Candace Owens - SHOCKING! The Sinister Group Behind Your Grocery Items ｜ Candace Ep 186

00:00:00.000 When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most?

00:00:03.720 When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard.

00:00:08.560 When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill.

00:00:11.220 When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner.

00:00:14.940 Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer.

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00:00:21.160 Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.

00:00:24.860 Service fees exclusions and terms apply.

00:00:27.100 Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver.

00:00:30.000 Well, the Diddy trial is prosecuting the wrong case.

00:00:34.260 And there's something fishy going on with Red Lobster's bankruptcy.

00:00:38.460 Also, some of you might be wondering, who the hell I am?

00:00:42.220 So, today we're going to take you all the way back to the first story I ever covered on TikTok.

00:00:46.740 Where I exposed that there's poison in the baby food.

00:00:49.840 We'll also respond to some of your comments.

00:00:51.980 Welcome back to Candace.

00:01:00.000 Our first story today is about food.

00:01:11.040 A specific kind of food that most of you probably eat.

00:01:14.120 But you probably never realize that this food has a serious dark side.

00:01:18.720 And I'm speaking, obviously, about shrimp.

00:01:22.980 Endless shrimp, to be exact. 0.91

00:01:24.600 Last May, Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy.

00:01:28.660 And at the time, I had mistakenly assumed that it was because of mismanagement in some sort of private equity buyout.

00:01:34.820 Like all the other cool kids these days.

00:01:37.060 But it turns out that that's old news.

00:01:39.320 Private equity had already been there and done that way back in 2014.

00:01:42.660 When Red Lobster had been bought out by Golden Gate Capital.

00:01:46.760 And what did they immediately do?

00:01:49.100 Well, if you watched our show yesterday, you would know that they sold off all of Red Lobster's real estate in a lease-back scheme.

00:01:56.180 Much like Toys R Us and all sorts of other brands before them.

00:02:00.600 They actually used this lease-back scheme to finance their initial purchase of Red Lobster like a leverage buyout that we already talked about.

00:02:07.540 But, color me surprised when I looked up who owns Golden Gate Capital.

00:02:13.560 It was founded by former professionals from private equity firm Bain Capital.

00:02:19.140 And its affiliate, Bain & Company.

00:02:22.260 Led by former Bain Capital partner, David Dominick.

00:02:26.020 So you remember how last time we talked about how Bain Capital was the private equity arm.

00:02:30.840 And Bain & Company was the consulting arm.

00:02:33.700 And they would never work together.

00:02:36.680 Right?

00:02:37.540 But not only that, when you look up the real estate company that they partnered with in the deal.

00:02:43.220 Later that same year, 2014, they got busted for a little $23 million accounting error.

00:02:51.460 This is coming from a couple different sources online, as well as Wikipedia to summarize it all for us.

00:02:57.140 The company was formerly known as American Realty Capital Properties, Inc.

00:03:01.540 And it changed its name after an accounting scandal.

00:03:04.260 Its name was derived from the Latin word veritas, meaning truth.

00:03:09.380 In October 2014, the company admitted to $23 million accounting error and fired Chief Financial Officer Brian Block.

00:03:17.380 Lawsuits allege that insiders received over $900 million in fees from the company.

00:03:22.840 In December 2014, Shorch resigned as chairman.

00:03:26.660 Remember, 2014, right around the time that they had just bought back all these properties from Red Lobster.

00:03:34.120 That's when they were doing this whole accounting error.

00:03:38.200 In July 2015, the company changed its name to V-E-R-E-I-T.

00:03:42.720 Verite?

00:03:43.360 Verite?

00:03:43.880 In September 2019, certain defendants agreed to pay $1.025 billion.

00:03:50.840 So that's a little bit of a whoopsies.

00:03:54.040 But anyways, we're getting distracted.

00:03:56.120 Back to Endless Shrimp.

00:03:57.940 Endless Shrimp led to an $11 million operating loss in Q4 of 2023.

00:04:04.640 There was also the fact that when parties arrived at Red Lobster looking to pig out on a barge full of Endless Shrimp,

00:04:09.020 they simply wouldn't leave.

00:04:10.420 Burke's experience serving a man who put away 16 servings over the course of two hours was actually mild

00:04:16.540 compared with some of the other stories I've heard.

00:04:19.180 Josie, 19, who also asked to be anonymous, super anonymous,

00:04:23.340 worked at a now-shuttered Kansas City Red Lobster,

00:04:25.960 where she watched a solo diner take down 30 orders of fried shrimp within four hours.

00:04:31.300 According to the nutritional information on Red Lobster's website,

00:04:34.240 that's something like 14,000 calories.

00:04:37.420 Bulking season.

00:04:38.500 But if you read enough headlines and you quickly start to realize there is a shrimp-spiracy afoot.

00:04:46.840 And that's because Red Lobster was bought in its entirety by a company named Thai Union.

00:04:54.240 Thai Union owned Red Lobster and is actually under investigation for its role in this whole debacle.

00:05:00.840 That's because Thai Union not only owns 100% of Red Lobster,

00:05:04.900 but was also historically a large-scale supplier to the chain.

00:05:08.840 Just before this promotion, they eliminated all other shrimp suppliers.

00:05:13.300 Thai Union is one of the world's largest shrimp suppliers,

00:05:16.700 as well as all sorts of other seafood like canned tuna.

00:05:19.060 And I can only presume that their goal with Red Lobster was never to run a successful restaurant company,

00:05:25.480 but instead to perform the world's first shrimp-based bust-out scheme.

00:05:29.760 Because remember, the Red Lobster company had already been looted by private equity before Thai Union bought it.

00:05:37.100 So unless Thai Union is dumb, when they bought it, they already knew that Red Lobster was in big trouble. 0.89

00:05:43.140 And when they owned it, what did they do? 0.98

00:05:46.280 They cut off all the other shrimp suppliers and turned themselves into the sole provider of shrimp

00:05:50.920 and then offered this crazy deal where Red Lobster tanked on buying endless shrimp from Thai Union.

00:05:58.240 And when you dig into Thai Union's most recent financial statements,

00:06:01.400 they own 62 different seafood companies around the world,

00:06:04.900 many of them specifically shrimp farms, packing, and distribution companies.

00:06:09.160 But when you add up all the companies they own more than 25% of,

00:06:13.140 that number jumps up to 76.

00:06:15.900 Thai Union Group is the world's largest seafood company

00:06:18.700 and ranked number one in the food production industry on Dow Jones Sustainability Index,

00:06:24.400 which might be true as long as slavery isn't one of their metrics.

00:06:28.860 Because this report was produced by Sustainability Incubator just last year

00:06:33.300 about the rampant human rights abuses in the shrimp industry.

00:06:37.540 Thai Union is mentioned numerous times,

00:06:40.080 often referencing their subsidiary Chicken of the Sea,

00:06:42.500 which is one of the U.S.'s largest retail seafood suppliers.

00:06:47.180 The report points out that at the prices paid per kilogram in these source countries,

00:06:51.920 it's literally impossible that slave labor and exploitation aren't involved in the supply chain.

00:06:57.260 Based on their analysis, average monthly earnings for shrimp peelers are the lowest in India.

00:07:02.220 Yeah, I'm not sure what happens to Ecuador between where the shrimp are cheap and where the wages are recorded.

00:07:10.600 Like, maybe they're not even paying wages in Ecuador.

00:07:12.800 I don't know.

00:07:13.760 But suffice to say, it's probably not too good of an industry to be dealing with shrimp in Ecuador.

00:07:18.780 This isn't just some harebrained theory that Sustainability Incubator cooked up.

00:07:22.660 You might not have noticed the massive scandal that rocked the shrimp industry a decade ago,

00:07:26.960 but we're going to dive all into it today.

00:07:29.840 But before we detail the modern shrimp slave trade,

00:07:32.280 I want to read to you a bit from the book, The Secret Life of Groceries.

00:07:36.800 Because you see, shrimp were notoriously hard to farm or domesticate.

00:07:40.720 When put in farming conditions, their sexual development gets stunted by stress,

00:07:45.160 and females just don't develop ovaries for reasons we don't entirely understand. 1.00

00:07:49.620 And the book goes into this in pretty interesting detail, and then stuff gets really wild.

00:07:54.580 The single great breakthrough came in a fittingly bizarre and brutal manner.

