Quote Originally Posted by BlueCat
Fengzi,
We usually agree on issues but I am afraid this time I can't agree with you at all and I think you are projecting when you call medicinal narrow minded. I know this is long and you probably won't read it all but I will post it anyway and the burden of proof to the contrary lies with you.


When you make the statement: If what they were doing was so bad, they wouldn't succeed. You are really playing Pollyanna here.
Do you honestly think the people can do anything once corporations become huge lawless entities? Is Halliburton playing by the rules?Are we stopping them? Germany became HUGE and Hitler succeeded in killing millions of Jews with little of no protest from the rest of the world for quite some time. We are talking corporations that have become larger than entire countries!

Honestly, I don't think that there is anything one pissed off school teacher can do to stop them. But yes, "the people" can. Is Walmart that bad? If the answer is "yes" then don't go. Nobody is forcing anyone to shop there. If enough people feel the same way their business will dry up. They'll be forced to change or go out of business. Pure and simple. "What about Halliburton" you may ask, well, aren't "the people" already doing something. I think the big switch on Capital Hill is a start. They may be a bigger fish to fry but the concept is the same. A corporation can only exist if there is a market for it's product. Take away that market, and they go down. As for comparing any corporation to Hitler, it is absurd and I'm not even going to touch it.

Corporations WERE a good thing as was capitalism in the beginning but things have changed and there are many people that want to pretend this is not happening but they are wrong. It seems the people that are profiting the most are the ones that want to see the least. There are many small corporations that have cleaned up their act but they are few and the larger corporation do everything they can to destroy them.

This is pure Darwin. Survival of the fittest. The strong survive and the weak don't. Big companies don't get that way because of some magic ring. They get big because they can do what they do better than the other guy.

This is not something that was born with the Bush Administration it has been happening for a long time but this administration has changed the rules in order to give certain corporate powers full reign I guess they forgot to take the net into consideration. It is getting harder for them to hide what they are doing. More people are becoming aware and that's why you are seeing this surge in socialism around the world. There is always a rise in socialism when the gap between the rich and poor gets too big. It happened during WWI and it is happening again.

True, true. And, after the socialist (or communist) countries fall far behind the others because these systems simply don't work, they start adopting market reforms and become just as capitalistic as the next guy.

We are not talking simple consumerism and free trade like you have in a free capitalist society we're talking totalitarian control. These corporations by claiming themselves individuals and protecting themselves by abusing the bill of rights are taking full advantage and abusing the people of the world including Americans.

Even Abraham Lincoln had the foresight to see this coming. I don't understand why you want to believe its not happening. You will have to show me proof that the top 10 corporate entities in the world are helping the world. I am willing to listen but I doubt you will find it any evidence. You can't quote small successes from iPod and others but overlook the top 10 corporate POWERS..

Well, how do you define "helping"? If by "helping" you mean that they decide to not be as successful as they can be so that some other inferior company can have a little bigger piece of the pie, then no, they aren't helping. But what about the thousands of people these big corporations employ? What about the products that these big corporations purchase from other companies, and, in turn, the people that thes other companies employ? What about a person who works for big, bad Corporation X that has a salary that enables him to go out and donate to his favorite charity? If you put big bad Corporation X out of business it's just not a few fat cats at the top who will be hurt. It could be hundred's of thousands, if not millions of people who would be hurt. If you have a company who's gross income is larger than many countries economies, you can't just do away with them and not expect some pretty serious fallout.

Lincoln said
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
â?? U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 (letter to Col. William F. Elkins

Corporations in and of themselves were not always a bad thing. They started as engines of positive change. But, now they have become excessively large, and concentrated in terms of ownership of an industry and in wealth, Now they are engines for negative change, with the drive for profit at all cost contradicting the social good.

And what about corporate investment in wars not just Iraq all the wars happening now.
Of the 30 members of the Defense Policy Board, the government-appointed group that advises the Pentagon, at least nine have ties to companies that have won billions soon to be trillion in defense contracts. Four members are registered lobbyists, one of whom represents two of the three largest defense contractors.

This website has a few really good papers on the army and how the money for troop training has evaporated and is being funneled into private companies like Boeing,lockheed Martin,Northrop,Halliburton,Raytheon <--- these guys are really bad http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/after/2003/0328advisors.htm

I agree with you in principle, producing weapons is bad. But, how many people make a living from it? Have you ever thought about it? Stop producing all weapons all together. It sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? But how many industries would be involved? Do away with all weapons production and I guaruntee that a lot of hard working steel workers in the midwest would be out of a job. What about all those electronic gadgets going into modern weaponry? Ooops, looks like the high tech industries are going to get hurt too. No more army, no more uniforms. Oh well, that cotton farmer didn't need his job, did he? Starting to see the big picture?

