Una forma ‘legalizada’ de delincuencia. El surgimiento de la "corporatocracia" | bilaterals.org
A 'legalized' form of crime. The emergence of the "corporatocracy"
Transnational corporations are wreaking havoc on the social and ecological financial, economic systems through a parsimonious colonization of public life in which only 147 organizations now control 40 percent of world trade.
A 'legalized' form of crime. The emergence of the "corporatocracy"
By Graham Vanbergen - Clearinghouse, 16/06/28
Transnational corporations are wreaking havoc on the social and ecological financial, economic systems through a parsimonious colonization of public life in which only 147 organizations now control 40 percent of world trade.
The feeling that something is not quite right has been widespread. We know that there is a slow colonization of public life by corporations because we are aware that it is producing a coup d'etat in slow motion by some transnational organizations, an operation that has been facilitated by our political leaders. The irrefutable proof of this hits us in the face every day with wave after wave of financial, economic, social and ecological crisis.
A clear and disturbing picture of corporate power has become visible in recent years that growing inequality is simply what distinguishes today's expanding corporate activity of those who are left behind.
A study in 2000 by Corporate Watch, Global Policy Forum and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) revealed some startling facts about the growth of the corporatocracy, which should have been brought into line for years by Western governments. Instead, corporations have literally taken the helm.
Coinciding with the millennium, this study confirmed that while the world had about 40,000 corporations, who really had global reach and influence were just 200. These colossal organizations -some of them larger than many national economies perfectly controlled over a quarter of the planet's economic activity while four out of five of the world were completely excluded and marginalized or were net losers as a direct result of the activities of these corporations.
Reading IPS study is very uncomfortable. In the long list of charges, which more alarm is that while corporate profits soared, continued concentration of wealth and this occurred in an environment of stagnating wages of workers.
For the sake of perspective, the report noted that of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 corresponded to corporations; only 49 were from countries. For example, Wal-Mart was bigger than 161 countries. The economic dimension of Mitsubishi was higher than that of Indonesia, the fourth most populous country on the planet. General Motors was larger than Denmark. Ford was higher than South Africa.
The 200 largest corporations were larger than the combined economies of 182 countries and had twice the economic clout that 80 percent of humanity.
The reader may be surprised to learn that those same 200 corporations globally employ less than 0.33 percent of the world population: just 18.8 million people.
Commerce, manufacturing, automotive, banking, retail and electronics are the sectors in which the corporations are concentrated; even in these sectors, one third of trade consists of transactions between various units of the same corporation.
In 2012, the 25 largest corporations in the world were making $ 177,000 per second; annual income of one of them, Wal-Mart, reached 470,000 million dollars.
At present, the picture is even worse. Three mathematicians Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, published a remarkable and profound report on transnational corporations (TNC, for its acronym in English) as its links with other TNC. They began studying a database which has now grown to encompass 43,000 corporations-, analyzing connections property, up and down, highlighting what were the most interconnected companies. Finally, they reached the 'core', made up of 147 companies that now control a staggering 40 percent of the economic volume of the sample; therefore global trade.
In less than a decade, the participation of TNCs in the world market has increased dramatically while competition between companies fell almost in the same proportion.
Still, knowing so damning and conclusive information, the situation continues to deteriorate as policy makers dispose of any remaining morality to further their lucrative careers based on the use of revolving doors, leaving whole nations with little more than the remains what they were once prosperous industrial and the corpse of democracy economies.
In the past seventy, in Europe, the share of the economy that would stop workers as wages was about 70 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Over the years there has been a shift by other nefarious. Capital achieved an increase of 10 percent in profits while workers saw them fall by 10 percent. With an economy about 13 billion (yes, 13 followed by 12 zeros) euros, the loss experienced by workers and the middle class by herself was -magra of 1.3 billion euros a year. Shareholders used to rejoice with dividends of say 3 or 4 percent, but today seek double-digit earnings; otherwise, CEOs of companies can be dismissed. The consequence is that corporations want to win at any cost.
In the book of Susan George State of Corporations it states that "Since the mid-sixties, the largest banks and insurance companies in the US and some transnational corporations joined forces accounting; they employed 3,000 people and spent 5,000 million dollars to get rid of all the New Deal laws passed during the Roosevelt administration in the thirties of last century-the same laws that protected the US economy for over 60 years. Through this work done jointly lobby, got absolute freedom to remove the balances any seat that could mean a loss of money and move that money to banks 'in the shadows' so that would not be documented anywhere. They got freedom to create and trade toxic derivative products such as mortgage packages 'sub-prime' worth billions of dollars, without any regulation. "
The highlight of this collective action was the global collapse of the financial industry in 2008; It has been eight years and the continuing deterioration threatens to unseat the Great Depression of 1929 from his position as the longest recession in history, which hitherto was the slowest recovery in memory.
In the US alone, more than 10 million families were evicted by banks and, according to Bloomberg, 14.5 billion dollars -that say, 33 per cent of the value of companies in the world and about 14 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States vanished in the crisis. This estimate can forget the consequences produced in the development and economy of the Third World countries, where 3.3 billion (yes, again, 3.3 followed by 12 zeros) of aid promised stayed in that, promises never fulfilled.