00:07:58.720 Then, as now, those trying to make aquaculture work raised their shrimp in overcrowded tubs.

00:08:03.240 And as their shrimp swam around and around in circles in these tubs,

00:08:06.720 their outside eye would rub against the side of the tank.

00:08:09.560 And slowly, after God knows how many circles, in God knows what type of crowded environment,

00:08:14.060 the outermost eyeball of the outermost shrimp in these tubs would eventually get rubbed right off, 0.99

00:08:19.300 erased by friction.

00:08:20.820 And from this misery, an industry was born.

00:08:23.540 It turns out that, for as of yet biologically unexplained reasons,

00:08:28.060 a female shrimp who loses a single eyeball gets fast-tracked through puberty, 1.00

00:08:32.580 her ocular loss unleashing a cascade of hormones that begets ovaries in as little as three days. 1.00

00:08:38.040 This was not predictable, nor does it fit with some grand anatomical theory of shrimp endocrinology,

00:08:42.980 but it is very real.

00:08:44.500 And some supremely attentive farmer noticed it

00:08:46.880 and began snipping eyeballs off by hand in an attempt to replicate it.

00:08:50.560 Soon, the process went mainstream.

00:08:54.520 It was studied and verified in the lab,

00:08:56.680 and although nobody could quite explain eyestalk ablation,

00:09:00.140 the quirky stride of science skipped merrily forward,

00:09:03.020 pushing shrimp aquaculture into a new age.

00:09:05.740 So, as this practice was invented in the 70s,

00:09:11.920 Thailand was one of the world's leading shrimping industries because of the waters around Thailand.

00:09:16.620 But now, there was surging demand, and so, they needed laborers to fill it.

00:09:22.220 Fortunately for the Thai shrimping industry, Burma is right next door. 1.00

00:09:26.120 You might know it as Myanmar or Burma, depending on what time period your history book was written.

00:09:31.660 There are no shortage of refugees trying to escape to Thailand from Burma, Myanmar, for a better life.

00:09:38.680 There has been civil wars and coups and bloodshed in Burma since before most of us were born.

00:09:45.820 And, this book, The Secret Life of Groceries, tells the story of a specific person who became a fisherman,

00:09:55.040 not by choice, who came from Myanmar to Thailand looking for a better life,

00:09:59.560 and wound up as a slave to the shrimping industry. 0.51

00:10:04.220 Bit of reference on where he's coming from.

00:10:06.520 There's no simple frame of reference for rural Myanmar at this time.

00:10:10.220 It's feudal and corrupt, trapped in time, without electricity, running water, or paved roads,

00:10:14.240 yet bedecked with assault rifles.

00:10:16.500 Thun Lin doesn't grow up with a floor, but does remember his father's N-16 leaning against the wall of their hut.

00:10:22.540 Transportation to the front is largely on ox-drawn carts.

00:10:25.560 The country at this time is in perpetual civil war, between the government and the communists,

00:10:29.380 between small mercenary armies funded by industrialists and rival tribes,

00:10:32.640 between ethnicities and religions in the different sub-regions,

00:10:35.340 all of whom ally with each other and disband and realign to create chaos.

00:10:39.980 He leaves his home village without telling anyone,

00:10:43.160 bringing three t-shirts, three pairs of pants, one blanket, and the shoes he is wearing.

00:10:47.380 He doesn't have a proper bag, so he uses a plastic one.

00:10:50.240 He crosses the border at the town of Mewati, and it's easy.

00:10:53.520 He does it all by himself, without a broker or a snakehead,

00:10:56.920 just a matter of hitching a ride and dashing across a river,

00:10:59.620 a few meters down from the official checkpoint.

00:11:01.700 When I visit Mewati 18 years later, I see several people doing the exact same thing.

00:11:06.220 From there, he walks up the steep bank and emerges on the Thai side of the border

00:11:09.340 into a town called May Sut.

00:11:11.240 But he's all alone.

00:11:12.820 The reality of being in Thailand, of the language being different,

00:11:15.460 of knowing absolutely no one, hits home.

00:11:17.920 And as that reality hits, a broker waves to him.

00:11:21.380 Thun Lin says it seemed like he was waiting for him.

00:11:24.160 The broker is about 40 years old, his eyes smart and handsome,

00:11:27.240 dressed in a blue long-sleeved shirt that is clean.

00:11:29.640 So Thun Lin approaches, and the broker asks him,

00:11:31.880 in Burmese, where would you like to go?

00:11:33.980 And Thun Lin says simply, Thailand.

00:11:35.780 Thailand, not totally realizing he's already in Thailand.

00:11:39.420 The broker says that doesn't matter and puts his arms around him.

00:11:43.060 The two of them walk back to a two-story brick house in Maesot.

00:11:46.400 They walk side by side like they are on a date.

00:11:48.740 The whole time, they talk in Burmese about Thailand.

00:11:51.020 Thun Lin is very excited.

00:11:52.480 The broker is laying out a future, telling him about the different cities in Thailand,

00:11:55.720 the resorts in the south, the skyscrapers in Bangkok,

00:11:58.460 the factories in Samut Sakon.

00:12:00.280 And of course, he's telling him all about the jobs.

00:12:03.240 The first thing he's told when sitting on the floor in this hut,

00:12:06.560 he is very lucky.

00:12:07.820 One of the migrants near him explains that Thun Lin has come at a very good time.

00:12:11.040 It has been hard at the house.

00:12:12.440 Some people have been waiting on the floor for over a week.

00:12:14.820 But Thun Lin learns he should be very excited,

00:12:17.000 because the next day, they are set to leave.

00:12:19.580 True to his word, the next morning, the broker arrives.

00:12:22.000 He tells them they are going to Chiang Mai, a city in the north.

00:12:24.760 But he tells the group that the police are looking for migrants.

00:12:27.580 They are making his job very difficult and dangerous.

00:12:30.800 He explains that the military is pulling vehicles to the side and checking papers.

00:12:34.140 So to get to Chiang Mai without being arrested, they will have to go it by foot.

00:12:39.120 It is a 210-mile trek through a jungle over several mountains during the heart of the rainy season.

00:12:46.040 Thun Lin does not know this because the broker does not say this.

00:12:49.300 The broker does not take any questions or explain anything beyond

00:12:52.340 how they are to leave town without attracting attention.

00:12:55.000 Thun Lin is just excited to start.

00:12:58.920 It rains continuously the first day of the walk, and quickly, the group begins to break down.

00:13:03.860 Many were sick and starving before leaving.

00:13:06.340 Every night, they sleep outside, huddled in groups under trees

00:13:09.060 or in small caves and overhangs in the mountain areas.

00:13:11.780 The only food comes at two checkpoints per day,

00:13:14.080 where the guide has arranged for meals to be stashed.

00:13:16.640 Each of these meals is identical.

00:13:18.440 Tinned mackerel and tomato sauce.

00:13:20.080 It is not one man per can.

00:13:22.960 Thun Lin says they split cans three, four, or five people per can.

00:13:27.400 Thun Lin estimates that a group of 100 people left the house.

00:13:30.420 By the end of this trip, he knows for a fact that he saw six people die of hunger or disease.

00:13:35.640 Once they get onto a truck, they sit in rows so tightly packed it is hard to breathe.

00:13:40.260 Then the door is closed.

00:13:41.680 It is dark.

00:13:42.600 No one speaks.

00:13:43.740 Thun Lin is not on one of the benches,

00:13:45.460 but sitting on the floor with his knees tucked to his chest.

00:13:48.140 He closes his eyes and tries not to think.

00:13:50.600 Estimating from a map, driving with no traffic, their trip lasts 12 hours.

00:13:54.620 He tells me there are no rest stops and that people cannot control themselves

00:13:57.880 and they urinate and defecate in the truck. 0.53

00:14:00.300 When they arrive, the back of the truck is open and they are told to get out.

00:14:03.460 One by one, they unfold.

00:14:04.880 People are crying.

00:14:05.980 A woman near Thun Lin has died.

00:14:07.840 She was suffocated or crushed.

00:14:09.580 Thun Lin does not know which.

00:14:11.120 Only that he sat so close to her the entire trip and that he had not thought about her.

