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The 147 Corporations Controlling Most of the Global Economy
rubycodez writes "Researchers at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute in Zurich have identified a 'Capitalist Network' [PDF] of well-connected companies that control most of the global economy. They further identified the 147 'super-connected' companies that control forty percent or more of the global financial network. If one believes the mega-corporations have most governments of the west in their pockets, does this mean we have a global oligarchy?"
We have a global plutocracy, which the government of the richest, for the richest and by the richest.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Does this mean we have a global oligarchy
I know it was meant to be rhetorical, but "YES." These statistics merely reinforce the intuition that we have all had for decades. In the modern day, oligarchy == democracy. Companies that are "too big to fail." This is why there are people flooding the streets with with signs saying "We are the 99%." Because it isn't the 99% that count.
Yes.
Next Question: How do we topple it?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
"It seems as soon as someone gets elected to Congress, they are immediately bought by the wealthy elite to represent their interests."
They can't get that far without being bought and paid for in the first place.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
But most of those companies have thousands of owners, not just one.
Someone who owns 0.000000000000000001% of a company because he has 100 shares is not an "owner", but an investor. The owners are the banks and the founders, that hold real percentages of the corporation. The little guys just exist as a convenient way to raise capital, and they are the first to take the fall, getting wiped out first if the company goes south. Once in a while the company will throw them a bone in the form of dividends. And once in a while, depending on the company and the share type, these "owners" will be given the illusion of a vote. In the most free case they can choose between pre-determined agenda #1 or pre-determined agenda #2. When they get too annoying their ownership share simply gets diluted. However they certainly do not get to choose what the CEO has for dinner tonight on the company credit card, or what luxury hotel suite he stays in.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Already corporations have been ruled people, except they don't need visa and they can't be executed or imprisoned, and they can be created out of thin air to be saddled with the liabilities while the CEO and his gang walk away with all the assets in their personal portfolio.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
they can be created out of thin air to be saddled with the liabilities while the CEO and his gang walk away with all the assets in their personal portfolio
Sort of like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_life_of_George_W._Bush
Found a company (anybody can do that, costs almost nothing). Sell shares to some investors, attract a few big names. Run it into the ground so that it fails, but...
Sell out to a second company who wants your goodwill (those big names) plus whatever assets you managed not to squander, become CEO of second company which also fails, and...
Sell out to a third company who still wants that goodwill, those names, the top political cover (your daddy is president, after all), get a seat on the board of directors, and y'know, damned if that company doesn't start to suck wind and fail due to mismanagement as well. Alas, now there is no sugar daddy outside corporation willing to buy, the company is out of money but the stock is still sitting up there at optimistic prices because the ordinary shareholders do not yet know that the company is down to its few days worth of operating capital.
Borrow money from a bank. Buy into a cushy deal that manages to both suck off money from the taxpayer and screw the actual owner of the land seized for the project. Ask counsel of that failing company that bought the failed company that bought the failed company you originally founded if selling off stock right before the company is about to run out of money is "insider trading". Counsel says yes, damn skippy it is, don't do it.
Do it anyway, pay off loan and manage to pocket a quarter of a million actual profit right before the company loses 2/3 of its book value when the running-out-of-money-with-no-income-to-replace-it shit hits the fan. Wait a few years, cushy deal pays you $15 million dollars in profits -- not bad for return on three failed companies you personally ran or helped to run (you weren't on the board of the cushy deal -- by then everybody but the voters in Texas and the United States knew you were a complete klutz who lost money on every deal you actually ran or helped run). Even on this final deal there was nothing like an actual, honest profit in the payout. The taxpayers of Texas are still paying for the actual sports dome for the Rangers; the profit Bush realized was more or less paid directly from taxpayer pockets into his own, and who knows what the landowner ever got out of the deal (probably nothing)...
The moral of this sad tale is that it isn't just a network of companies -- it is a network of people, all born into wealthy families, owning or controlling the large corporations, looking out for each other and protecting all of the "insiders" while shooting, burning, and clubbing the dead bodies until they stop twitching of all of the outsiders that seek to break in to this tiny enclave of wealth and power. These are the people that control the Fed. They control (or are) many of the governors, senators, presidents of our country. They own huge blocks of stock in the largest and most powerful companies or they sit on the board of directors and draw huge salaries because of their political influence. Insider trading is a way of life -- a wink is as good as a nod -- and make a profit (like Bush) from every failure where the ordinary shareholders lost wads of money.
They exist, impervious in our society, simply because we lack the will to oppose them.
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.