There are now 40,000 corporations in the world whose activities cross national boundaries, these firms ply overseas markets through some 250,000 foreign affiliates. Yet, new calculations by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) indicate that the top 200 of these global firms account for an alarming and growing share of the world's economic activity. Two hundred giant corporations, most of them larger than many national economies, now control well over a quarter of the world's economic activity. Does that not bother you? Can you not see a problem here?

For example Philip Morris is larger than New Zealand, and it operates in 170 countries but instead of creating an integrated global village, it isolates from the community, endangers the environment and exploits it workers.

All these giant firms concentrate on the production, consumption, and finance that only bring economic benefits to, a third of the world's people. Two-thirds of the world (the bottom 20 percent of the rich countries and the bottom 80 percent of the poor countries) are either left out, marginalized, or hurt by corporate activity.

Really Fengzi I am surprised and disappointed that you don't see the crime here.

No, I don't see a crime here. First of all, I see the big picture. Like I just mentioned above, the activities of these big corporations touch the lives of a great deal more people than just it's own employees.

Second, if their activities did not benefit a signifigant number of people in some way, they would cease to exist.

Third, what are they supposed to do? Seriously. Take the U.S television industry for example. "What industry?". Exactly. The Japanese wiped out the U.S. tv industry because the U.S. intentionally did not make a better product. Our domestic tv industry produced a product that would break down within a few years so that they could sell more. The Japanese said "fuck that" we build them to last, and before you know it our industry was gone.
I got a bit off track here but I have a point. You are criticizing these corporations for being successful, for trying their hardest to be as good and as big as they can be. But, look what happened when they don't.

Soon there is not going to be any personally left in this world. The would is going to look JUST LIKE THE UNITED STATES it will be a series of strip malls and taco bells. I drove the entire length of this country 2 times in the last 4 years and I what I saw was really sad. Our country use to be a beautiful mix of cultures that changed from town to town that is gone. Every town looks exactly like the last Taco Bell, Mcdonalds, Wal-Mart,KFC, Wendy's they are all there replacing all hint personality and individuality.

If you have seen one small town in this country you have seen them all. It did not use to be this way. The only personally left is on the coasts and that is vanishing too

Alas, this is sad. I personally head to my local mom-n-pop taqueria instead of Taco Bell and I haven't eaten at a McDs since 1997 (living in China and desperate for fries). But what can we do? Outlaw McD's?

SOME FACTS
1. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are now global corporations; only 49 are countries.
2. The combined sales of the world's Top 200 corporations are far greater than a quarter of the world's economic activity.
3. The Top 200 corporations' combined sales are bigger than the combined economies of all countries minus the biggest 9; that is they surpass the combined economies of 182 countries.
4. The Top 200 have almost twice the economic clout of the poorest four-fifths of humanity.
5. The Top 200 have been net job destroyers in recent years. Their combined global employment is only 18.8 million, which is less than a third of one one-hundredth of one percent of the world's people.
6. Not only are the world's largest corporations cutting workers, their CEOs are benefiting financially from the job cuts.

7. Japanese corporations have surpassed U.S. corporations in the ranking of the Top 200
8. Over half of the sales of the Top 200 are in just 5 economic sectors; and corporate concentration in these sectors is high.
9. When General Motors trades with itself, is that free trade?: One-third of world trade is simply transactions among various units of the same corporation.

10. The Top 200 are creating a global economic apartheid, not a global village. The top eight telecommunications firms, for example, have been expanding global sales rapidly, yet over nine-tenths of humanity remains without phones. So?? Interesting facts but.... And "global economic aparteid"? Not sure what this means. Is it the top eight telecomunications firms' fault that 9/10 of the world doesn't have phones? Really BlueCat, don't you think these companies would love everyone to have phones? But what can they do?
It still sounds to me like you're criticizing big corporations for their sucess. I'm not sure how you feel about Microsoft but I'll use it, and Bill Gates, as an example. Bill Gates is either a genius or the Devil, depending on who you talk to. I favor the former opinion so I'll attack the latter.

People love to bitch about Microsoft and their power but really, what have they done wrong? Microsoft became what it is though a mixture of intelligence, good business sense, and pure luck. Bill Gates and his pals came up with a new computer language, partnered with IBM, and the Microsoft took off. Everything else was just sucessful business.

Here's a hypothetical question BlueCat: You and 'Fred' are working together at a certain company. Your boss pulls you aside and says "Blue, your work is incredible. You could be the best ever at this line of work and have the potential to revolutionize the industry and be wildly successful. Only one problem. You are so good that we don't need Fred anymore. So, I give you a choice. You either need to cut down your productivity, become complacent and remain where you are forever. Or, accept the fact that for you to succeed, Fred has to lose his job". So Blue, what's your choice?