Fox
I got as far as [quote=“Fox”]51 of the top 100 economies in the world are corporations [/quote] did a :? and did a google.
You have to have a creative way with numbers to reach that figure. It stems from a Institute for Policy Studies report that compared the total sales (= apples) of companies with the GDP (= oranges) of nations.
GDP is a measure of value added in an economy, akin to corporate profit. So what happens if corporations, too, are measured by value added, as national economies are?
[quote]The answer is that they tend to shrink by between 70 and 80 per cent. In 2000, sales by General Motors were Dollars 185bn but value added was Dollars 42bn; sales by Ford were Dollars 170bn but value added was Dollars 47bn; and sales by Royal Dutch/ Shell were Dollars 149bn but value added was only Dollars 36bn.
The critics argued that in 1999, 14 of the 50 largest economies and 51 of the 100 largest were companies. In fact, only two of the top 50 economies, measured by value added, and 37 of the top 100 were corporations. For the critics, GM is bigger than Denmark and Wal-Mart is bigger than Poland. Properly measured, Denmark’s economy is more than three times bigger than GM. Even impoverished Bangladesh has a bigger economy than that of GM.[/quote]
Meanwhile, even weak states can tax, imprison and conscript citizens and nationalize corporate assets. There’s no comparison.
Large firms are not taking a bigger share. In the US, 52% of GDP is small companies (<500 staff) vs 51% 20 years ago. Also, internet “start-ups” gobbled up many large firms. How did you miss this recent trend?
As for “democratic control.” Imagine if Walmart put stuff in it its stores that people did not want. It would go bust. So, it finds out what the consumer wants. What could be more democratic than that?
I think the point made that 'value added" and corporate profit equivalence is a valid one. However, even 2 of the top 50 economies in the world and 37 of the top 100 is quite remarkable. Clearly these companies wield magnificent influence in their deal making. Much of which us plebs have little or no influence over.
To say shopping is an expression of democracy is one of the silliest things I’ve ever heard. It sounds like it’s something straight out of the new right handbook on counter arguments to sensible thinking.
There are so many things in life I don’t need to buy, but still do. For example cigarettes, but if you were to ask me do I think something should be done about promoting smokes to kids or cracking down on the areas where they can be sold or smoked I would answer ‘of course.’ The point being people buy lots of things they don’t need, but rarely vote for something they don’t want.
In fact cigarette companies make a good case in point. Look at the cigarette producing States in the US, the politicians will do just about anything to ward off civil action against these companies. I think the movie The Insider" is based on this. These companies clearly produce something that is detrimentaltopeoples health, but the goverment protects the industry. Civil action through the courts, which generally act as a counter balance to political power, was where recourse could be exacted. America is probably fortunate in a sense to have a legal system that can stand up to the political elite. However, even this is not really true. It’s just that smoking is such a cut and dried case (excuse the pun).
Presently, one US State would still like to contiue its anti-trust law suit against Microsoft but can’t. The reason being they have a 4,000,000 dollar budget and one lawyer and Microsoft has 100,000,000 and 100 lawyers. And if you need any more proof than how much a lack of competition has stiffled development in computer software try using the calculator attached to your windows system. That’s got to be the most pathetic piece of software ever invented.
Nice of you to drop by. As you can see I’ve been tempted back by a little more conspiracy theorizing. I must say though I’m dealing with a couple of real rank amatures here.
Now what’s this about doing a google search on my signature? I’m sure you’ve already tried it a couple of times and came up empty handed. I’ll give you a hint it was first quoted by a very famous English politican and then requoted in my home country by a man of similar ilk. A bit like the Kennedy speech, “think not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you,” or was it the other way around, was quoted by every other president in every other courner of the world.
Consumer choice is direct democracy - its what you want every day. To vote every 5 years for some guy to represent you is an indirect form!
Socities with weak consumer rights - communist or “Asian-style” corporatism - have much closer government and business links. (Korean chaebols.) You don’t understand consumerism - read Bastiat.
Tobacco companies sell unhealthy stuff. Yes. But to make them liable you have to prove you did not know! Its personal responsibility.
You complain about government protecting the tobacco firms. I complain about government protecting any firm. WTO means free trade. It fights protectionism. Governments may not play fair - not the WTO’s fault. Blame your own government.
You make the classic “right-wing” case. Come and join us freetraders! Opposing WTO will raise protectionism not end it.
Yes. There has been a diminution in competition. There have also been benefits from standardisation. The anti-trust settlement broke down because the original break-up plan was flawed and would create two monopolies. Read krugman on this (hardly a supporter of big business!)
But this has nothing to do with the WTO or IMF policies.
You ban Phillip Morris cigarettes in Indonesia. The Government: “Thanks! We can make cash out of Gudang Garam!” Gudang Garam: “Thanks! We have a monopoly.” Business and government are happy.
The consumer: “Why did you do this? I smoked Marlboro - now I cannot. I have no choice. I must buy state brands. I can’t change this by voting.”
Without a doubt the manipulation of consumer behaviour by goverments and corporations is rife in many countries. What gets me is you think it’s not happening to you. Consumer rights are an off shoot of effective democracy not a result of unbridled captialism.
There are so many examples it’s hard to know where to start. But lets look at privitization of national assets as an example.
