"we only make 3% profits at retail!" while they jack up farm cost, processing cost, warehouse cost, distribution cost, etc etc. They are picking up profits from themselves, but counting it at a cost to obfuscate their margins as only being obtained once its bought at the end of the supply line (retail)

Corporations treat finances like an art instead of simple math. The company I work for charges each worksite over $100 for an item that uses less than $10 of material (mostly scrap) and at most 15 minutes to manufacture in house. No money actually changes hands, it just eats up the local budget so we can't order equipment that the company actually has to pay for (and additionally it probably looks like an inflated expense to write off).