-Caveat Lector-
nurev wrote:
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> Subject:
> The Price We Pay: The 10 Worst Corporations of 1998
> Date:
> Mon, 11 Jan 1999 14:57:44 -0500
> From:
> Robert Weissman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To:
> Multiple recipients of list CORP-FOCUS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> What did we learn in 1998?
>
> Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates' net wealth -- $51 billion -- is
> greater than the combined net worth of the poorest 40 percent of Americans
> (106 million people).
Explanation: The poorest 40 percent of Americans did not contribute as much tp
the lifestyle and productivity of American individuals as did Bill Gates. Unlike
the poorest 40%, everyone who bought goods from Microsoft did so as a voluntary
decision, whereas many of the poorest 40% were recipients of funds extorted by
threat of violence from the other 60%.
> Hundreds of hospitals are "dumping" patients who can't afford to pay.
Explanation: There is no such thing as a free lunch... or for that matter, "free
hospital care." Anytime anyone gets something for nothing, someone got NOTHING
for something. By the way, where did they "dump" these folks? Out behind the
hospital in the alley?
> The feds are criminally prosecuting big tobacco companies for smuggling
> cigarettes into Canada. (Never mind addicting young kids to smoke and thus
> condemning them to a certain, albeit, slow, death -- can't criminally
> prosecute them for that.)
Explanation: A "company" cannot addict anyone to anything. Addiction is a
voluntary act on the part of the additee.
> There's a bull market in stock fraud.
Explanation: Stay out of the stock market.
> Prescription drugs may cause 100,000 deaths a year.
Explanation: Prescription drugs may save 100,000,000 lives this year, probably
more.
> Two Fox-TV reporters in Florida are fired for trying to report on adverse
> health effects associated with genetically engineered foods.
Explanation: I guess Mark Twain was wrong when he said, "It is amazing how easy
it is to obtain someones cooperation when the receipt of his pay check depends on
it."
> The U.S. Department of Agriculture proposes that genetically engineered
> foods be labelled "organic."
Explanation: Don't believe anything ANY department of the U.S. govm't says.
> Coal companies continue to cheat on air quality tests as hundreds of coal
> miners continue to die each year from black lung disease.
Explanation: When one places himself in harm's way, one is subject to being
harmed. There should be some responsibility for the choices we make. Black lung
disease has been around long enough for (even) coal miners to realize that they
are accepting personal risk in taking the job.
> The North American Securities Administrators Association estimates that
> Americans lose about $1 million a hour to securities fraud.
Explanation: Don't invest in "securities." Manage your own money, then if you
lose it, blame no one but yourself.
> Robert Reich says that megamergers threaten democracy. Corporate crime
> explodes, but the academic study of corporate crime vanishes.
Explanation: Don't believe ANYTHING Robert Rice says.. He works for the
government. The greatest "threat to democracy" is not corporate growth but
government growth.
> Three hundred trade unionists around the world were killed in 1997 for
> defending their rights.
Explanation: "Defending their rights" might also be interpreted as, "trying to
keep other people from working who really want to work but don't want to belong to
a union."
> Corporate firms lobbying to cripple the Superfund law outnumber
> environmental groups seeking to defend it by 30 to one.
Explanation: That's really good news. For example:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims that in 1990 clean air and clean
water regulations reduced the American gross national product by almost 6%. Six
percent of the 1990 U.S. GNP is enough money to provide jobs with salaries of
$50,000 to 6,651,480 unemployed people. In American in 1990 there were, by the
way, 6,874,000 people unemployed.
The EPA and the Office of Management and Budget calculate that $20 billion will be
spent for each case of cancer averted. Of course you, personally might be willing
to spend $20 billion not to get cancer. But, assuming you had $20 billion, how
would your wife and kids feel about you spending this way? You can hear them
saying, "Dad, its just a lump," or "who cares about a sudden change in a wart or
mole?"
The Council of Economic Advisors has pointed out one EPA rule, concerning wood
preservatives, that is estimated to prevent a single occurrence of cancer every
2.9 million years at a cost of $5 trillion per life saved.
> Down on Nike? Chinese political prisoners allegedly make Adidas products.
Explanation: Going barefoot will result in the release of a Chinese prisoner?
> Blue Cross Blue Shield Illinois is a corporate criminal. Chemical
> companies are testing pesticides on human beings.
Explanation: Floride is a pesticide... Stop brushing your teeth and drinking
public water!
> Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, questions whether the Pentagon's
> financial controls have suffered a "complete and utter breakdown."
Explanation: "Govm't arms contractors are holding out on the kickbacks they
promised me." This is listed under "worst corporations" -- is the Pentatgon a
corporation?
> Environmental crimes prosecution are down sharply under Clinton/Gore.
> Bush/Quayle had a better record.
Explanation: Bush/Quayle demanded a higher kick-back, but Clinton/Gore demanded
agreed to give govm't protection for less money.