Certainly privitization has some benefits both interms of raising government revenues in one off sales and taxes if the companies are made to pay, however the benefits to the average consumer are negligible and generally negative. People end up paying more for power, gas or train services. Those services become more unreliable and in terms of the rail system in England lethal, gas supply in Melbourne Australia stopped for three weeks, and you can just go on and on. Under these circumstance peoples consumer rights have in some cases been quite literally crushed.
However, it’s unfair to argue from a micro perspective as privitization might have benefits on a macro scale that are difficult to see. However, as it turns out the benefits of all this neocapitalism don’t trickle down, they surge upward. Any measure of wealth disparity you care to choose over the past 20 years indicates a growing gap worldwide and in individual countries
between the haves at the top and the have nots at the bottom.
Where do you think all that money goes when a company like Enron collapses it doesn’t just disappear somebodies got it and chances are it’s not you. Here’s a stockmarket cautionary tale for your kids. In the 80’s Australia’s richest man Kerry Packer sold his TV station for a huge amount to Allan Bond (the winner of the America’s Cup) at the peak of the 80’s stockmarket boom and at the time remarked, “You only get one Allan Bond come along in your lifetime.” Weeks later the market crashed and Packer bought back his station for half the price Bond paid. The money surged upwards, bonds business empire collapsed and the shareholders and junk bond buyers were left holding the baby which was pretty limp and lifeless at this stage. Bond eventually went to jail, but he still pocketed millions. Kerry just went on to get richer and richer as the wealth kept surging upwards.
w+
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Actually you don’t have to prove you don’t know that tobacco smoking is unhealthy, since nictotine is an addictive substance all you have to do is prove that they plyed you with it.
The state-run monopolies were crap! BT - 50 days for a new line pre-privatisation; 10 days now. Nokia - an R&D success. Privatisation wasn’t perfect: compromises prevented complete privatisation in electricity and established private monopolies. These could have been further split up.
Lower government debt - lower interest rates and faster economic growth.
But this is nothing to do with WTO!!! Do you understand the WTO at all?
You continue to miss the point about free trade, the WTO, consumerism, and anti-protectionism. You cite examples of government intereference in the economy and deplore links with big business. Me too.
But you do not see that the WTO and the IMF are working to minimise such interferences.
You show complete ignorance of these institutions.
Fox, Your point about Government support for tobacco industries is flawed, too. The breakthrough in anti-tobacco cases was partly because state governments who started suing tobacco companies to recoup healthcare costs.
“The most important thing to understand about this litigation is that the claim against the tobacco companies has shifted from one of product liability to claims about fraud.”
Tobacco lost because it was shown that they conspired to conceal the truth.
UK: real household electricity prices down 25% since privatisation; gas prices by 23%. Similar stories in other countries, not “generally negative.”
Price rises? Phone rates rose in Mexico after privatisation. The state owned had kept them artifically low, stifling investment and creating appalling service. Post-privatisation, this has improved.
I don’t think so what was at the heart of the fraud was the addictive nature of nicotine and the harmfull effects of smoking. Governments tried to recoup medical expences through taxes on cigarettes then governments too became addicted to the cigarette companies.
My point is that government isn’t really protecting the rights of consumers it is promoting big business. It feels it has to to fullfill it’s ideological goals. The market will eventually give back. But it just doesn’t happen like that. For years people have accepted that full employment is 6% unemployment and god knows how much underemployment. Free trade has provided some increases in employment so that people can work longer for less in ununionized work environments. But most people are still not any better off. That’s why we have an anti-globilization movement. Although, I think anti-globilization is a terrible name to descibe such a movement. What does it mean? Nothing. People are not anti-globilization they are anti erosion of the quality of life, anti a lack of say in democracy, anti having to go out and buy the latest trinket in a soul less world of acronyms.
Let’s get together at the “Fight Club” but remember I’m a woman so take it easy on me.
Declining standards of living. Wrong. Incomes are rising and rising fastest in developing economies.
Rising income inequality. Yes. In developed economies technology has raised the relative wage of skilled workers; in developing economies (China) poor infrastructure causes unequal ACCESS to the WEALTH-CREATING FORCES OF FREE TRADE!!!
The purchasing power of the average real wages adjusted for inflation is less now than it was 20 years ago in every industrialized country in the world. Labor productivity has not been passed on to the workers, because much of it has been the result of technology with the premium going to the owners of this technology.
Rising income inequality is the key and it’s not just happening in developing countries. If you knew anything about developmental economics you would know that income disparities tend to be greater in industrialized countries than developing countries.
Australia, England and the US all have income disparities greater than most unindustrialized economies.
Well anyway I’m glad to see a little bit of it being spread around in developing economies. It’s not really my point.
My point is that the wealth and power are being concentrated at the top not the otherway around. Personally, I have nothing against capitalism. I think it’s a better system than the alternatives. I even think trade liberalization is a good thing for economies, but not necessarily for their inhabitants. The goal is to make companies successful and then as a result the masses will benefit. However, I think the masses simply get manipulated to buy more so that the companies can just get richer. I don’t believe people are any happier. They are just simply being hearded around shopping malls.
By the way imyourbiggestfan are you still wearing padded shoulder suits?
Thanks for treating me as an equal and not going easy on me.
