Corporate Atrocities Over 100 Years: Profits Before People

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• Sorry Denis,

  Just using yr article as a test run with AIMN (Michael) to check some browser coding issues

• Good to see you, Clakka. 😃

• Dennis,

  For sheer greed and brutality it's still pretty hard to top The East India Company.

• Touched on some Big Oil players and events, but misses the embarrassments and astroturfs, still apparent today.

  JDR's Standard Oil, Rockefeller pre WWII support for German Kaiser Wilhem Institutes (eugenics research), continued with supplying niche oil products to Nazi Germany, post WWII supporting Population Commission then Council, Standard changed name to Exxon, Club of Rome on Rockefeller estate sponsored by VW and Fiat to promote 'greenwashing'* of fossil fuels, Population Council became the UNPD (Rockefellers gifted NY real estate) etc.

  Rockefellers receded in influence from '80s as Kochs or Atlas-Koch Network took the baton, but less public on their causes: climate science denial, promotion of fossil fuels and 'segregation economics' of the 'deep south' ie. low regulation, low taxes, small government/budgets and fewer services; sharing donors with Tanton Network (emerged from Rockefeller Bros. Fund' ZPG).

  *Promotion of their quasi environmental solutions for PR, greenwashing and deflection including the debunked junk science of 'limits to growth', steady state or degrowth economy (autarky), Gaia and 'the population bomb' with ZPG, that morphed into Tanton Network.

  The latter do white Christian nationalism, border security, immigration restrictions, ('sustainable') population control, the 'great replacement' and now MAGA, while Atlas-Koch does the faux free market; both networks are underpinned by both old and new social-Darwinism and wealthy donors.

  US KPBS journo Binkovski in UniCorn Riot '22 has very good summary including John Tanton, Paul Ehrlich, network map of donors and public entities in:

  'Eugenics, Border Wars & Population Control: The Tanton Network'

  https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/eugenics-border-wars-population-control-the-tanton-network/

• The article just highlighted some of the atrocities. It certainly was far from an exhausted list. I think the main thing I was trying to imply is that corporations are NOT our friends. They are price gouging consumers and slowly, but surely destroying our environment and governments are assisting them by subsidising them with public money.

• Excellent overview of corporate greed in the 20th & 21st centuries Denis, thanks. Under section 8.2, I would have included the appalling PWC scandal where top executives abused the privileged access to Australian Government secrets to enrich the company and its corporate clients through tax minimisation. This was followed by arrogant delaying & withholding of internal investigations to avoid accountability before members of parliament. Boiling my piss doesn't get close to describing my rage & contempt towards these entitled scumbags.

• Yes, indeed since the devastation of the 20th century wars, the foxy old power mongers and their descendants were not blown away, they regrouped, maintaining control, and promised a new paradise. They rebuilt the 'west' off the backs of 'slaves' from places they wouldn't let the eyes of the 'new world' see. The same old places they had been seeking to subjugate and steal from.

  Out were all the old (classical) philosophies, ideologies, quests for equity and universalism, and in came the new word-salad of neoliberalism, small govt and free markets. But one thing that didn't change was the foundation of brutalism and the exploitation of ordinary folk, instead of as serfs, totalizators and cannon-fodder, now to rise up as consumers and aspirants on an unbending quest for cleansed perfection, a new designer paradise and financialized moral conformity. What a brilliant masterplan.

  It boomed, and with hope, the world population skyrocketed from two billion to 8 billion and more, and through the 2nd industrialization, extraction knew no bounds. Encouraged by the expediencies of churches, the arcane catch cry, 'you're either with us or agin us' captured even selected and specially fueled scientists and academics into the scheme, and the absurd necessity to keep it secret and defend it against 'others' lest they 'spoil' our designer paradise.

  The type was cast by gobbledygook, and by the 1970s, captured by the the immense flow of capital and gobbledygook from the old power brokers and their descendants, politicians - the great reckoners of graft, sold out the people's 'state' assets and services to the freebooting power mongers for a song.

