On July 25, 2013, Michael Snyder writes on TheEconomicCollaspe.com:
Are the big banks really as powerful as some people say that they are? Do they really control the global economy? If y0u asked most people, they would tell you that governments control the global economy. But the campaigns of our politicians are funded by the ultra-wealthy, the big banks and the large corporations that they control. Others would tell you that the Federal Reserve and the rest of the central banks around the world control the global economy. But the truth is that the Federal Reserve was established by the bankers and for the benefit of the bankers. As you will see below, at the very core of the global economy there exists a “super-entity” of financial institutions that control an almost unimaginable amount of wealth and power. These financial institutions and the ultra-wealthy individuals behind them are really the ones that are pulling all the strings. In this world money equals power, and the borrower is the servant of the lender. When you follow the pyramid all the way to the top, it begins to become very clear who really is in control.
In business schools all over America today, instead of dreaming of starting new businesses and contributing something positive to society, most business students are dreaming of going to Wall Street and getting rich. But Wall Street doesn’t actually create or build anything of value for society. Instead, the bankers make most of their profits by essentially pushing money and paper around.
But just because they aren’t adding much value to society does not mean that these big banks are not extremely powerful. In fact, anyone that underestimates that power of these monolithic financial institutions is being quite foolish.
A team of researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich studied the relationships between 37 million companies and investors worldwide, and what they found was absolutely stunning.
What they discovered is that there is a “super-entity” of just 147 very tightly knit companies that controls 40 percent of the entire network…
So exactly who are the companies that are at the core of this “super-entity”?
Well, almost all of them are banks or financial institutions. The following is a list of the 50 “most connected” companies from the study, and the notes in parentheses are from Chris Martenson…
1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc (Investment Management)
3. FMR Corporation (Financial Services)
4. AXA (Investments & Life Insurance)
5. State Street Corporation (Investment Management)
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co (Bank)
7. Legal & General Group plc (Investments & Life Insurance)
8. Vanguard Group Inc (Investment Management)
9. UBS AG (Bank)
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc (Bank)
11. Wellington Management Co LLP (Investment Management)
12. Deutsche Bank AG (Bank)
13. Franklin Resources Inc (Investment Management)
14. Credit Suisse Group (Bank)
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp (Bank)
17. Natixis (Investment Management)
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc (Bank)
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc (Investment Management)
20. Legg Mason Inc (Investment Management)
21. Morgan Stanley (Bank)
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (Bank)
23. Northern Trust Corporation (Investment Management)
24. Société Générale (Bank)
25. Bank of America Corporation (Bank)
26. Lloyds TSB Group plc (Bank)
27. Invesco plc (Investment mgmt) 28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA (Investments & Insurance)
30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company (Investments & Insurance)
31. Aviva plc (Insurance)
32. Schroders plc (Investment Management)
33. Dodge & Cox (Investment Management)
34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc* (Bank)
35. Sun Life Financial Inc (Investments & Insurance)
36. Standard Life plc (Investments & Insurance)
37. CNCE
38. Nomura Holdings Inc (Investments and Financial Services)
39. The Depository Trust Company (Securities Depository)
40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
41. ING Groep NV (Bank, Investments & Insurance)
42. Brandes Investment Partners LP (Financial Services)
43. Unicredito Italiano SPA (Bank)
44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan (Owns a lot of banks’ shares in Japan)
45. Vereniging Aegon (Investments & Insurance)
46. BNP Paribas (Bank)
47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc (Owns stakes in 27 money management firms)
48. Resona Holdings Inc (Banking Group in Japan)
49. Capital Group International Inc (Investments and Financial Services)
50. China Petrochemical Group CompanyAre you starting to get the idea?
The global economy truly is completely dominated by banks and other financial institutions.
In the United States, the big banks are not just content to own other companies anymore. Now, some of our largest banks are actually starting to directly get into businesses such as “electric power production, oil refining and distribution, owning and operating of public assets such as ports and airports, and even uranium mining”. The following is an excerpt from a letter that several members of the U.S. Congress recently sent to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke…
The analysis is correct, except for the WHY that does not address CONCENTRATED OWNERSHIP of wealth-creating, income-generating productive capital assets among the wealth minority, but the solution is WRONG! The solution suggested relies on paying labor workers more for their “hard word.” This flies in the face of the reality that increasingly less human labor is needed to produce the products and services society needs and wants. As a result of tectonic shifts in the technologies of production jobs are being destroyed and the worth of labor is being devalued, as increasingly the non-human factor of production is responsible for the output of the products and services. So to pay more for fundamentally less work is problematic.
Instead, we must change the rules and reform the system to facilitate financing economic growth with “FUTURE SAVINGS,” and simultaneously create new capitalist owners of wealth-creating, income-generating productive capital assets. “FUTURE SAVINGS” are profits used to repay loans for new capital formation and acquisition of existing productive assets by new owners.
This is the ONLY way to avoid socialism and to head off more personal and family economic turmoil and social unrest and upheaval due to a faulty economic system that fosters the concentration of wealth-creating, income-generating productive capital––the ownership of non-human productive assets such as land, structures, machines, super-automation, robotics, digital computerized operations, etc. The system is faulty because economic growth is based on individual and family accumulations of savings, with ALL economic growth dependent on past savings “invested” to further concentrated productive capital ownership. This will leave the vast majority, or the so-called 99 percent, who are property-less as related to ownership of productive capital assets, unable to save sufficiently and instead struggling to sustain their livelihood month to month, as they fear for job loss and having to rely on taxpayer-supported government welfare.
For solutions see “Financing Economic Growth With “FUTURE SAVINGS”: Solutions To Protect America From Economic Decline” at NationOfChange.org http://www.nationofchange.org/financing-future-economic-growth-future-savings-solutions-protect-america-economic-decline-137450624
Support the Agenda of The Just Third Way Movement at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797
Support the Capital Homestead Act at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/index.htm and http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm
