The Beginning: (1863-1913)

The Middle East is the center of the world. As time goes on, this region will come to dominate news and events to a greater degree than before. Understanding the regions requires us to understand 3 key imperatives; Islam, Jews/Zionism, and oil. The oil industry’s key figure is the Rockefeller family.

 The story of oil is synonymous with the story of John D Rockefeller- the founder of the mighty Standard Oil Company. His rise to fortune has become a legend. It was as if a door had opened for a brief moment and John managed to squeeze in before it closed. It was the random collision of a man with a brief, but, limited opportunity. Never before had it been possible for an individual to build an empire in such a short time – but John did it. He was born in 1839. Rockefeller’s early life hardly seemed the making of a near billionaire. His father was a peddler who often struggled to make ends meet. His mother stayed at home to raise their six children. They moved around upstate New York—from Richford to Moravia to Oswego—and eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. John D. was the oldest son. Although he didn’t have new suits or a fashionable home, his family life was stable. From his father he learned how to earn money and hold on to it; from his mother he learned to put God first in his life, to be honest, and to help others.

“From the beginning,” Rockefeller said, “I was trained to work, to save, and to give.” He did all three of these things shortly after he graduated from the Cleveland public high school. He always remembered the “momentous day” in 1855, when he began work at age sixteen as an assistant bookkeeper for 50 cents per day.

On the job Rockefeller had a fixation for honest business. He later said, “I had learned the underlying principles of business as well, as many men acquire them by the time they are forty.” His first partner, Maurice Clark, said that Rockefeller “was methodical to an extreme, careful as to details and exacting to a fraction. If there was a cent due us he wanted it. If there was a cent due a customer he wanted the customer to have it.” Such precision irritated some debtors, but it won him the confidence of many Cleveland businessmen; at age nineteen Rockefeller went into the grain shipping business on Lake Erie and soon began dealing in thousands of dollars. Rockefeller saw a strong spiritual life as crucial to an effective business life. He tithed from his first paycheck and gave to his church, a foreign mission, and the poor. He sought Christians as business partners and later as employees. One of his fellow churchmen, Samuel Andrews, was investing in oil refining; and this new frontier appealed to young John. He joined forces with Andrews in 1865 and would apply his same precision and honesty to the booming oil industry.

Discovering Crude Oil

The discovery of large quantities of crude oil in northwest Pennsylvania soon changed the lives of millions of Americans. For centuries, people had known of the existence of crude oil scattered about America and the world. They just didn’t know what to do with it. Farmers thought it a nuisance and tried to plow around it; others bottled it and sold it as medicine.

In 1859, the world’s first successful well was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania, thus igniting the oil boom. The oil was carted out of the fields to be refined in Pittsburg, and then in refineries that sprung up in Cleveland, only a few blocks from John’s wholesale business. In 1863, two things happened: the first was a direct rail link was built between Cleveland, Pennsylvania to New York; and the second was the addition of a third partner Samuel Andrews, into the wholesale business, along with a proposition to go into the refining business. John D now analyzed the oil business, and decided that of the four phases, production, transport, refining, and marketing, he focused on the refining phase.

 Business procedure in the new industry was still primitive and there was much inefficiency. Always alert to any tendency in willful waste, John D was in his element and lost no time in asserting himself. Instead of continuing to be dependent on others for delivery of crude, which was irregular, the firm soon had its own fleet of wagons. Instead of buying barrels of different quality, John bought up stands of strong oak and built the barrels in his own factory, thus reducing the cost of a barrel from $2.50 to .96 c. The training and discipline to which he had subjugated his life soon began paying dividends.

 In 1865, John D bought out his partner for $72,000 and renamed the firm Rockefeller and Andrews, which was now the largest refiner in Cleveland. The business was expanding all the time. He convinced his brother, William to join the business, and sent him to New York to handle the export trade. John borrowed heavily to expand the refinery, reinvesting all the profits back into the business. John D once remarked: “The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee, and I pay more for that ability than for any under the sun”. He found top men to become his lieutenants in the firm, and they all came with money as shareholders in his firm, such as his brother William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, chemist Samuel Andrews, silent partner Stephen V. Harkness, and Oliver Burr Jennings, who had married the sister of William Rockefeller’s wife.

In 1870, Rockefeller abolished the partnership and incorporated Standard Oil in Ohio. Of the initial 10,000 shares, John D. Rockefeller received 2,667; Harkness received 1,334; William Rockefeller, Flagler, and Andrews received 1,333 each; Jennings received 1,000, and the firm of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler received 1,000. Rockefeller chose the “Standard Oil” name as a symbol of the reliable “standards” of quality and service that he envisioned for the nascent oil industry. In short, John D and his brother William owned a combined share of 45% of Standard Oil.

In the early years, John D. Rockefeller dominated the combine; he was the single most important figure in shaping the new oil industry. He quickly distributed power and the tasks of policy formation to a system of committees, but always remained the largest shareholder. Authority was centralized in the company’s main office in Cleveland, but decisions in the office were made in a cooperative way.

Consumers were not only choosing Standard Oil over that of his competitors; they also preferred it to coal oil, whale oil, and electricity. Millions of Americans illuminated their homes with Standard Oil for one cent per hour; in doing so, they made Rockefeller the wealthiest man in American history. America had become hooked on kerosene.

Rockefeller was intrigued with the future of the oil industry, but was repelled by its past. He shunned the drills and derricks and chose the refining end instead. Refining eventually became very costly, but in the 1860s the main supplies were only barrels, a trough, a tank, and a still in which to boil the oil. The yield would usually be about 60 per cent kerosene, 10 per cent gasoline, 5 to 10 per cent benzol or naphtha, with the rest being tar and wastes.

High prices and dreams of quick riches brought many into refining, and this attracted Rockefeller as well. But right from the start, he believed that the path to success was to cut waste and produce the best product at the lowest price, he used the gasoline for fuel, some of the tars for paving, and shipped the naphtha to gas plants. They also sold lubricating oil, Vaseline, and paraffin for making candles. The company grew by increasing sales and through acquisitions. After purchasing competing firms, Rockefeller shut down those he believed to be inefficient and kept the others. In a seminal deal, in 1868, the Lake Shore Railroad, a part of the New York Central, gave Rockefeller’s firm a going rate of one cent a gallon or forty-two cents a barrel, an effective 71% discount from its listed rates in return for a promise to ship at least 60 carloads of oil daily and to handle, load and unload on its own. Smaller companies decried such deals as unfair because they were not producing enough oil to qualify for discounts.

Rockefeller was constantly looking for ways to save. For example, he built his refineries well. John’s hatred of waste told him that in a large organization, the rescued pennies multiplied a million times or more, represented enormous potential gains. Thus, every aspect of the production and transportation process were scrutinized and constantly reduced in costs.  Barrels were cut $1.25, saving $4 million a year; cans were reduced 15 c, saving $5 million a year, and so on.

Under Rockefeller’s leadership, they plowed the profits into bigger and better equipment. As their volume increased, they hired chemists and developed 300 by-products from each barrel of oil. These ranged from paint and varnish to dozens of lubricating oils to anesthetics. As for the main product, kerosene, Rockefeller made it so cheaply that whale oil, coal oil, and, for a while, electricity lost out in the race to light American homes, factories, and streets. “We had vision,” Rockefeller later said. “We saw the vast possibilities of the oil industry, stood at the center of it, and brought our knowledge and imagination and business experience to bear in a dozen, in twenty, in thirty directions. ”Standard’s actions and secret transport deals helped its kerosene price to drop from 58 to 26 cents from 1865 to 1870. Competitors disliked the company’s business practices, but consumers liked the lower prices. Standard Oil, amid a demand for oil other than for heat and light, was well placed to control the growth of the oil business. The company was to own and control all aspects of the trade.

Some of the oil producers were unhappy, but American consumers were pleased that Rockefeller was selling cheap oil. Before 1870, only the rich could afford whale oil and candles. The rest had to go to bed early to save money. By the 1870s, with the drop in the price of kerosene, middle and working class people all over the nation could afford the one cent an hour that it cost to light their homes at night. Working and reading became after-dark activities new to most Americans in the 1870s.

Transportation

 At first, both crude oil and its refined products moved by wagon, then by railroad, and finally by pipeline. As we have seen, the railroads and Standard Oil benefitted mutually, through the system of rebates, but, over time John D built his own network of pipelines, barges and ships, so as not to be dependent on any one company. Dealing with railroads was largely moot to Standard Oil’s interests since long-distance oil pipelines were now their preferred method of transportation.

Oil is unlike any other commodity on earth. Once it comes out of the ground it has to be stored and transported in close vessels or containers- if not, being liquid, it will seep back into the ground, or evaporate and will be lost. Those who have a monopoly on the storage and transportation infrastructure of oil will command immense leverage to demand better terms from the producers. And because storage is expensive, the oil has to be moved to market.

Competition is a Sin

There were 39 refineries in Cleveland. By 1872, it was all owned by John D, with the inefficient ones being closed down. Those that sold out to Standard profited. Those that didn’t suffered. Where the Standard could not carry on its expansion by peaceful means, it was ready with violence. By 1875, Standard became the largest refiner in America and the world, with a 95% share of the market.

 During the next decade Standard crunched its way over the independents in the refining and transportation sectors of the oil industry. Aside from its harsh method of dealing with competition, the Rockefeller combine was favored by technological breakthroughs which made it difficult for smaller refiners to stay in business. In one decade, the cost of building an efficient refinery increased ten-fold. The financial panic of 1873 also eliminated a number of competitors.

The campaign for consolidation permitted John little rest, and engaged his generals on many fronts at once. Between 1865 and 1880, Standard Oil destroyed any semblance of competition using any means and tactics to ensure his success. John D’s methods of operations turned public resentment against him and his partners.

Neutralizing Political Pressure

Public reactions to the criminal activities of John D, Standard Oil, and his associates erupted in 1878, in an endless series of indictments, investigations, court actions and legal enactments.  His methods of establishing an oil monopoly turned the public against him. In order to protect himself from political and legal attacks, John D went into the political business.  He went onto acquire political power to protect his economic wealth, for without “political insurance”, John would be tied down, and would not be free to operate his business.

 The most famous example is in 1907, when Judge K. M. Landis fined Standard Oil of Indiana over $29 million. The charge was taking rebates. But Rockefeller, who had testified at the trial, was unruffled. On the day of the verdict, he chose to play golf with friends. In the middle of their game, a frantic messenger came running through the fairways to deliver the bad news to Rockefeller. He calmly looked at the telegram, put it away, and said, “Landis will be dead a long time before this fine is paid ” Then he hit his ball a convincing 160 yards as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

 He fiercely resented government interference in his private business.  He would fight back as keenly and methodically as he had tackled other issues.  Two choices faced him; first was to compromise with a powerful enemy – by joining forces with the enemy; and the second was to understand the enemy – in order to destroy him. John used both tactics to devastating effect.

 John wanted to control the nation’s manufacturing, commerce, finance, transportation, and natural resources of America, and to do that would require the elimination of all competition. If John wanted to control the world of business in America, he had to control the American government.  For this, he had to have the government on his side. The problem was that the government would not willingly come to his side. To overcome this, he set about taking over the government by bribery, patronage and corruption, and control of the underworld element. Elimination of the competition was also achieved through the use of labor unions – first organized by gangsters on the Standard Oil payroll. Since then till the present, the labor unions have always been under Rockefeller control. The enemies who confronted John were three; the Wall Street crowd, who he kept on beating, the government and the “liberal” crowd. 

Within days of the Landis decree, Wall Street suffered a severe stock market crash. Such fear gripped the country that many in Washington and Wall Street believed it was time to go easy on Standard Oil. In fear and haste, the US Circuit Court reversed the Landis decree.

The effectiveness with which the welfare and liberal crowd had been used in the campaign against him and his company impressed John. They could be made to fit into the pattern of philanthropy”. They were cheaply bought off.  He took them over lock, stock and barrel. The efforts to take over the government at state and national level continued.

The Intelligence Operations

Ferdinand Lundberg in his book “The Rich & the Super Rich”, has observed: “ In studying the history  of Standard Oil  by any author, pro or con, clearly shows, John D Rockefeller was of a conspiratorial , scheming nature, always planning years ahead with a clarity of vision that went far beyond anything any of his associates had to offer”.

 John D specialized in operating through others, just as the family does today. He hired agents everywhere, amongst competitors, politicians, and in the media.  He found plenty of people who could be bought.

 His intelligence and industrial espionage system was by far the most elaborate, and most successful that had ever been established outside the Rothschild system. A portion of the Rockefeller intelligence infrastructure was used to set up the OSS (in 1941) and its successor the CIA in 1947. To all intents and purposes, the CIA is an entity fully operated and controlled by the Rockefeller Empire. From inception till his death in 1979, Nelson Rockefeller was the power at the CIA. Upon his death, Henry Kissinger took over that role for his boss, David Rockefeller. The cost of running the CIA is borne by the government, while all the benefits accrue to the Empire.

 The trouble with fighting John D  was that you never knew where he was. Shady men came and went by his front door, and shady companies used his back door as a mailing address. For a long time the public did not realize how powerful he was because he kept insisting he was battling firms that he secretly owned outright. His rivals discovered that their most trusted executives were in his pocket. The tentacles of the octopus were everywhere.

 One Cleveland refiner made a last ditch effort to save his company from a Standard Oil takeover by going to Peru for oil. He found it had all been bought by a company which was a subsidiary of another company, in turn owned by the Anglo American Oil Co of England, which, in turn belonged to Standard. Soon, his firm was just a satellite in the Rockefeller oil empire.

“The Standard Oil Family”

At one level, Standard’s ability to sell oil at close to a nickel a gallon meant hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans in general and Standard Oil in particular. In Standard Oil, Rockefeller arguably built the most successful business in American history. In running it, he showed the precision of a bookkeeper and the imagination of an entrepreneur. Yet, in day-to-day operations, he led quietly and inspired loyalty by example. You ask me what makes Rockefeller the unquestioned leader in our group,” said John Archbold, later a president of Standard Oil. “Well, it is simple. In business we all try to look ahead as far as possible. Some of us think we are pretty able. But Rockefeller always sees a little further ahead than any of us—and then he sees around the corner.”

Some of these peeks around the corner helped Rockefeller pick the right people for the right jobs. He had to delegate a great deal of responsibility, and he always gave credit—and sometimes large bonuses—for work well done. Paying higher than market wages was Rockefeller’s controversial policy: he believed it helped slash costs in the long ran.  Also, he could recruit and keep the top talent and command their future loyalty.

Rockefeller treated his top managers as conquering heroes and gave them praise. He knew that good ideas were almost priceless: they were the foundation for the future of Standard Oil. Long vacations at full pay were Rockefeller’s antidotes for his weary leaders. He fought the Russians, using his spies and his authority to stop them and outsell them; but he never slandered them or threatened them. No matter what, Rockefeller never lost his temper, either. Not one—son, daughter, friend, or foe—could ever recall Rockefeller losing his temper or even being perturbed. He was always calm. Even more remarkable than Rockefeller’s serenity was his diligence in tithing. From the time of his first job, where he earned 50 cents a day, the 16-year old Rockefeller gave to his local Baptist church, to missions in New York City and abroad, and to the poor—black or white. As his salary increased, so did his giving. By the time he was 45 he was up to $100,000 per year; at age 53, he topped the $1million mark in his annual giving. His eightieth year was his most generous: $138 million he happily gave away. The more he earned the more he gave, and the more he gave the more he earned.  And Rockefeller loved God much more than his money. So when Rockefeller proclaimed: “God gave me my money,” he did so in humility and in awe of the way he believed God worked.

Standard Oil Trust

 Standard was becoming too big for Cleveland, and John moved with his family to New York. Standard followed. The world of business was changing due to technological and management advances. Local industry was being swept aside by national competitors, operating efficiently, offering lower prices, and rapid transportation. The invention of the trust persuaded John to announce that “individualism is gone, never to return”.

In response to state laws trying to limit the scale of companies, Rockefeller and his associates developed innovative ways of organizing, to effectively manage their fast growing enterprise. On January 2, 1882, they combined their disparate companies, spread across dozens of states, under a single group of trustees. By a secret agreement, the existing 37 stockholders conveyed their shares “in trust” to nine trustees: John and William Rockefeller, Oliver H. Payne, Charles Pratt, Henry Flagler, John D. Archbold, William G. Warden, Jabez Bostwick, and Benjamin Brewster. This organization proved so successful that other giant enterprises adopted this “trust” form.

In 1885, Standard Oil of Ohio moved its headquarters from Cleveland to its permanent headquarters at 26 Broadway in New York- the most famous address in the world for 5 decades. John and his fellow directors lunched here daily, and sat in conference. Here, in utmost privacy, confidential news was brought by agents and informers throughout the world, was discussed and policies determined. It was the supreme council of an economic empire, the likes of which the world had not seen before!

 From 1882 to 1906, Standard paid out $548,436,000 in dividends at 65.4% payout ratio. The total net earnings from 1882 to 1906 amounted to $838,783,800, exceeding the dividends by $290,347,800, which was used for plant expansions. In 1896, John Rockefeller retired from the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, the holding company of the group, but remained president and a major shareholder. Vice-president Archbold took a large part in the running of the firm. In the year 1904, Standard Oil controlled 91% of oil refinement and 85% of final sales in the United States. At this point in time, state and federal laws sought to counter this development with antitrust laws. In 1911, the U.S. Justice Department sued the group under the federal antitrust law and ordered its breakup into 34 companies.

Standard Oil’s market position was initially established through an emphasis on efficiency and responsibility. While most companies dumped gasoline in rivers (this was before the automobile was popular), Standard used it to fuel its machines. While other companies’ refineries piled mountains of heavy waste, Rockefeller found ways to sell it. For example, Standard created the first synthetic competitor for beeswax and bought the company that invented and produced Vaseline, the Chesebrough Manufacturing Co., which was a Standard company only from 1908 until 1911.

The Standard Oil Trust was controlled by a small group of families. Rockefeller stated in 1910: “I think it is true that the Pratt family, the Payne–Whitney family (which were one, as all the stock came from Colonel Payne), the Harkness-Flagler family (which came into the company together) and the Rockefeller family controlled a majority of the stock during all the history of the company up to the present time”.

These families reinvested most of the dividends in other industries, especially railroads. They also invested heavily in the gas and the electric lighting business (including the giant Consolidated Gas Co. of New York City). They made large purchases of stock in U.S. Steel, Amalgamated Copper, and even Corn Products Refining Co.

In China

Standard Oil’s production increased so rapidly it soon exceeded U.S. demand and the company began viewing export markets. In the 1890s, Standard Oil began marketing kerosene to China’s large population of close to 400 million as lamp fuel. Response was positive, sales boomed and China became Standard Oil’s largest market in Asia. Prior to Pearl Harbor, Stanvac was the largest single U.S. investment in Southeast Asia.

 The Break UP

 In 1909, the U.S. Justice Department sued Standard under federal antitrust law, the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, for sustaining a monopoly and restraining interstate commerce by: Rebates, preferences, and other discriminatory practices in favor of the combination by railroad companies; restraint and monopolization by control of pipe lines, and unfair practices against competing pipe lines; contracts with competitors in restraint of trade; unfair methods of competition, such as local price cutting at the points where necessary to suppress competition; [and] espionage of the business of competitors, the operation of bogus independent companies, and payment of rebates on oil, with the like intent.

By 1911, with public outcry at a climax, the Supreme Court  ruled, that Standard Oil of New Jersey must be dissolved under the Sherman Antitrust Act and split into 34 companies. Two of these companies were Standard Oil of New Jersey (Jersey Standard or Esso), which eventually became Exxon, and Standard Oil of New York (Socony), which eventually became Mobil; those two companies later merged into ExxonMobil.

Successor Companies

The successor companies from Standard Oil’s breakup form the core of today’s US oil industry. (Several of these companies were considered among the Seven Sisters who dominated the industry worldwide for much of the 20th century.) They include:

• Standard Oil of New Jersey (SONJ) – or Esso (S.O.), or Jersey Standard – merged with Humble Oil to form Exxon, now part of ExxonMobil. Standard Trust companies Carter Oil, Imperial Oil (Canada), and Standard of Louisiana were kept as part of Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup.
• Standard Oil of New York – or Socony, merged with Vacuum – renamed Mobil, now part of ExxonMobil.
• Standard Oil of California – or Socal – renamed Chevron, became ChevronTexaco, but returned to Chevron.
• Standard Oil of Indiana – or Stanolind, renamed Amoco (American Oil Co.) – now part of BP.
• Standard’s Atlantic and the independent company Richfield merged to form Atlantic Richfield Company or ARCO, subsequently became part of BP, later sold to Tesoro, now part of Marathon Petroleum and in the process of being partially rebranded as Marathon. Atlantic operations were spun off and bought by Sunoco.
• Continental Oil Company – or Conoco – later merged with Phillips Petroleum Company to form ConocoPhillips, downstream & midstream operations since spun off to form Phillips 66.
• Standard Oil of Kentucky – or Kyso – was acquired by Standard Oil of California, currently Chevron.
• The Standard Oil Company (Ohio) – or Sohio – the original Standard Oil corporate entity, acquired by BP in 1987.
• The Ohio Oil Co. – or The Ohio – marketed gasoline under the Marathon name. The company’s upstream operations are now Marathon Oil while the downstream operation is now known as Marathon Petroleum.

A Boon for Consumers

Rockefeller quickly learned that he couldn’t please everyone by making cheap oil.  He decided to become the biggest and best refiner in the world. First, he put his chemists to work trying to extract even more from each barrel of crude. More important, he tried to integrate Standard Oil vertically and horizontally by getting dozens of other refiners to join him. Rockefeller bought their plants and talent; he gave the owners cash or stock in Standard Oil.

From Rockefeller’s standpoint, a few large vertically integrated oil companies could survive and prosper, but dozens of smaller companies could not. Many oil men rejected Rockefeller’s offer, but dozens of others all over America sold out to Standard Oil. When they did, Rockefeller simply shut down the inefficient companies and used what he needed from the good ones. Officers Oliver Payne, H. H. Rogers, and President John Archbold came to Standard Oil from these merged firms.

Just as Rockefeller reached the top, many predicted his demise. During the early 1880s, the entire oil industry was in jeopardy. The Pennsylvania oil fields were running dry and electricity was beginning to compete with lamps for lighting homes. No one knew about the oil fields out West, and few suspected that the gasoline engine would be the power source of the future. Meanwhile, the Russians had begun drilling and selling their abundant oil, and they raced to capture Standard Oil’s foreign markets. Some experts predicted the imminent death of the American oil industry; even Standard Oil’s loyal officers began selling some of their stock.

Rockefeller’s solution to these problems was to stake the future of his company on new oil discoveries near Lima, Ohio. Drillers found oil in this Ohio-Indiana region in 1885, but they could not market it. It had a sulphur base and stank like rotten eggs. Even touching this oil meant a long, soapy bath or social ostracism. No one wanted to sell or buy it and no city even wanted it shipped there. Only Rockefeller seemed interested in it. According to Joseph Seep, chief oil buyer for Standard Oil: Rockefeller went on buying leases in the Lima field in spite of the coolness of the rest of the directors, until he had accumulated more than 40 million barrels of that sulphurous oil in tanks. He must have invested millions of dollars in buying and storing and holding the sour oil for two years, when everyone else thought that it was no good.

Rockefeller had hired two chemists to figure out how to purify the oil; he counted on them to make it usable. Rockefeller’s partners were skeptical, however, and sought to stanch the flood of money invested in tanks, pipelines, and land in the Lima area. They “held up their hands in holy horror” at Rockefeller’s gamble and even outvoted him at a meeting of Standard’s Board of Directors. “Very well, gentlemen,” said Rockefeller. “At my own personal risk, I will put up the money to care for this product: $2 million-S3 million, if necessary.” Rockefeller told what then happened:

 “This ended the discussion, and we carried the Board with us and we continued to use the funds of the company in what was regarded as a very hazardous investment of money. But we persevered, and two or three of our practical men stood firmly with me and constantly occupied themselves with the chemists until at last, after millions of dollars had been expended in the tankage and buying the oil and constructing the pipelines and tank cars to draw it away to the markets where we could sell it for fuel, one of our German chemists cried “Eureka!” We . . . at last found ourselves able to clarify the oil”. The “worthless” Lima oil that Rockefeller had stockpiled suddenly became valuable; Standard Oil would be able to supply cheap kerosene for years to come. Rockefeller’s exploit had come none too soon: the Russians struck oil at Baku, four square miles of the deepest and richest oil land in the world. They hired European experts to help Russia conquer the oil markets of the world. In 1882, the year before Baku oil was first exported, America refined 85 per cent of the world’s oil; six years later this dropped to 53 per cent. Since most of Standard’s oil was exported, and since Standard accounted for 90 per cent of America’s exported oil, the Baku threat had to be met.

Duel With the Rothschilds

At first glance, Standard Oil seemed certain to lose. First, the Baku oil was centralized in one small area: this made it economical to drill, refine, and ship from a single location. Second, the Baku oil was more plentiful: its average yield was over 280 barrels per well per day, compared with 4.5 barrels per day from American wells. Third, Baku oil was highly viscous: it made a better lubricant (though not necessarily a better illuminant) than oil in Pennsylvania or Ohio. Fourth, Russia was closer to European and Asian markets: Standard Oil had to bear the costs of building huge tankers and crossing the ocean with them. One independent expert estimated that Russia’s costs of oil exporting were one-third to one-half of those of the United States. Finally, Russia and other countries slapped high protective tariffs on American oil; this allowed inefficient foreign drillers to compete with Standard Oil. The Austro-Hungarian empire, for example, imported over half a million barrels of American oil in 1882; but, by 1890 they were buying none. What was worse, local refiners there marketed a low-grade oil in barrels labeled “Standard Oil Company.” This allowed the Austro-Hungarians to dump their cheap oil and damage Standard’s reputation at the same time.

Rockefeller pulled out all stops to meet the Russian challenge. No small refinery would have had a chance; even a large vertically integrated company like Standard Oil was at a great disadvantage. Rockefeller never lost his vision, though, of conquering the oil markets of the world. First, he relied on his research team to help him out. William Burton, who helped clarify the Lima oil, invented “cracking,” a method of heating oil to higher temperatures to get more use of the product out of each barrel. Engineers at Standard Oil helped by perfecting large steamship tankers, which cut down on the costs of shipping oil overseas.

Second, Rockefeller made Standard Oil even more efficient. He used less iron in making barrel hoops and less solder in sealing oil cans. In a classic move, he used the waste (culm) from coal heaps to fuel his refineries; even the sweepings from his factory he sorted through for tin shavings and solder drops.

Third, Rockefeller studied the foreign markets and learned how to beat the Russians in their part of the world. He sent Standard agents into dozens of countries to figure out how to ship oil up the Hwang Ho River in China, along the North Road in India, to the east coast of Sumatra, and to the huts of tribal chieftains in Malaya. He even used spies, often foreign diplomats, to help him sell oil and tell him what the Russians were doing. He used different strategies in different areas. Europeans, for example, wanted to buy kerosene only in small quantities, so Rockefeller supplied tank wagons to sell them oil street by street. As Allan Nevins notes: Rockefeller’s focus on quality meant that, in an evenly balanced price war with Russia, Standard Oil would win. The Russian-American oil war was hotly contested for almost 30 years after 1885. In most markets, Standard’s known reliability would prevail, if it could just get its price close to that of the Russians. In some years this meant that Rockefeller had to sell oil for 5.2 cents a gallon—leaving almost no profit margin—if he hoped to win the world. This he did; and Standard often captured two-thirds of the world’s oil trade from 1882 to 1891 and a somewhat smaller portion in the decade after this.

Rockefeller and his partners always knew that their victory was a narrow triumph of efficiency over superior natural advantages. “If,” as John Archbold said in 1899, “there had been as prompt and energetic action on the part of the Russian oil industry as was taken by the Standard Oil Company, the Russians would have dominated many of the world markets . . . .”

The Players

1. The Nobel Brothers:  Alfred and Ludwig Noble, Swedish industrialists won a contract to manufacture rifles for the Russian government. Needing wood for the rifle stocks, Ludwig went south to Baku as he had heard that most of the wood was being used to build barrels for crude oil. Once in Baku, Alfred fell in love with the oil business. He plunged into it with everything he had. They spent millions in building pipelines, tankers, and modern refineries, and by 1879, Baku was producing 1 million barrels a year. The Nobels dominated the Russian kerosene markets. In 1920, they sold out to Standard Oil. Part of the proceeds went to establish the Nobel Peace Foundation, from which we get the annual Nobel Peace Prize, and other awards.
2. Royal Dutch: Indonesia was a Dutch colony. In 1880, oil was discovered in Sumatra. Ten years later, a royal charter was granted to the Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. Henri Deterding became president of Royal Dutch in 1896. The company successfully listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

Deterding’s first assignment on joining Royal Dutch  was to help Kessler, its founder, beat back a takeover bid by Standard Oil, which was trying to buy control of Royal Dutch  by purchasing large blocks of stock. The takeover attempt was blocked. Standard retaliated by declaring a price was in India and Malaysia, the only markets Royal Dutch had thus far managed to penetrate.

• The French Rothschilds: Of the two branches of the family, the French branch was more invested in industry and commercial enterprises. In this manner, the family had bought a refinery on the Adriatic coast of Italy, in Fiume (which was bombed by the PLO in 1984), and this investment brought them into the oil business. In 1879, the family lent money to two businessmen to complete a railroad from Baku to Batumi – a port on the Black Sea. In return, they took a mortgage on the Russian oil facilities of these two, and were guaranteed shipments of Russian oil to Europe at attractive prices.

Altogether, Russian oil production rose ten-fold between 1879 and 1888, reaching 23 m barrels annually- equal to 89% of America’s production. As the flood of oil rapidly grew in the 1889s, it needed to find its way to markets.

Rockefeller agents watched the Baku developments with growing alarm. The French Rothschilds became the largest importers of kerosene into the European markets. John D met the threat in a calm way. He sent his people to study the problems of direct marketing in Europe and Asia, determined to eliminate the middlemen, so he could cut the price of his products.

It was not until 1885 that John was ready to inaugurate his own distribution network abroad. In addition to building tankers to carry his products to foreign markets, Standard could no longer ignore the Russian threat. Russian kerosene was competing with American kerosene in Europe. Standard stepped up its intelligence-gathering efforts about foreign markets and its new competitors. Reports began flowing into 26 Broadway from all over the world, including from US diplomats who were on Standard’s payroll. In 1885, Ludwig Nobel even refused an offer from Standard to buy him out. Standard retaliated by dropping its European prices, and even resorted to sabotage and violence. Despite the ferocity of the assault, Nobel and the Rothschilds stood firm.

In 1885, the Rothschilds established their own oil importing and distribution networks in Britain. Galvanised into action, within 3 weeks, Standard set up its first foreign affiliate –the Anglo-American Oil Co. It also established new subsidiaries on the Continent, thus, making Standard a true multinational. By 1891, Standard had 71% of the market, while Russia’s had climbed to 29%.

• Shell Trading: For the Rothschilds, the problem of selling its oil was growing with each year. Somehow, the Rothschilds had to find a way around Standard into the world markets. They looked with great interest to Asia, where they saw hundreds of millions of customers for the “new light”. The family were old hands in the Asia trade – through their control of the opium markets from India to China, and other Asian countries under their control such as Japan and Australia. But, how to get the oil to them?

The French Rothschilds knew a shipping broker in London called Fred “Shady” Lane, who managed their oil interests there. He was a shipping expert, and now he had a solution to offer the Rothschilds. He knew of a certain trade called Marcus Samuel, and he put the two of them in touch.

Samuel was descended from Dutch Jews; the opening of trade with China and Japan provided the opportunity to expand his business, whose main item was selling a sea-shell covered small boxes- thus, the name of his company – Shell Trading.

 Throughout the entire world, new technologies were rapidly transforming international trade and commerce. In 1869, the Suez Canal was opened, cutting the distance from England to India by some 6,000kms. Steamships were replacing sail ships.  In 1870, the advent of the telegraph connected the world. For the first time, the world was linked together by global communications. Swift information now eliminated the months of waiting and suspense. These were the new tools of trade that Samuel would use.

 With the collaboration of the French branch, Samuel became heavily involved in distributing the Rothschild’s Baku oil. He recognized that there was no point in trying to break into the market unless he and his partners could undersell Standard – or at least avoid being understood by Standard. In order to assure that result, the campaign would have to be waged in all markets simultaneously, otherwise Standard would slash prices in markets where Samuel’s group was competing, and subsidize the price cuts by raising prices where they were not present. And finally speed- and secrecy- was essential. He knew he was girding for war with a ruthless opponent.

But exactly how was Samuel to fight this war? He needed tankers. Like John D with the railroads, Samuel understood the absolute need to master transportation costs. The Rothschilds, at this moment, were of two minds; they were never quite sure whether they wanted to compete with Standard, or reach an accommodation. To M Aron, the Rothschild’s chief oil man, Standard was always “this powerful company” was not to be trifled with. In 1891, Samuel and the Rothschilds reached an agreement to sell its oil east of Suez. The tankers he had already ordered represented a significant technological advance.

 The Standard quickly orchestrated opposition. In 1891, the British press was reporting rumors of a “powerful group of financiers and traders under “Hebrew influence”, who were trying to take tankers through the Suez Canal. But Samuel had powerful allies in the Rothschild family, whose English branch had helped finance the purchase of the Suez Canal in 1875, and who had by now been in control of the Canal. Samuel next embarked on a campaign to build storage tanks throughout Asia to receive this oil.

 On 23 August, 1892, Samuel’s first tanker, the Murex, passed through the Suez headed for the East. Standard’s shocked agents were taken by surprise. The implications were enormous. Soon, Samuel’s kerosene was everywhere. With his entry into the oil business, Samuel changed the name of his company to Shell Transport and Trading.

 The rapid rise of Russian production, the towering position of Standard, the struggle for markets – all were factors in what became known as the OIL WARS. In the 1890s, there was a continuing struggle involving three rivals – Standard, the Rothschild/Samuel crowd, and the Nobels. At one moment, they would be battling fiercely for markets, next they would be courting one another, trying to make a deal dividing the world markets between them; at still the next, they would be exploring mergers. On many occasions, they would be doing all three at the same time.

 In 1893, these three came close to bringing virtually all oil production into one system, by dividing the oil markets between them.  Noted M Aron;” In my opinion, this crisis has reached its end, for everybody in America and Russia is exhausted by this struggle to the death, that has gone on for so long”. Baron Alphonse Rothschild-the head of the French branch, was himself keen to get matters settled.  Accepting an invitation from standard, the Baron finally made it to New York and to 26 Broadway. After the meeting with the Baron, John Archbold reported to John D that the Baron was very courteous and fluent in English, adding that the Rothschilds would “immediately begin the steps toward control in Russia, and are quite confident of their ability to accomplish it”. But the Baron had firmly insisted that Standard bring the American independents into the contract.

 With great effort, the Rothschilds, joined by the Nobels, did succeed in getting all the Russian producers to agree to form a common front, as a prelude to a grand negotiation with Standard. But despite its 95% share of the American market, Standard failed to get the independent producers and refiners on board.  The agreement collapsed. In September 1894, Standard launched another price war. It also tried to buy out Samuel for $40 million, with no success. In March 1895, Standard reached an agreement with the Rothschild and a division was worked out, whereby Standard would get 75% and the Russians would get 25% of global market share. This agreement was scuttled due to opposition from the Russian government. Standard responded with another price war.

 Standard then launched a takeover bid for Royal Dutch on the Amsterdam exchange, but was foiled by Henri Deterding.

 Then, in 1897, London invited the American elite to a meeting in London that May. A deal was offered to the Americans, that in return for their helping Britain quash revolts in China, India and South Africa- America would be allowed to take over the Spanish colonies of  Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. The Spanish Fleet was sunk by the US Navy in Manila harbor,   in May 1898.  The Rothschilds needed to protect their opium monopoly in China, as opium was more important to them than oil, at that time.

 By 1900, the idea of combining all three, resulted in the formation of a marketing company called the Asiatic Petroleum Co. It would market oil products throughout the Far East. In this manner, Deterding managed to ensure a balance of power in Asia and Europe, and made it certain that Standard would never establish a global monopoly.

 At the same time, Samuel was suffering great financial losses in its disastrous price war in Europe, with Standard.  Caught in a financial squeeze, he was forced to sell 6 tankers to a German group, fronting for Standard.  This brought him to a humbling moment when he was forced to merge with Royal Dutch. Upon completion of the merger, Shell had 40%, while Royal Dutch had 60% of the merged company. And it is so till today.

 With the completion of the Trans Siberian Railroad in Russia in 1903, Baku oil was now being sold in China, resulting in a sharp drop of Standard’s sales there. This further upset John. It gave him one more reason to take Baku oil out of the picture. John was a long-range planner, and was itching for payback after suffering humiliating blows from the Rothschilds and Shell.

The 1905 Revolution & Joseph Jugashvilli

In 1902, Standard’s intelligence network got in touch with a Georgian revolutionary and gangster, Joseph Jugasvilli, aka Joseph Stalin. Stalin was employed by Standard as a covert agent in Baku. This is what he had to say: “three years of revolutionary work among the oil workers tempered me as a practical fighter and as one of the local leaders. I first discovered what it meant to lead large masses of workers. There in Baku, I received my second baptism in revolutionary combat”. What Stalin did for Standard in Baku was to incite labor unrest, political violence, strikes and murder. The aim was to destroy Baku’s oil infrastructure. When the revolution hit Russia in 1905, Stalin and his gang physically destroyed Baku’s oil infrastructure. The result was lower production, hurting the Rothschilds, Nobels, as well as removing the competitive supply of oil to China.  

With the outbreak of the 1905 revolution in Russia, Standard’s intelligence network released details of the Illuminati meeting in Frankfurt of 1773.  This was done through a Russian “cut-out”, Professor Sergei Nilius. Published in the same year, it became known to the world as “The Protocols of Zion”. This infuriated the Rothschild/Illuminati crowd as this meeting was never intended to see the light of day. The Jews tried hard to declare it a forgery, and the Rothschilds managed to get this banned in countries where they had control.

To make up for the lost production, the Rothschilds opened two new oil fields in Maikop and Grozny, not far from Baku. But even with the new production, the Rothschilds had grown tired of their Russian oil venture. They wanted out.  Oil was not their main focus, as oil made up a very small portion of their overall portfolio. Over a period of two years, negotiation with Royal Dutch Shell, resulted in the family selling its entire Russian oil interests to Shell, in return for shares in the company, thus making them the largest shareholders in Shell! When oil was discovered in Romania in the 1890s, Deterding’s Shell managed to gain complete control of it.

 He newly merged Royal Dutch Shell was capitalized at $107 million, and Deterding became its new head. For the next several years, Shell and Standard were locked in an all out price war. To counter Shell’s Rumanian output, Standard acquired its own fields in Asia, in order to hurt Shell there. The effect of this price war was ruinous to Standard.  It admitted defeat, and allowed Deterding to share the Chinese market, and agreed to stop the price wars.

The Battle for Mexico

 An American, Doheny, struck oil in Mexico in May 1901. He was followed by an English engineer, Weetman Pearson, who also brought in a tremendous gusher in Mexico. Pearson returned to London, got backing from the London Rothschilds and support from the British government, and formed the Mexican Eagle Oil Co.

 Doheny reached a deal to sell all his oil to Standard. Gusher after gusher blew in along the Mexican Gulf coast. Thus began the oil competition in Mexico. Both London and Washington got involved in this battle to win oil supremacy in Mexico. What followed was a decade of political turmoil, revolutions, counter-revolutions, thousands of deaths and a US military intervention. Famous names as Zapata, Pancho Villa, Huerta, Diaz and many others played a starring role here. Eventually, Standard put General Carranza into power, in 1912.

 Carranza double-crossed Standard when he proceeded to defend Mexican economic national sovereignty over Standard’s oil interests. Standard launched an intense campaign against him. In 1917, he formed Mexico’s first constitution, and in Article 27, he transferred ownership of Mexico’s oil to the state.  In 1920, he was assassinated.  In 1937, the Mexican government nationalized all foreign oil holdings. Thereafter the 2 families boycotted Mexico’s oil for the next 40 years.

Another oil war broke out in South America between Paraguay and Bolivia, between 1932-1935.The origin of the war is commonly attributed to a long-standing territorial dispute and the discovery of oil deposits on the eastern Andes range.  The impetus for war was exacerbated by a conflict between oil companies jockeying for exploration and drilling rights, with Royal Dutch Shell backing Paraguay and Standard Oil supporting Bolivia. The discovery of oil in the Andean foothills sparked speculation that the Chaco might prove a rich source of petroleum, and foreign oil companies were involved in the exploration. Standard Oil was already producing oil from wells in the high hills of eastern Bolivia.

 We have now a fair idea of how a nation is manipulated by the oil companies, as well as the titanic battles between the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds, often with the willing backing of their respective governments. As we shall see later, these two groups co-operated at times, and fought each other at other times, and so it is up till the present day.

William Rockefeller & Wall Street

 The state of New Jersey was friendly to Rockefeller interests. In 1882, it allowed the formation of the first holding company – the Standard Oil Co of New Jersey, which became the mother company of every other Standard Oil company. Overnight, the new holding company went from a capitalization of $70 m to $110m. John operated Standard so efficiently that it was throwing out huge cash surpluses, which were then invested in a variety of businesses. Standard Jersey was run as a bank within the oil industry. It became a power on Wall Street. And it was allied to Citibank and Kuhn Loeb. When the government introduced legislation to bring Standard down to size, in 1890-1892, John brought about the financial panic of 1893. The government ran out of gold, until John lent it $20 m in gold, to stabilize the markets, and it also acted as a warning to Washington not to be hard on Standard.

 The Rockefellers were not the type of investors who were satisfied with a 5% yield.  They intended to make large profits from the investment of their surplus cash as they had been accustomed to in their oil business. William Rockefeller had anticipated this development some years before. But it was not until the crash of 1893 that he and his associates on Wall Street began to reach out aggressively to control the destinies of corporations.

John D had sent his younger brother, William, to New York to oversee the export business. Standard would soon be exporting 40% of its production. The income from this was deposited in the First National City Bank, which name was later changed to Citicorp.  Citicorp was owned by the Stillman family. These deposits from Standard propelled Citi to become the largest bank in New York, and America. This relationship was further cemented by the marriage of the two sons of William, to Stillman’s two daughters. At this point, John’s wealth was $200m, while William’s was $100 m.

 The two brothers, along with their partners and associates, now combined to form a capital of a size unprecedented in American history.  Soon, the money markets felt the presence of the Standard Oil gang in strange ways, as they began buying companies, materials and industries. And now John D, with the aid of Stillman, began making strategic investments in many banks, insurance companies, railroads, public utilities, , but most of all , his taste led him to accumulate underground wealth, in iron ore, coal, copper, and oil.

 When the Merrit brothers discovered a massive iron ore deposit in Mesabi, Minnesota, they gambled all their money to develop it. When they ran short, they borrowed $420,000 from John D. When they again ran out of money, John D took over the mine, and later sold it to the Morgan interests for $90 million!  Under Rockefeller partner H. Rogers, the Standard money machine reached its highest perfection.

 The most notable investment was that of Amalgamated Copper, in which the Standard Oil men and Citibank collaborated. Rogers brought together several properties owned by Marcus Daly. They included the Anaconda Copper Co for $24 m, along with other properties for $15 m.  First, Rogers and William took title to the properties, giving Marcus a cheque for $39 m, with the understanding that the cheque was to be deposited in Citibank and remain there for a certain time. Simultaneously, Rogers organized the Amalgamated Copper Co. with a lot of clerks as dummy directors. Next, he transferred all the mines to Amalgamated for $75 m, in exchange for stock. Then he took these shares of Amalgamated to Citibank, borrowed $39 m on it, and this took care of the cheque to Daly. Eventually, this entire stock of shares was sold to the public; Citibank was repaid its $39 m, while Rogers and company made a cool $36 m, without using a dollar of their own.

 This was the “system” of the Standard gang. As a broker commented at that time “John is worth $500 m, and he is the one man who knows what everybody is doing, and nobody knows what he is doing”.

 After 1896, Standard Oil money flowed, through Citibank, into the spectacular railroad operations of Averill Harriman. The other major powers in America at that time was Morgan-running the banking system of the country, and Andrew Carnegie, who was tightening his grip on the steel industry. These three groups were very powerful, and were wary on tangling with one another. Eventually, Morgan bought out Carnegie, and formed US Steel. As a Morgan lieutenant commented in 1902,” How can you beat the Standard Oil group with their $60 million annual income?  They have control of all the industries, and will in a few years, own the whole country. I can see no stopping them”.

 When John retired at age 57, in 1896, he still kept extremely close tabs on his company. Standard Oil was the largest industrial corporation in the world, “the greatest profit-generating mechanism the world has ever to this day seen”. Standard was in almost all the countries of the world. And because Standard had destroyed any semblance of completion, John could charge whatever he wished for his product.

 In 1896, John was worth $400 m. That would prove to be peanuts.  Patents were being taken out on the car, and the internal combustion engine, and soon the oil business transited from kerosene to gasoline, multiplying many times over the value of Standard. By 1911, John was worth $2 billion. John always emphasized the role of God in his success.  When asked to explain the greatest fortune one man has ever accumulated, John said: “God gave me my money.”

Rockefeller’s Medical Mafia

At the same time, around 1900, scientists discovered “petrochemicals” and the ability to create all kinds of chemicals from oil. For example, the first plastic — called Bakelite — was made from oil in 1907. Scientists were also discovering various vitamins and guessed that many pharmaceutical drugs could be made from oil. This was a wonderful opportunity for Rockefeller who saw the ability to monopolize the oil, chemical and the medical industries at the same time! The best thing about petrochemicals was that everything could be patented and sold for high profits. But there was one problem with Rockefeller’s plan for the medical industry: natural/herbal medicines were very popular in America at that time. Almost half the doctors and medical colleges in the U.S. were practicing holistic medicine, using knowledge from Europe and Native Americans.

Rockefeller, the monopolist, had to figure out a way to get rid of his biggest competition. So he used the classic strategy of “problem-reaction-solution.” That is, create a problem and scare people, and then offer a (pre-planned) solution. (Similar to terrorism scare, followed by the “Patriot Act”).

He went to his buddy Andrew Carnegie – another plutocrat who made his money from monopolizing the steel industry – who devised a scheme. From the prestigious Carnegie Foundation, they sent a man named Abraham Flexner to travel around the country and report on the status of medical colleges and hospitals around the country. This led to the Flexner Report, which gave birth to the modern medicine as we know it. Needless to say, the report talked about the need for revamping and centralizing our medical institutions. Based on this report, more than half of all medical colleges were soon closed.

Homeopathy and natural medicines were mocked and demonized; and doctors were even jailed.

To help with the transition and to change the minds of other doctors and scientists, Rockefeller gave more than $100 million to colleges and hospitals, and founded a philanthropic front group called “General Education Board” (GEB). This is the classic carrot and stick approach. In a very short time, medical colleges were all streamlined and homogenized. All the students were learning the same thing, and medicine was all about using patented drugs. Scientists received huge grants to study how plants cured diseases, but their goal was to first identify which chemicals in the plant were effective, and then recreate a similar chemical –but not identical — in the lab that could be patented. A pill for an ill became the mantra for modern medicine. So, now we are, 100 years later, churning out doctors who know nothing about the benefits of nutrition or herbs or any holistic practices. We have an entire society that is enslaved to corporations for its well-being. America spends 15% of its GDP on healthcare, which should be really called “sick care.” It is focused not on cure, but only on symptoms, thus creating repeat customers. There is no cure for cancer, diabetes, autism, asthma, or even flu. Why would there be real cures? This is a system founded by oligarchs and plutocrats, not by doctors. As for cancer, the American Cancer Society was founded by none other than Rockefeller in 1913.

 John D Rockefeller stated that: “ I don’t want a nation of thinkers – I want a nation of workers “.

