Category Archives: BULLSHIT

The 1% = The Interconnected Companies That Rule The World

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Say hello to the 1,318 highly interconnected transnational companies (with a core of 147 “super-entities”) that rule the world, as visualized by scientists at the Swiss Federal Insitute of Technology:

From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company’s operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.

The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What’s more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world’s large blue chip and manufacturing firms – the “real” economy – representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies

1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc
21. Morgan Stanley
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
23. Northern Trust Corporation
24. Société Générale
25. Bank of America Corporation
26. Lloyds TSB Group plc
27. Invesco plc
28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA
30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company
31. Aviva plc
32. Schroders plc
33. Dodge & Cox
34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc*
35. Sun Life Financial Inc
36. Standard Life plc
37. CNCE
38. Nomura Holdings Inc
39. The Depository Trust Company
40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
41. ING Groep NV
42. Brandes Investment Partners LP
43. Unicredito Italiano SPA
44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan
45. Vereniging Aegon
46. BNP Paribas
47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc
48. Resona Holdings Inc
49. Capital Group International Inc
50. China Petrochemical Group Company

—Read the entire  Article:

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world19 October 2011 by Andy Coghlan and Debora MacKenzie  

(Thanks to Neatorama for sharing the link to this article)

VESTED INTERESTS

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

“The river of human history is clogged with the putrid refuse of unworkable solutions to the mysteries and problems of Life: war, ruined civilizations, insanity, mental anguish, drugs, despair, murder, disease, criminality and starvation. We are victims of our individual and collective inability to find workable solutions to these unwanted conditions.

The Oz Factors, by Lawrence R. SpencerOur humanity has long since been exceeded by the power of the wicked witches of science and government to destroy all life with nuclear weapons, alter our DNA and control our minds with psychotropic drugs and our lives with media lies.

Our thoughts and conjectures about life and the universe are often based on assumptions, unproven theories, hearsay, rumors and misinformation. Decisions we make in life may be based on ancient attitudes and archaic practices. Marketing spin replaces honesty when the financial, political or religious vested interest of wizards and witches are more important than freedom, sanity and survival.

There are 12 common denominators that prevent observation, understanding, and workable solutions to problems of existence. How do each of these “Oz Factors” influence our history, science, philosophy, our lives and our future?   We can chose our own Yellow Brick Road. We can pull back the curtain of rhetoric and dogma. We can build a better Emerald City for ourselves and our children.

Do you really want to go back to Kansas?”

Definition: Vested Interest–1/ a survival or non-survival plan or agenda which has been “clothed” to make it seem like something other than what it actually is; 2/ any person, group or entity which prevents or controls communication to serve their own purposes.

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.

 

DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK

Example: Governments control communication between the people of their country. You must get a passport to travel to another country. You must pass through a customs’ inspection in order to enter the country. You must pay taxes (money is a form of communication). You must get a license to get married or go into business.

Example: Religions prevent and control communication between people and the gods, saints and spirits. You have to pay the priest money for him to “bless” you or to “absolve” you of “sin” as a supposed representative of the god(s).

Example: A husband usually tries to prevent communication between his wife and other potential lovers.

What would happen if you could safely communicate with everything and everyone?

Political, religious and financial vested interests, typically, DO NOT want people to answer this question. The reason is simple: if you could safely communicate with anyone or anything, they would be out of business!

Such institutions very frequently determine what we are allowed to believe by feeding us their version of “the truth”. Our “belief” in their version of “the truth” is usually backed up by the threat of death, imprisonment, excommunication or bankruptcy.

All human beings have flesh bodies. Flesh bodies require food, shelter, clothing and as many other goods and creature comforts as one can buy, borrow or pillage. This seems to be a common denominator of survival. It is also a source of illogical thinking which has tended to clog the water mains of our minds with all manner of unspeakable refuse: namely, our vested interest in survival.

Survival requires stuff, and stuff costs money and money takes work. This often means that we must each pretend to “like” someone or “believe” in something–that we could actually care less about–for the sake of “earning a living”.

— Lawrence R. Spencer, from The Oz Factors