskets with
summer sausage and different cheeses and maybe a little bit
of chocolate if you up sell Pepperage Farm remembers. But
unlike Pepperage Farm, Hill and Brand sells forty five of
all the caskets in the US, or they did as
(21:17):
of two thousand and eleven. Uh. They they sell more
than eight hundred thousand and the one point eight millions
sold each year. They also sell creation containers, vessels, urns,
and they sell all these products, though not under a
hill and brand. They sell it under Batesville Casket Company brand.
Kind of how that brand was founded in nineteen o six.
(21:39):
It's it's similar to how a few food manufacturers may
make a ton of stuff and some of its build
is organic and some of it. It's kind of like
how McDonald's owns Chipotle, if we're being honest, you know
what I mean. And in recent years, Celling Brand has
become an entity that makes more of its money off
of manufacturing non death related things. So they got a
(22:01):
boost from that and they're expanding out. It's you know,
capitalism Vegas, baby, you know what I mean. Uh, you
got to get in there while you can with these
uh companies. And also, you know, you do what you
can to represent your company in a the best way,
best forward facing way. Right now, if there were one
(22:21):
company that would be named as a monopoly in this
unfortunate industry, there were one company that would closely resemble
the big corporate bad of six ft under fame, it
would be something with the name Service Corporation International. What
does that mean? We'll tell you after a word from
(22:42):
our sponsor. So let's talk about that name. Service Corporation
International could literally be anything that happens internationally. Yeah, that
is a service. Is not a specific good necessarily. M m. Well,
(23:05):
let's just let's just say this Service Corporation Internationally deals
with death and that's how they make their money. Death. Yes,
it is entirely a company making money off of those services.
Was founded in nineteen sixty two by a guy named
Robert L. Waltrip. He grew up in the funeral business,
he was from one of those mom and pop outfits.
(23:28):
As of seventeen, this company owned one thousand, four hundred
eighty eight funeral homes and four d seventy three cemeteries
across the US and Canada. It makes them the largest
funeral and cemetery services company in the entire world. Uh.
They also own facilities in eight European countries England, France, Germany,
(23:50):
and additionally they conduct business in Singapore. They provide services
like embalming, burial creation, pre arranged or pre need funeral packages. Yeah,
their products cover every aspect of the funeral everything, like
we were talking about, caskets, burial vaults, flowers, cremation, funeral options,
burial garments and as It's estimated that their share of
(24:13):
all just the total funeral and cemetery market in North
America is fifteen percent. Now that doesn't sound that high, Ben,
It doesn't, does it. It really doesn't. And why is that? Well,
you see s CI keeps growing, Matt, as we're recording this,
and there's something that Service Corporation International does not want
(24:38):
you or your loved ones to know. This company is
largely made up of other small businesses. Overwhelmingly the funeral
homes that are sci funeral homes are things that it
acquired from these smaller outfits, these mom and pop things,
And they didn't want these homes to be less profitable,
(24:58):
so they didn't want them to seem like some giant, uh,
faceless funeral corporation, right, So instead they take over relatively
in secret, and the mom and pop businesses keep their
name on the thing, so it's still like Paul Decants
and Cousin's Funeral Home or whatever. This is literally the
(25:19):
plot of six Under, right, Yeah, because six Under is
based off as Yeah that was not aware. This is
really really fascinating, So it makes sense, yeah, because it's
such a um comfort industry. You know, you don't want
to feel like you're doing business with like big death right.
You want to feel like you're doing business with someone
who understands your community and your plight and it's there
(25:40):
for you as a as a helping hand in a
friendly face and as their families provided memorial services for
your families and generations and generations back. Yeah. And also
it makes sense that they would want to grow in
this way because they already have a lot of the
economy of scale at work, right, there they're getting I'm
sure massive discounts on different supplies. They run a couple
(26:03):
of logistics chains. So a typical funeral home that is
owned by s c I will not contain any advertisements
or any logos for s c I, with the exception
perhaps of one thing, a little employee pin on the
on the lapel of people who work there. Interesting. I
think I've seen this before, but I'm I can't. I
(26:26):
looked at a picture of one one of the lapels
that actually has it on there, and it looks so familiar.
Now I'm I'm questioning how many of these funeral homes
I've been to. I haven't been to that many funerals,
but I've been in a share and I think I've
seen it. Here's me out. Well, here's a question, though,
Why why why is this so disturbing? It's business. It
(26:49):
makes sense, it benefits the mom and pops theoretically, theoretically
they get to keep doing business and being where they
always have been. Is it in city? It's just because
it's this kind of the nature of the industry makes
us feel like it's gross to make money anyway. But
aren't the mom and pops already doing that. Ah, yes,
excellent foreshadowing. Let's let's walk down this rabbit hole a
(27:12):
little bit further. So s c I does have does
have one thing that you can you can easily use
to discern them. They place emphasis on a number of
different brands. One is Dignity Memorial and the Dignity logo
can be seen on their homes and their funeral homes
and in cemeteries and paperwork and so on. They have
(27:34):
other brands too, but that's one of the most popular ones.
And right now s c I has not consumed the
entire industry by any means, but it's recent acquisitions have
observers concerned the FTC is getting involved, which is something
I didn't think happened in the funeral industry, or I
just never thought about it. In two thousand and six,
they wanted to merge with something called the Alderwoods Group,
(27:56):
it's nearest competitor, and the FTC said, this is going
to create a monopoly, this is gonna break anti trust laws.
Eventually they allowed the merger to continue, which you know,
was a huge boon to s c i s growth. Uh.