00:14:15.340 Once he gets put onto a boat, which he did not ask to be on,

00:14:20.000 he cannot eat because he is seasick and throws everything up and he is not allowed to sleep.

00:14:24.240 This continues for three days.

00:14:25.960 It is at this point, the captain puts out the big canisters of instant coffee for the crew to eat.

00:14:31.440 Yes, to eat, not to drink.

00:14:33.700 On the fourth day, doing work he does not understand among men who speak languages like Khmer and Lao,

00:14:38.500 he can only partially communicate with, nauseated, starving, exhausted,

00:14:43.060 Thun Lin says he becomes physically unable to continue working.

00:14:46.200 And so he stops and goes to the crawl space to take a nap.

00:14:49.500 This is his first beating.

00:14:51.180 The captain finds him asleep.

00:14:52.700 He then wakes Thun Lin up with a weapon.

00:14:55.040 My translator insists on calling a yo-yo.

00:14:57.440 It is a steel ball on an elastic cord and he swings it at Thun Lin, 0.97

00:15:01.100 catching him across the face, then repeatedly on the shoulders.

00:15:04.200 Thun Lin shows me his scars.

00:15:05.600 He says he has beaten many times over the years, but he will always remember this first one.

00:15:10.540 Thun Lin says he is not beaten again after this.

00:15:13.220 The captain merely has to point at this yo-yo for Thun Lin to increase the speed of his work

00:15:17.060 until after waiting six months, he makes the mistake of asking for the salary he was promised

00:15:21.600 because that's how they got him onto the boat, saying that he was going to have a job.

00:15:26.660 For this, he is beaten even harder than before.

00:15:29.500 He learns now the captain owns him, that he bought him when he acquired his debt.

00:15:33.820 His friend Thun Lin simply can't handle it.

00:15:36.580 He is only a teenager and is weak, which means he is beaten more frequently.

00:15:40.400 As the captain whips him, Thun Lin slowly loses his mind.

00:15:43.620 After a particularly bad beating, Thun Lin gets very sick.

00:15:46.900 He can't walk and he is allowed to rest.

00:15:50.240 But Thun Lin knows things are wrong.

00:15:52.600 Whenever he asks Thun Lin questions, the boy will only laugh or cry.

00:15:56.000 Soon after, Thun Lin refuses to work.

00:15:58.200 It is now that he is beaten until he is unconscious and kicked into the sea.

00:16:01.560 Months at sea pass into years.

00:16:04.320 Thun Lin adjusts.

00:16:05.460 He never enjoys life on the boat, but he learns it.

00:16:08.100 He becomes good at it.

00:16:09.240 He comes to do every job, sorting the fish, carrying them to the freezer on trays,

00:16:13.160 patching, folding, caressing the net, and looking for rips, and more.

00:16:17.300 This is Thun Lin's second year on the boat out of what will eventually be 14 years at sea.

00:16:22.260 At this point, he is a slave in the only meaningful sense of the word.

00:16:25.520 He cannot leave.

00:16:26.440 He is not paid.

00:16:27.480 He was brought here a prisoner.

00:16:28.580 He was sold in a cash exchange.

00:16:30.820 He works under the threat of violence, and he has seen those who fought back against that violence killed.

00:16:35.420 His best friend on the boat, the only person he knew before boarding,

00:16:38.420 was slowly driven mad, and eventually, he was killed too.

00:16:43.220 Although they don't get a lot of sleep, this is where they sleep.

00:16:46.860 Thun Lin shares a crawl space with Thulek and the rest of the crew before Thulek dies.

00:16:50.920 Some closer to indentured servants, some free men who signed off on their own volition,

00:16:56.140 some who enforced the captain's orders, many in more than one role depending on the precise time you look,

00:17:00.880 all sleeping together in a space less than a meter high.

00:17:03.820 To get to the bed, they crawl on their hands and knees for about 12 feet into the darkness

00:17:07.560 through an opening that can fit at most one person at a time.

00:17:10.780 This is where Thulek sleeps, when not working his 20-hour days.

00:17:13.940 When I visit a similar sleeping hole on the Thai docks, the opening comes up just above my knee,

00:17:19.100 and it is warm, exhaling the dark, yeasty manure smell of the unwashed human body.

00:17:24.180 Thun Lin and all the rest of these workers are working in the fishing industry,

00:17:27.700 pulling up all sorts of fish, but the waters of Thailand were getting overfished,

00:17:31.960 and as they got overfished, more and more of that Thai fishing industry

00:17:35.060 was actually based on the trash fish, the small fish, the guts,

00:17:39.020 the things that actually can't sell as fish, but instead become fish meal.

00:17:42.680 And they never actually go back to port.

00:17:45.200 They stay out at sea for years at a time,

00:17:47.460 and they get other boats to come and resupply them and take their catch into port for them.

00:17:52.240 And this describes how fishers like Thun Lin never see these small, unsailable fish make it to port.

00:17:57.720 They are passed to a sister boat at a rendezvous, at sea,

00:18:00.980 traded along with food, cigarettes, Thai bot, and fuel.

00:18:03.720 This is called transshipment at sea.

00:18:05.720 It saves fuel for the larger refrigerated fishing vessels,

00:18:08.140 and it allows some boats to stay out almost indefinitely, resupplied by others.

00:18:12.680 They turn into floating prisons for trafficked workers.

00:18:15.800 So once all this trash fish makes it into port after being out in the sun on a boat all day,

00:18:20.520 then it gets rolled into the docks where it gets dumped out onto the ground into the sun all day to rot.

00:18:27.940 But within a day, a man with a rake and wearing dark rubber boots will push this pile of fish and fish pieces

00:18:33.100 towards a growling mouth in the cement docks.

00:18:35.300 It looks like a hole in the ground with two grinders in it for teeth,

00:18:38.540 and it takes the rotting fish and pulverizes them further.

00:18:41.360 The scent near the hole is deafening.

00:18:43.240 If you really want to know what you're feeding your pets when it says fish on the label,

00:18:49.000 this is what it is.

00:18:50.460 It is the smell of thousands of tiny rotting fish piled ankle-high in the 90-degree Thai sun

00:18:55.660 on a space that has held ankle-high levels of tiny rotting fish for years.

00:18:59.980 It is a hot smell, not just from the climate and the decomposition,

00:19:03.400 but because there are furnaces just beyond.

00:19:05.400 You can see them glowing behind the man with the rake.

00:19:07.540 The pulverized fish will pass on a conveyor belt toward those furnaces, 0.74

00:19:11.160 getting cooked into a paste, then baked into meal.

00:19:14.200 This will then be sold to yet another broker bought by a feed mill

00:19:17.440 and blended with inputs from dozens of other facilities,

00:19:19.960 all to create the protein base in pet food, food for fish farms,

00:19:23.480 and the feed for hungry little shrimp. 0.97

00:19:25.980 But that is just the industry responsible for making shrimp food,

00:19:29.280 as well as cat and dog food.

00:19:31.020 The rest of the shrimp supply chain is brutal too.

00:19:33.860 For example, here's another story from the shrimp industry.

00:19:38.120 Every morning at 2 a.m., they heard a kick on the door and a threat,

00:19:41.120 get up or get beaten.

00:19:42.620 For the next 16 hours, number 31 and his wife stood in the factory with their aching hands in ice water.

00:19:48.320 They ripped the guts, heads, and tails, and shells off of shrimp bound for overseas markets,

00:19:52.480 including grocery stores and all-you-can-eat buffets across in the U.S.

00:19:56.380 After being sold to the gig peeling factory, the couple were at the mercy of their Thai bosses. 1.00

00:20:01.080 Trapped with nearly 100 other Burmese migrants, children worked alongside them,

00:20:05.420 including a girl so tiny she had to stand on a stool to reach the peeling table. 0.55

00:20:09.860 Some had been there for months, even years, getting little or no pay.

00:20:13.700 At all times, someone was watching.

00:20:16.560 Benjamin Lohr points out that this issue is multifaceted,

00:20:19.700 and ultimately it stems from the modern world's globalized,

00:20:22.920 insatiable demand for more for cheaper.

00:20:26.000 It's a trend that permeates every aspect of our modern brand of consumerism,

00:20:29.660 and there's no easy fix.

00:20:31.840 Because when Thailand was exposed, new standards were imposed,

00:20:35.360 and the Thai shrimping industry collapsed, only to move to countries like India and Vietnam.

