Worker Bees,
Revealed, The Capitalist Network That Runs the World
Previous studies have found that a few Trans-National-Corporations own large chunks of the world’s economy... Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them... PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What’s more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 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... 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.
To which countries does the US owe debts, and what countries owe the US? The US owes China a lot, so China is invested in the vale of the $US, and has reason not to destroy it, for instance. Look how isolated Russia is, but definitely owes the US some payments (so paying back debased-dollars would be nice). Look at how Japan is somewhat a net creditor of the US, also invested in the status quo. What the hell is going on with the Cayman Islands?
"At its heart economics is a study of human behavior, where that behavior is specific to certain activities. It is thus deeply rooted in psychology, so it is more closely associated with biology than physics. This is not a new idea: some of the greatest economists of the past have argued as much. Trying to transfer in ideas from physics, even metaphorically, therefore tends to lead to dead ends... There is in evolutionary biology, as I am sure you all know, a notion called a “fitness peak”. Roughly speaking, this is the idea that a species refines its survival strategy and succeeds in a certain context. As it does so it “climbs” higher up a successful strategic slope that defines it relative “fitness”. Problems arise when the context subsequently changes. The more superbly refined fitness becomes, there more difficult it is to go back down and climb a different and more relevant slope. Yesterday’s cleverness becomes todays’ ignorance. The advantage of the old peak becomes a hindrance in the newer landscape." (Very good article to understand the dichotomy between human economy and economic-command-and-control structures.)
Click Farming Social Media to buy-friend and "likes", a growth industry, a service industry, a big employer now...
"But it is not only sport stars with chips on their shoulder, or fading move and music gods who are willing to dish out in order to get the fake adoration and fake fans: as the AP reports, In 2013, the State Department, which has more than 400,000 likes and was recently most popular in Cairo, said it would stop buying Facebook fans after its inspector general criticized the agency for spending $630,000 to boost the numbers. In one case, its fan tally rose to more than 2.5 million from about 10,000... As recently as March of this year, scientists at USC and Indiana University discovered up to 15% of Twitter accounts could be fake. Since Twitter currently has 319 million monthly active users, that translates to nearly 48 million bot accounts."
"The first half of the oil age now closes," says Campbell. "It lasted 150 years and saw the rapid expansion of industry, transport, trade, agriculture and financial capital, allowing the population to expand six-fold. The second half now dawns, and will be marked by the decline of oil and all that depends on it, including financial capital." Thanks Charles
"The Robot Revolution Will Take Your Car, Your Mom's Car and All the Oil in 13 Years", Thanks again Charles. This has been my analysis since those self driving cars started to be on my bike routes in 2015 and I really looked into it closely. It keeps central control of people and economy, and really is efficient if nobody owns personal vehicles, you can have a lot fewer vehicles, and run them 5 feet apart at 75 mph, as long as the computer network is working right. Hey, what if it hiccups? Anyway, bicyclists rule when the computers are working right.)
How Amazon Killed the Department Store in 5 Charts (Big Malls and parking lots will be available for urban rebuilding from this effect, as well as from the robo-cabs. Amplifies central control even more. Global capitalism "Likes" big time.)
"What Was the Liberal International Order?" Thank Eleni. This really lays out global financial capitalism in the post-WW-2 era clearly and explicitly; towards the end, gut-wrenchingly. Read to the end. I'm really sorry...for the horrors it contracted-for to "expand it's holdings"...
Mourning the Dead
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