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"Pyramid of Capitalist" (Photo: corriani, flickr)
Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world
“AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters’ worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.”
“The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world’s transnational corporations (TNCs).”
(Oh, and BTW, because of all that has gone on, the average Swiss citizen is now worth $500,000;and to see how Swiss government works,see here.)
“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.”
“So, the super-entity may not result from conspiracy. The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power. Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be one such common interest.”
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Is the SEC colluding with banks on CDO prosecutions?
Top Economists to Advise Sanders on Fed Reform
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October 20, 2011
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 – Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and other nationally-renowned economists agreed today to serve on a panel of experts to help Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) draft legislation to reform the Federal Reserve.
Sanders announced formation of his expert advisory panel in the wake of a damning report that faulted apparent conflicts of interest by bank-picked board members at the 12 regional Fed banks.
Top executives from Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, General Electric and other firms sat on the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks while their firms benefited from the central bank’s policies during the financial crisis, the Government Accountability Office investigation found. The dual roles created an appearance of a conflict of interest, according to the GAO.
After the report was issued Wednesday, Sanders said he would work with top economists to develop legislation to restructure the Fed and tighten rules on conflicts of interest, ensure that the Fed fulfills its full-employment mandate, increase transparency, protect consumers and reduce income inequality.
Sanders’ panel of experts includes:
* Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize. The economics professor at Columbia University is a former chief economist for the World Bank.
* Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute and an economics professor at Columbia University. He also is special advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
* Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, the premier research organization focused on U.S. living standards and labor markets.
* William Black, associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He worked with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation and the Office of Thrift Supervision.
* Nomi Prins, a senior fellow at Demos, was a managing director at Goldman Sachs, a senior manager at Bear Stearns in London, a senior strategist at Lehman Brothers, and an analyst at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JPM Chase)
* Jane D’Arista, an Economic Policy Institute research associate, has written on the history of U.S. monetary policy and financial regulation, The former Boston University School of Law professor previously served as a staff economist for Congress.
* Tim Canova, professor of economics and law and co-director of the Center for Global Law & Development at the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif. He was an early critic of financial deregulation and warned of the dangers of the bubble economy.
* Robert Johnson, senior fellow and director of the Project on Global Finance at the Roosevelt Institute. He was chief economist of the Senate Banking Committee and a senior economist for the Senate Budget Committee.
* Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He was a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a consultant for the World Bank and the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.
* Gerald Epstein, chair of the economics department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Epstein also is the co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute.
* Robert Pollin, co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute and economics professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He has worked with the Joint Economic Committee and the U.S. Competitiveness Policy Council.
* Stephanie Kelton, assistant professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and a research scholar at the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability.
The need for major reforms at the Federal Reserve was driven home by the GAO findings announced Wednesday and in an earlier report issued on July 21. Both unprecedented audits of the Federal Reserve were required by a Sanders’ amendment to last year’s Wall Street reform law.
Bill Swindell
Communications specialist
Better Markets.com
Rec’d, ubetcha. Really interesting report from Zurich, and wow, what a graphic!
Funny, I was just saying on my thread that maybe would be talking to Stiglitz and Wm. Black about the Fed and the possiblities of either reforming it, or…that other thing.
I will give this diary to my Swiss blogging friend in a minute, but he put up a diary at our fledgling site, and used Denmark as his economic example of anti-capitalism and great benefits and free education, all that.
http://www.kgblogz.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=87:capitalism-vs-socialism-a-real-world-throwdown&Itemid=3#comments
As I have been saying – to anyone who would listen – is that what we so euphemistically and laughingly refer to a democracy is in reality just the replacement of self appointed authoritarian robber barons with authoritarian robber barons that we have chosen.
I always like this saying from AA. “What happens when you take away the alcohol from a drunken horse thief? A sober horse thief!”
In other words an authoritarian robber baron is an authoritarian robber baron regardless of how they are chosen.
Excellent pic and a chilling article. The one world government conspiracy theorists might be right to some extent after all. One world under corporations.