00:20:41.040 And now, Thailand is at it again.

00:20:43.940 News misses this crucial distinction that the slavery never ended.

00:20:47.620 It just moved into a new shadow somewhere else

00:20:50.220 where American and Western consumers could shield their eyes from it

00:20:53.160 and pretend that it wasn't happening.

00:20:54.940 Thailand is now proposing repealing the legal standards

00:20:57.960 that had previously cracked down on shrimp slavery and forced business abroad.

00:21:01.980 The Thai government has been insistent that trade would not be affected by new guidelines,

00:21:05.920 stressing that the EU, with whom it currently is negotiating a free trade agreement,

00:21:10.000 makes up only around 6% of seafood exports.

00:21:13.520 These practices go wherever the shrimp industry goes.

00:21:17.060 And lately, that's been India, 0.99

00:21:18.860 because right now, India is our largest supplier.

00:21:21.840 It's no coincidence that Sustainability Incubator found wages to be the lowest on average in India,

00:21:27.600 and the price is the cheapest.

00:21:29.720 Who knows what's happening in Ecuador?

00:21:31.920 The market will find the cheapest supply wherever it can be produced,

00:21:36.060 and that will always be a race to the bottom,

00:21:38.640 and the bottom will always be slavery.

00:21:42.660 India became America's leading shrimp supplier,

00:21:45.340 accounting for about 40% of the shrimp consumed in the U.S.,

00:21:48.580 in part because media reports including the AP investigation

00:21:52.000 that exposed modern-day slavery in Thailand and their seafood industry.

00:21:55.980 AP's 2015 reporting led to the freedom of some 2,000 enslaved fishermen

00:21:59.920 and prompted calls for bans of Thai shrimp,

00:22:02.680 which had been dominating the market.

00:22:04.380 But unfortunately, that just moved it to India.

00:22:07.600 Stories from India sound like this.

00:22:10.020 She said she works in brutal conditions,

00:22:12.140 peeling, cutting, and grating shrimp in a factory for less than $4 a day,

00:22:15.780 which is $2 less than minimum wage.

00:22:18.320 The working conditions are tough, she said,

00:22:20.360 wiping away tears with the corner of her red sari.

00:22:23.020 Standing for long hours in the cold while peeling and cutting shrimp takes a toll on my body.

00:22:27.720 This woman is a 51-year-old widow, by the way.

00:22:30.480 Baby, her last name,

00:22:32.120 and other workers said they pay recruiters about 25 cents a day out of their salaries

00:22:36.640 just to set foot inside the processing shed.

00:22:39.600 Transportation and company buses is also deducted from some workers' salaries,

00:22:43.100 along with the cost of lunch from company canteens.

00:22:45.780 Many workers have no contracts and no recourse if they are hurt on the job.

00:22:49.900 Another peeler said she suffers back pain all the time from the arduous work,

00:22:54.060 for which she's paid about $3 a day.

00:22:56.780 Some have nail fungus caused by small cracks that allow germs to cause infections.

00:23:00.960 Other women have fingers or even their entire hands darkening with frostbite. 1.00

00:23:05.160 Meta said that sometimes she has to amputate. 0.99

00:23:08.640 AP journalists observed dozens of women working in unsanitary and dangerous conditions.

00:23:13.000 The shrimp pulled from outdoor ponds in barrels were swished around by hand in grimy water.

00:23:18.440 Once rinsed, they were dumped onto ice-covered tables,

00:23:21.020 where women stood peeling them one shrimp at a time.

00:23:23.800 Many handled shrimp with bare hands.

00:23:25.660 Some women had bandages on injured fingers. 1.00

00:23:27.840 Some women's long hair dangled into the shrimp. 1.00

00:23:30.420 And you kind of expect that kind of conditions maybe in, you know,

00:23:33.700 third-world countries processing your food like India or Thailand.

00:23:36.340 But the point of this is that Naconti, the company that they were apparently peeling shrimp for,

00:23:42.700 they present a very different image.

00:23:45.100 In the bottom section here, a marketing video produced by Naconti,

00:23:49.500 which is projecting $150 million in revenues this year,

00:23:53.000 shows shrimp peelers in a spotless room with shiny tables and workers wearing gloves,

00:23:57.560 head coverings, face masks, rubber boots, and waterproof aprons.

00:24:00.820 By the way, Naconti is a subsidiary of guess who?

00:24:05.440 Thai Union Group.

00:24:07.560 They, of course, denied the allegations,

00:24:09.860 said the company had nothing to do with the peeling shed that AP had visited,

00:24:13.440 and said that their branded truck was there only because it was being leased to another company.

00:24:17.900 He provided a document that said that Naconti was paid $3,600

00:24:21.480 for the four-month lease of a truck with the license plate number the AP observed.

00:24:26.140 Sure, that document is A-okay, but you have to imagine what's going on out there

00:24:33.620 when that's the image they're presenting,

00:24:35.780 and the actual conditions in these countries are like the stories that you're hearing.

00:24:40.120 And I just wanted to give you a little image, a little visual,

00:24:43.360 of where all the shrimp in the world is coming from right now.

00:24:46.880 But just to be clear, the shrimp industry works the way that the shrimp industry works.

00:24:51.020 And if you want to sell shrimp for the prices that these countries are selling shrimp for,

00:24:55.380 you have to compete with countries that are using slave labor. 0.80

00:25:00.100 So, your bottomless shrimp is another man's, or child slave laborer's, bottomless despair.

00:25:08.660 This year, in 2025, New Orleans hosted the Super Bowl,

00:25:12.720 and someone had the bright idea of going there and doing a little testy-testy

00:25:17.460 on the shrimp that they were selling in New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities.

00:25:21.580 Turns out, everyone lies.

00:25:23.940 The testing was done by CD Consulting,

00:25:26.920 made possible by a new testing technology that could turn results around

00:25:30.200 in less than an hour instead of sending to labs and taking days.

00:25:34.740 And what did those test results show?

00:25:37.220 Well, the cities with the highest shrimp fraud rate were Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg, Florida,

00:25:42.640 at 96%.

00:25:44.300 According to CD Consulting,

00:25:46.520 only two of the 44 restaurants sampled were serving authentic shrimp

00:25:50.560 from the Gulf of Mexico, a study found.

00:25:52.720 In Baton Rouge, researchers sampled menu items at 24 restaurants

00:25:57.720 and found nearly 30%, more than one in four, were misrepresented.

00:26:03.280 Family-owned shrimp business operating out of the port of Tampa

00:26:06.480 are struggling to survive,

00:26:08.020 while local restaurants bamboozle customers into thinking

00:26:10.800 locally caught shrimp are being served.

00:26:13.660 Family-owned and American businesses are the ones bearing the brunt of our desire 1.00

00:26:17.720 for the most, the best, and also somehow the cheapest.

00:26:22.320 America and the Western world has this obsession with optics and ethics.

00:26:27.040 We want to feel good about the products we're buying.

00:26:30.260 We want to be absolved of our sins.

00:26:32.820 But ignorance is not bliss.

00:26:34.680 And many, not all, but many, of these marks that are here to tell us

00:26:40.520 that we're making ethical choices are essentially made-up stickers and rackets.

00:26:45.740 Inspections are often half-baked, audits ineffective,

00:26:49.140 loopholes are pretty much endless.

00:26:51.820 This is another thing that Lore covers extensively and with great nuance in his book.

00:26:55.900 It's a pretty rough story when you really get into it,

00:26:59.800 and these types of stories are all over the place.

00:27:03.140 You can't pay attention to everything,

00:27:04.700 and you can't be ethical with every decision.

00:27:07.440 You'll get decision paralysis.

00:27:08.780 You'll never buy anything.

00:27:09.640 You'll never eat anything.

00:27:10.560 But it is important to think about where your stuff is coming from,

00:27:14.580 who's responsible for it,

00:27:15.720 and what are the costs of low costs down the line.

00:27:21.080 We've got trade wars, inflation, global chaos,

00:27:23.700 and a skyrocketing national debt.

00:27:25.680 It's no wonder that gold keeps hitting record highs.

00:27:28.740 With everything going on in the world,

00:27:29.920 thousands of people are diversifying their savings with gold and silver.

00:27:33.280 And they're turning to my gold partner, which is GoldCo.