They tried to purchase an outfit called Keystone North America
(28:16):
for two eight million in two thousand nine. They got
they got it. It slid through somehow. These guys have
a lot of a lot of grease, as we're gonna
find out too, they have a lot of juice, you
would call it on the streets. And they signed another deal,
one point for billion dollar deal to purchase Stewart Enterprises,
the second largest what they called deathcare company, and the
(28:39):
FTC in this in this acquisition said Okay, we're keeping
an eye on you. You can do this, but there
need to be some rules in place. So here's where
we get to your question. Or sure, yeah, the company's
penchant for pretending to be a local shop is misleading,
but what's the big deal? What's what gives It's not
illegal to do that, and if that's all the company
(29:01):
is doing, then we could say, we could argue, if
we're going to be a little bit cold about it,
that it does not particularly matter how we feel about
the practice itself, so long as the locations still offer
the same services. The people who got bought out often
still work there as management. Their jobs don't change. They
just become a franchise for lack of a better term. However,
(29:24):
that's not the case. As it grows, SCI has become
the subject of more and more controversy. One of the
things has cost uh. This company is known for having
slashed its overhead and raised prices dramatically, in some cases
much higher than independent funeral home operators, which, when you
(29:45):
think about it, is the the opposite of what you
might expect, because usually the way that Walmart's will drive
out small businesses will be to operate at a loss
for months or you know, years in certain apartments so
that the smaller places can't compete. Uh. These guys are
doing the opposite there. Uh. There's an issue of Bloomberg
(30:08):
Business Week that was published in October thirteen where a
guy named Paul M. Barrett I see a guy, a
journalist named Paul Embarrett uh quoted different different stats and
he found that at the time s c i S
on average charge was six thousand two or fifty six
(30:32):
bucks without the plot and without the casket, just the
other stuff. It seems like a lot. It is it
is a lot. Is that because they have an effective
monopoly and so they can basically fix their own prices
and there's no competition anymore. Is that the issue here
in some areas that that very well could be. I mean,
that's that's almost fifty higher than the real mom and
(30:54):
pop shops. Jeez, and uh, lest we forget that's bad enough.
Like just knowing that you're operating, you could be saving
people a lot of money on their funerals if you
wanted to, maybe, but you wouldn't have the profits that
you're getting. But what about something called funeral gate? Yes,
(31:14):
funeral gate? Have you heard of this? Have you guys
ever heard of this? Do you were familiar with this before? Right? Many? Okay,
this is this is weird and lack of a better term,
this is this is fascinating. Has some plot twist that
this is a controversy that occurred in Texas and according
to Fox News, s c I Service Corporation International, which
(31:38):
was doing business as Dignity Memorial under a different name
and then under dozens of other different names. Right, Uh,
they were recycling graves. What does that mean? Yeah, they
were taking the bodies they were originally like meant to
go in. They were throwing them in the woods to
use the space to house new customers at two Jewish
cemeteries in Florida. So they're taking people out that they
(32:01):
were going to bury and just throwing them in the woods.
And there was a Texas official who was tasked with
watching over these sorts of behaviors or preventing these sorts
of behaviors, and watching over the funeral business, who alleged
that she was fired in retaliation for whistleblowing, and that
(32:21):
she was fired by the administration of then Governor George W. Bush.
George W. Bush had received campaign contributions from the Waltrip family,
the founders of s c I troups of all troops.
They are based in Texas. It's not unusual to be
loved by anyone campaign finance wise, you know what I mean,
(32:44):
Like as not unusual to be raped by uh no,
I mean, it's a bad joke, but it really the
truth of the matter is, you know, if you are
running for position at that level of government, all a
ton of large businesses are going to want to donate
(33:04):
to your campaign. That's just how it works here, right,
So that's not necessarily corrupt. But the person who said
they were ounsted did say it was. They did alleged corruption,
and they said that the governor had been essentially paid
off by the Waltrip family to make this scandal go away.
George W. Bush was subpoena to testify about this in
(33:27):
court in nineteen nine, but he refused to do so,
and on August thirty, a Texas judge ruled that he
could not Bush, that is, could not be forced to testify.
So it all sort of went away for twenty years. Now.
Something happened around that year where he became an even
(33:51):
more powerful governor of sorts. I can't remember what happened exactly, right,
this was lead up to the election. Yeah, absolutely right.
And so he who um alleged that there was some
corruption there will We'll see this is just one of
many smoking guns, right, And other people will say, well,
(34:12):
merit lists claims happen against a state official all the time, right, Like,
there's probably some comptroller right now who is getting just
they're my favorite example, who is getting some sort of strange,
ludicrous lawsuit thrown at them. Right, So the question is
it really It depends on your personal take. But the
(34:34):
legal opinion was that he did not have to testify. Look,
if you are a politician of any sort and you're
not getting bribes thrown at you left and right, you're
doing something wrong. And I'm not saying you're taking those bribes,
but if if nobody wants to bribe you, I don't
know that that's a bad look. Did he ever do
an episode about lobbying? We did videos about it, We've
(34:58):
done I don't think we have non audio place the
kind of thing where it figures into other topics. Maybe
we haven't, so because I think for all of us
who are listening from someplace outside of the United States, Um,
lobbying just sounds heinous. Yeah, heinous is a fantastic word.
(35:19):
It seems, it seems counterintuitive, it seems illegal. How is
bribery illegal in this country? But lobbying is fine? You
know what I mean? Because semantics bro we had to
have talked at some point anyhow. So that's funeral gate,
and that's that's one of the controversies that hit S
(35:40):
c i S reputation. But the people largely forgot about
as time went on. But they were active in other states.
In Virginia, there was evidence of improper storage of bodies
in various states of decay. We're talking two hundreds something
and makeshift gurneys in a garage, just broughting Yeah, not
a good look. Smell well, what happened in Florida? Oh,
(36:03):
it's even better. Yeah, it's true. In two thousand one,
it was reported that employees of the Memorial Garden Cemetery
near Fort Lauderdale had oversold the cemetery, so bodies were
buried in the wrong places, separating husbands from wives. Vaults
were cracked open by a back hoe, bodies were exhumed
with bone skulls and shrouds thrown into the woods. Again,
(36:24):
bodies were stacked on top of each other, and remains
were relocated without notifying any of the relatives. Yeah, and
this is a huge deal for anyone. This is especially
egregious and horrific thing for members of the Jewish community
because for more religiously observant families and customers, traditional Jewish
(36:49):
law requires bodies to be buried completely intact and prohibits
disturbing the dead. So s c I reached an agreement
with the Floor Attorney General's Office in two thousand three,
and they said, we'll give you fourteen million dollars, will
repair the plots, reorganized the cemeteries, properly mark all the graves,
(37:10):
and the grounds will be able to accommodate all plots sold,
so we'll stop over selling stuff. And then they had
to settle a separate class action lawsuit on behalf of
three hundred and fifty families for a hundred million dollars.
It sounds about right. I'm surprised it's actually not more. Yeah,
me too. And there's a there's another Jewish cemetery that
(37:31):
was mishandled in California. Oh yeah, let's go back to
September two thousand nine. There was this class action lawsuit.
It was filed against s c I in this place
called Eden Memorial Park. It was a Jewish cemetery managed
by s c I in Mission Hills. Now, this class
action lawsuit charged that this this group Sei and Memorial
(37:54):
park ed Memorial They were destroying graves to make room
for new internments. And in February there was another settlement,
this time to the tune of eighty million dollars. Wow.