My socialist buddies say the capitalists offer one party as a choice when people get sick of the other, thus giving us a illusion of “choice”. The Democratic party primarily exists to co-opt/dilute progressive activism.
http://blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obama-vs-those-craaaazy-republicans-he-lesser-evil-or-more-effective-evil
Great article.
Or as George Carlin said…you have no choice.
Thanks for sharing. I love that old vintage postcard from 1911. It is so beautiful that I am cross-posting it on my website. It is perfect. It makes my various triangles depicting the USA economy as a multilevel marketing scheme crude by comparison. Still it is the same basic shape: a pyramid with the majority on the bottom.
The one thing I find disheartening is that a significant number of Americans understood this from 1890 to about 1920 and there was a lot of movement in the right direction then it was all absorbed–essentially by the Democratic Party.
I hope this doesn’t happen again.
Thanks again ubetchaiam. I recommended and tweeted and will cross post a link on my site when I post the graphic.
more history to this piece of Labor ART that ubetchaiam showed:
The formation of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905 marked a revolutionary turning point in the history of the American labor movement. At a time when the goal of other labor organizations was to secure better wages and suitable working conditions, the IWW was bent on abolishing the wage system and establishing a cooperative commonwealth of workers. At a time when labor was being told to take their grievances to the ballot box, the IWW was calling for direct action in the factories. At a time when the working class was waging pitched battles over the recognition of their right to negotiate, the IWW was putting forth the radical notion that labor did not need to negotiate; that workers, organized industrially at the point of production, could make the world stand still simply by folding their arms. Finally, at a time when access to working class organizations was predominantly restricted by issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and skill, the IWW was enrolling all of the nation’s toilers – including women, African-Americans, immigrants, and the unskilled – into what workers everywhere came to know as the “One Big Union.”
Instrumental to forging the bonds between all these various groups of people were the contributions of Wobbly artists, songwriters, and poets. IWW cartoons, songs, and poems not only functioned as a means of disseminating abstract theory among the working masses, but were also crucial in shaping a vibrant folk culture that strengthened the bonds of solidarity that linked rank-and-file workers. This creative, unifying culture remains the Industrial Workers of the World’s most original and enduring contribution to the American labor movement.
GO HERE TO SEE MORE OF THIS LABOR ART FROM THE EARLY 20th century
http://www.laborarts.org/exhibits/iww/title.cfm
Rcc’d for Woody alone, great pic . .
Nice read, thanks.
Was at a local jam last night, had a ball.
I brought up Occupy n the DFH’s all agreed we should do a Woody tune. We did, and a Pete tune.
And, the jammers are gonna email each other n figure out a day or night to hit the local Occupy Sacto n play a lot of music.
*G*
Thanks Liz; a bit more history for readers:
“Republicanism is the political value system that has been a major part of American civic thought since the American Revolution.[1] It stresses liberty and inalienable rights as central values, makes the people as a whole sovereign, supports activist government to promote the common good, rejects inherited political power, expects citizens to be independent in their performance of civic duties, and vilifies corruption.[2] American republicanism was founded and first practiced by the Founding Fathers in the 18th century. This system was based on early Roman, Renaissance and English models and ideas.[3] It formed the basis for the American Revolution and the consequential Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787), as well as the Gettysburg Address.[4]
Republicanism is not the same as democracy, for republicanism asserts that people have unalienable rights that cannot be voted away by a majority of voters.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism_in_the_United_States
Ought to be shoved in the face of every person that calls themself a
“Republican”
Swiss Landsgemeinde –open air democracy, since the late 13th century.
The One Percent’s little Stooges are busy explaining that things are fine, nothing to protest.
Shorter Chip Johnson at the “liberal” San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/20/BADO1LK9Q2.DTL:
Occupy Oakland protesters are scuzzy 20-somethings who drink cheap hooch and might someday attack the police. They are threatening public safety with a First Aid tent! Oakland should shut this down, because government policy should only be made by well-dressed lobbyists in $1,000 suits and good cologne, who drink quality beverages.
Chip’s asking the Koch brothers to make a time machine for him so he can go back to the 30′s and ridicule jobless Americans in Hoovervilles for their poor grooming and dental flaws; his hope is that the New Deal will never happen and pyramid scams like Social Security won’t exist on his return to the 21st century.