00:27:35.900 Right now, GoldCo is offering you a free 2025 gold and silver kit.

00:27:40.360 Plus, you can get unlimited silver if you qualify.

00:27:43.320 Find out how you can help diversify your savings tax and penalty-free.

00:27:47.540 Visit CandiceLikesGold.com or call 855-222-GOLD.

00:27:52.580 I'm sure you know that P. Diddy is on trial.

00:27:55.680 And it's ongoing.

00:27:57.520 Details are coming out slowly.

00:27:59.440 A lot of people are following along with the live court updates.

00:28:02.400 There's no video coming out of the courtrooms.

00:28:04.580 Unfortunately, we're not going to get an Amber Heard talking about doing things on the bed or anything like that.

00:28:10.520 But we are getting some funny court sketches and a lot of really, really awful stories from Cassie Ventura that really we're not going to talk about.

00:28:19.580 I don't want to talk about them.

00:28:20.500 You don't want to hear about them.

00:28:21.420 If you really care about all the horrible things that Cassie alleges that Diddy did to her while they were dating and not dating and whatever else,

00:28:29.000 you can read all about it on the internet.

00:28:30.940 You can look up her original lawsuit because that is not the story.

00:28:36.960 And I don't mean to say that Cassie's accusations are not important because they very much are.

00:28:41.540 What I mean to say is that so far, everything that's being discussed in the courtroom is super not the story that we were all here to see.

00:28:51.680 The actual story that I want to talk about that I assume that most of you want to talk about is the kind of story where Suge Knight famously accused Diddy of being a longtime FBI informant.

00:29:05.200 In April of this year, Whitney Webb released an excellent report about Diddy's early life outlining how he attended a boy's school that was marred in numerous sex scandals

00:29:13.700 and how his father was very likely a rat, an informant that was eventually caught and killed.

00:29:19.760 All of this was even before Diddy even got into the music industry, where his early mentors were linked to the mob and all sorts of other scandals.

00:29:27.660 The real story is Lil Rod's lawsuit, which we've all seen and talked about before.

00:29:33.760 Lucian Grange, the CEO of Universal Music Group, was originally named in that lawsuit, and so was Universal Music Group and Motown, as well as many other people.

00:29:43.280 But their names all mysteriously vanished.

00:29:45.720 But the lawsuit directly alleges that Grange was at the parties, and presumably partially or entirely funding them at times.

00:29:53.900 The lawsuit included what appeared to be screenshots from videos of famous people and told of coercion based on performing sexual acts on camera.

00:30:02.560 It included many specific allegations about drugs, guns, prostitutes, even minors.

00:30:07.500 But the biggest bombshell in the lawsuit, as far as I'm concerned, and the thing that no mainstream outlet wants to touch, is the allegations of hidden cameras.

00:30:16.900 Quote,

00:30:46.900 Mr. Jones, Mr. Combs possesses compromising footage of every person that has attended his freak-off parties and his house parties.

00:30:54.080 I don't think that all of those videos are the ones being shown in court.

00:30:58.280 Just my suspicions.

00:31:00.120 Upon information and belief, due to this treasure trove of evidence he has in his possession, Mr. Combs believes that he is above the law and is untouchable.

00:31:08.420 Upon information and belief, Mr. Combs employs Jose Cruz as his IT director.

00:31:13.240 This writer has spoken to several former employees of Mr. Combs who confirmed that Jose Cruz is the gatekeeper to all of Mr. Combs' recordings.

00:31:21.740 And I want to point out here, this document was prepared by a lawyer.

00:31:26.360 And that lawyer has a legal duty to believe that all the statements in this document are true, at least to a certain degree.

00:31:34.620 Like, he cannot just lie openly.

00:31:37.000 He cannot say that he spoke to all these other employees of Mr. Combs if he never did.

00:31:42.720 That would be a disbarrable offense.

00:31:45.460 And so, this lawsuit has to at least have merit in the lawyer's eyes.

00:31:50.660 And maybe it wouldn't all prove out in court, but it's not just made up out of nowhere, right?

00:31:57.100 And there are very specific claims.

00:31:59.060 And there are screenshots that seem to show screenshots of video evidence.

00:32:04.120 There's all sorts of stuff in there, okay?

00:32:07.360 Pair all that with the fact that Diddy's head of security was Fahim Muhammad.

00:32:11.320 Quote, in 2008, Fahim graduated from Sacramento State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Real Estate and Marketing.

00:32:23.680 Michael Jackson died just one year after Fahim apparently graduated from college.

00:32:30.320 Fahim was Michael Jackson's head of security and apparently second on the scene when Michael died.

00:32:37.720 Then, Fahim winds up as Diddy's head of security.

00:32:42.620 Kind of weird.

00:32:44.480 By the way, before we get off of Fahim Muhammad, remember his specialty in real estate from college?

00:32:50.020 Well, he owns a real estate company.

00:32:51.680 And he apparently has land right on the Mexico border.

00:32:55.500 Check this out.

00:32:56.420 40 acres of land in San Diego County.

00:32:58.900 That's what one dad gave his son for his 13th birthday.

00:33:02.100 He posted about it on social media and their story went viral.

00:33:05.540 Rapper Sean Combs even posted about it.

00:33:08.260 Fahim Muhammad bought 198 acres out here in Boulevard to get away. 0.65

00:33:13.220 It's real quiet.

00:33:15.520 The wall is right there.

00:33:17.520 This is not like Chicago, not like L.A.

00:33:19.880 He lives in Los Angeles and runs a real estate business that buys and rebuilds properties in the south side of Chicago.

00:33:26.400 He says to create a better living situation for the black community there.

00:33:30.320 Fahim says his mom taught he and his siblings how important it is to own your own property and to help their community.

00:33:37.400 So when his son, Fahim, recently turned 13, he gave him 40 acres.

00:33:42.680 I thought it would be a great opportunity to teach him a life lesson about the value of land.

00:33:47.320 And they're teaching other kids from L.A. these lessons, too.

00:33:50.380 So all them regular rocks you picked?

00:33:51.740 They bring inner city kids out here to hike, ride ATVs, and build campfires.

00:33:56.440 And even though they're right beside the border wall, they've had no problems out here.

00:34:00.720 These city kids enjoy their own private open space.

00:34:06.000 They've had no problems out here.

00:34:08.440 Remember, that's from back during Biden's term when there was all kinds of problems at the border.

00:34:16.380 If you owned land on the border where no one was there, I have a feeling there were people jumping over a fence, dropping babies over a fence and running through your land.

00:34:25.820 That's a whole other dig, though.

00:34:27.560 But just suffice it to say that I have questions about why exactly did you choose to buy all that land right on the border wall, Fahim, while you're simultaneously the head of security of this sort of trafficking operation that's having these freak offs where there's allegations that there were party favors and stuff like that.

00:34:50.640 So, yeah, I can't help but feel like they're trying the wrong case in court.

00:34:58.740 But ultimately, this stuff isn't new.

00:35:01.620 If you're in the music industry, people have been whispering about Diddy ever since Biggie and Tupac were murdered,

00:35:06.800 making way for Diddy's rise to superstardom alongside Biggie Smalls' ex-sidekick, Jay-Z.

00:35:13.040 And I just want to remind us all, too, of some of the more recent allegations that people have made against Diddy. 0.99

00:35:22.540 But as far as Meek Mills, Puff Daddy, whoever, none of these d***s, all you fake hard n***s, f*** you. 0.99

00:35:30.320 Wait, wait, wait. 1.00

00:35:30.660 No, no, hold on, hold on. 1.00

00:35:31.320 All you fake hard n***s, f*** you. 1.00

00:35:33.400 You know what I'm saying? 1.00

00:35:34.380 I don't get f***ed because you can't shoot nobody anyway. 0.99

00:35:36.780 And the reason why you got to talk is because you did a deal, you f***ing fed. 0.98

00:35:39.760 You know what I'm saying? 0.89

00:35:40.440 That's why you got to come at me because part of the deal for you to be a do-all that and get out of jail is that you promise that you're going to go pull my co-car. 0.99

00:35:49.540 So y'all n***s shut the f*** up about me. 0.65

00:35:52.540 Um, P.S., today, while we were sourcing this clip, we accidentally noticed that the original Drink Champs video on their YouTube channel no longer has that little section about Diddy being a fed. 0.95

00:36:08.800 It appears to have been edited to cut that clip out.