They are spending a lot of money on these lawsuits, right,
and this is only scratching the surface. This is not
a hit piece. You can check into each one of
(38:15):
these stories, and while you're checking you will find other
stories of similar situations, many of which have been completely forgotten, right,
you have to dig a little to find them. Now,
this may simply be a situation where in a corporation
as large as s c I, because of the way
it acquires different smaller businesses, this may be a situation
(38:39):
where it's just not able to keep an adequate eye
on every single thing. Right, That seems like a valid
argument to me. I think that is, you know, you
do have local I guess the families. If it's still
run by these groups there there, there on the ground
all the time, right, and they're they're observing this stuff.
So is there is it valid to say that maybe
(39:03):
these cases get more attention because they're attached to SCI
which has deeper purse strings, or they all become associated
as if they're all happening by the same people, when
in fact it's all individual groups that are just under
the same letterhead, essentially, right, like the way Rome conquered
different countries and empires. I also want to want to
(39:24):
point out I should have said deeper pockets, deeper purse
strings doesn't make sense. I don't know. I dig it longer.
I can't remember the last time I saw a purse
string that's just the strap that goes over your shoulder. No,
the strings are like the draw strings right for a pouch.
You know what, though some of them do, some of
(39:45):
those fancy ones that they're woven in. They've got little
eyelets and you know, you pull those things on the
one side cinches it right up. For a guy who
doesn't own any purses, I'm someone aware of this industry.
Tell you you don't own any persons. I don't. I don't.
I feel like I feel like it's a weird thing.
I feel, you know, back to what you said, Ben,
I feel like that's what a gentleman would have called
(40:05):
his purse his pouch. His purse is his pouch. Yes,
it's like an old timy leather gold bag. Sounds about
right to me. I was, I was somewhere, I think
it was Williamsburg, and I saw I saw a guy
walking with a with a bendle, with a stick and
bendle and some pouches. Sometimes I don't know, I say,
I don't know where he's going at Bendel was probably
(40:27):
full of certified deposits from his daddy. Oh see, in
my opinion, you always need to have a few pouches
to put your re agents in there if you're gonna
cast in boss manny, I don't know, Corpoor. Maybe there
are certain spells you have to cast that you really
need to make sure your re agents are on. You
don't know what you're talking. I'm just getting just let
her right out. Cool. Yeah, I would say, uh, voss Flam,
(40:53):
this is very important, Boss Flam cast a significant number
of of reagents and you need the vandamn costs. Damn. Yeah,
that's what I'm saying. And also if like you're saying,
if you have your bundle, then that has all the
manopotions And how the heck are you going to continue
to cast all the spells? I mean, you can't paralyze
everybody that has been our show. I'd like to thank Okay, well,
(41:18):
it would have been funny too if we've done credits
and not just continue Yeah, doing this nerd talk, which
I love. What is that from? That's all ultim online? Okay.
I didn't know if you were just winging it, but
that was great, man, that was great. You know what
I know, when your birthday is uh, you might end
up with some baptchets. Yes, oh my god. Why did
that feel like a threat in my head anyway. So
(41:40):
so here we are. You know, we I think we're
being very fair to s c I when we're saying
these are the these are the things that could be
arguments made in their defense. But when we go to
the question of what happens now, we see some scary
stuff ahead, at least here in the United States, and
aging population in a lower birth rate point towards some
(42:02):
disturbing trends. According to the US Census, older adults will
outnumber children for the first time in this country's history
by twenty thirty five, and citizens over sixty five will
account for seventy eight million of the population. Children under
eight team will account for seventy six point four million.
The baby boomer generation is one of the largest generations
(42:23):
in our country. We're not seeing a burst in population.
We're seeing people have fewer children than maybe boomers, which
means that a lot of people are going to pass
away in a smaller frame of time. This means that
this business will will boom or the growth will continue,
(42:44):
and the next time you find yourself dealing with the
loss of a loved winner in need to engage the
services of a funeral home or memorial home, you have
to ask yourself who really owns it and is that
information something they don't want you to know. He didn't
even get into the unscrupulous sales tactics. We talked about them,
(43:05):
but that's that's something else I would There's a fantastic
Reddit thread where in a funeral director describes some of
the stuff that they do. And you know, if you're
listening and you are in this industry, please know that
we're not We're not saying one bad apple spoils the bunch.
We're just saying that this is something a lot of
people don't have too much experience with, thankfully, right and
(43:28):
what would hope that continues to be the case, But
you have to be aware that things are not always
what they appear to be in the strangest of places. Absolutely,
um so right to us. If you've had any experiences
that you want to tell us about, you can find
us on Twitter and Facebook where we are conspiracy Stuff
on Instagram or Conspiracy Stuff Show. If you don't want
(43:49):
to do that, you can leave us a message, you
tell us a story if you call us, we are
one eight three three st d w t K wow.
I hope you understood that, Uh just call us just Style.
Until you find us, you'll you'll hear Ben's voice. That's
how you know. If you don't want to do that stuff,
you can leave us a good old fashioned email. We
(44:10):
are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel. They call me Ben. We are joined
with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decade. Most importantly,
you are you, and you are for now here, and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Fun fact, everybody in the studio today, as far as
we know, is alive. But we're gonna die eventually, a
(00:47):
lot of us. He started it with a glass glass
half full scenario Ben, and then Matt, you made it
a glass half empty. Well, you know, there's some hope
at the end of the tunnel. But maybe that's a
show for a different day. I think it's just the
nature of the glass. It's really it was made. But
it's gonna die. Sure so uh right now, With maybe
(01:11):
one notable technical exception, dying is still the great equalizer.
Dying is for many of us listening, inevitable, and here
in the United States, dying is quite expensive. Uh. It's
a burden that your loved ones when they survive your
demise will often end up baring themselves. As of eighteen,
(01:32):
the average funeral costs between seven thousand and ten thousand dollars.
And that doesn't include everything, right, that that includes some stuff,
but like you know, it includes a viewing, burial, embalming, hearse, service,
transfer of remains, a service fee, because everything has a
service fee nowadays. Uh, but it doesn't include other things
(01:54):
like awake, that's on you, flowers that's on you. A
million other things are on you. And typically when people
are in this situation, it's one of the worst moments
or periods of time in their life, you know what
I mean. Yeah, the grief associated with that moment causes
a lot of these other things to be a little
more acceptable unfortunately. Yeah, it's almost like you want to
(02:18):
do right by your deceased loved one, and surely that
means forking out a bunch of money for an ostentatious casket. Often,
often survivors fall prey to unscrupulous business practices, and it
is a big business indeed, Given that everyone except where
(02:39):
Henrietta Lacks has so far died and Henrietta Lacks is
only technically kind of alive, this industry is an incredibly
reliable source of income for people in every strata of
the business, and given the incredibly, incredibly sensitive nature of
this situation, it's no surprise that aspects of the funeral
(02:59):
industry we often come under fire. But this leads us
to today's question, how much of this criticism is alarmist,
how much of it is warranted? And ultimately, is the
funeral industry crooked or corrupt? The old funeral industrial complex?
