Corporations: power & responsibility

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Poisonous Plutocracy Pushes Economic Inequality

 

Joel S. Hirschhorn

 

The biggest political issue receiving no attention by the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates is the powerful plutocracy that has captured the government to produce rising economic inequality.

The Most Powerful People in America

Joel S. Hirschhorn

They are not the rich and superrich, nor the politically powerful running the two-party plutocracy, nor the greedy heads of banking and finance companies, and certainly not the media moguls and bloviating pundits.

God Bless Ralph Nader

Joel S. Hirschhorn

Because he wants to salvage American democracy and help Americans, Ralph Nader is running for president again. He deserves the support of all Americans that see themselves as progressives, dissidents, independents, and patriots who want to remove the stranglehold of the two-party plutocracy on our political system.

Watching the Dinosaurs Fall
By David Glenn Cox
The motivation for this comes from an article written by Martin Wolf of the Financial Times and he told the truth, mainly. I won’t dispute a single fact or figure but in his article, “America’s economy risks mother of all meltdowns” he comes to us as a prognosticator, predicting the future of the things that will be.

Hope mongering has been working much better than experience mongering. Now, the rest of the story….

As befits American culture, politics is all about slick selling to the masses. Hillary Clinton is selling Day-1 help to victims and sufferers. Barack Obama is selling effervescent hope to yes-we-can dreamers. This media hyped horse race is like a fight between diet Coke and diet Pepsi, artificially sweetened candidates devoid of real nourishment.

Here are some facts that you will not find in the media:
1. In the private bankers debt-based money system that we are made to use, 97% of money circulating has been created as computer ledger entries by private commercial banks when we take out loans and mortgages. It has no tangible existence outside the banks computer systems because we withdraw hardly any of it in the form of Government created cash. This system is replicated in virtually every developed country, the world over.
2. No borrowing in the system would mean no money. When the commercial banks lend “money” its NEW NUMBER MONEY (existing as data only) created the moment the amount appears in the “borrower’s” account. No depositor is ever sent a letter saying their money is temporarily unavailable because its been lent to someone else. Meanwhile not one person in a hundred grasps the fact that our governments have all permitted private banks to create over 95 percent of our money supply bringing huge profits to them and endless debt to us. Obviously there will not be enough money to pay the interest as the interest has to come from the same source, (further borrowing from banks). So national and personal debt rises and the overall interest due also rises with time. This is the real reason why we are told the economy always has to grow. Present UK government debt mostly to the private banks is £0.5 Trillion, up from £90 Bn in 1980 and £26 Bn in 1960.

This is not an advert!! That'll do it. That's a good name for my Credit Card Business. Isn't it great, we are all courted and highly valued by so many Companies. They write to us all the time. They want to confirm how upstanding and absolutely top notch we are by offering us their credit card. We feel gratified by the offer alone, it implies status, that all-important thing to which we are all aspire. It looks like a good thing so I'll jump on the bandwagon. For my Credit Card Company I did consider. 'The Workers Plywood Card.' or 'Hard-Up Imitation Vinyl Card.' but decided against. I also considered the silly names that one would think had no chance at all, but of course one would be wrong. 'Put it on my Goldfish' is not a joke at the expense of fish or shop assistants. It's as successful as Billy Connolly.

Hello, I wanted to get different viewpoints / perspectives on 10 slides: ' Brief Analysis and Generalisation of Closed-Source Software Business Model to All Maximum-Profit Based Businesses ' url: http://logo3dforkids.sphosting.com/slide1.html Thanks, Masi

« Human beings are using technological progress to benefit their greed, with the risk of destroying the very basis of their existence on earth. This is why technological progress is not truly progress. Of course it is really quite something to be able to send craft into space and to other planets. But at the end of the day, what is the purpose of all this? To exploit the resources and cause the same damage as here on earth? To fight in space? To go and cause havoc all over the universe? There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to explore the cosmos, but not before having found the right attitude to adopt here on earth. Human beings respect nothing. They think they are the masters of the universe. They are prepared to upset everything to satisfy their curiosity and their cupidity. Well, they have to be aware that one day they will have to pay dearly for this lack of respect and this violence. »

For the first time in over 100 years, American capitalism has started its economic recovery with it current account in deficit. That deficit currently stands at an historic high of over $600 billion, nearly six per cent of its GDP. Washington and Wall Street have expressed concern about the sustainability of this burgeoning deficit, and alarm is growing at the steady rate of decline for the dollar. The dollar has fallen consistantly since the fisrt quarter of 2001, and is set to fall further. Many people still call America a 'super-power', but in terms of its importance to the global economic system it is in fact a 'hyper-power'. But the structural deficiencies that produce the US deficit have made America the largest debtor nation on earth. It used to be the largest creditor nation for much of the last century, up until the mid 1980's.

