NEWS: Scientific analysis reveals financial 'super-entity' that controls global economy

[Generic Other]

A recent study of the global economy by three complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich "combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations," New Scientist reported.<1> -- It confirms that "a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy," Andy Coghlan and Debora MacKenzie said. -- The study is based on "Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them" -- It "revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships" with "ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. . . . he 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." -- In addition, it revealed "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." --

http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/10633/

edited to add the names of the 1%ers.

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

[femrap]

1. I figured as much....

I think I need to become a Forensic Accountant!

[undeterred]

2. I thought this was going to be the Onion..

and some kind of alien bug

[DreamSmoker]

3. The truth revealed

K&R

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. Ah yup. Now that we can see it, we can dismantle it.

[Generic Other]

8. Are you making a list? It seems so overwhelming

I don't even know where to start.

[Fire Walk With Me]

20. That this information has even been empiric'ly presented shows we are going in the right direction.

[biermeister]

41. I (we) could all start with our credit cards,

car loans & mortgages. I could close my credit cards with these majors and set up new ones with local credit unions. I could refinance my home with a credit union or a smaller local finance company. I think I should shift the cashflow I generate for the financial world towards smaller local institutions and deprive the majors of it. I think I'll start today
thanks

[1776Forever]

5. Barclays PLC (LSE: BARC, NYSE: BCS) is a global banking and financial services company

Information from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barclays

Barclays PLC (LSE: BARC, NYSE: BCS) is a global banking and financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. As of 2010 it was the world's 10th-largest banking and financial services group and 21st-largest company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine.<3> It has operations in over 50 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America and around 48 million customers.<4> As of 30 June 2010 it had total assets of €1.94 trillion, the third-largest of any bank worldwide (after BNP Paribas and HSBC).<5>

Barclays is a universal bank and is organised within two business 'clusters': Corporate & Investment Banking and Wealth Management, and Global Retail Banking.<6> The Corporate & Investment Banking and Wealth Management cluster comprises three business units: Barclays Capital (investment banking), Barclays Corporate (commercial banking) and Barclays Wealth (wealth management).<6> The Global Retail Banking cluster comprises four business units: Barclaycard (credit card and loan provision), Barclays Africa, UK Retail Banking and Western Europe Retail Banking.<6>....

On 16 September 2008, Barclays announced its agreement to purchase, subject to regulatory approval, the investment-banking and trading divisions of Lehman Brothers, a United States financial conglomerate that had filed for bankruptcy. In the deal, Barclays will also acquired the New York headquarters building of Lehman Brothers.

(More at link)

.........

Talk about TOO BIG TO FAIL!

[Generic Other]

6. Looks like you ID'd the true corporate overlords

It is like an alien takeover. No wonder David Icke thinks they are reptilians!

[FarCenter]

19. Barclays probably appears on the list because of the iShares ETF business

Lots of stock would be held by the iShares Exchange Traded Funds, but the beneficial owners of the stock would actually be the owners of the ETF shares.

Barclays sold iShares to BlackRock in 2009, later than the data used in the study. BlackRock should certainly appear on a current list.

They must be using data which just identifies the "street name" holders of shares, not actual owners. For example, Depository Trust Company doesn't own shares, it just serves as an electronic repository and holder of securities for other companies, and this replaces the shuffling of paper documents from firm to firm.

[1776Forever]

37. Your post shows how amazingly intertwined these financial institutions are and how much they can

change their chameleon names in a very short time. It is no wonder that they can manipulate the market the way they do and get away with so much without being caught! I have never heard of them but wikipedia says they are the world's largest asset manager corporation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackRock

BlackRock, Inc. is an American multinational investment management corporation and the world's largest asset manager.<3> BlackRock is headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States and is the leading provider of investment, advisory, and risk management solutions. The company acquired Barclays Global Investors in December 2009, solidifying BlackRock's position as the largest investment manager in the world.<4>

Founded in 1988, initially offering fixed income products, BlackRock has become a financial powerhouse while remaining out of the public eye. According to Ralph Schlosstein, CEO of Evercore Partners, a NY-based investment bank: “BlackRock today is one of, if not the, most influential financial institutions in the world.”<5>

[AmirDal]

7. Unfortunately, the OWS movement can never get to the real powers that keep the status quo

[tcaudilllg]

9. Why not America 2.0?

[Generic Other]

11. Reboot because the system has become corrupt!!

Thanks for my next sign idea!!