Yeahner from they were like big funeral and they were
(03:24):
pushing down the little mom and pops, like you know,
the fishers, buying them out, buying them out left and right. Yeah,
is industrial burial complex better? I like funeral industrial I
don't know, man, vote, how about you help us out? Listeners?
What was the first one funeral industrial complex and the
second one was industrial burial industrial complex? I don't know.
(03:47):
That's not as good. I like funeral. Let's go with funeral.
I like big death. But that's probably some that's really good.
Nearly insufferable musicians name you know d th h Yeah, right,
So what are what are the facts? Let's start there. Uh.
Not only is it going to cost between seven to
(04:09):
ten thousand dollars on average just to bury someone. But
that number indicates an increase, right, a trend. Yeah, Between
two thousand four and fourteen, the median cost of an
adult funeral increased twenty eight point six percent from five thousand,
five eighty two dollars to seven thousand, one d and
eighty one dollars. So that's over a ten year period, uh,
(04:34):
twenty eight almost thirty pc increase. That's pretty intense. And
that's according to the National Funeral Directors Association UM or NIFTA. Yeah,
NIFTA UM And that almost thirty percent might seem like
a hugely steep rate of increase, but between nineteen eighty
and nineteen eighty nine, just nine years, the average funeral
(04:54):
costs rose by eighty seven percent, a lot of eighties
in those numbers. There, it's true, and it sounds it
sounds quite precipitous, right, But what what does that include?
So let's see, you pay uh slightly higher than average
price for a funeral. What do you get for all that? Well, um,
(05:16):
let's break it down for you. A nominal fee goes
to the funeral director and the services that they provide.
Casket costs approximately but of course you can upgrade, you
can pimp your casket. Um, embalming, I think that's probably
pretty standard. Five dollars whicheems reasonable to me, and a
lot of work that goes into that process and a
lot of expertise. Uh. Cost for using the funeral home,
(05:38):
which is more of like an event services kind of thing,
five hundred bucks. I would think that that would be
less than the embalming because it's going to be more
really well, also, we have to keep in mind these
prices can vary depending on the home you go to.
Course of course. Then you've got the cost of a
grave site, which is a thousand dollars. I thought that
(06:00):
was on the low side. It does seem on the
lost side. Is that? Does that mean that's like the
do you own that land or are you renting it?
Are you? How does that work? Upkeep? Baby, it's just upkeep.
You gotta pay, so you have to buy the land
the plot first. This isn't even for the plot, this
is just the upkeep. Uh. There's probably two costs. That's
the that would be the initial cost. Yeah, that's right.
(06:21):
Then you've got the the old grave diggers fee and
that's six um. Then you know that's a deep hole.
That's worth you know, that's a lot of work. Um,
then you've got the cost of a grave liner or
outer burial containers. So it's a casket for your casket,
which which is a real thing. Very odd. Had no
(06:42):
idea that this was real, didn't either, And then I
assume it would. It would be to keep the casket
in pristine condition. So how would you get into that
if you were, let's say, a grave robber, how would
you crack into that outer? Is it like something that
has a lid as well? Yeah, it's it's pretty inconvenient.
You would have to break a seal part of it.
Part of it also has meant to contain the dangerous
chemicals in a corpse, as from leaping into the Yeah,
(07:06):
if it's been embalmed. And you said that was that
was one thousand bucks, right, a cool grand. And then
you've got the headstone, which is you that's a piece
of custom masonry, right, so you've got to have someone
that can carve it by hand. I gotta wonder do
you think there are mass like factory produced gravestones that
are little cheaper. Yes, those would often be the things
(07:28):
that have more like a plaque sort of situation, and
they're embedded into the ground, but they don't stand up. Uh.
In this example, which is wonderful example, the total cost
would approximate about nine thousand dollars. And again that's just
for the main items. There could be additional charges for
(07:48):
dozens of things. Placing the obituary in the newspaper that's
not free, buying the flowers that's not free. And just
for comparison, the cost of at least in my experience
when I owned a house, putting a brand new roof,
like stripping off the old roof, putting on a whole
new roof with good material about ten thousand dollars. And
that's supposed to last year, ten to twenty years. So
(08:10):
this is like I don't know, I just but this
is forever. Yeah, but I don't know. There's a lot
of very magical thinking that goes into this whole process. Well, also,
there's not a situation with the roof salesman where they say,
think about what your dead relatives would want. You know,
that changes the equation, It really does. So let's look
at another thing on the rise. Hesitate to call it
(08:32):
a hot trend. Cremation. According to Nifta, the median cost
of a funeral with cremation is a little bit cheaper.
It's six thousand, seventy eight dollars. That's fifteent cheaper than
the median cost of a funeral with a burial. Some
sources will put the average cost of a creation even lower.
They'll say you can find a deal for two thousand
(08:52):
to four thousand dollars, but that is still a lot
of money for the average person. I think I may
have said that's on the episode we just did. The
two part are on secret burial sites and lost bodies. Um,
my father was cremated, and they also cannot charge you
on that because they try to make you buy a
fancier receptacle. They call it a what do they call it?
(09:13):
And urn and earn, but there's a name of a vessel.
They call it a vessel. That's the funeral speak. Um.
And I think we went with something. We literally got
it in like a I mean, don't judge me here.