In the era of "too big to fail and go to prison," virtually no one was prosecuted or sent to jail for these devastating crimes. At present, the banking industry is totally out of control. The derivatives business is a thing of every day and 33 percent larger than at its peak, when the economic crisis of 2008. The scam, fraud, insider trading and money laundering reach a new record of illegality every day, among the 20 largest corporations in the world there are five banks.
Meanwhile, having learned from previous experiences, corporate lobbyists now -called 'expertos'- committees meet daily with officials from the European Commission to negotiate trade agreements that consumers or organizations are not represented environmental. Civil society is excluded, as are their representatives, MEPs dresses and giving the illusion of a democracy that is quickly extinguished.
Now, corporations put their profits in jurisdictions where taxes are very low or non-existent and losses in others where taxes are high; it is estimated that there are some 32 billion dollars exempted from making any contribution to the societies of which derive their wealth and less, if at all scrutiny of their respective governments.
What we have now is the 'anarchy' of the very rich and most powerful corporations. The list is endless shame: automakers, banks, pharmaceutical laboratories, food industries, energy companies ... to name a few.
Colossal economic, financial, tax evasions monumental ecological damage on an industrial scale and incessant crimes illegal wars to ensure an uninterrupted supply of resources are the shameful system based on corporate greed. In its wake now we recognize the style of growing inequality in the twenties of the last century and increasing poverty that characterized the era described by Dickens. Somehow, all this forms the new normal.
you steal a loaf of bread and go to jail, ransack an entire country and is knighted. For example, the British foot believe that as a result of a long and malicious style politics of class struggle the alleged scam campaign conducted with social benefits is a huge social problem. A recent survey by the central workers TUC showed that people believe that 27 percent of the budget for social assistance fraudulently requested. In fact, the real figure is 0.7 percent Actually, the payments are not made by the government far outweigh fraud in the use of social benefits.
Contrast this with one of the biggest crooks in Britain: HSBC. In a few years it has obtained billions thanks to money laundering ill-gotten gains to the benefit of dictators and tyrants and international criminals, drug dealers, drug lords, murderers and all kinds of criminals a particularly odious food chain. Even someone was caught red-handed in the scandal of huge tax evasion in Switzerland that benefited a few corporations even before we heard talk of Panama Papers. In 2011, the head of the plot, Stephen Green, was graced with an attractive use of ministerial rank by conservatives: Minister of Commerce. And it has a seat in the House of Lords as a Tory more; Ironically it diluted amongst other and in the media.
Globalization has not only aggravated the problem of corporate power and strengthen corporate influence in global governance. Again, trade agreements such as the TPP and TTIP, in which entire continents are subject to corporate domination, are evidence of that; however, the scope of corporations have an even more sinister result. The corporate lobbyists which currently enjoy unprecedented some privileges granted by the world's politicians to circumvent the sovereign regulations designed to protect the rights of citizens and the environment, have infiltrated United Nations.
The UN has a special section for corporations called "global agreement" which was created about 15 years ago by Kofi Annan and the then president of Nestle. To participate in this 'agreement', a corporation only needs to endorse a list of 15 principles concerning human and labor rights and the environment.
Global corporations Agreement also integrate the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and other bodies such as the Chamber of Commerce. When, in 2012, the United Nations held its 'environmental' congress in Rio for the first time business completely they dominated the discussions. At this time, corporate interests have a disproportionately high level of political influence in an area that really should be global.
A good example of this might be Cecilia Malmstron, Commissioner main trading partners of the EU in TTIP negotiations between Europe and the United States. A few months ago, a journalist from The Independent Malstrom asked why he insisted on promoting the treaty against the widespread rejection of the public; his answer was: "My mandate I would not have given the Europeans."
A few weeks ago we discovered that the European Parliament voted in favor of the "Directive on the Protection of Secrets in the Treaties," a law that gives the new corporations and alarming super powers to prosecute and criminalize whistleblowers, journalists and agencies information to publish internal documents that have been leaked.
As Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for economic policy of the United States and editor of the Wall Street Journal, "Some powerful corporations recently said they have seized power in the 'democracies' Westerners to sacrifice the welfare of the population to corporate greed and profits without regard to peoples, countries and society. The 'democratic capitalism' is complete and irremediable. The TTIP gives corporations an inexplicable power over governments and peoples ".
Today, democracy is about to move from farce to tragedy as a direct result of the irrepressible rise of corporate power.
We live in a time when existing obscene inequality between rich and poor is as clear as the rapid growth of inequality in the distribution of wealth. In the United States, 1976, the richest 1 percent of society got 9 percent of national wealth; 30 years later, its share of the national wealth has almost tripled and reached 24 percent.
Currently, all that is against this background are a people under siege manifested in European and US cities and presenting petitions to their governments, governments that represent millions of citizens. Those people are the same you must pay the consequences of this crime (legalized): lost services, lost jobs and savings hazy; still it remains unheard.
* New Deal (New Deal), name given to the economic and social policy in the United States by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt from 1933. (N. of T.)
Graham Vanbergen assists in truepublica.org.uk, has a blog of commercial information and regular contributor to several news portals.
