Whenever I see compilations of statistics like this, it always sets me off. Some things to consider when reading this:
1) Countries, like businesses, are not homogeneous. All nations, like companies, are wide ranges in size. One fact they mention is that the 200 largest corporations are larger than all but the 10 largest economies in the world. That's great, except that the 10 largest economies in the world constitute 2/3 of the world's population. If we extend the list to the top 12 economies we get Mexico and Russia, which make the percent of the world's population even greater.
To illustrate the non-homogeneity of nations, consider how many of the smallest countries it would take to equal the populations of India and China.
http://www.polisci.com/almanac/economy/fifty.htm
2) They are comparing the GDP of nations to sales of corporations. What is the majority of GDP made up of? Corporate revenue. It's a roundabout way of saying that large companies are bigger than smaller companies and rich nations are richer than poor nations.
3) They fail to mention the number of shareholders that own and control the top 200 companies. Using a small number such as 200 creates the illusion of a boogeyman when saying there are millions of individual shareholders which own stock directly or through pension plans and mutual funds doesn't sound as scary. Granted, the ownership isn't distributed equaly across the world's population, but it still isn't lopsided as they try to make it appear.
4) The Top 200s' combined sales are 18 times the size of the combined annual income of the 1.2 billion people (24 percent of the total world population) living in "severe" poverty. The implication here is that they are causing poverty. If Microsoft and GM disappeared tomorrow, would that benefit those who are poor? Yes. The poor are poor. Large companies are located in rich nations (as they mention). This is a roundabout way of saying that rich nations are richer than poor nations. Using corporations to illustrate the point isn't necessary and is done only to make a political statement.
5) Of the U.S. corporations on the list, 44 did not pay the full standard 35 percent federal corpo-rate tax rate during the period 1996-1998. Seven of the firms actually paid less than zero in federal income taxes in 1998 (because of rebates). These include: Texaco, Chevron, PepsiCo, Enron, Worldcom, McKesson and the world's biggest corporation--General Motors. Yes. That is because most of those companies have loses in some years which offset profits from previous years. They only used a 2 year window. If you take a loss you don't pay taxes. If you make a profit, you may apply losses from previous years. You are only taxed on profit, not revenue. Also, distributed profits are taxed when they are passed on to shareholders. Also, note the type of companies listed. Most of them are in industries that require very large capital investments.
Other explanations can be provided for each point. I'm not saying that there aren't valid points to be made here, but their use of stats and facts is very suspect. It seems that their whole argument can boil down to: Corporations are bad.
Whenever you see stuff like this from anyone with a political ax to grind (from any side of the fence), read it carefully and do the math yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/ar00/income.htm
Microsoft paid $4.8 billion dollars in taxes in 2000, $4.1 billion in 1999, and $2.6 billion in 1998.
Where do you get this stuff from? Check your facts.
1) Countries, like businesses, are not homogeneous. All nations, like companies, are wide ranges in size. One fact they mention is that the 200 largest corporations are larger than all but the 10 largest economies in the world. That's great, except that the 10 largest economies in the world constitute 2/3 of the world's population. If we extend the list to the top 12 economies we get Mexico and Russia, which make the percent of the world's population even greater.
To illustrate the non-homogeneity of nations, consider how many of the smallest countries it would take to equal the populations of India and China.
http://www.polisci.com/almanac/economy/fifty.htm
2) They are comparing the GDP of nations to sales of corporations. What is the majority of GDP made up of? Corporate revenue. It's a roundabout way of saying that large companies are bigger than smaller companies and rich nations are richer than poor nations.
3) They fail to mention the number of shareholders that own and control the top 200 companies. Using a small number such as 200 creates the illusion of a boogeyman when saying there are millions of individual shareholders which own stock directly or through pension plans and mutual funds doesn't sound as scary. Granted, the ownership isn't distributed equaly across the world's population, but it still isn't lopsided as they try to make it appear.
4) The Top 200s' combined sales are 18 times the size of the combined annual income of the 1.2 billion people (24 percent of the total world population) living in "severe" poverty. The implication here is that they are causing poverty. If Microsoft and GM disappeared tomorrow, would that benefit those who are poor? Yes. The poor are poor. Large companies are located in rich nations (as they mention). This is a roundabout way of saying that rich nations are richer than poor nations. Using corporations to illustrate the point isn't necessary and is done only to make a political statement.
5) Of the U.S. corporations on the list, 44 did not pay the full standard 35 percent federal corpo-rate tax rate during the period 1996-1998. Seven of the firms actually paid less than zero in federal income taxes in 1998 (because of rebates). These include: Texaco, Chevron, PepsiCo, Enron, Worldcom, McKesson and the world's biggest corporation--General Motors. Yes. That is because most of those companies have loses in some years which offset profits from previous years. They only used a 2 year window. If you take a loss you don't pay taxes. If you make a profit, you may apply losses from previous years. You are only taxed on profit, not revenue. Also, distributed profits are taxed when they are passed on to shareholders. Also, note the type of companies listed. Most of them are in industries that require very large capital investments.
Other explanations can be provided for each point. I'm not saying that there aren't valid points to be made here, but their use of stats and facts is very suspect. It seems that their whole argument can boil down to: Corporations are bad.
Whenever you see stuff like this from anyone with a political ax to grind (from any side of the fence), read it carefully and do the math yourself.