EU-DIGEST: Corporations

Showing posts with label Corporations. Show all posts

7/14/23

The US is not a Democracy anymore and Unions and street protests are now the only democratic forces left to stop Corporate Capital to completely take over Democracy in the US and other democratic nations

America faces a crisis of corporate capture of democratic government, where the economic power of corporations has been translated into political power with disastrous effects for people’s lives.

In his new book, Captured: The Corporate Infiltration of American Democracy, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) warns that “corporations of vast wealth and remorseless staying power have moved into our politics to seize for themselves advantages that can be seized only by control over government.” The book illustrates what he calls, the “immense pressure deployed by the corporate sector in our government.” We must rebalance our democracy by changing the rules to limit the power of money over government and empower people to engage politically as a countervailing force.

Currently, the domination of big money over our public institutions prevents government from being responsive to Americans. This certainly is not a new phenomenon—but it is growing. Even in 2009, before the Citizens United v. FEC ruling removed constraints on corporate political spending, 80 percent of Americans agreed with the following statement:

I am worried that large political contributions will prevent Congress from tackling the important issues facing American today, like the economic crisis, rising energy costs, reforming health care, and global warming.

In the first presidential contest after the Citizens United decision, 84 percent of Americans agreed that corporate political spending drowns out the voices of average Americans, and 83 percent believed that corporations and corporate CEOs have too much political power and influence. This aligns with more recent research showing that 84 percent of people think government is benefitting special interests, and 83 percent think government is benefitting big corporations and the wealthy.

As already noted, the undue influence of corporate interests on the functions of government is not new, and Sen. Whitehouse’s book explains how Americans have faced and overcome this threat before.

America’s founders recognized the danger of corporate capture: In 1816, Thomas Jefferson warned the new republic to “crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of their country.” Almost a century later, President Theodore Roosevelt, in his annual address to Congress in 1907, said:The fortunes amassed through corporate organization are now so large, and vest such power in those that wield them, as to make it a matter of necessity to give to the sovereign—that is, to the Government, which represents the people as a whole—some effective power of supervision over their corporate use.

Read more at; https://www.americanprogress.org/article/corporate-capture-threatens-democratic-government/

4/5/23

EU: high corporate profits during bad economic times are bad for consumers

When major oil companies announced record earnings in February, even US President Joe Biden was appalled. The White House said it was "outrageous" that ExxonMobil had raked in a profit of $56 billion (€51 billion) in 2022 as consumers were grappling with inflation rates not seen in decades.

Top policymakers in Europe have also weighed in on the issue, imposing windfall taxes on energy firms. Even though price pressures have eased lately from their record levels, the eurozone is still reeling from elevated inflation levels. Consumer prices in the common currency area rose 6.9% in March from a year earlier, keeping inflation at more than three times the European Central Bank's target of 2%.

3/12/23

Corporate America has taken over control of the US political establishment

Yes indeed, they have, In particular it affected, the Energy sector, High-Tch Silicone Valley Corporations, Weapons industry, Pharmaceutical, Medical, and other important corporate sectors.

Fortunately the EU has been able to fine Google,which has the higest global advertising revenues, on unpaid taxes for excessive profits made from their advertising revenues in Europe, but the EU also has to remain vigilant to stop potential US secret corporate infiltration of its Democratic institutions and economic infrastructures.

The US political establishment, however, so far, has not been able to hold corporate America under control in the US Congress, as the EU did in their parliament, since many US politicians already are subsidized hy US corporations.

Read more at: https://www..eu-digest.blogspot.com

10/27/22

Energy corporations; Amid world crises, ‘grotesque greed’ wins out

For months, spiking inflation has roiled poor and rich nations alike. The rising costs, which have reached 40-year highs, are largely thanks to the cascading global effects of the pandemic combined with the sudden supply chain and energy market disruptions that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as readers of this newsletter are well aware. Their effects have been deep and far-reaching.

Read more at: https://www.washingtonpost.com

9/13/22

US Corporations: 76% of Americans Say Corporations "Have Too Much Power"

Open Markets Institute has underwritten a poll with Public Policy Polling gauging public opinion concerning corporate power in America. According to the poll, 76 percent of Americans stated they were "somewhat" or "very concerned" that corporations have too much power over their families and communities. 71 percent of Americans also claimed they were "very concerned" that big corporations too much power over politicians and 65 percent agreed that the government "should do more to break up corporate monopolies."

Read more at: 76% of Americans Say Corporations "Have Too Much Power" — Open Markets Institute

8/30/21

The Netherlands-Economy: The Netherlands to end pandemic business relief

The government announced Monday that with the economy back on track, lockdown measures largely over and unemployment low, “Continuing the support would stand in the way of the economic recovery.”