We got it like in a plastic box and within
and in like a bag inside of it. And I
still have some of that. It's in my closet. That's
that's a little dark I'm sorry. No, I don't think
you should be sorry. It's actually but let's let's also
(09:37):
remember that this we're we're looking at the average price
for a one and done kind of thing. But almost
one point eight million people are buried every year in
this country alone. That amounts to a fifteen billion a
year industry. And we have some interesting comparisons about what
that means with the modern burials, not green burial or
(10:01):
in cremation. So there's enough embalming fluid that gets buried
every year to fill eight Olympic size pools. Mmmm. There
is more steel used in caskets alone than was used
to build the Golden Gate Bridge every year. We're talking
a yearly basis here, and enough reinforced concrete to construct
(10:23):
a two lane highway from New York City to Detroit. Yeah,
boggles the mind. That's every year. And also, you know,
just to be very very clear here, we're not being
glib or disrespectful to those who have passed on. This
industry has problems, right uh. And I love that we
(10:45):
got to the six ft under example because that's one
of the big plots of the show. What was it
started with a sea? What was the name of the
crowner so croner in in this isn't spoiling six ft under,
which is, however, many years old. Now, Uh, this is
not important to the character development the show, but it
does paint this alarming picture. It makes us think maybe
(11:08):
of other industries wherein monopolies have taken over, right, maybe
something like Amazon now, or maybe Walmart with supermarkets, or
like internet service providers. Yeah, exact I was thinking the
same thing, right. Uh. Luckily, if you're an opponent of
trust and monopolies, you will be glad to learn that
(11:29):
in the United States, at least for now, most of
the nineteen thou so funeral homes in the country are
still small, mom and pop family owned uh, family owned
operations that have been in the family for you know,
multiple generations. For now, at least, we'll be back after
a word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy.
(12:00):
Don't even let yourself be fooled by these uh this
idea that these small funeral homes are gonna be there
forever McDonald's, Sons and all the other ones. Big business
wants a piece of this pie. They want this industry
in their grasp, and large companies have been making some
serious inroads. Here are some of the biggest companies that
control currently the death industry death oh Man or the
(12:26):
funeral funereal industrial complex. I like that funarial funeral different.
Uh Walmart. Walmart might not be a big surprise. Walmart
sells a ton of stuff. They're the world's largest retailer
brick and mortar. At least they helped begin the trend
of selling low priced caskets online. Wait do they still
do this? Yeah? I believe so. Yeah, there's a The
(12:51):
name seems kind of ghosh. But when they came out
with was a ar casket called the Dad Remembered Steel
Casket with eighteen gauge steel high gloss silver blue finish.
That model may not be around anymore, but they are
still selling caskets. I just found it at Sky Caskets.
I found it on walmart dot com. This one's called
(13:13):
funeral casket. It's called the Briar Rose. Oh. I just
feel like Dad Remembered as a terrible name. I read
it as Dad remembered Steel, like Dad remembers his steel.
He knows. I read it kind of his dad. Comma,
remember that's what it should be. But there's no punctuation.
(13:34):
I feel like, for that much, for that much money,
there should be some proof reading involved. Why am I
so blown away that I was just able to pull
up like a catalog page on Walmart with like browsing caskets.
It never occurred to me you can buy caskets from Walmart?
How about overstock dot com. Walmart's taking a share of
the deathcare industry away from those traditional manufacturers and funeral homes.
(13:59):
And according to the various trade groups in the casket industry,
the impact of these brick and mortar stores is still
kind of small, but it's definitely growing. It's good that
it's there. I guess, well, that's what a lot of
people say about Amazon. Yep, Amazon, enter you Amazon old Bezos.
(14:28):
He's old Bezos. It sounds like he hunts a gigantic
white whale. It all sounds. It also sounds like some
kind of thing you put in a soup. I'm just
hit it with a dash of bezos. It's like creole season. Wow. Okay,
So Amazon has this thing it's called revenue, and they've
got seven point six billion of it. Uh that's in
(14:51):
US dollars. And it's often said that, you know, they
sell everything. Well, guess what if Walmart sells caskets. You
gotta believe Amazon's all over there. I just searched. I
couldn't find it. You're kidding me, I'm not kidding you. Caskets.
I found a lot of movies, as one called Help,
I'm Possessed, The Closer, the complete third season, and of
course Six Steed under seasons one through a completion. But no,
(15:14):
I can't buy an I don't see any Amazon caskets.
My man, it would be fun to watch a group
of drones trying to deliver one of them. You know what, al,
Amazon doesn't sell sex toys. WHOA, yeah, they they they
they've got they've got their their boundaries, all right. You
gotta go to Adam and Eve dot com for that
not brought to you by Adam and even it looks
like now they've they've taken those off the market and
(15:37):
they just have pet caskets. Oh imagine, was somewhat less
offensive maybe or somewhat less problematic from a shipping standpoint.
That's probably the closer answer. Didn't they have a some
kind of I don't know, agreement with another company or something.
Maybe maybe that's why they were temporarily selling them. They
(15:58):
used to sell more than fifty different varieties of caskets
or coffins, and they sold a steel embalming table. They
sold pet turns uh and oh yeah yeah. They had
a partnership with Best Priced Caskets dot com and then
it went south. That deal is pushing up daisies. Some
(16:20):
of these pet caskets are pretty posted. This one's called
Pause Rest Premium pet casket Comma small how much is it? Nine? Wow?
Which you know again, when a pet passes, it's still
in many cases, just as damage has loved it was
absolutely again for some reason, the idea of a pet
(16:40):
casket I find comical. My cousin. My cousin has the
most tasteful burial plots for her cats. It is incredible
it If anyone would ever spend that much care on
me after I die, I would be I mean, I
wouldn't be, but I think everybody else would be really
happy about it and moved by it. Yeah, it's incredible.
(17:04):
She care. She loves those cats so much. This she
like makes these beautiful almost it's almost like, um, I
don't even know how to describe it. It's it's almost
like having a tribute. Landscaping is beautiful, That is lovely
and in your backyard. I mean, I'm all about that.
That's a place you can, you know, wander through and
go and visit. And I mean, I have no problem
(17:27):
with the idea of burial of humans, of loved ones
at all. The part that I get hung up on
is the exorbitant cost in the whole, you know, because
I was gonna mention off Mike that I had heard
a piece on Hidden Brain actually where I was talking
about um lifestyle choices and the idea of being an
influencer and and this, that and the other, and one
of the segments was about funerals, and I said out
(17:48):
loud to my girlfriend, I said, I bet poor people
spend more money on funerals than rich people. And it
was that's exactly what the stat was, on average, on
average in this country. Well. Also, there's a privatized insurance
industry that springs up around this, and the same things
that occur in medical billing occur in the UH in
(18:12):
the in the funeral industry. Saying for it forever. A
lot of the major players in this industry also have
very very innocuous names. Carriage services Incorporated. Does it sound
like the maybe the company that has the horse drawn
carriages in downtown areas what I was thinking? Does it
sound like maybe they repair transmissions or something in fleets
(18:37):
of commercial vehicles. Uh? No. In two thousand eleven, they
were the fourth largest publicly traded entity in the deathcare industry.
They operate. As of that time, they operated on seven
funeral homes in twenty five states, thirty three cemeteries in
twelve states. Uh. They make a lot of money in
what are called pre funded funeral and aerial services. This
(19:02):
is where you plan ahead. Let's say ten thousand of
pop is too much, but you kind of put your
death ritual on layaway. It's pre need pre need, that's
what they call it in six ft under. I know
all these terms from watching the show The pre need. Wow.
