Sep 28, 2013

Jun 8, 2013

Taking positions in different financial assets is useful to protect capital

















The primary objective of diversification is to protect the investment you have any problem, especially with the current market instability. It can be done through different positions jacks financial assets, such as funds from deposits, bonds or options for the future, among others, but it is also possible to create a basket of different values ​​that allow the declining price of one of them would be unlikely consequences on the rest.

Mitigating losses


The vast majority of financial analysts stresses the importance of diversifying the portfolio in order to mitigate possible losses on investment. This means the distribution in various securities to minimize risks. The diversification of investments can be made in several ways:

    Through various financial assets.
    By investing in the stock market through a "basket" from different sectors or securities indices.

A diversified investment portfolio contains products of different types and includes stocks, mutual funds and fixed income instruments and equities, such as bonds and certificates of deposit. In this way, you can combine mutual funds, stock markets or ETF, among others, depending on the economic situation.

    As you increase the percentage of equity investment, increase the risks and benefits

A formula valid for conservative profiles would take positions in a 80% fixed income and 20% remaining equity. If you want to risk a little more, as is the case for aggressive investors, these percentages could be swapped to reach 70% in equities and 30% fixed income. As you increase the percentage in equities, will increase the risks assume the saver, but also the benefits will rise proportionately.

How to form a stock portfolio


Another variant of diversification comes from taking positions in equities through exchange, both domestic and international markets. This strategy can be carried out if it forms a portfolio that includes equity investment in securities and countries that are not related to each other. Thus, the decline in the price on one of them would have little impact on the rest of the basket. The ideal strategy would be to take positions in sectors with high speculative component and counter with the purchase of other more defensive, which offer greater security.

By diversifying the investment market, the decline in price of a security would have little impact on the rest of the basket

The dilemma arises when applying the percentage corresponding to each value. As is obvious, is determined by the degree of risk you are willing to assume the investor. A model of diversification of capital only through equity would be as follows: 30% in value of the banking sector, 30% in telecom companies, 20% in the pharmaceutical sector and the remaining 20% ​​could be allocated to buy shares of companies from new technologies.
Putting it into practice: pros and cons

While this strategy benefits the small and medium investors in global terms, it should also assess the risks of putting it into practice.

Advantages:


    Provides greater security by not having all capital concentrated in one product or value.

    Minimizes the risk of losing the capital invested.

    Lets take advantage of each product of the banking market: future options, mutual funds, structured deposits, etc..

Disadvantages:


    Need some expert advice from financial markets to design the composition of the portfolio of each client.

    If any of the values ​​chosen has a good performance, you can reap the benefits in all its intensity.

    Minimum capital is required than is necessary for other investment alternatives.


660 persons and 147 corporations control the world economy




 

  • A study by the University of Zurich revealed that a small group of 147 large transnational corporations, mainly financial and extractive mining, in practice control the global economy. The study was the first to analyze 43,060 transnational corporations and unravel the web of ownership between them, managing to identify 147 companies that form a "super-entity 

      

  • E l small group is closely interconnected through corporate boards and is a network of power that could be vulnerable to collapse and prone to "systemic risk", according to various opinions. Project Censored Sonoma State University of California declassified this story buried by the media and its former director Peter Phillips, a sociology professor at the university, former director of Project Censored and president of the Media Freedom Foundation / Project Censored, the cited in his paper "The Global 1%: Exposing the Transnational Ruling Class" (1%: Exhibition of Transnational Ruling Class), signed with Kimberly Soeiro and published in ProjectCensored.org.
  • The authors of the study are Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder and Stefano Battiston, researchers at the University of Zurich (Switzerland), who published his work on October 26, 2011, entitled "The Network of Global Corporate Control" (The Network of Global Corporate Control) in the scientific journal PlosOne. org.
  • In the presentation of the study published in PlosOne, the authors wrote: "The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability. So far, only small samples were studied and there was no national appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the architecture of the international ownership network, along with the calculation of the control held by each global player. "
  • "We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows lead to a small tightly knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic good, a "super-entity" that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers. "
  • The British conservative Daily Mail newspaper was perhaps the only one that got this news, the October 20, 2011, by Rob Waugh under the screaming headline "Is there a" super-corporation runs the global economy? The study claims that could be terribly unstable. Research found that 147 companies formed a 'super entity' within group, controlling 40 percent of the wealth. "
  • Waugh explains that the study of the University of Zurich "proof" that a small group of companies, mainly banks, exerts enormous power over the global economy. The work was the first to examine a total of 43,060 transnational corporations, the web of ownership between them and established a 'map' of 1,318 companies as the heart of the global economy.
  • "The study found that 147 companies developed inside a" super entity ", which controls 40 percent of their wealth. Everyone has some or all of one another. Most are the 20 top banks, including Barclays and Goldman Sachs. But the close relationship means that the network could be vulnerable to collapse, "wrote Waugh

