6 Secret Monopolies You Didn’t Know Run the World · 6 Secret Monopolies You Didn’t Know Run the World By Christina H Oct 27, 2010 870,106 views 635digg 7545Share The American

6 Secret Monopolies You Didn’t Know Run

the World

By Christina H Oct 27, 2010 870,106 views

635digg

7545Share

The American revolutionaries gave their lives for a future in which each man would have the

freedom to make his own choices. That dream has come true in the form of supermarket aisles

that contain 50 different cereals with the word ―oat‖ in their name, five marshmallow based

cereals with a monster theme and 12 different varieties of Cheerios alone.

God Bless America.

What would you say if I told you that dream was a lie? That all these brands you think you’re

picking and choosing between are all sock puppets on the many tentacles of a few, lesser known

companies?

I don’t know what you would say, but we’re about to find out.

#6.

Luxottica Makes All Your Sunglasses

Remember back when you watched The Matrix for the first time and ran down to the store to buy

sunglasses and a trench coat? There were so many sunglass brands to choose from: Oakley, Ray-

Ban, Revo, Vogue, DKNY, and if you must have only the best, $500 designer glasses from Prada

and BVLGARI (which has that V-instead-of-a-U thing, so you know it’s classy like ancient

Rome).

Which was famous for its sunglasses.

The thing is, all of those are made by one manufacturer – Luxottica. Starting off as a tiny Italian

glasses company, Luxottica caught the 1980s fever (see Wall Street) and started buying every

glasses-related company it could get its hands on, as well as talking pretty much every fashion

designer into letting them make their sunglasses line.

Well, at least you get to pick between stores, right? If the people at the LensCrafters are being

dicks while selling you different glasses all made by Luxottica, you can show them what you

think of that by taking your business across the mall to the Pearle Vision. Or maybe the Sears or

Target optical departments. Except that they are also all owned by Luxottica. Just for the sake of

argument let’s say that you’re not a squinty-eyed nerd, so you pass by the prescription shops and

go right to the Sunglass Hut. You guessed it. Luxottica.

That has got to be really heavy.

This is of course why they can charge you $200 for a piece of plastic with two hinges — because

most of the ―competition‖ isn’t actually competing with them. They are them. It also means that

if anyone came up with a mind control chip you could put into glasses, they could have the

whole world enslaved within months.

Keep Earth free! Get your glasses from Costco!

#5.

Menu Foods: The Shadow Behind Your Cat Food

If you are a cat or dog, you will remember the infamous pet food recall of 2007, where thousands

of your kind died due to melamine contamination. For a time it seemed like no brand was safe.

Word spread through the cat community to turn up their noses at food even more than usual.

How could so many brands (about 150) happen to get contaminated at the same time? Well,

because most of them were made by the same company. If you buy wet pet food labeled

Eukanuba, Iams, Nutro, Hy-Vee, Triumph or Priority, it all comes from the same factory. One

Canadian company, Menu Foods, makes all those brands. They just slap different labels on it

because they know that we as a breed like the illusion of choice. When they’re tapped out of

weird syllable combinations to slap on the outside of the food, they presumably send the rest off

to be turned into fast food and school lunch.

Look at that and tell me I’m exaggerating.

Even worse, Menu Foods and other companies, like Purina, all get one particular pet food

ingredient (wheat gluten) from the same place — a tiny Nevada company called Chemnutra or as

they’re known to neighbors, some white guy and his Chinese wife. This couple shipped in 800

tons of suspiciously cheap wheat gluten from China and doled it out to every big pet food maker

you’ve ever heard of. They didn’t bother to check whether it was poisonous or not, figuring

they’d find out sooner or later when, you know, someone’s cat ate it and died. Or a few hundred

cats.

―It’s so cold …‖

So that’s how one sloppily run mom-and-pop importer managed to put poisoned pet food into

every supermarket in America. But don’t worry, at least Menu Foods isn’t around anymore.

They were bought out by Simmons Pet Food, another huge behind-the-scenes pet food maker, a

couple months ago, creating an even bigger company making food for an even larger portion of

the pet food section at your local grocery store. That means more product passing through the

same factory, and less competition, which means less of a reason for them to care if one of the

ingredients that gets used in all of their products happens to be made out of poison.

And ChemNutra? They paid a $35K fine, saw no jail time and changed their name to EOS Direct

which continues to import nutritional ingredients, including stuff that gets put in energy drinks. If

Red Bull starts to literally give you wings, you’ll know who to blame.

#4.

When You Eat Corn, You Are Eating Monsanto (TM)

Like an omnipresent starchy deity, corn is everywhere. Savvy consumers know that it doesn’t

just stop at corn on the cob. Word has gotten out that corn syrup turns up in almost every candy

and soda, and is as addictive as crack. But how about Febreze? Hand sanitizers? Ethanol car

fuel? That’s all corn, too. Making rubber tires? You’ll need corn starch. Spark plugs? Corn.

Drywall? Corn. You can’t build a car or a house without corn.