> Bell Atlantic buys Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are
> illustrations to sell telephone products.
Explanation: Who cares?
> Companies that have workers die on the job continue to be met with fines.
> Criminal prosecutions still rare.
Explanation: It could be because the corporation cannot go to jail... Or, it
could be because it is difficult to prove that a corporation actually killed
anyone. Dying on the job isn't criminally punishable... never know when the grim
reaper's gonna call.
> This is the price we pay for living in Corporate America. Wealth
> disparity, megamergers and the resulting consolidation of corporate power,
> commercialism run amok, rampant corporate crime, death without justice,
> pollution, cancer and an unrelenting attack on democracy.
Explanation: Along with the highest standard of living of any nation the world has
ever seen... and the basic freedom to come and go as we please.... and an
opportunity to make as much money as you can think about.... The biggest problems
most of us face are caused by government... not corporations.
> The 1998 market run-up might make plugged-in America feel good about
> itself, but big business is eating out the democratic foundation of the country,
> and when the empty shell crumbles, what kind of chaos might we anticipate?
Explanation: It might be interesting to see...
> If you have justice on your mind, herewith for the tenth consecutive year
> is Multinational Monitor's effort to pinpoint those responsible. It is,
> admittedly, a short list -- the Ten Worst Corporations of 1998. But it is
> a representative list, and as the damage becomes more apparent, as the
> outrage at, and contempt for, our fearless leaders grows, surely the list,
> too, will grow.
>
> The Ten Worst Corporations of 1998 are:
>
> * Chevron, for continuing to do business with a brutal dictatorship in
> Nigeria and for alleged complicity in the killing of civilian protesters.
Application: Don't do business with Chevron, or at least don't go to Nigeria and
protest against them.
> * Coca-Cola, for hooking America's kids on sugar and soda water. Today,
> teenage boys and girls drink twice as much soda pop as milk, whereas 20
> years ago they drank nearly twice as much milk as soda.
Application: Coca-Cola cannot "hook" anyone on anything. It is the hook-ee who
does the hooking, and perhaps the parents for paying for it. And besides, cows
milk was designed for the growth of large barn-yard animals.
> * General Motors, for becoming an integral part of the Nazi war machine,
> and then years later, when documented proof emerges, denying it.
Application: Drive a Mitsubishsi (oops.. They're the folks who brought us Pearl
Harbor). Drive a Ford... oops, Henry Ford was a racist. Heck, just walk. But
don't walk in Nikes or Addas... Do it the PURE way... go barefoot.
> * Loral and its chief executive Bernard Schwartz, for dumping $2.2 million
> into Clinton/Gore and Democratic Party coffers. The Clinton administration
> responded by approving a human rights waiver to clear the way for
> technology transfers to China.
Application: Don't vote for anybody... That way campaign funds won't be
necessary.
> * Mobil, for supporting the Indonesian military in crushing an indigenous
> uprising in Aceh province and allegedly allowing the military to use
> company machinery to dig mass graves.
Application: Buy from Exxon... or was it Exxon who massecred the protestors in
Nigeria??? It gets kind of confusing.
> * Monsanto, for introducing genetically engineered foods into the
> foodstream without adequate safety testing and without labeling, thus
> exposing consumers to unknown risks.
Application: Don't eat genetically engineered food... However, I caution you, it
will not eliminate "unknown risks."
> * Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, for pleading guilty to felony crimes for dumping
> oil in the Atlantic Ocean and then lying to the Coast Guard about it.
Application: Stop taking cruises... Who'd trust anyone who likes to dump
thousands of dollars worth of oil into the ocean?
> * Wal-Mart, for crushing small town America, for paying low, low wages (a huge
> percentage of Wal-Mart workers are eligible for food stamps), for using Asian
> child labor and for homogenizing the population; and last, but not least,
Application: Don't buy from Wal-Mart, although I haven't heard of any small town
in America having been crushed by a Wal-Mart store... Seems like everyone but the
over-priced and under-stocked "mom and pop" store owners are exceedingly glad to
have the opportunity to buy reasonably priced items from a wide selection. It was
the customers who abandoned mom and pop, and not Wal-Mart, who forced them to go
out of business.
> As the millennium approaches, keep your eyes open for nasty corporate
> predators in your neck of the woods. Keep a list. Check it twice. Then
> send along your nominations for the Ten Worst Corporations of 1999.
Here are mine (although not corporations)
The Department of State: For sticking their noses into every other countries'
business, and making me pay for it.
The Department of Justice: For making everything that isn't mandatory, illegal.
The Federal Aviation Agency (or whatever its called now): For having more
employees than there ARE licensed pilots in the U.S.
The FBI/DEA: For maintaining the high profit returns on drugs, thus inducing all
kinds of folks into the business.
The Department of Agriculture: For paying people NOT to grow crops.
The Department of Labor: For making it increasingly difficult to hire anyone at a
price that might produce a profit on their work.
Heck, you get the general idea..
Hawk
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