I mean, I guess that's smart. Does in advance they
don't have to worry about it. It's almost like doing
a living will or something like that. Right. Can I
(19:24):
tell you guys a quick quick story please? So, um,
it's no secret my my wife's family is not that
well off, but they have lots and lots of family
in there. They're just wonderful awesome they have. They have
wonderful um communities like connection I guess right. So um,
when my wife's grandfather died, all of these people showed up,
(19:47):
almost every single person showed up with a roll of
cash and just handed it to my my wife's grandmother
and they were all paying for the funeral. In that
moment with cash, everybody together is amazing. And that's another
part of the hidden brain staff. The reason that people
but typically with less money, spend more on funerals because
it becomes this community thing. Whereas rich people it's a
(20:08):
much more segmented, small affair they might just do because
you know, they don't. They're not bringing people in from
far and wide for this funeral. It's much more of
a like their privacy or whatever. Whereas people with less
money they make it an event where the family comes
in from all over and it's an excuse to get
everyone back together again, you know. Again, specifically in the US,
absolutely absolutely So. It's interesting too because a lot of
(20:31):
families that come from generational wealth, which happens quite often
here in the States, a lot of those families will
already have dedicated older plots, so they actually have may
have fewer upfront costs. It's expensive. Uh, it's expensive to
be impoverished in this country. Right. Uh. There's another company
called Hill and Brand Incorporated. I like, I if we're
(20:56):
just making up things based on the name, I would
like to think that they sell those gift baskets with
summer sausage and different cheeses and maybe a little bit
of chocolate if you up sell Pepperage Farm remembers. But
unlike Pepperage Farm, Hill and Brand sells forty five of
all the caskets in the US, or they did as
(21:17):
of two thousand and eleven. Uh. They they sell more
than eight hundred thousand and the one point eight millions
sold each year. They also sell creation containers, vessels, urns,
and they sell all these products, though not under a
hill and brand. They sell it under Batesville Casket Company brand.
Kind of how that brand was founded in nineteen o six.
(21:39):
It's it's similar to how a few food manufacturers may
make a ton of stuff and some of its build
is organic and some of it. It's kind of like
how McDonald's owns Chipotle, if we're being honest, you know
what I mean. And in recent years, Celling Brand has
become an entity that makes more of its money off
of manufacturing non death related things. So they got a
(22:01):
boost from that and they're expanding out. It's you know,
capitalism Vegas, baby, you know what I mean. Uh, you
got to get in there while you can with these
uh companies. And also, you know, you do what you
can to represent your company in a the best way,
best forward facing way. Right now, if there were one
(22:21):
company that would be named as a monopoly in this
unfortunate industry, there were one company that would closely resemble
the big corporate bad of six ft under fame, it
would be something with the name Service Corporation International. What
does that mean? We'll tell you after a word from
(22:42):
our sponsor. So let's talk about that name. Service Corporation
International could literally be anything that happens internationally. Yeah, that
is a service. Is not a specific good necessarily. M m. Well,
(23:05):
let's just let's just say this Service Corporation Internationally deals
with death and that's how they make their money. Death. Yes,
it is entirely a company making money off of those services.
Was founded in nineteen sixty two by a guy named
Robert L. Waltrip. He grew up in the funeral business,
he was from one of those mom and pop outfits.
(23:28):
As of seventeen, this company owned one thousand, four hundred
eighty eight funeral homes and four d seventy three cemeteries
across the US and Canada. It makes them the largest
funeral and cemetery services company in the entire world. Uh.
They also own facilities in eight European countries England, France, Germany,
(23:50):
and additionally they conduct business in Singapore. They provide services
like embalming, burial creation, pre arranged or pre need funeral packages. Yeah,
their products cover every aspect of the funeral everything, like
we were talking about, caskets, burial vaults, flowers, cremation, funeral options,
burial garments and as It's estimated that their share of
(24:13):
all just the total funeral and cemetery market in North
America is fifteen percent. Now that doesn't sound that high, Ben,
It doesn't, does it. It really doesn't. And why is that? Well,
you see s CI keeps growing, Matt, as we're recording this,
and there's something that Service Corporation International does not want
(24:38):
you or your loved ones to know. This company is
largely made up of other small businesses. Overwhelmingly the funeral
homes that are sci funeral homes are things that it
acquired from these smaller outfits, these mom and pop things,
And they didn't want these homes to be less profitable,
(24:58):
so they didn't want them to seem like some giant, uh,
faceless funeral corporation, right, So instead they take over relatively
in secret, and the mom and pop businesses keep their
name on the thing, so it's still like Paul Decants
and Cousin's Funeral Home or whatever. This is literally the
(25:19):
plot of six Under, right, Yeah, because six Under is
based off as Yeah that was not aware. This is
really really fascinating, So it makes sense, yeah, because it's
such a um comfort industry. You know, you don't want
to feel like you're doing business with like big death right.
You want to feel like you're doing business with someone
who understands your community and your plight and it's there
(25:40):
for you as a as a helping hand in a
friendly face and as their families provided memorial services for
your families and generations and generations back. Yeah. And also
it makes sense that they would want to grow in
this way because they already have a lot of the
economy of scale at work, right, there they're getting I'm
sure massive discounts on different supplies. They run a couple
(26:03):
of logistics chains. So a typical funeral home that is
owned by s c I will not contain any advertisements
or any logos for s c I, with the exception
perhaps of one thing, a little employee pin on the
on the lapel of people who work there. Interesting. I
think I've seen this before, but I'm I can't. I
(26:26):
looked at a picture of one one of the lapels
that actually has it on there, and it looks so familiar.
Now I'm I'm questioning how many of these funeral homes
I've been to. I haven't been to that many funerals,
but I've been in a share and I think I've
seen it. Here's me out. Well, here's a question, though,
Why why why is this so disturbing? It's business. It
(26:49):
makes sense, it benefits the mom and pops theoretically, theoretically
they get to keep doing business and being where they
always have been. Is it in city? It's just because
it's this kind of the nature of the industry makes
us feel like it's gross to make money anyway. But
aren't the mom and pops already doing that. Ah, yes,
excellent foreshadowing. Let's let's walk down this rabbit hole a
(27:12):
little bit further. So s c I does have does
have one thing that you can you can easily use
to discern them. They place emphasis on a number of
different brands. One is Dignity Memorial and the Dignity logo
can be seen on their homes and their funeral homes
and in cemeteries and paperwork and so on. They have
(27:34):
other brands too, but that's one of the most popular ones.