Corn!

Whoever controls the corn controls … maybe not the universe, but a lot of money. And the king

of American corn is Monsanto, a biotech company. Unlike evil movie biotech companies — with

their dubious business models of inventing mutants or viruses that kill everyone — Monsanto

built their empire on a pretty boring one two punch: weed killer and seeds.

Bit higher profit margin than clones.

The weed killer, Roundup, is the biggest selling herbicide in the world. The seeds are genetically

engineered corn seeds that are immune to Roundup. If you want to grow corn and kill weeds that

hurt the corn, Monsanto has the best product on the market by a mile. That’s why 80 percent of

all corn planted in the U.S. goes into the ground with Monsanto’s trademark on it.

Yes, we live in a world where people release Corn 2.

But plants will be plants, and make more seeds, so the farmers don’t have to keep buying

Monsanto seeds year after year, right? Don’t be silly. Monsanto’s not going to let their money

run away like that. Their first plan was to incorporate something called a ―Terminator‖

(otherwise known as the ―let’s just stop pretending we’re not evil‖) gene that automatically

sterilizes the plant so it can’t make any more seeds. Then farmers have to buy new seeds every

time they plant, just like nature intended.

People objected to this quite a bit for some reason, forcing Monsanto to back down and instead

just make farmers sign a contract saying that they won’t use the seeds the plants make … or else.

So instead of screwing farmers with a terminator gene, they’re just asking the farmers to agree to

screw themselves.

So the next time you’re deciding between a Coke or a Pepsi (or between a Firestone or a

Goodyear), know that whichever way you go, you’re buying Monsanto. You’re welcome!

Luxottica

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Luxottica Group S.p.A.

Type Società per azioni

Traded as BIT: LUX, NYSE: LUX

Industry

Eyewear, fashion, luxury,

manufacturing, retail, wholesale

distribution

Founded Agordo, Italy, in 1961

Headquarters Milan, Italy

Area served Worldwide

Key people Leonardo Del Vecchio (Founder and

Chairman), Andrea Guerra (CEO)

Products Sunglasses, spectacle frames,

prescription frames

Services Opticians, optical retail, sun retail

Revenue €6,222 million (2011)[1]

Operating

income

€807.0 million (2011)[1]

Profit €452.0 million (2011)[1]

Total assets €8,644 million (2011)[1]

Total equity €3,625 million (2011)[1]

Employees 65,611 (2011)[1]

Website luxottica.com

Luxottica Group S.p.A. is the world's largest eyewear company.[2]

Its best known brands

include Ray-Ban, Persol and Oakley, Inc.. It also makes sunglasses and prescription frames for a

multitude of designer brands such as Chanel and Prada, whose designs and trademarks are used

under license. Luxottica also makes sunglasses branded Burberry, Polo Ralph Lauren, Stella

McCartney, Tiffany, Versace, Vogue, Miu Miu, Tory Burch and Donna Karan.[3]

Its prime

competitor is the Safilo Group S.p.A.

In addition to making sunglasses, Luxottica also sells them at retail chains it owns, like Sunglass

Hut, Oliver Peoples and Pearle Vision Center. In the United States, it also owns EyeMed Vision

Care, putting it on the buyers' side of the market as well. Since it rarely uses its own name for

any consumer products, and owns such a wide variety of brands, it has been accused of using its

power as a price maker to raise the cost of eyewear and keep it high.

Contents

1 History

o 1.1 Brands

o 1.2 Retail

2 Medical managed care

3 Criticism

4 Financial performance*

5 Major shareholders

6 References

7 External links

History

Luxottica headquarters in Milan

Leonardo Del Vecchio started the company in 1961,[4]

in Agordo north of Belluno, Italy; today

the company is headquartered in Milan.

Del Vecchio began his career as the apprentice to a tool and die maker in Milan, but decided to

turn his metalworking skills to making spectacle parts. So in 1961 he moved to Agordo in the

province of Belluno, which is home to most of the Italian eyewear industry.[5]

The new company

was Luxottica s.a.s., a limited partnership with Del Vecchio as one of the founding partners.[5]

In

1967 he started selling complete eyeglass frames under the Luxottica brand, which proved

successful enough that by 1971 he ended the contract manufacturing business.[6]

Convinced of the need for vertical integration, in 1974 he acquired Scarrone, a distribution

company.[5]

In 1981 the company set up its first international subsidiary, in Germany, the first in

a rapid period of international expansion.[5]

The first of many licensing deals with a designer was

struck with Armani, in 1988.[7]

The company listed in New York in 1990,[8]

and in Milan in December 2000,[9]

joining the MIB-

30 (now S&P/MIB) index in September 2003.[10]

The listing raised money for the company and

allowed it to use its shares to acquire other brands, starting with Italian brand Vogue in 1990,

Persol and US Shoe Corporation (LensCrafters) in 1995, Ray-Ban in 1999 and Sunglass Hut,

Inc. in 2001.[5]

