Study shows powerful corporations really do control the world's finances

For many years conventional wisdom has said that the whole world is controlled by the monied elite, or more recently by the huge multi-national corporations that seem to sometime control the very air we breathe. Now, new research by a team based in ETH-Zurich, Switzerland, has shown that what we’ve suspected all along, is apparently true. The team has uploaded their results onto the preprint server arXiv.

Using data obtained (circa 2007) from the Orbis database (a global database containing financial information on public and private companies) the team, in what is being heralded as the first of its kind, analyzed data from over 43,000 corporations, looking at both upstream and downstream connections between them all and found that when graphed, the data represented a bowtie of sorts, with the knot, or core representing just 147 entities who control nearly 40 percent of all of monetary value of transnational corporations (TNCs).  Read more...

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America's serious crime rate is plunging, but why?

Editors note: Maybe "street" crime has fallen because the "framers" of society, Corporations; Big Pharma, Mainstream Media, etc, have succeeded in their plan through media, meds, mis-education & mass incarceration to socially control the masses. These same mass DON'T protest the blatant corporate crimes and government corruption.
So, it is not only that violent crime has fallen, activism has also fallen, while Corporate and Government crimes have risen. White-collar crime is up, pays more and affects more people. Maybe new laws of punishment should be minted for corporate & government crime, but that will never happen since the criminals are controlling the farm.
Then again, maybe it is the lull before the storm?

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"If you look at the homicide statistics from major cities in 1990 they're absolutely appalling. I think the reaction of the legislatures at the time was to say three strikes and you're out, mandatory minimums, you have to actually serve the time. They were responding to what was in front of them which was an epidemic of violence and I think to some extent they were right," he said.
"You can make the case that mass incarceration hastened the end of the crime wave. You would have a much more difficult time making the case that a continuation of that mass incarceration is necessary. The benefit from preventing crime, since crime rates are so much lower, is a lot smaller than it used to be and the costs continue to go up. We're investing more and more in prison and getting a smaller and smaller return."
But the public may not share that view. A recent poll showed most Americans feel crime is still getting worse.  | The Guardian

If unions are people then so are corporations

If unions are people then so are corporations.

Who makes up unions? Who makes up corporations? If there were no union members then unions wouldn't exist. If there weren't any owners, investors, inventors, shareholders, businessmen, and employees then there wouldn't be any corporations.  From Wikipedia: "The word 'corporation' derives from corpus, the Latin word for body, or a 'body of people'." To perpetuate the meme that corporations aren't people is absurd.  If corporations are not people what are they?  Have unions survived longer than some union members over the years? Yes. The same type of scenario happens with corporations so unions shouldn't be given preferential treatment with regards to taxes as progressives promote. When companies like GE end up paying no federal taxes something is wrong in my opinion. For this reason I do think that there are loopholes that need to be closed.

Study Shows Wealthy Feel Less Empathy: Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.

In an academic article published in the August edition of Current Directions in Psychological Science, three researchers compiled studies done by themselves and others on the effects of income, and perceived class status, on thinking and behavior. Multiple studies demonstrate that upper-class individuals are more focused on their personal experience, and less on context, than their less fortunate counterparts. Upper-class individuals are also less likely to show empathy for others, and less likely to share resources, than those in the working-class.  GUEST: Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at the University of California Berkeley, co-director of The Greater Good Science Center, and one of three authors of the article, “Social Class as Culture: The Convergence of Resources and Rank in the Social Realm”  uprisingradio.org

Also read:

• The rich are different — and not in a good way, studies suggest - Health - Behavior - msnbc.com

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Raw Wars: FDA's War on Organic Farmers & Raw Milk Suppliers

For the past several years organic foods have received an increase of attention due to the lack of pesticides and not being genetically altered. Many people are demanding that their food be untouched. Recently a SWAT team arrested farmers for selling raw milk to customers. Is it a crime to drink raw milk or does the government feel left out? Mike Adams, health ranger, first broke the story any tells us why the FDA doesn't approve of this.

Health Ranger: 'FDA fights organic farmers'

Also watch:

• ‪Government war on raw milk?‬‏

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29 Statistics About Extreme Income Inequality In America That Will Blow Your Mind

Will The Banksters And The Corpocracy Eventually Own It All?

Today, average Americans have less power relative to the monolithic corporate and governmental institutions that dominate our society than at any other point in U.S. history. Sadly, this is not what our founding fathers ever envisioned. Our founding fathers established a government "of the people, by the people, for the people", but what we have today is very far from that ideal. In America today, wealth and power are very highly concentrated, and if you have neither wealth nor power than most of our politicians really do not have any interest in you. Over the past several decades, those with huge amounts of money and power have been busy rigging the game so that the rest of the money and power slowly but surely funnels into their hands. If current trends continue, the banksters and the corpocracy will eventually own it all. Below you will find 29 statistics about extreme income inequality in America. Sadly, most of these statistics will be out of date in a year or two because wealth and power will be much more concentrated by that time.  Read more...

Also read:

• The 14 Characteristics of Fascism, by Lawrence Britt, Spring 2003

 

How Our Government Has Merged With Corporations

The government of the United States, for example, is largely rented to corporations. Big business sends multiple thousands of lobbyists to Washington, DC, to buy favors and get their point of view across in Congress and the executive branch: The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the new war in Libya have been a boon to munitions manufacturers, "security" companies and private mercenary armies. They are part of a permanent war economy, making the US the world's sheriff.  | AlterNet