  One may have thought the capture was complete, but oh no! Very soon, along came the 3rd industrialization - information. What started out as the great hope of egalitarianism - computers and smartphones galore, were soon also captured by the power mongers. Pretty soon now their gobbledygook saturated everything from the minutia through to the interstellar at the speed of light. And they appropriated the new breed of geek, the obsessive and mindlessly infantile techbro. These geeks enabled them to subvert everything via residence in cyberspace, a jurisdiction jumping non-existence that flunky lawyers and accountants were able to substantiate via the writ of precedence as being a new and separate reality within an internecine web of 'corporations' and anonymity.

  So we have the rise and rise of the oligarchs, the old or newly assigned power mongers, who other than their genetic idiosyncrasies and gift of toadying, subversion and theft by guile, couldn't organize a chook raffle. They are completely lost without the bottom up, top down reach of the people's parliaments and executive. Yet they have subverted them and bound them into their circularity of strangulation and demise. A complete and utter dysfunctional mess and wreckage.

  So here we are, captured by ambition and stupidity, without understanding of any of its dimensions. Locked into bling and the bleakness and horrors of the scourged earth, whilst the oligarchs retreat to their sieges, where in the absence of the ordinary folk they've disenfranchised, they may eat one another for survival.

  So where to now? Can we tell stories of abstraction, wonderment and intrigue without being captured, whilst dwelling with the shared warmth of humus and humanity? Can we re-jig the people's parliaments and executive and re-institute proper regulation and enforcement, or will we abdicate reality to obsessions of fire-n-brimstone, great freeze-outs and abstractions of intangible designer paradises? In this modernity, are we any more capable of resolving fear and the conundrums of supremacy, fight or flight?

  This coming year or two will surely bring us some very strong messages.

• On the other hand, it is interesting to note that Australia and all EU countries have a more egalitarian distribution of wealth (as measured by the Gini Coefficient) than countries such as Russia and China.
  They also gave a higher GDP per capita.
  Australia has the world's highest minimum wage
  It's important to maintain a sense of balance in analysis

• Gini Coefficient and Wealth Distribution:
  The statement that Australia and EU countries have a more egalitarian wealth distribution compared to Russia and China is broadly accurate. The Gini Coefficient, a measure of income inequality (with 0 representing perfect equality and 1 representing maximum inequality), tends to be lower in many EU countries and Australia.

  For example, Australia's Gini Coefficient is around 0.33, comparable to the EU average, while Russia and China have higher coefficients (around 0.37–0.40, indicating greater inequality). This is due to stronger social safety nets and redistributive policies in the EU and Australia.

  GDP Per Capita:
  It is correct that Australia and EU countries generally have higher GDP per capita than Russia and China. As of recent data, Australia’s GDP per capita is approximately $62,000 USD, while the EU average is around $36,000 USD. Russia’s and China’s figures are lower, roughly $14,000 USD and $13,000 USD, respectively.
  One key reason for this difference is the cost of living in Australia and the EU, which tends to be higher than in Russia or China. Higher living costs often drive higher wages and prices, inflating GDP figures. Additionally, the economic structure, productivity, and services-driven economies in Australia and the EU further boost GDP per capita.
  World’s Highest Minimum Wage:
  Australia does indeed have one of the world’s highest minimum wages. As of 2024, the national minimum wage is $23.23 AUD per hour (or roughly $18 USD). This high wage is partly a response to the elevated cost of living in Australia, particularly in housing, healthcare, and essential goods, ensuring that workers can meet their basic needs.

  In contrast, countries like Russia and China have lower minimum wages, reflecting their comparatively lower cost of living and economic priorities focused on industrial output rather than service-based economies.

  Maintaining Balance in Analysis:

  The statement concludes with a valuable reminder. While these metrics (Gini Coefficient, GDP per capita, and minimum wage) paint a picture of greater equality and affluence, they don’t account for other factors like wealth inequality, regional disparities, or non-monetary aspects of well-being. For a nuanced analysis, such metrics should be interpreted alongside other data.