Luxottica later increased its presence in the retail sector by acquiring Sydney-

based OPSM in 2003, Pearle Vision and Cole National in 2004.[11]

The company also acquired Oakley in a US$2.1bn deal in November 2007,[12]

and in August

2011 Erroca for €20 million.[13]

Brands

Persol sunglasses

Ray-Ban sunglasses

Luxottica's two main product offerings are sunglasses and prescription frames. The company

operates in two sectors: manufacturing & wholesale distribution, and retail distribution.[14]

The house brands include:[15][16]

Arnette

Eye Safety Systems

K&L

Luxottica

Mosley Tribes

Oakley

Oliver Peoples

Persol

Ray-Ban

Revo

Sferoflex

Vogue

The company also creates eyewear under license for designer labels such as:[15][17]

Anne Klein

Brooks Brothers

Bulgari

Burberry

Chanel

Chaps

Coach

Dolce and Gabbana

DKNY

Donna Karan eyewear

Miu Miu

Polo Ralph Lauren

Prada

Ralph Lauren Purple Label

Paul Smith

Stella McCartney

Tiffany & Co.

Tory Burch

Versace

Versus

The most recent deal was with Tory Burch. These brands are sold in the company's own shops,

as well as to independent distributors such as department stores, duty-free shops and opticians.

Retail

Luxottica Retail has more than 7,000 retail locations in the United States, South America,

Canada, China, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Israel, the United Kingdom and United

Arab Emirates.[11]

The headquarters of the retail division is in Mason, Ohio.[11]

Their retail

banners include:

Sunglass Hut International

LensCrafters

Pearle Vision

Pearle Opticians

Sears Optical

Target Optical

OPSM

ILORI

Bright Eyes

Budget Eyewear

Cole Vision Care

Optical Shop of Aspen

Surfeyes

Laubman & Pank

ICON

Grand Optics LLC

Medical managed care

Luxottica also owns EyeMed Vision Care, a managed vision care organization in the United

States.[18]

As of 2012, it is the second largest vision benefits company in the United States.[19][20]

Criticism

A 2012 60 Minutes segment focused on the company and its dominance of the eyewear industry.

Reporter Lesley Stahl visited its factories and Milan headquarters, interviewing Guerra and

product manager Isabella Sola. While praising the craftsmanship Luxottica puts into its work,

and the way it had turned around Ray-Ban after acquiring it in 1999, Stahl asked whether it was

exploiting its extensive holdings in the industry to keep prices high. Luxottica, she noted, owned

not only a large portfolio of brands such as Ray-Ban and Oakley but retailers like Sunglass Hut

and Oliver Peoples, as well as the optical departments at Target and Sears. In addition, through

EyeMed, it controlled a portion of the buyers' side of the market as well.[20]

Eyewear prices had, 60 Minutes claimed, increased as much as tenfold in the preceding decade,

despite a wider and wider range of products and brands available. "You'd think competition

would force the prices down," Stahl said. But, she asked, "Why should a pair of glasses cost

more than an iPad? Well one answer is because one company controls a big chunk of the

business."[20]

Guerra defended those high prices. "This is one of the very few things that are 100 percent

functional, 100 percent aesthetical, and they need to be on your face for 15 hours a day. Not

easy, and there's a lot of work behind them." The company did not disclose its markup, but Stahl

reported estimates that its sunglasses for designer labels cost as much as 20 times their

production cost.[20]

Brett Arends, a columnist with Smartmoney.com, was unconvinced. "I don't think there is [a free

market in eyewear]," he told Stahl. "I think one company has excessive dominance in the market

... The reality is, it's like you know, it's like pro-wrestling competition. And it's actually fake

competition." He pointed to Oakley, which merged with Luxottica in 2007 after several years of

competition during which Luxottica stopped carrying Oakley's products in their retail stores, as

an example of how the Italian company could use its market power to stifle competition.[20]

"There were some issues between the two companies in the beginning of the 2000s," Guerra told

Stahl when she asked him about Oakley. "But both of them understood that it was better to go

along ... they understood that life was better together." He said Luxottica did indeed have

competitors at the retail level in the American market, such as Walmart, Costco and Warby

Parker.[20]

Financial performance*

Year Net sales

(K€)

Operative income

(K€)

Net income (K€) - Net Income attributable to

Luxottica Group Stockholders

2011 6,222,483 807,140 452,343

2010 5,798,035 712,158 402,187

2009 5,094,318 571,085 299,122

2008 5,201,611 731,639 390,167

2007 4,966,054 833,264 489,850

* data retrieved from Luxottica website

Major shareholders

The list of Luxottica shareholders with more than 2% of holdings, represented by voting shares

at April 28, 2011.[21][22]

• Delfin S.a.r.l. 66.16%

• Giorgio Armani 4.85%

• Treasury Shares 1%

• Other shareholders < 2% 28%

In September 2012, Delfin S.a.r.l. reduced its share of Luxottica from 66% to 62.1%.[23]