But, listen to what you’re saying. Let’s assume that the top 500 companies now control about 1/3 of American GDP (any reliable cites to counter this, I’m all ears). OK, figure that there are maybe 10 people at a company who really matter–the CEO, CFO, major VPs. That’s 5000 people–and not even close to a majority…even in America! That would have to be the Mother of All Conspiracies for them to collaborate to do almost anything, let alone control American politics.
Note that I’m not saying there isn’t political influence–there is. But look at this: Fundraising for George W. Bush, 2000 campaign. $101,520,773 from individual contributors. By contrast, at PACs from 1999-2000 you can see that the total contribution to all Republicans of the top 20 PACs was $21,330,628. Pretty small, in comparison.
This is a little bit of a tangential argument, so I’ll stop here. But I want to see real evidence that American companies dominate the world, with negative effects, under globalization, if you continue to make the claim.
Well hold on here, comparing Big oil or coal companies to the “Sierra Club” is like comparing Our president to the mayor of Tuscon, Arizona. The fact is, these industries make more cash than any environmental group, in fact, I’m willing to bet that Mobil makes at least 15 times the money the Sierra Club does if not WAAAAAY more. I don’t think it is a misconception, I think it is a fact that the vast majority of our government is doing favors for oil, mining and logging companies. If this wasn’t true, why aren’t hybrid cars being promoted like SUVs? why isn’t paper made out of hemp on a large scale? Why do we have to rely on coal and oil for power? Our government thrives off the cash from all the industries I have mentoned before. I don’t mean to sound like a liberal, granola-eating guy, but it’s true. The economy is totaly controlled by natural resource exploitation and so is our government.
OK, this is my last post on this topic in this thread, since we are venturing way away from globalization, but this must be said.
Who gives a damn what amount they make? After all, if a company makes $1 trillion a year in GDP but gives none to politicians, they wouldn’t get much special treatment.
Because they’re cheaper, dammit! Argue the merits of them if you like, but the gov’t doesn’t force anyone to buy an SUV. You’re pissed because the gov’t doesn’t actively promote hybrids, a huge difference. Why coal and oil? Well, I say because idiots won’t let us go nuclear, but let’s not go there. Bottom line, it’s because it’s a cheaper product, not the gov’t.
So what if they make more money. Corporations, in and of themselves, can’t give any money to campaigns. And when their political action committees give money, they are limited. So even if they make a lot more money than the Sierra Club, it’s not like they can give more money than the Sierra Club and other environmental groups.
Similarly, since they make more money than the Sierra Club does, it would seem to indicate they produce a lot more value to the economy than the Sierra Club (in fact, since these industries create wealth and the Sierra Club merely exists off the contributions of others and creates no wealth, it’s not even a contest) and employ a lot more people. Thus, if these industries were hurt, a lot of constituents would be out of jobs. Politicians don’t like unemployment.
The government doesn’t “promote” SUVs. Ford, GM, Toyota, etc. promote them. And the government does fund research on hybrid cars and other clean technology.
Because hemp is illegal. And it wasn’t made illegal because Big Corporations wanted it illegal. It was made illegal because of its supposed similarity to marijuana.
Because it’s the cheapest power source we have right now and that’s what our infrastructure is set up for. As mentioned above, the government spends a lot of money researching alternative technologies, and there’s no conspiracy squelching these technologies.
Our economy does indeed run on natural resource exploitation. Why? Because we need these resources to work. Without mining, we’d still be in the stone age. Everything you use comes from natural resources, including the computer you’re reading this on. Of course the government’s policies are going to favor these industries, because without them our economy would not exist and most Americans wouldn’t have jobs.