And right now s c I has not consumed the
entire industry by any means, but it's recent acquisitions have
observers concerned the FTC is getting involved, which is something
I didn't think happened in the funeral industry, or I
just never thought about it. In two thousand and six,
they wanted to merge with something called the Alderwoods Group,
(27:56):
it's nearest competitor, and the FTC said, this is going
to create a monopoly, this is gonna break anti trust laws.
Eventually they allowed the merger to continue, which you know,
was a huge boon to s c i s growth. Uh.
They tried to purchase an outfit called Keystone North America
(28:16):
for two eight million in two thousand nine. They got
they got it. It slid through somehow. These guys have
a lot of a lot of grease, as we're gonna
find out too, they have a lot of juice, you
would call it on the streets. And they signed another deal,
one point for billion dollar deal to purchase Stewart Enterprises,
the second largest what they called deathcare company, and the
(28:39):
FTC in this in this acquisition said Okay, we're keeping
an eye on you. You can do this, but there
need to be some rules in place. So here's where
we get to your question. Or sure, yeah, the company's
penchant for pretending to be a local shop is misleading,
but what's the big deal? What's what gives It's not
illegal to do that, and if that's all the company
(29:01):
is doing, then we could say, we could argue, if
we're going to be a little bit cold about it,
that it does not particularly matter how we feel about
the practice itself, so long as the locations still offer
the same services. The people who got bought out often
still work there as management. Their jobs don't change. They
just become a franchise for lack of a better term. However,
(29:24):
that's not the case. As it grows, SCI has become
the subject of more and more controversy. One of the
things has cost uh. This company is known for having
slashed its overhead and raised prices dramatically, in some cases
much higher than independent funeral home operators, which, when you
(29:45):
think about it, is the the opposite of what you
might expect, because usually the way that Walmart's will drive
out small businesses will be to operate at a loss
for months or you know, years in certain apartments so
that the smaller places can't compete. Uh. These guys are
doing the opposite there. Uh. There's an issue of Bloomberg
(30:08):
Business Week that was published in October thirteen where a
guy named Paul M. Barrett I see a guy, a
journalist named Paul Embarrett uh quoted different different stats and
he found that at the time s c i S
on average charge was six thousand two or fifty six
(30:32):
bucks without the plot and without the casket, just the
other stuff. It seems like a lot. It is it
is a lot. Is that because they have an effective
monopoly and so they can basically fix their own prices
and there's no competition anymore. Is that the issue here
in some areas that that very well could be. I mean,
that's that's almost fifty higher than the real mom and
(30:54):
pop shops. Jeez, and uh, lest we forget that's bad enough.
Like just knowing that you're operating, you could be saving
people a lot of money on their funerals if you
wanted to, maybe, but you wouldn't have the profits that
you're getting. But what about something called funeral gate? Yes,
(31:14):
funeral gate? Have you heard of this? Have you guys
ever heard of this? Do you were familiar with this before? Right? Many? Okay,
this is this is weird and lack of a better term,
this is this is fascinating. Has some plot twist that
this is a controversy that occurred in Texas and according
to Fox News, s c I Service Corporation International, which
(31:38):
was doing business as Dignity Memorial under a different name
and then under dozens of other different names. Right, Uh,
they were recycling graves. What does that mean? Yeah, they
were taking the bodies they were originally like meant to
go in. They were throwing them in the woods to
use the space to house new customers at two Jewish
cemeteries in Florida. So they're taking people out that they
(32:01):
were going to bury and just throwing them in the woods.
And there was a Texas official who was tasked with
watching over these sorts of behaviors or preventing these sorts
of behaviors, and watching over the funeral business, who alleged
that she was fired in retaliation for whistleblowing, and that
(32:21):
she was fired by the administration of then Governor George W. Bush.
George W. Bush had received campaign contributions from the Waltrip family,
the founders of s c I troups of all troops.
They are based in Texas. It's not unusual to be
loved by anyone campaign finance wise, you know what I mean,
(32:44):
Like as not unusual to be raped by uh no,
I mean, it's a bad joke, but it really the
truth of the matter is, you know, if you are
running for position at that level of government, all a
ton of large businesses are going to want to donate
(33:04):
to your campaign. That's just how it works here, right,
So that's not necessarily corrupt. But the person who said
they were ounsted did say it was. They did alleged corruption,
and they said that the governor had been essentially paid
off by the Waltrip family to make this scandal go away.
George W. Bush was subpoena to testify about this in
(33:27):
court in nineteen nine, but he refused to do so,
and on August thirty, a Texas judge ruled that he
could not Bush, that is, could not be forced to testify.
So it all sort of went away for twenty years. Now.
Something happened around that year where he became an even
(33:51):
more powerful governor of sorts. I can't remember what happened exactly, right,
this was lead up to the election. Yeah, absolutely right.
And so he who um alleged that there was some
corruption there will We'll see this is just one of
many smoking guns, right, And other people will say, well,
(34:12):
merit lists claims happen against a state official all the time, right, Like,
there's probably some comptroller right now who is getting just
they're my favorite example, who is getting some sort of strange,
ludicrous lawsuit thrown at them. Right, So the question is
it really It depends on your personal take. But the
(34:34):
legal opinion was that he did not have to testify. Look,
if you are a politician of any sort and you're
not getting bribes thrown at you left and right, you're
doing something wrong. And I'm not saying you're taking those bribes,
but if if nobody wants to bribe you, I don't
know that that's a bad look. Did he ever do
an episode about lobbying? We did videos about it, We've
(34:58):
done I don't think we have non audio place the
kind of thing where it figures into other topics. Maybe
we haven't, so because I think for all of us
who are listening from someplace outside of the United States, Um,
lobbying just sounds heinous. Yeah, heinous is a fantastic word.
(35:19):
It seems, it seems counterintuitive, it seems illegal. How is
bribery illegal in this country? But lobbying is fine? You
know what I mean? Because semantics bro we had to
have talked at some point anyhow. So that's funeral gate,
and that's that's one of the controversies that hit S
(35:40):
c i S reputation. But the people largely forgot about
as time went on. But they were active in other states.