The global conference on biodiversity is currently going on in Malaysia to discuss how we can halt the massive biodiversity loss we are seeing around the world today. This is a serious problem and big business is responsible... actually for rainforest loss, the buyers of cheap non-FSC timber are also responsible. Rainforests in countries such as Indonesia, Tasmania and Chile and being logged at increasing rates to supply rich countries with cheap, but high quality wood products, including furniture and paper. These forests are beautiful, amazing places, housing most of the world's biodiversity. They also regulate our weather systems - both local and global. If they go, we are in serious trouble!

Corporations are the ultimate in social cooperation in a free society. All corporate interactions are VOLUNTARY, unlike government interactions, which are often coerced. Those who decide to incorporate do so voluntarily. Those who choose to invest in a corporation do so voluntarily. Those who choose to work for a corporation do so voluntarily. Those who chose to purchase goods or services from a corporation do so voluntarily. The corporation has done more to advance human existence than ANY other institution. Long live Corporate Earth!

I would like to know if there are mechanisms in place to monitor the number of jobs US companies are sending off shore? The current unemployment rate in this country is at an all time high. I have been in the Information Technology field for over 20 years. I lost my job due to off shoring. There was an article in the February 3 issue of Business that stated five years from now, 4 million IT jobs will have been moved to India and other countries. Who is monitoring this process??

Deborah Doan leaves out an important aspect of the problem of the proper relationship between private capital and the public interest. It's all well and good to say that capitalism can work reasonably well with the right amount of regulation, but how is a government to be elected that is willing to regulate capital in the public interest if the entire political and even the cultural system is in bed with capital? In the United States today no one can get elected at the national level without accumulating a giant war chest to pay for television ads. And long before the primary campaigns begin the corporate owned mainstream press and broadcast media will set the terms of any debate that actually goes on.

Diane Coyle says that the number of companies filing annual environmental reports is rising, but she gives no credit to Friends of the Earth (FoE): "They are doing this not because FoE thinks they should, but because it is what their customers, shareholders and employees want. For corporations are collective organisations that reflect the values of the societies in which they operate." I would just like to point out that the way mainstream social attitudes change is not simple. The extremes tend to define the center. If you want to shift the center towards environmentalism, it does not hurt to have some extreme environmentalists shouting that the sky is falling in - as long as there are moderate environmentalists who say, it's bad, but not that bad. This is then a position many reasonable people can agree with, and it more easily becomes received wisdom.

According to the book "Conspirator's Hierarchy" by Dr. John Coleman, "Every British monarch since 1729 has benefited immensely from the drug trade and this holds good for the present occupant of the throne." Presuming the above statement is true (and it does seem to have logic to it), I would be really curious which venerable British company took over BEIC's thriving opium/drug business. It will be one showing a major profit... perhaps an oil concern?

Look chaps,get your fundamentals right. You think we live in a democracy, we are slaves to a international financial dictatorship,so too is the U.S.This war is not only about oil,its about money.The U.S is insolvent, so is the U.K, hence the war was planned before Bush took power.WAR=PROFIT, to the multinationals.The W.T.O, a non governmental organisation dictates to the U.K Govt. It does not matter what shade of Govt we have.This is being supplimented by a secretive E.U directive commitee 123.No national Govt, is allowed to see this document.We are being controlled in every aspect of our lives.Only previlage you have is to become cannon fodders and once in five years put a cross on a piece of paper.

Marco Niada is right to point out that the rise and the fall of Agnelli is a typical Italian saga of our times. In fairness no person or company is eternal and Fiat makes no exception. Efforts of governments to jump start companies in decline result most often in waste of taxpayers' money. Fiat is unlikely to be an exception. However in a labour intensive industry, its employees carry a lot of votes, hence the interest of politicians. Agnelli was, however, special, in that he combined the ruthlessness of a driven leader with the panache of an approachable patrician: 'He could walk with kings (who probably felt intimidated in his presence) and mastered the common touch.

openDemocracy’s Globolog has carried reports on controversial proposals for pipeline from Baku on the shores of the Caspian to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey (see http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article.jsp?articleId=777&id=6). Here, campaigners against the project respond point by point to the arguments put forward by Barry Halton, Regional Affairs Director for the project (see http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article.jsp?articleId=812&id=6 ). Barry Halton for the BP-led Consortium says: NGOs say that it is impossible to justify public subsidy for a project that explicitly denies any public interest requirement. Halton says "this is a misunderstanding of the clause [in the Intergovernmental Agreement]. BTC is simply a system for transporting oil. It is not a public utility in the normal sense and therefore the definition of public purpose as outlined in contracts that apply to utilities does not apply in this case".