00:36:12.000 And we went back through it and re-watched it and tried to confirm.

00:36:15.040 Check out what is now on the Drink Champs website as of, I think, a year ago. 0.99

00:36:20.180 But as far as Meek Mills, Puff Daddy, whoever, none of these n***s, all you fake hard n***s, f*** you. 1.00

00:36:27.280 Wait, wait, wait. 1.00

00:36:27.600 No, no, hold on, hold on.

00:36:28.260 Okay. 1.00

00:36:28.420 All you fake hard n***s, f*** you. 1.00

00:36:30.320 You know what I'm saying? 1.00

00:36:31.320 So y'all n***s shut the f*** up about me. 0.99

00:36:33.560 You see where it cut to a different clip? 0.99

00:36:35.980 And then it came back to Kanye?

00:36:38.060 And you never got to...

00:36:40.360 Kind of weird.

00:36:41.920 And as best as we could tell, that happened somewhere like a year ago is when that video was uploaded.

00:36:45.960 And my presumption would be that that has something to do with Diddy applying pressure in approach to his court appearance.

00:36:52.420 But we don't know.

00:36:53.700 We're just noticing things.

00:36:55.860 Just noticing.

00:36:56.440 But anyways, none of that is being mentioned in court right now.

00:37:01.720 It almost reminds me of a certain other sex trafficker who didn't kill himself.

00:37:07.100 So just don't forget the real story because the real story is part of a much bigger picture.

00:37:13.200 And I'm sure we'll be talking about that picture in stories coming up.

00:37:16.920 I want to take a second to tell you about Pure Talk.

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00:37:55.520 Switch in as little as 10 minutes when you go to puretalk.com slash Owens.

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00:38:02.700 Go to puretalk.com slash Owens and make the switch to Pure Talk.

00:38:06.440 Wireless by Americans for Americans.

00:38:08.940 I realized that a lot of you guys might have no idea who the heck I am.

00:38:13.920 And I also realized that based upon talking about the shrimp industry, there's a whole lot of other stuff that I kind of came up on, stories that I used to cover all the time, that we should probably revisit.

00:38:25.580 Teach you a little bit about where I come from and teach you a little bit about what's in your baby food, as well as all the other products in your grocery store aisles.

00:38:32.720 So, here's one of the first TikTok videos I ever made that summed up the whole first dig I did into grocery store aisles and into who really owns everything and what are they putting in everything.

00:38:46.640 After we discovered that Target has entire shelves of shampoo that are all owned by the same megacorporations, I decided to go look at a bunch of other products that we put on our bodies and into our various holes.

00:38:59.660 Because we all get the sense that this is just the illusion of choice, but it's different when you actually see it like this.

00:39:06.280 Like the whole shelf of deodorant at Rite Aid that has like three options that are not megacorporations, but several that are specifically branded to look like they're natural and legit, like Schmitz or Toms of Maine.

00:39:19.280 By the way, the women's deodorant was the exact same story. 0.80

00:39:23.100 One option hiding down there in the bottom.

00:39:25.300 I went to the skincare aisles of several stores.

00:39:28.360 They purposely brand it to look like it's medical and like doctor formulated.

00:39:32.580 They advertise all over the place that it's trusted by experts, you know, formulated by doctors that work for Procter & Gamble and trusted by experts that work at Unilever.

00:39:41.660 Even at high-end beauty stores like Ulta, I only found two types of shampoo that were female or founder or family owned.

00:39:48.400 The rest are owned by megacorporations and billionaire private equity, who I'm sure care a lot about your hair care and your health.

00:39:55.300 They would never include carcinogens and toxic chemicals in their products.

00:39:59.600 Obviously, all the class action lawsuits you can find on Google are just fear.

00:40:04.000 But in some aisles, there are founder and family owned brands made by real people that actually care about you hiding amongst all of these other megacorporations designed to blend in.

00:40:14.100 And so what I did is I started making spreadsheets and giving them out for free on my website with all the different types of, you know, health and with all the different types of skincare, personal care products, shampoos, with lists of the different brands that we all consume on a daily basis and whatever megacorporations or businesses own those brands.

00:40:32.800 Because I'm not trying to say that all of these brands are necessarily horrible for you.

00:40:36.980 I'm just trying to say that when you buy these brands, your money is going to these megacorporations.

00:40:41.880 And megacorporations pretty much all play by the same corporate playbook.

00:40:45.800 Target's top shareholders are Vanguard, State Street, and BlackRock, along with a bunch of like investment banks and private equity funds.

00:40:52.200 In about four hours of work, their CEO makes as much as the average target worker makes in an entire year, which only totals up to like 17 and a half million dollars in 2023.

00:41:04.420 I mean, poor guy got a pay cut.

00:41:06.620 How is he going to afford the mortgage on his extra condo in the Caribbean?

00:41:10.580 He might even have to sell one of the yachts.

00:41:13.140 To be clear, that was a joke.

00:41:14.440 I don't know if Brian owns any yachts.

00:41:16.720 Not trying to spread misinformation, TikTok.

00:41:18.660 Just pure facts.

00:41:19.840 I'm sure Brian is a great guy.

00:41:22.480 And a lot of people misunderstand my message as being like, capitalism is evil and capitalism is the devil.

00:41:27.420 And that's not really what I'm trying to say.

00:41:29.160 What I'm trying to say is that capitalism is what we make it with our capital.

00:41:32.820 And when we all support giant monopoly megacorporations, we help to prop up this version of capitalism that is actually much more like corporate oligarchy.

00:41:44.180 And we inherently have the power to change it, or at least to push on it.

00:41:49.100 If we stop spending our money on this and start giving more of our money to companies like this, we can very much change the world.

00:41:58.340 Which I know sounds corny, but it's true. 0.99

00:42:00.500 The reason why megacorporations do this is so that they can maximize the chances of the most of our money being spent on their products.

00:42:09.020 But we all have the power to go into this aisle and to find that one little spot where the real companies owned by real people are hiding and to spend our money on those products.

00:42:19.240 Because that money does not go to multi-million dollar CEO bonuses, it goes to employees at real companies that actually take care of their people.

00:42:27.640 It goes to voting for products that are not filled with chemicals.

00:42:31.720 Chemicals that cause hair loss that then let those same companies turn around and sell you products to prevent hair loss.

00:42:39.540 I'm not making that up.

00:42:40.560 The aisle at Target has both those products, both owned by the same companies, both on the same shelf, right next to each other.

00:42:46.540 I can't imagine why.

00:42:48.000 So I know times are tight for a lot of people.

00:42:50.780 I know the economy is horrible and it's probably going to get worse.

00:42:53.520 But personal care products are a great place to start changing your spending habits.

00:42:58.040 Because it's not like food that you have to consume every day and you have to spend tons and tons and tons of extra money to buy better brands.

00:43:04.420 You just have to buy, you know, a better brand once a month.

00:43:07.680 You know, once every couple weeks.

00:43:09.480 This is a multi-billion dollar industry.

00:43:12.580 It's massive.

00:43:13.260 And if we all start voting in it with our dollars, we stand to change everything.

00:43:19.580 2023 was pretty depressing.

00:43:21.220 And I guarantee you 2024 is going to be just as or more depressing.

00:43:25.140 But my 2024 is going to be all about things that we can do to change, to make the world a better place.

00:43:31.440 And we all know the world is run by money.

00:43:34.620 So start using yours to promote businesses that make the world better, not worse.

00:43:40.060 What a throwback.

00:43:41.100 That is where your boy comes from.

00:43:44.500 And that's what I really got started on when I made my first TikTok video is how does this world work and who owns all the stuff that we use?

00:43:52.680 And over time, as I looked at more and more products and more and more industries and just started learning about where all this money goes,

00:44:00.200 I started to notice the patterns and notice how it works and notice solutions.

00:44:04.480 One of my favorite places to start this dig that wasn't quite mentioned in that one is Hidden Valley Ranch.

00:44:11.820 Who do you think owns Hidden Valley Ranch?

00:44:15.000 And I want to invite you to search that on the internet because all of you can do this research too.

00:44:20.540 And it's not hard.

00:44:21.400 You can do it in the grocery store on your phone.

