Corporations are a big problem.

Take a small business, I have two of them. All I need to make is enough to pay the people who work with me, have enough left over for myself, and that's it.

A corporation, on the other hand, have 49% of the people as stockholders, who do no work in the corporation. And they want their stock to be worth more and more and more and more and more every quarter.

That means the corporation has to figure out ways to make more and more and more and more and more profit every quarter.

The small business has no need to increase it's worth, just to keep up with inflation. Anything else is extra but not necessary.

Unlike the small biz, if the corp doesn't make more and more and more, the stockholders will bail out. Who needs to own stock that is just keeping up with inflation? Or worse, not even.

So how can the corp keep growing. Perpetual growth in a closed system is impossible.

So they can raise prices while they shrink the size of the product. They can hire cheaper labor, which cuts quality. They can buy cheaper raw products. They can shorten the life of their products, so you have to replace them sooner and sooner. And they can do a number of other things that are good for the stockholders, but bad for the consumers.

I don't know of a better system, communism didn't work, it had an opposite set of problems. But being aware of how corporationalism works at least helps you make better decisions on what and how to buy.

Absolutely be aware of the system. I've been trying to switch my buying to smaller companies, and I already have a regional bank. I've cut way back on automatic shipments -- they are supposed to save me money, but now I'm not even sure about that. But they have a habit of sending stuff in confusing clumps that take more money than I wanted to spend. I won't do it with big places anymore, but I trust the Naked Whey people And they should get the money, not someplace else which plays games like that.

Regulated capitalism is better than the Wild Wild West approach, which has been tried and failed repeatedly. We still have regulations on the books. And they are getting pressured by the sheer numbers of people who are not following the guidelines and are all the better for it. And talk about it.

The military might influence things because this is what they have to feed everyone and they are not getting good results.

Back to the IRONY (get it? heme iron?) of putting animal fat into a plant-based product.

You will cut out the vegans then. I agree that this is a bizarre move. Won't that kill people? Isn't that what animal fat does?

I don't believe some of the artificial ingredients I read on vegan products. Even their soups, based on vegetable broths and sugar, doesn't seem like anything that nourishes, to my label-discerning gaze.

Sadly, the effect of corporations and their major campaign contributions to both political parties causes the regulations to be eroded, little by little.

I'm sure there is no perfect solution, no utopia, so we have to each be careful. Knowing what the problem is, helps us make better decisions for ourselves.