    The size of the circles represents revenue. The red circles are "super-connected corporations" while the yellows are "very connected corporations." The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the global economy, showing their partial ownership connections between each other, and the size of the circles corresponds to revenue. Through its proprietary companies control most of the "real" economy (Illustration by the authors, PlosOne, 26/10/2012).
  • "In effect, less than 1% of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," he told the Daily Mail James Glattfelder, complex systems theorist Swiss Federal Institute of Zurich, one of the three authors of research.
  • Some of the assumptions underlying the study have been criticized, as the idea that ownership equates to control. "However, Swiss researchers have no ax to grind: they simply applied to the global economy mathematical models usually used to model natural systems, using Orbis 2007, a database containing 37 million companies and investors," said Waugh .
  • Economists such as John Driffil, University of London, macroeconomics expert, told New Scientist that the value of the study was not in who controls the global economy, but it shows the close connections between the world's largest corporations. The financial collapse of 2008 showed that such closely knit networks can be unstable. "If a company suffers distress, it spreads," said Glattfelder.
  • To Rob Waugh Daily Mail and there is a "but": "It seems unlikely that the 147 corporations in the heart of the global economy could exercise real political power, they represent too many interests," said British conservative newspaper.
  • The world's global wealth is estimated that around 200 billion dollars, or two hundred trillion. According to Peter Phillips and Kimberly Soeiro, the richest 1 percent of the world's population groups, approximately 40 million adults. These people are the richest segment of the first steps of the population of the more developed countries and, intermittently, in other regions.
  • According to David Rothkopf's book "Super-class: the Global Power Elite and the World they are Creating" the super elite cover approximately 0.0001 percent (1 millionth) of the world's population and comprise about 6,000 to 7,000 people, although others point 6.660. Among that group would have to look at the owners of the 147 corporations that cites a study by researchers at Zurich.
  •   source
  • Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston, "The Network of Global Corporate Control," Public Library of Science, October 26, 2011, http://www.plosone.org/article/info 2F10.1371%%% 3Adoi 2Fjournal.pone.0025995
    Rob Waugh, "Does One 'Super Corporation' Run the Global Economy? Study Claims it Could be terrifyingly Unstable, "Daily Mail, October 20,
    Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, Stefano Battiston, PlosOne Magazine, 26 octure 2011
  • Peter Phillips and Kimberly Soeiro, "The Global 1%: Exposing the Transnational Ruling Class"
  • THE 1% GLOBAL: 660 INDIVIDUALS AND CORPORATIONS 147 CONTROLLING THE WORLD ECONOMY