"America 2.0" is awesome and says it so succinctly!

[tcaudilllg]

14. I'm looking forward to seeing it. :D

[Generic Other]

10. But maybe the 1% will defeat themselves by overstepping in their greed

They think they are too big to fail. So did Saddam and Ghaddafi and the Soviets and the Egyptians, and the Roman Empire.

[tcaudilllg]

16. I think they already have.

[defendandprotect]

32. How do you mean that?

[yoyossarian]

12. WOW!... so I guess those business-jerks actually DO do some work!

I mean, knitting together this titanic complex diabolical Octopus of Evil...

I guess they really do make their money the old-fashioned way... they EARN it, like the guy says...

Oh well. If they can do all THAT, I guess we're in pretty safe hands after all.

Or tentacles. Or whatever.

[xchrom]

13. Horizontally & vertically integrated multi nationals

Need to be broken up.

[1776Forever]

17. Bingo - Ding Ding Ding - You won the gold ring - I'm with you! n/t

[flamingdem]

15. THE BORG HAS BEEN REVEALED!

Call Spock

[Prometheus Bound]

18. I wonder why they put Merrill Lynch #10 and Bank of America #25 when #25 owns #10.

[Odin2005]

21. This is NEWS? That corporate boardrooms are an incestuous club has been known for a long time.

The elites are all in each other's corporate boardrooms.

[tomp]

43. i'm with you. this is specific and scientifically derived...

....but not new.

[socialist_n_TN]

46. Yep. I'm tempted to a snarky "DUH!".........

But I guess it progress that it's been proven by statistical analysis. It's hard for anybody to argue with objective numbers.

[Posteritatis]

51. The specifics of it and how it came about qualifies as news, yes. (nt)

[chervilant]

22. Now that we've started turning over rocks...

Consider Brooksley Born, the 'uppity female' who challenged the primacy of Uncle Miltie and his minions. They berated, then 'negated' her, largely because she knew whereof she spoke.

Here's what should be of concern to everyone watching with bated breath as the global economy teeters on the brink of catastrophic reordering:

{Born} once again warned about the danger of Dark Markets, now grown to $680 trillion of notional value, according to the Bank for International Settlements -- "more than 10 times the amount of the gross national product of all the countries in the world."

(emphasis mine)

Does anyone out there TRULY believe that our global economy has the combined resources to cover this ginormous financial Black Hole?! So, even the most math-challenged average human being can see that these 'derivatives' are literally worthless...



(Oh, and, just FYI, there are many, many more of us who are savvy about matters economic than Summers, Geithner and their ilk would care to acknowledge...)

[HomerRamone]

23. What happened to #29?

Not in original article, either...

[FarCenter]

24. It is Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA)

It is on the same line as 28.

[Motown_Johnny]

25. on the same line as #28 is all, maybe a typo

[Ilsa]

28. Or tied for that position in the ranking. Nt

[Rex]

26. One day when corporations rule the world.

Wow, that didn't take long!

[stockholmer]

27. +100,I posted this several months ago,got little response, glad to see it back,here's the full study

http://www.scribd.com/doc/67435351/The-network-of-global-corporate-control

Bear in mind, this data is from 2007, pre-global crash, would love to see who is now in the top 50, after massive consolidations.

The systemic controllers need to start having global crimes against humanity charges levied on them.


At the epicenter how will find the same 20 to 50 global families/networks over and over, inside thousands of layers of centuries-long indirect control , shell corporations, central bank ownership, sovereign debt (thus nation state) control, etc,.

Names? Here are some:

The old family foundations (Rockefeller, Ford, Rhodes, Carnegie, etc etc etc), BIS, IMF, World Bank, Fed Reserve, ECB, Bank of England, The City of London Crown Corporations, the CFR and its parent, the Royal Institute for Foreign Affairs, etc etc.

Slam them all in a trial dock, then a cell or a noose (I am anti death penalty, but I think the world will not be so forgiving for the hundreds of millions of deaths these scum have caused over the last 500 to 700 years or so) .......... Rothschilds, Oppenheimers, Rockefellers, Morgans, Schiffs, the house of Li Ka-shing (China), House of Kwok (China), Bundys, Collins, Cecils, van Duyns, Freemans, DuPonts, Mitals (India), Krupps, Astors, Saxe-Coberg Gothas (the British Royal House of Windsor), den Huis van Oranje-Nassau (Royal House of Holland), Sassoons, Orsinis, Somaglias, Breakspears, Aldobraninis, Farneses, and Warburgs at the lead.

