The New Sovereigns

[czardogs]

Did you know...

The top two hundred global corporations are now so big that their combined sales surpass the combined economies of 182 countries, and they have almost twice the economic clout of the poorest four-fifths of humanity. Of the hundred largest economies in the world, fifty-two are now transnational corporations.

Wal-Mart is bigger than 163 countries. Mitsubishi is larger than Indonesia. Ford is bigger than South Africa. The new merged Time Warner-America Online colossus has a market value greater than the economy of Australia.

On a more personal front, four hundred and forty-seven billionaires have a combined wealth greater than the income of half of humanity. The three richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product of forty-eight countries. Eighty-nine countries have lower per capita incomes today than they did a decade or more ago and 200 million more people this year are living in absolute poverty (less than one dollar a day). The world's two hundred richest people have doubled their wealth in the last four years.

From:
Institute for Policy Studies, Washington D.C.,
1999 UN Human Development Index Annual Report.

 

[WulF-Krigan]

In the revolutions of europe and the indipendence of the "colonies" where many people agreed that the power to control a nation should not be held in the hands of one man who was not governing by the mandate of people and who would pass this self-entitled power onto thier progeny...when people decided that was bunk, it never occured to them that a new form of power and control could and would emerge.

Wealth.

Globally (and I am ball parking it here) about 50% of the globes resources (wealth) are in the hands of about 5% of the population.

Why is this? By and in large it is a product of one institution.

Inheritance!

When a wealthy Texas oil magnet can buy his son's way through an Ivy League University when his test scores made community college questionable on merit...and that man can then proceed to run for the highest office in the land flaunting those credentials...well, then you have eveidence of a "corrupt" system.

Inheritance of power should NOT be allowed...no matter if that power is a political office, or a bank statement.

Support Inheritance caps and taxes (97% of Americans will never be impacted by these). They are the only things that will keep idiot rich kids from ruining America the same way idiot princes ruined England and France's empires.

Support accention based on MERIT and nothing else!

W-K

 

[Andem]

Where there's money, there's power. Where there's power, there's corruption. Where there's corruption, there's revolution... And when there's revolution, there's new corruption!

 

[WulF-Krigan]

Corruption assumes a standard of ethic to corrupt.

You can have a corrupt christian...that would be someone who goes against Christian ideas.

But I don't think you can argue that unilaterally power corrupts...it definately makes people think differently. But it's a pretty big oversimplification to say it "corrupts".

And if corruption is being used as a term to cover "thinking differently" then I guess teachers corrupt the youth and we corrupt ourselves everytime we try new ideas...in that use of the word, I hope I am corrupted early and often.

I have no problem with people being in power. That's how the world works. But just because a man is a financial genous does not mean his child should be handed that empire.

Earned power teaches us lessons on the way to that power that "granted" power simply does not teach.
W-K

 

[czardogs]

Wulf is right - inheritance is what is making most of this happen. There is a real movement going on in the US and elsewhere around the world as us sheeple start to realize just what all of this means.

In essence we are seeing a global elite ruling class - they are ultra rich - influence transending borders - and all but control world politics.

Money makes the world go around - in this case - money makes the world spin the direction they want.

It is disheartening to know that while some become so wealthy - more than they could ever spend - hundreds of thousands more human beings are going with less and less.