The government has spent some 80 billion euros ($94 billion) since March last year propping up business ranging from individual entrepreneurs to national flag carrier KLM. It says the support helped limit bankruptcies and unemployment.

The Dutch economy is forecast to grow 3.8% this year and 3.2% in 2022. A number of targeted support measures aimed at education programs and night clubs will remain in the final quarter of the year.

Read more at: https://draft.blogger.com/u/1/blog/post/edit/7267356/3674647997756275155

12/21/19

France: 'Not climate-friendly? We won't work for your company' French students say in manifesto - by Koert Debeuf

I meet them in a coffee bar in Brussels. Five students from the so-called 'grandes écoles', the French elite institutions for higher education.

They have started a remarkable initiative to push companies to become more climate-friendly.

In September 2018 they wrote a manifesto for climate awakening in which they commit to use their power as future employees to change the companies that will want to hire them.

"We have two goals," Inès Malot, a student engineering at Mines ParisTech, says. "Changing the way our economy works and changing the courses at our schools."

"It is unacceptable to see how ecology and climate change are not part of our curriculum. This needs to change if we want to be prepared for the future," she continues.

More revolutionary, however, is how these students want to use their power as much wanted employees.

"We know that the big and small French companies need us", Benoît Galand, another student engineering at the Ecole Polytechnique explains.

"We ask them to answer our questions about their ecological footprint. If their answers are not convincing, I am not going to work for them."

Read more at: 'Not climate-friendly? We won't work for your company'

9/25/19

The Netherlands - healthcare: profits skyrocket at 85 Dutch Healthcare firms

9/22/19

Climate Change: 90 big companies from several sectors are pledging to slash their greenhouse gas emissions

Almost 90 big companies in sectors from food to cement to telecommunications are pledging to slash their greenhouse gas emissions in a new campaign to steer multi-nationals towards a low-carbon future, organizers said on Sunday.

8/27/19

Media: Controlled by corporations has become unreliable and is threatening democracy

The media has become gossip, clickbait and punditry. This threatens democracy, says Bernie Sanders.

For example, two Silicon Valley corporations – Facebook and Google – control 60% of the entire digital advertising market. They have used monopolistic control to siphon off advertising revenues from news organizations.

A recent study by the News Media Alliance, a trade organization, found that in 2018, as newspaper revenues declined, Google made $4.7bn off reporting that Google did not pay for.

At the same time, corporate conglomerates and hedge fund vultures have bought and consolidated beleaguered local newspapers and slashed their newsrooms – all while giving executives big payouts.

Gannett’s proposed merger with Gatehouse Media, for instance, will consolidate hundreds of publications under one mega-corporation’s control and slash $300 m worth of “synergies” – which is often corporate-speak for layoffs.

Matt Pearce, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, notes that “the new Gannett/Gatehouse chief executive is getting $4.5m in bonuses and stock just for walking in the door.”

8/26/19

The Netherlands - Brexit: 98 companies moving to the Netherlands already and more expected

Sent from DutchNews android application:

7/15/19

The Netherlands: Female Executives: Dutch group of investors only to invest in companies with female executives - by Mina Solanki

That’s right, an important group of Dutch investors has decided to only invest in companies where at least 35 percent of executives are female. The goal for achieving this is set at three years.

There are 25 investors involved in this initiative, and together, they manage around 1,1 billion euros. That is a quarter of the total assets managed by Dutch venture investors. The plan to introduce a quota came about after research into the funding of female-run start-ups, by the investors Eva Mol and Janneke Niessen, revealed that investors almost exclusively funded start-ups run by men. In fact, only 1,6 percent of the businesses invested in was under the direction of a woman.

Read more: Dutch group of investors only to invest in companies with female executives

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6/6/19

The Netherlands - Amsterdam: The inventors of true Corporate Capitalism - To the post-capitalist city … via Amsterdam circa 1619 - by Paul Mason

Imagine yourself in Amsterdam exactly 400 years ago. What word would you use to describe the extraordinary economic and social system around you?

There are a stock exchange, a currency market and a central bank. The most important social institution is something called a ‘company’—not just any old company but the VOC (the Dutch East Indian Company), the most powerful in the world.

There are other clues. The trade fleet of the United Provinces is bigger than all the trade fleets of Europe combined. Amsterdam is the ‘bookshop of the world’. And this is a republic.

So what, using the language available to you as a citizen of the Dutch Republic, do you call this kind of society?

Today it’s obvious. This is the first flourishing of mercantile capitalism. And the transition had been under way for at least 100 years. While London possessed some of the working parts of the new system, only Amsterdam had all of them.