In Virginia, there was evidence of improper storage of bodies
in various states of decay. We're talking two hundreds something
and makeshift gurneys in a garage, just broughting Yeah, not
a good look. Smell well, what happened in Florida? Oh,
(36:03):
it's even better. Yeah, it's true. In two thousand one,
it was reported that employees of the Memorial Garden Cemetery
near Fort Lauderdale had oversold the cemetery, so bodies were
buried in the wrong places, separating husbands from wives. Vaults
were cracked open by a back hoe, bodies were exhumed
with bone skulls and shrouds thrown into the woods. Again,
(36:24):
bodies were stacked on top of each other, and remains
were relocated without notifying any of the relatives. Yeah, and
this is a huge deal for anyone. This is especially
egregious and horrific thing for members of the Jewish community
because for more religiously observant families and customers, traditional Jewish
(36:49):
law requires bodies to be buried completely intact and prohibits
disturbing the dead. So s c I reached an agreement
with the Floor Attorney General's Office in two thousand three,
and they said, we'll give you fourteen million dollars, will
repair the plots, reorganized the cemeteries, properly mark all the graves,
(37:10):
and the grounds will be able to accommodate all plots sold,
so we'll stop over selling stuff. And then they had
to settle a separate class action lawsuit on behalf of
three hundred and fifty families for a hundred million dollars.
It sounds about right. I'm surprised it's actually not more. Yeah,
me too. And there's a there's another Jewish cemetery that
(37:31):
was mishandled in California. Oh yeah, let's go back to
September two thousand nine. There was this class action lawsuit.
It was filed against s c I in this place
called Eden Memorial Park. It was a Jewish cemetery managed
by s c I in Mission Hills. Now, this class
action lawsuit charged that this this group Sei and Memorial
(37:54):
park ed Memorial They were destroying graves to make room
for new internments. And in February there was another settlement,
this time to the tune of eighty million dollars. Wow.
They are spending a lot of money on these lawsuits, right,
and this is only scratching the surface. This is not
a hit piece. You can check into each one of
(38:15):
these stories, and while you're checking you will find other
stories of similar situations, many of which have been completely forgotten, right,
you have to dig a little to find them. Now,
this may simply be a situation where in a corporation
as large as s c I, because of the way
it acquires different smaller businesses, this may be a situation
(38:39):
where it's just not able to keep an adequate eye
on every single thing. Right, That seems like a valid
argument to me. I think that is, you know, you
do have local I guess the families. If it's still
run by these groups there there, there on the ground
all the time, right, and they're they're observing this stuff.
So is there is it valid to say that maybe
(39:03):
these cases get more attention because they're attached to SCI
which has deeper purse strings, or they all become associated
as if they're all happening by the same people, when
in fact it's all individual groups that are just under
the same letterhead, essentially, right, like the way Rome conquered
different countries and empires. I also want to want to
(39:24):
point out I should have said deeper pockets, deeper purse
strings doesn't make sense. I don't know. I dig it longer.
I can't remember the last time I saw a purse
string that's just the strap that goes over your shoulder. No,
the strings are like the draw strings right for a pouch.
You know what, though some of them do, some of
(39:45):
those fancy ones that they're woven in. They've got little
eyelets and you know, you pull those things on the
one side cinches it right up. For a guy who
doesn't own any purses, I'm someone aware of this industry.
Tell you you don't own any persons. I don't. I don't.
I feel like I feel like it's a weird thing.
I feel, you know, back to what you said, Ben,
I feel like that's what a gentleman would have called
(40:05):
his purse his pouch. His purse is his pouch. Yes,
it's like an old timy leather gold bag. Sounds about
right to me. I was, I was somewhere, I think
it was Williamsburg, and I saw I saw a guy
walking with a with a bendle, with a stick and
bendle and some pouches. Sometimes I don't know, I say,
I don't know where he's going at Bendel was probably
(40:27):
full of certified deposits from his daddy. Oh see, in
my opinion, you always need to have a few pouches
to put your re agents in there if you're gonna
cast in boss manny, I don't know, Corpoor. Maybe there
are certain spells you have to cast that you really
need to make sure your re agents are on. You
don't know what you're talking. I'm just getting just let
her right out. Cool. Yeah, I would say, uh, voss Flam,
(40:53):
this is very important, Boss Flam cast a significant number
of of reagents and you need the vandamn costs. Damn. Yeah,
that's what I'm saying. And also if like you're saying,
if you have your bundle, then that has all the
manopotions And how the heck are you going to continue
to cast all the spells? I mean, you can't paralyze
everybody that has been our show. I'd like to thank Okay, well,
(41:18):
it would have been funny too if we've done credits
and not just continue Yeah, doing this nerd talk, which
I love. What is that from? That's all ultim online? Okay.
I didn't know if you were just winging it, but
that was great, man, that was great. You know what
I know, when your birthday is uh, you might end
up with some baptchets. Yes, oh my god. Why did
that feel like a threat in my head anyway. So
(41:40):
so here we are. You know, we I think we're
being very fair to s c I when we're saying
these are the these are the things that could be
arguments made in their defense. But when we go to
the question of what happens now, we see some scary
stuff ahead, at least here in the United States, and
aging population in a lower birth rate point towards some
(42:02):
disturbing trends. According to the US Census, older adults will
outnumber children for the first time in this country's history
by twenty thirty five, and citizens over sixty five will
account for seventy eight million of the population. Children under
eight team will account for seventy six point four million.
The baby boomer generation is one of the largest generations
(42:23):
in our country. We're not seeing a burst in population.
We're seeing people have fewer children than maybe boomers, which
means that a lot of people are going to pass
away in a smaller frame of time. This means that
this business will will boom or the growth will continue,
(42:44):
and the next time you find yourself dealing with the
loss of a loved winner in need to engage the
services of a funeral home or memorial home, you have
to ask yourself who really owns it and is that
information something they don't want you to know. He didn't
even get into the unscrupulous sales tactics. We talked about them,
(43:05):
but that's that's something else I would There's a fantastic
Reddit thread where in a funeral director describes some of
the stuff that they do. And you know, if you're
listening and you are in this industry, please know that
we're not We're not saying one bad apple spoils the bunch.
We're just saying that this is something a lot of
people don't have too much experience with, thankfully, right and
(43:28):
what would hope that continues to be the case, But
you have to be aware that things are not always
what they appear to be in the strangest of places. Absolutely,
um so right to us. If you've had any experiences
that you want to tell us about, you can find
us on Twitter and Facebook where we are conspiracy Stuff
on Instagram or Conspiracy Stuff Show. If you don't want
(43:49):
to do that, you can leave us a message, you
tell us a story if you call us, we are
one eight three three st d w t K wow.
I hope you understood that, Uh just call us just Style.
Until you find us, you'll you'll hear Ben's voice. That's
how you know. If you don't want to do that stuff,
you can leave us a good old fashioned email. We
(44:10):
are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com
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Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.