Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world

[tama]

whole article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html

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

[HereSince1628]

1. Or maybe not.

Sure these are the big companies, but it says nothing about the political activity of the organization.

Where, may I ask, are the Koch brothers of the Bradleys in this listing? Smaller co.s that are directed by trustees who are REALLY politically active co.s and foundations may push a large number of acquiescent elephants on this list aside.

[Octafish]

2. A Must-Read.

EXCERPT...

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).

Thank you, tama, for the heads-up. The connections aren't in someone's head. They are real.

[Octafish]

3. Really is a must-read: a 'super-entity of 147 companies control 40 percent of the network's wealth.

Gee. Sounds familiar...

EXCERPT...

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.

The OP should have 1,000 Rec.s Maybe it does, but 999 Unrec.s cancelled out the majority.

[anamandujano]

4. Thank you. nt

.

[tama]

5. Please

this can be reposted and spread - feel free if you feel this info is kosher and important. I have some Karma with unreccers and attention economics.

rEvolution!

[Trillo]

6. "Such structures are common in nature," says Sugihara

Such as?

Also, "Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion." So, here we have the same old argument dressed in new clothes, that money concentrated in a few hands doesn't equal sustained political power, itself a version of one natural person one vote.

There are about 7 billion folks in the world. Do the 147 entities exert any economic power over even one of the rest of the 7 billion at any time? If yes, then have they done the same to more than one at any time? If yes, then have they done the same to more than one of the 7 billion at more than one time?

So, at what point does the "147 is too many to sustain collusion" become meaningless? So they compete with each other at times, but even at these times are they exerting economic power over non-147 members?

A very simple example of this power is seen in the person who volunteers, works for others for free, yet must nearly always pay money for food and rent. Have these 147 members manipulated that person by sustaining a system that requires money to survive, but that allows that same person to give their labor away for free?