The English ambassador, Sir William Temple, summed up the puzzlement of the rest of the world: "They have no native commodities towards the building or rigging of the smallest vessel … for havens they have not any good upon their whole coast … nor has Holland grown rich by any native commodities, but by force of industry; by improvement and manufacture of all foreign growths; by being the general magazine of Europe, and furnishing all parts with whatever the market wants or invites …"

Read more at: To the postcapitalist city … via Amsterdam circa 1619 • Social Europe

1/22/19

EU - Corporate Taxes: Corporations failing to pay proper Tax rates

Corporations 'failing to pay proper tax rates' in EU

9/16/18

The Netherlands - Free Market Forces in Health-Care and Education not benefitting Netherlands consumers - by RM

After returning back home from America to the Netherlands, it struck me how incredibly passive the Dutch population reacts to many decisions of their Government, which unfortunately, usually negatively affects the "pocketbooks" of the average Dutch citizen.

Particularly, because when these decisions are announced, the Dutch Government gives little or often no clear explanation, about the nature or reasons for these decisions. Their catch words usually are, either to improve the economy or to cut costs.

One example is the Dutch Health-Care system, which was changed a few years ago from a government controlled Universal Health-Care program, to a "Market controlled version, now mainly controlled by Insurance companies.

According to a recently held opinion poll, however, a majority (more than 60%) of the Dutch population wants to return to the old system of Universal Health-Care, since the new system, now run by Insurance companies has steadily increased their costs for affordable Health-Care .

In the field of education, Dutch students, who used to be able to apply for a free scholarship, which they did not have to pay off, after they successfully had completed their educational program, now have to pay back their scholarship through a loan program, including interest.

Unfortunately, many Dutch politicians, and large companies have abused the concept of "market forces" to create the suggestion of freedom and honesty.

A truly free market offers advantages, but with economic "spins and gibberish", as it does now, it certainly does not.

Bottom - line, the Dutch citizen is now at the mercy of a few large suppliers - and the so-called benefits of the market forces do not end up being tangible economic benefits to them .

The Netherlands economy, unfortunately, is starting to look more and more like that of the US, and that certainly is a scary idea.

Isn't it time to man the barricades?

C: this article can be published if source is identified as EU-Figest

EU-Digest

6/21/17

Global Economy: Back to the Global Vertical -a politically dangerous development - by Andres Ortega

There are horizontal periods – indeed some people, Thomas Friedman among them, believed some years ago that the world was definitively flat. And then there are periods in which verticality imposes itself again.

In many ways, we are once again moving from the horizontal to the vertical dimension of global affairs.

This “verticality” is making itself especially felt in social terms. Social classes are back on the agenda, although not in the traditional Marxist sense of class struggle.

Rather, we are now coping with the decline of the middle classes and the emergence of a broader “precariat.”

The social escalator is not working as in previous eras, despite renewed growth in many economies following the crisis. Benefits that were taken for granted, such as full-time jobs with social security protections, are disappearing in significant numbers.

Perhaps we are witnessing what Dennis J. Snower calls the “great decoupling,” which he labels “dangerous,” unlike its predecessor, which was “convenient.”

When economic progress is not mirrored or is not linked to social progress, discontent is generated in those left behind. This decoupling ends up manifesting itself in politics.

This is what may be going on in many countries amid the prospect of recovery, an uneven emergence from the crisis and, before that, globalization, which is now generally acknowledged to have produced winners and losers.

The decoupling phenomenon is arising when the advanced economies, both industrial and post-industrial, are recovering from the crisis.

As Marc Fleurbaey of Princeton University argues, we must “prepare people for life and support them in life.”

Central to that is the commitment to education, particularly amid the challenge of technology and its controversial impact on employment and the concept of work.

A smart policy approach in that regard, as Ylva Johansson, the Swedish Employment Minister, points out, is not protecting specific jobs (which may be dying) as protecting workers (which need to be actively equipped and/or a guided toward a new one).

Somehow or other, although no one knows how, remedying the great decoupling will induce the vertical to become more horizontal again. Or so one hopes.

Failing to achieve this will only accentuate more verticality. And vertical moments, as we know, tend to be the more dangerous ones.

Editors note EU-Digest: but the situation is not hopeless. Change is possible. People can and will make the difference. All that is required is for responsible, well educated, socially conscious people, with new ideologies to start speaking out. The outdated, corrupt, political systems in many places of the world must be replaced before it leads to a catasthrophy

If it was possible in France, for a new party to be created within a one year time span prior to their Presidential and parliamentary elections, and for that party to win decisively, in both the Presidential and Parliamentary elections, it can also be done elsewhere.

The old and established parties have failed the people. The political establishment on both the left and the right have become corrupted by corporate influence and greed. It is high time for change, because the status quo is not acceptable anymore.

Read more: Back to the Global Vertical

4/13/16

Tax Havens: Europe Will Force Big Companies to Disclose How They Use Tax Havens

The European Commission will propose rules on Tuesday to force major companies to publish details of where they make profits and where they pay tax, as it moves to clamp down on tax avoidance following the Panama Papers revelations.

