On 14 Mar 2002 at 20:57, Kakki wrote: > > I find a lot of the anti-American sentiment in the > U.K. and Europe just mindboggling. As if they can just ignore the > fact that it is their national corporations that are some of the most > largest and powerful in the U.S. The biggest oil corporations in the > U.S. are not named "Bush" but rather British Petroleum and (Dutch) > Shell Oil Company. Most of the major record companies are > foreign-owned. The German and British have the lock on the luxury car > market in the U.S. The largest pharmaceutical company is German and > several of the largest scientific concerns are also German. I heard > at one time that the largest personal landholder in the U.S. is Queen > Elizabeth. Yet their newspapers and citizens spit in our faces and we > are suppose to be intellectually above it all and demur cooperatively. > I cannot help but react to some of this at times - at other times, I > wonder why do I even care at all.
I think the trouble with this argument is that the average citizen in one of these countries has about as much to do with their big multi-nationals as the average U.S. citizen has to do with General Motors or AT&T. They buy their products and if they're fortunate, they own some small bit of stock or a mutual fund that owns some stock. It wouldn't at all surprise me if, in some cases, actual ownership by U.S. citizens (via pension funds, 401k investments, etc.) was as significant as ownership by citizens of the company's home country. These companies may be based in one European nation or another, but they are multi-national and publicly traded. I bet that it would be difficult to find any publicized criticism of U.S. policy by any board members or senior executives at any of the above-mentioned concerns because they know that U.S. policy leads back to their protection on the inter-connected, global trail of wealth and power. Brenda n.p.: Ziroq - "Reina"