00:44:23.180 You can do it right now on your computer.

00:44:24.700 But when you look up who owns Hidden Valley Ranch, you're going to screen something like this.

00:44:29.840 And you'll find out that it's owned by Clorox, the bleach company.

00:44:34.280 But that's not the top of the chain.

00:44:36.180 You look up who owns Clorox and you'll find out that it is a public company, like the kind of company you can buy stock in, right?

00:44:43.200 And the word you need to look up in order to figure out who owns a public company is you need to look up Clorox Institutional Ownership.

00:44:51.060 And when you do that, you get two screens like this or you can go to a website that will actually give you the full list.

00:44:58.180 And it's not hard to find.

00:44:59.840 And when you go to a website like Yahoo Finance and you find the full list, you're going to notice something pretty quick.

00:45:06.120 The top shareholders of basically every company in America are Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street.

00:45:11.220 But BlackRock actually owns State Street.

00:45:13.680 So it's just Vanguard and BlackRock.

00:45:15.340 And then below that is always all the banks, fund managers, private equity, etc.

00:45:20.640 And all of them are nothing like any of us.

00:45:24.080 And the more you do this and look around, the more you'll realize that these same financial institutions

00:45:28.620 are at the top of basically every public corporation in America, right?

00:45:34.020 Even ones that you think were natural and family or founder-owned, like Dave's Killer Bread, nope.

00:45:39.800 Got bought out a long time ago by Flowers Foods.

00:45:42.720 And when you look at Flowers Foods, Vanguard and BlackRock are the top shareholders.

00:45:46.640 You keep doing this over and over for different industries.

00:45:50.340 And pretty soon you notice that all kinds of different companies, food and beverage, banks, big tech,

00:45:56.340 every single one of these little squares inside of these bigger squares are big companies that you will recognize the names of.

00:46:04.220 And you can probably zoom in on some of them.

00:46:05.740 And the red highlights are Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street.

00:46:09.140 And all the other names on those lists are their buddies.

00:46:12.600 Notice there's even funeral and hospice care.

00:46:15.900 They have water and utilities.

00:46:17.700 They've got just about every aspect of our lives locked down in a big way.

00:46:22.960 The entire market is kind of just one big conglomerated game where they all play their parts and they all have their different corporations,

00:46:35.300 but they all are owned by the same financial institutions and all of them have a fiduciary duty to make their shareholders money.

00:46:44.240 That's a legal thing.

00:46:45.680 They are required by law at all of those public corporations to maximize shareholder value.

00:46:51.100 And everything you're looking at on those lists are their top shareholders.

00:46:56.200 So they are legally required to do what's best for all of those financial institutions, not for you.

00:47:02.960 Once you take this into the grocery store and actually look at the products on the shelves,

00:47:08.120 stuff gets pretty bleak pretty quick because what I started doing is just coloring it in.

00:47:12.160 Anything that's owned by a megacorporation, oopsies, there's not a lot of options left.

00:47:17.200 Notice the baby food aisle over there.

00:47:19.340 That's not a single non-corporate option of baby food in that store.

00:47:23.480 That's a Winco.

00:47:24.280 We're going to come back to baby food.

00:47:26.400 But it doesn't stop there.

00:47:27.780 You can do detergent.

00:47:28.940 Actually, the first one I ever did was tampons and feminine products.

00:47:32.240 The cereal aisle, big moneymaker in grocery stores.

00:47:35.680 And you could just go on forever.

00:47:37.780 It never ends.

00:47:38.720 And I did this for a whole year.

00:47:40.740 Trust me.

00:47:41.300 But I said I wanted to come back to baby food because this is not just about who owns it,

00:47:46.780 but it's about when their fiduciary duty is to financial institutions like the banks.

00:47:51.840 Their job is just to make the cheapest product that will profit the most, that will sell to the masses in whatever way they can.

00:47:59.000 And when you're talking about something like baby food, there are serious ramifications for doing so.

00:48:04.560 Now, this report is an official report published by the U.S. House of Representatives where they ordered a study into what is in our baby foods.

00:48:14.920 And they found that baby food was wildly tainted with arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.

00:48:21.400 And I want you to notice the brands that are at the bottom of the screen where the logo of the House of Representatives is.

00:48:27.920 That's Gerber, Happy Baby, Plum, all these different brands that you might think, I thought that Plum was organic.

00:48:36.960 Yeah, it's owned by a megacorporation.

00:48:39.180 And when they tested what was in these baby foods, it was appalling.

00:48:44.380 The test results of baby foods and their ingredients eclipse those levels, meaning the levels that are accepted as safe,

00:48:50.380 including results up to 91 times the arsenic level, up to 177 times the lead level, up to 69 times the cadmium level,

00:48:59.580 and up to 5 times the mercury level that is supposed to be allowable in our baby food, which should be zero.

00:49:07.880 But even so, that's pretty dark.

00:49:11.180 And if you didn't know that, if you didn't know who is making your baby food and how little they care about your baby's health,

00:49:19.140 you would probably feed that to your baby. 1.00

00:49:20.760 And a lot of you probably have.

00:49:22.340 And I want to stress that you should not feel guilty about that.

00:49:25.300 A lot of people can't afford other things.

00:49:27.420 And most of your babies will be okay.

00:49:30.360 But it is scary to know about.

00:49:31.940 And it's important to look for solutions.

00:49:34.060 And unfortunately, those solutions are not readily available or easy, right?

00:49:38.900 You could make your own baby food at home by cooking all your food, but a lot of parents have to work all day, right?

00:49:44.640 That's the whole point of having this convenient baby food.

00:49:47.200 And we didn't even mention the formula, which is super messed up.

00:49:52.080 But one solution that I kept finding over and over again in every aisle, everywhere that I went,

00:49:57.900 is that when you find brands that are owned by families, owned by their founders, owned by real people,

00:50:04.500 more often than not, those brands have more of a commitment to humans.

00:50:08.640 To you, the customer.

00:50:10.140 Because if they don't, they're going to get gobbled up.

00:50:12.720 They're going to get crushed by the big competition.

00:50:14.800 They need to do something outstanding.

00:50:16.820 And usually, they're real people, too, that have kids, that are in this business for a reason.

00:50:21.440 And so I started to notice that the family and founder-owned brands, for many obvious reasons,

00:50:26.760 are on balance a far better option.

00:50:30.780 And it's not hard to buy family-owned.

00:50:33.580 Often, they're the same price.

00:50:34.840 Sometimes, they cost a little more.

00:50:36.460 But really, the hard part is just finding them.

00:50:38.900 Because shelf space is for sale in the grocery store.

00:50:42.080 And if you want to know about that, buy this book.

00:50:44.100 Not sponsored.

00:50:45.240 It's just amazing.

00:50:47.140 Shelf space is purposely for sale.

00:50:48.700 So that they can monopolize the entire aisle and make it very hard to find all the little brands that compete with this giant corporate scheme. 0.99

00:50:56.440 But if you know what brands you're looking for, you can just go find them and buy those.

00:51:01.740 And suddenly, you can boycott the entire evil financial cabal all at once.

00:51:06.360 So what I started doing years ago when I first, well, two years ago, really, I'm real old.

00:51:12.660 I'm like an old-timer, guys.

00:51:14.260 I've been in this for forever.

00:51:15.620 But all of 2023 and part of 2024, I made these spreadsheets.

00:51:18.940 And I put them online on my website for free.

00:51:21.380 And even though I have closed down that old store because I sucked at running a clothing store,

00:51:26.560 I still have those spreadsheets available on that website.

00:51:29.480 The website is cancelthisclothingcompany.com slash resources.

00:51:32.900 And we'll have a link below.

00:51:34.740 And the spreadsheets are up still to this day.

00:51:37.140 It's Google Docs.

00:51:37.900 So, you know, practice safe docs.

00:51:40.680 But I should warn you that they're going to be coming down soon.

00:51:44.520 Because, not because we hate the project or anything like that,

00:51:48.080 but because we have something way cooler in the works.

00:51:50.920 And I don't want to say too much yet.

00:51:52.480 But let's just say that all along, people have been asking me

00:51:55.940 if you could use your phone in order to scan products and find out who owns them

00:52:00.780 and all this stuff that was on those sheets and more.

00:52:03.240 That would be a game changer.