Companies will have to disclose activities in tax havens, an amendment which has been added to earlier proposals, but campaigners say the measure may be toothless as European Union (EU) states have no common view of what constitutes a tax haven.

The commission wants to apply the measure to all firms with global annual turnover above 750 million euros ($856 million), meaning US companies such as Google and Facebook — which have faced criticism for their complicated tax avoidance mechanisms — will be subject to them.

The original plan had been for big companies to show only how much they paid in each EU state, with the rest of the world treated as a single item. Now, EU officials say, the draft will propose that they also list how much of their money outside the EU flows through each state classed by EU governments as a tax haven.

The problem, transparency campaigners say, is that there is no agreement among EU member states on the definition of a tax haven.

Read more: Europe Will Force Big Companies to Disclose How They Use Tax Havens | VICE News

7/6/15

Legal Controversies: The obscure legal system that lets corporations sue countries - by Claire Provost and Matt Kennard

Luis Parada’s office is just four blocks from the White House, in the heart of K Street, Washington’s lobbying row – a stretch of steel and glass buildings once dubbed the “road to riches”, when influence-peddling became an American growth industry. Parada, a soft-spoken 55-year-old from El Salvador, is one of a handful of lawyers in the world who specialise in defending sovereign states against lawsuits lodged by multinational corporations. He is the lawyer for the defence in an obscure but increasingly powerful field of international law – where foreign investors can sue governments in a network of tribunals for billions of dollars.

Fifteen years ago, Parada’s work was a minor niche even within the legal business. But since 2000, hundreds of foreign investors have sued more than half of the world’s countries, claiming damages for a wide range of government actions that they say have threatened their profits. In 2006, Ecuador cancelled an oil-exploration contract with Houston-based Occidental Petroleum; in 2012, after Occidental filed a suit before an international investment tribunal, Ecuador was ordered to pay a record $1.8bn – roughly equal to the country’s health budget for a year. (Ecuador has logged a request for the decision to be annulled.)

Parada’s first case was defending Argentina in the late 1990s against the French conglomerate Vivendi, which sued after the Argentine province of Tucuman stepped in to limit the price it charged people for water and wastewater services. Argentina eventually lost, and was ordered to pay the company more than $100m. Now, in his most high-profile case yet, Parada is part of the team defending El Salvador as it tries to fend off a multimillion-dollar suit lodged by a multinational mining company after the tiny Central American country refused to allow it to dig for gold.

The suit was filed in 2009 by a Canadian company, Pacific Rim – later bought by an Australian mining firm, OceanaGold – which said it had been encouraged by the government of El Salvador to spend “tens of millions of dollars to undertake mineral exploration activities”. But, the company alleged that when valuable deposits of gold and silver were discovered, the government, for political reasons, withheld the permits it needed to begin digging. The company’s claim, which at one point exceeded $300m, has since been reduced to $284m – still more than the total amount of foreign aid El Salvador received last year. El Salvador countered that the company not only lacked environmental permits but also failed to prove it had obtained rights to much of the land covered by its request: many farmers in the northern Cabañas region, where the company wanted to dig, had refused to sell their land.

Read more: The obscure legal system that lets corporations sue countries | Claire Provost and Matt Kennard | Business | The Guardian

5/15/15

US Airlines Industry: U.S. Airlines Are Like A "Low-Cost Bus Company," Says Emirates Chief - by Tom Gara

Let’s get ready to rumble. Emirates airline president Tim Clark spoke with The National about the big three U.S. airlines that are calling for restrictions on Persian Gulf–based carriers offering international flights to U.S. customers:

“What they should focus on is the appalling state of the US domestic market. It’s happened because the big three were allowed to absorb the rest of the industry…
“And they were blind to standards in their own market as well. Have you been on a US domestic flight? It’s like traveling with a low-cost bus company. The terminals are full of frightened people sitting on the floors because they’ve no facilities, being shouted at by airline agents and cabin crew who are stressed themselves because of the working conditions.
“No wonder that the three airlines accusing us figure regularly on the list of the most-hated companies in America.”

4/27/15

US Corporations Political Power: How Corporate Lobbyists Conquered American Democracy - by Lee Drutman

US Lobbyists

Something is out of balance in Washington. Corporations now spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying expenditures—more than the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.18 billion) and Senate ($860 million).

It’s a gap that has been widening since corporate lobbying began to regularly exceed the combined House-Senate budget in the early 2000s.

Today, the biggest companies have upwards of 100 lobbyists representing them, allowing them to be everywhere, all the time. For every dollar spent on lobbying by labor unions and public-interest groups together, large corporations and their associations now spend $34. Of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 consistently represent business.

Read more: How Corporate Lobbyists Conquered American Democracy - The Atlantic

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