The Evils of Big Pharma

 The history of the last several centuries is one in which a handful of these oligarch families, primarily from Europe and the United States, have been controlling governments and wars to ruthlessly consolidate and maximize both power and control over the earth’s most precious resources to promote a New World Order of one totalitarian fascist government exercising absolute power and control over the entire global population. This group of oligarch families have systematically and effectively eliminated competition under the deceptive misnomer of a free enterprise system. Modernization is synonymous with globalization, privatization and militarization. Subsequently, an extremely small number of humans representing a privileged ruling elite has imposed a global caste system that’s hatched its long term diabolical plan to actualize its one world government. Sadly at this tumultuous moment in our human history, it’s never been closer to materialization.

Here in the early stages of the twenty-first century, a ruling elite has manipulated our planet of seven billion people into a global economic system of feudalism. Through pillaging and plundering the earth, setting up a cleverly deceptive financial system that controls the production and flow of fiat paper money using the US dollar as the standard international currency, they have turned the world’s citizens and nations into indentured servants, hopelessly in debt due to their grand theft planet.

 With Russia and China spearheading a shift away from the US dollar and petrodollar, and many smaller nations following their lead, a major shift in the balance of power is underway between Western and Eastern oligarchs. Thus, by design escalating calamity and crises are in overdrive at the start of 2015.

By examining one aspect of this grand theft planet through the story of Big Pharma, one can accurately recognize and assess Big Pharma’s success in its momentum-gathering power grab. Its story serves as a microcosm perfectly illustrating and paralleling the macrocosm that is today’s oligarch engineered, highly successful New World Order nightmare coming true right before our eyes that we’re all now up against. By understanding how this came to manifest, we will be better able to confront, challenge and oppose it.

Every year a handful of the biggest pharmaceutical corporations are a well-represented fixture amongst the most powerful Fortune 500 companies of the world. The twelve largest drug manufacturers and the eight largest drug delivery companies (or otherwise known as the drug channels companies) that include drug wholesalers, chain pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers (so called PBM’s) consist in total only 20 of the top 500 global corporations in the world. Thus, despite making up only 4% of the total Fortune 500 companies in 2014, both Big Pharma’s highly profitable revenues and absolute economic and political power in the United States and world are unprecedented.

  Big Pharma’s top eleven corporations generated net profits in just one decade from 2003 to 2012 of nearly three quarters of a trillion dollars – that’s just net profit alone. The net profit for 2012 amongst those top eleven amounted to $85 billion in just that one year. The majority of these largest pharmaceuticals are headquartered in the US – including the top four, Johnson & Johnson (#39 on Fortune 500 list), Pfizer (#51), Merck (#65) and Eli Lilly (#129) along with Abbott (#152) and Bristol Myers Squibb (#176). The healthcare research company IMS Health projects worldwide sales of Pharma drugs to exceed one trillion dollars by 2014. With that kind of obscenely powerful money to throw around, what Big Pharma wants, Big Pharma nearly always gets.

  Just as the oligarchs buy, own and control national governments to do their sleazy bidding, Big Pharma as an extension of those same oligarchs does too. Perhaps what makes Big Pharma unique in the US is that the industry outspends all others in laying down cold hard cash into its lobbying efforts – another word for bribing governments that includes not only US Congress (and parliaments) but its US federal regulator, the bought and sold Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And it’s this unholy trinity of the medical establishment (personified by the American Medical Association), embedded insurance industry that wrote Obamacare into law and Big Pharma that makes the United States the most costly, broken, corrupt, destructive healthcare system in the entire world. The structured system is designed and layered with built in incentives at every tier to make and keep people sick, chronically dependent on their drugs for survival that merely mask and smother symptoms rather than cure or eradicate the root cause of disease.

Also because natural healing substances cannot be patented, Big Pharma has done its sinister best to squelch any and all knowledge and information that come from the far more affordable means of alternative health sources that explore ancient traditional cultures’ medicinal use of hemp along with thousands of other plants and roots that could threaten drug profits and power of Big Pharma and modern medicine as they’re currently practiced and monopolized.

  Another cold hard reality is pharmaceutical drugs especially when consumed to manage chronic disease and symptoms cause severe side effects that also damage, harm and kill. The most prescribed drugs of all are painkillers that typically are highly addictive. Big Pharma with the help of their global army of doctors have purposely and calculatingly turned a large percentage of people, especially in the United States into hardcore drug addicts, both physically and psychologically addicted to artificial synthetic substances that are detrimental to our health and wealth.  Though the US contains just 5% of the world population, it consumes over half of all prescribed medication and a phenomenal 80% of the world’s supply of painkillers.  Because doctors now are forced to rely so heavily on drug companies for information about what they prescribe, they’re ill equipped and ill-informed in their lack of adequate knowledge and training to understand what all the interactive drugs are doing to toxically harm their human guinea pigs they call patients.

Then look at what we are now learning about Big Pharma vaccines and the wanton reckless endangerment of children and pregnant mothers with toxic levels of mercury causing increased rates of autism, brain damage and even death. India’s Supreme Court is currently looking into charging Bill Gates with criminal harm to many of its citizens especially children injured or killed by his global vaccine program. A growing number of critics believe Gates’ true aim is to eugenically reduce the world population from seven billion down to a “more manageable” size of half to one billion people. With the precedent of a well-documented history of horrifying eugenics practiced on the poor and most vulnerable in the US up till the 1980’s, oligarchs have been scheming to kill most of us on the planet for a long time now. The 2014 , West African experienced an outbreak of the most deadly Ebola virus ever, and it being patented as bio-warfare, and mounting evidence that it was purposely started by a joint US military-university research team in Sierra Leone causing its global spread, more people than ever have perished and a growing segment of the population suspect that it is being used as a weapon of mass destruction to effectively depopulate the earth. We can largely thank the demonic partnership between Big Pharma and US Empire for that.

To further control the global health system, Big Pharma has largely dictated what’s been taught in medical schools throughout North America, heavily subsidizing them as a means of dictating the conventional dogma that’s standard curriculum down to even the textbooks.  For a long time now doctors have been educated primarily to treat their patients with drugs, in effect becoming drug pushing, pharmaceutical whores, and mere foot soldiers in Big Pharma’s war on health. Thousands of doctors in the US are on Big Pharma payrolls. Typically early on in their careers physicians are unwittingly co-opted into this corrupt malaise of an irreparable system that’s owned and operated by Big Pharma.

But because Big Pharma’s never held accountable for its evildoing, it continues to literally get away with murder, not unlike the militant police, the CIA, Monsanto and the US Empire that willfully and methodically commit mass murder on a global scale or through false flag terrorism having its mercenary Muslim “proxies” kill innocent people as on 9/11 and France’s recent “9/11.” Since all serve the interests of their oligarch puppet masters and New World Order with total impunity, the world continues to suffer and be victimized.

Just like US Empire uses the “national security” card, so do  Wall Street and Big Pharma use their “too big to fail” trump card to get away with their own crimes against humanity. It’s a rigged world where an elitist cabal of cheats and thugs mistreat fellow humans as owned commodities and indentured expendables. Money and power mean everything while human life means nothing to them.

The Story Continues in Part 2, https://behindthenews.co.za/the-rockefeller-empire-part-2-of-a-6-part-series/