That will be a start, I think there is a chance the world will find levels even above these. Names we have never heard of perhaps. I leave that to the discovery process.

[nilram]

29. ooh, thanks for the study

[begin_within]

30. So, in other words: control the money, and you run the world. Laws don't matter any more.

[Rex]

33. Yes that is exactly it, you can donate billions to the law

in whatever country you want to and walk around immune...as a company. I'm sure the CEOs get treated like kings.

[valerief]

45. Nope. The most important thing in the world is to make rich people richer. Laws support that. nt

[bhikkhu]

31. I'm not sure it makes much difference

...whether 50 groups control 40%, or if it was 150 groups controlling 50%, or 1000 groups with 35%. Perhaps they all act as an entity because the basic mode and motive of operation is the same; other than that, its pretty easy to find all the connections you want.

[radhika]

34. Of the top 50, only the last one produces a physical product

That is OIL.

Except for that, massive wealth strictly comes from Financial Services, intangibles created, managed and marketed in a digital dream world. The top-tier of global wealth is detached from nature, human labor and natural resources. Obviously these are still in play - just tucked down low into subsidiares. Workers don't keep that wealth premium, the producers don't have that premium either. It rolls upward, and gets packaged for the added gain of Financiers. Workers are not valued because they are less needed - the rich can sell their over-priced non-physical derivatives to each other.

Every day, we read more of 'trillions'. Missing trillions, derivative trillions, conterparty contingencies expressed by Tr. These are typically forms of wealth produced by printing money, creating and pushing debt instruments, dickering with international exchange rates, securitizing crapola, running black economies and fraudulently assigning ratings. This massive wealth is really a bunch of electronic digits supported by belief systems that give them value.

This is actually quite good news. The Matrix can be exposed as an Illusion. The Hindus used the concept of Maya. Just think: if we meat-space humans went back to viewing well-being in terms of health, shelter, nutrition, safety and leisure we might find we can have all that OUTSIDE the thought bubble. Land, labor and tools - they still exist. They can be used and exchanged amoung ourselves in fairer, less monetized ways.

I think I have joined the ILLUMINATI.

[Odin2005]

52. Oil is a resource that is EXTRACTED, not produced.

Calling it "oil production" is physically incorrect.

[radhika]

54. Hey, you're right. That means ALL 50 produce nothing! n/t

[catzies]

55. +1 for your reply which is as insightful as the OP.

n/t

[Dover]

35. I think you'll find many of the same here

http://businessroundtable.org/about-us/executive-committee/

Needless to say they were very pleased with the recent signing of the trade deal, and had an influence upon that decision
through their lobby.

Their "Roadmap for Growth"
http://businessroundtable.org/uploads/studies-reports/downloads/Roadmap_for_Growth_Full_Report_1.pdf

[shanti]

36. "too big to fail"

now we see why this was said.

[truth2power]

38. They're doing a piss-poor job of it if you ask me. n/t

[tama]

39. K&R and link to earlier post of same article

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2155150

[xchrom]

40. Kick

[wakemewhenitsover]

42. Check it out....

A quick glance at the Treasury's bank bailout list (http://money.cnn.com/news/specials/storysupplement/bankbailout/) shows JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, B of A, and more, received bailout money.

Talk about :wtf:

[azul]

44. Money is king, and has a round table?

My friend, who was a very well connected businessman in NYC for most of his career, would say that the world was run by 50 people. And it was something strange for him to contend because he was otherwise quite precise and accurate in his speech. And I thought that he may be correct, but it was about impossible to prove or disprove.

The house of international finance. But what could replace it when money itself has such power over people's minds and lives? It is and entity that has bred into the human mind the key to irrationally follow it into war or debt.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

47. k&r and bkmrkd. thanks. n/t

[spicegal]

48. I have always suspected that to be the case, and these

guys rule the world by controlling our politicians and having their boots on the necks of every country's economy.

[mzteris]

49. Can you say CARLISLE GROUP? n/t

damn typos.

[the_chinuk]

50. They don't MAKE anything …

they either push money around or deplete the environment.

What a wonderful world.

[Odin2005]

53. Yup, must of them made their money by manipulating money.

What a scam.

[pam4water]

56. Great find. I wish I'd seen it early enough to rec XD