00:52:05.280 And at a certain point, I received an email from two people out there that were like,

00:52:11.000 yo, we took your spreadsheets and we made them into an app and we want to show you.

00:52:15.480 And they're awesome.

00:52:17.340 And they're total wizards.

00:52:18.920 And there is an app coming.

00:52:21.000 I can't say too much just now, but it's definitely on the way.

00:52:24.880 And it's going to be sick.

00:52:26.240 And we're going to put a link down below in the description of where you can go follow along

00:52:30.320 in order to get the updates when that's ready.

00:52:32.280 Because it's going to, and by the way, it's not going to be like some crazy profit scheme.

00:52:35.360 We're not going to like make a bunch of money off you.

00:52:36.680 We're going to make a dope product that I'm going to use every day.

00:52:39.440 Because we want you to be able to, I mean, it's not about boycotting this or that

00:52:44.040 or shutting down this company or that company.

00:52:45.780 We're not here to tell you what's ethically right or what's healthy for you.

00:52:49.200 We're just here to give you the information.

00:52:50.620 So that if you personally don't want to buy from Nestle for reasons, you can figure out

00:52:55.520 what's owned by them because they own hundreds of brands.

00:52:58.120 If you don't want to buy from Bud Light or from any old company, it's up to you.

00:53:03.820 This will help you do it, right?

00:53:05.400 For me, it'll be to help find family and found your own businesses.

00:53:08.480 For you, it can be whatever you want.

00:53:10.480 And now I want to tell you about American financing.

00:53:13.580 Debt doesn't just show up one day.

00:53:15.460 It builds little by little.

00:53:17.300 Credit cards, car loans, medical bills.

00:53:19.200 And suddenly you're juggling payments, feeling stuck.

00:53:22.140 But here's the good news.

00:53:23.640 You're not stuck.

00:53:24.580 You just need a reset.

00:53:25.840 At American Financing, they help homeowners like you every day.

00:53:28.880 They use your home's equity and roll that high interest debt into one simple affordable payment.

00:53:33.280 They're saving homeowners an average of $800 a month.

00:53:35.940 No judgment, no pressure, just real solutions that put you back in control.

00:53:40.120 Imagine breathing again, sleeping again, knowing your future is yours to shape.

00:53:44.300 It starts with one call and it only takes 10 minutes to get started.

00:53:47.020 And there are no upfront fees, so it costs nothing to find out how much you can save.

00:53:51.040 And if you start today, you may be able to delay your next two mortgage payments.

00:53:54.740 American Financing salary-based consultants are ready to listen and ready to help.

00:53:58.720 Take back your peace of mind with American Financing.

00:54:01.280 Call American Financing today, 800-795-1210.

00:54:05.760 That's 800-795-1210.

00:54:08.360 Or visit AmericanFinancing.net slash Owens.

00:54:11.320 We've been loving the comments that you guys have been sending in.

00:54:14.940 It's been so humbling to receive so much support and so much good belly laughter from all the

00:54:20.860 things that you guys have been saying.

00:54:22.260 So to close out today, we're going to check in with some of your comments.

00:54:26.040 At ChrisMaz75 said,

00:54:27.960 I am so impressed with Candace's choice, not only because Ian is fully capable of doing a good job,

00:54:33.160 but because he has different political ideas than Candace does.

00:54:35.660 And these two are teaching people how to disagree respectfully and still work together.

00:54:39.780 Yes, that is what we need more of in this world.

00:54:42.200 And I couldn't agree more.

00:54:43.680 Candace, I love and respect her in every way.

00:54:45.740 Even though we disagree on things, that does not matter.

00:54:48.280 You can be friends with people regardless.

00:54:50.960 At Kenny Semper 2719 said,

00:54:53.300 We got Ian Carroll filling in for Candace before GTA 6. 1.00

00:54:57.300 Let that sink in.

00:54:58.840 Classic.

00:55:00.040 At Wearing Light Being said,

00:55:02.080 Ian being so respectful of Candace's show to the point he was afraid to say hell.

00:55:05.540 I genuinely didn't know and I didn't want to make a mistake.

00:55:08.600 And I kind of like, I used to teach a lot.

00:55:10.800 And so I kind of like getting back to my roots where you, you know,

00:55:13.180 you're just making family-friendly content.

00:55:14.940 It's a good feeling.

00:55:16.480 At NCD48, all this and more on Candace.

00:55:19.860 Then I was kind of hoping for a baby Ian Carroll montage.

00:55:22.500 Yeah, don't hold your breath.

00:55:23.940 But maybe we'll do something like that at the end of the time I'm here.

00:55:28.120 I don't know.

00:55:29.640 At Faith Based Living 939 says,

00:55:32.100 As a mother of four, thank you, Ian, for exposing these types of mafias. 1.00

00:55:35.160 I mean, businesses.

00:55:36.220 Yeah, if you haven't seen the episode that we did about Urban Air yet,

00:55:39.220 both of the last episodes this week were about this crazy breaking story at Urban Air.

00:55:43.500 And don't worry, we will be doing a whole bunch more about that whole debacle next week.

00:55:48.760 We're just taking our time to get the story straight,

00:55:50.960 to compile all the documents that we have and to really put together a great story

00:55:54.860 because we don't, we want to do the best we can for Tiffany Sianci,

00:55:58.380 for all the other children and families that have been affected by this

00:56:01.420 and hopefully to make a change.

00:56:03.140 So at Cheryl Lynn 101 says,

00:56:05.640 My husband strapped the harness for our nine-year-old and tested the clip system at a couple of these places.

00:56:10.640 He was more aware of the risks than me.

00:56:12.440 We've even gone to indoor rock climbing locales too, where he insisted on checking everything.

00:56:16.940 He didn't care about offending people or pissing someone off, just measured insistence.

00:56:20.720 Hearing this story makes me love him even more.

00:56:23.040 Thanks, Ian.

00:56:23.680 You did great.

00:56:24.720 That is a good man.

00:56:26.320 More healthy masculinity where you're taking care of your family, making sure your kids are safe.

00:56:30.340 Do not outsource your children's safety to an underpaid 16-year-old at a private equity-owned trampoline park.

00:56:37.920 That is never a good idea.

00:56:40.340 At Ale de la Cueva said,

00:56:43.980 My daughter worked at Urban Air.

00:56:45.380 She was 16.

00:56:46.500 She complained she received no training and had to harness the children.

00:56:50.200 She quit because she said management was irresponsible.

00:56:52.960 The place was a mess.

00:56:54.200 Parents need to be aware of this place and that we are seeing at these places.

00:56:57.860 Thank you for bringing awareness to this.

00:56:59.480 Yes, I'm glad your daughter got out and is safe, and no horrible scandals happened right on her watch.

00:57:06.320 At Gmatic Leon said,

00:57:08.220 Tiffany is almost single-handedly raising awareness of how private equity is destroying small family-owned businesses.

00:57:13.980 You are so right.

00:57:14.980 Tiffany is an absolute rock star, a legend, and her story has been, she's been working so hard to get her story out,

00:57:21.340 and it's just an honor to be able to help tell that story and to help spread awareness of not only what she went through,

00:57:26.580 but what all these other families went through in secret arbitration that they were not able to speak about until now,

00:57:32.420 and I just, I cannot but hope the best for all of these people that have been so harmed by it.

00:57:37.440 And it's a real tragedy.

00:57:39.620 So, on a positive note, it's been really humbling to see your response to me.

00:57:44.440 Thanks for all the wonderful comments.

00:57:46.100 It's really fun to read through them and giggle, share them with the crew,

00:57:49.800 and just generally have a good time with you guys and with everyone here at The Candace Show.

00:57:55.580 So, this is just the first week, getting my bearings, getting our stories straight.

00:58:01.500 Next week, we got a whole bunch of bangers coming at you, too.

00:58:05.120 But for now, that's all for this week.

00:58:07.460 Be sure to like this video, share it with all your friends, subscribe to Candace's channel.

00:58:12.140 Mine is linked below.

00:58:14.220 Go off and have a great weekend.

00:58:16.280 Stay healthy, be happy, and we'll see you next week.

00:58:19.720 We'll see you next week.

Candace Owens - May 15, 2025

SHOCKING! The Sinister Group Behind Your Grocery Items ｜ Candace Ep 186

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