  • Unmasking of super transnational ruling class

  • Peter Phillips and Kimberly Soeiro *
  • This study asks who are the 1% of the world's power elite? And how they operate in unison on the remaining 99% to increase their own private profit? We examined a sample of 1%: mining, material extracted corporations whose global common areas of the Earth and using cheap labor to accumulate wealth. The value of the material removed by these big oil companies, gas and various mining organizations, far exceeds the actual cost of extraction. We also examine the investment industry 1% Top: corporations whose primary activity is to accumulate and reinvest capital.
  • This sector includes central banks, the largest money management firms for investment and other corporations whose primary efforts are the concentration and the reproduction of money, such as insurance companies. Finally, we analyze how global networks of power-centralized elite 1%, their companies, and the various governments in their service-plan, manipulate and enforce policies that benefit their continued concentration of wealth and power. We demonstrate how the military-industrial empire-media USA / NATO acts in the service of transnational corporate class protection of international capital in the world.
  • The "Occupy Movement" developed a slogan, "the other 99%", which summarizes the great inequality of wealth and power between the richest 1% of the world and the rest of us. While 99% mantra undoubtedly serves as a motivational tool to engage more people openly, explains very little about who comprise 1% and how they maintain their power in the world. Although a good portion of academic research has dealt with the power elite in the U.S., only half of the last decade has investigated the emergence of a transnational corporate class. [1]
  • The most prominent among the early works on the idea of ​​1% interconnected within global capitalism was the book The Transnational Capitalist Class by Leslie Sklair, 2001 [2]. Sklair believed that globalization would move to transnational corporations (TNCs) to broader international roles, which lead to states of origin of the corporations to less important roles that international agreements developed through the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other agencies. What emerged from these corporations was a transnational capitalist class, whose members and interest would increase their increasingly international scope, while they were still rooted in their societies. Sklair wrote:
  • "The transnational capitalist class can be divided analytically into four main fractions: (i) owners and controllers of TNCs and their local affiliates, (ii) bureaucrats and political globalization (iii) globalization professionals (iv) elites consumerism (merchants and media) ... Of course, it is also important to note that the transnational corporate class (CCT) and each of its fractions, not always fully connected to each problem. However, as a whole, the key persons of these groups constitute a global power elite, a ruling class or an inner circle, in the sense in which these terms have been used to characterize the dominant class structures of specific countries. " [3]
  • It is estimated that the total world's wealth is around $ 200 billion, with the U.S. and Europe holding approximately 63%. To be among the world's richest half, an adult needs only $ 4,000 in assets after debts subtracted. An adult requires over 72,000 thousand dollars to belong to the top 10% of global wealth owners and more than $ 588,000 to be a member of 1% top. In 2010, the top 1% of the world's richest people had hidden away from 21-32 trillion dollars in secret bank accounts tax exempt deployed worldwide [4].
  • Meanwhile, the poorest half of the global population together own less than 2% of global wealth. [5] The World Bank reported in 2008 that 1,290 million people living in extreme poverty, on less than $ 1.25 per day, and 1,200 million more living on less than $ 2 a day [6]. Starvation.net reported that 35,000 people, mostly children, die of hunger every day in the world [7].
  • The number of unnecessary deaths has exceeded 300 million over the past 40 years. The farmers around the world produce more than enough food to feed the entire world adequately. The global grain production of 2007 was 2.3 billion tons, 4% more than in the previous year, but every day one billion people go hungry. Grain.org describes the current hunger basic reasons in the article "Corporations are still making a killing from hunger": while farmers produce enough food to feed the world, commodity speculators and large those grain traders like Cargill control prices and global food distribution [8].
  • It is also important to examine how wealth is created and how concentrated. Historically, wealth has been captured and concentrated by conquest by various powerful groups. For a historical example a glance suffices to takeover by Spain to the wealth of the Aztec and Inca empires in the early sixteenth century. The history of the Roman and British empires also full of examples.
  • Once acquired, then wealth can be used to establish means of production, such as the early British cotton mills that exploit labor to produce goods whose exchange value is higher than the cost of labor, a process analyzed by Karl Marx in Capital [9].
  • The organized business hire workers who are paid below the value of their labor. The result is the creation of what Marx called surplus value, a value above the cost of labor. Creating goodwill allows those who own the means of production, further concentrate capital.
  • In addition, the concentration of capital accelerates natural resource exploitation by private entrepreneurs, but really these natural resources are the common heritage of all living things [10]. In this paper, we ask: Who are the 1% of the world's power elite? And to what extent they act in unison for their own private gain and profit at the expense of the 99%?
  • Examine a sample of 1%: mining and quarrying sector, whose corporations get material drawn from common fields of land and cheap labor used to accumulate wealth. It is the corporations engaged in extracting oil, gas and other companies that extract minerals. The value of the removed material far exceeds the actual cost of extraction.
  • We also examine the investment sector of the 1% Top: corporations whose primary activity is to amass and reinvest capital. This sector includes central banks, the largest investment management firms and other corporations as monetary insurance companies that point to the concentration and expansion of the money.
  • Finally, we analyze how global networks of centralized power-the elite of 1%, their companies and various governments in their service-plan, manipulate and enforce policies that benefit their continued concentration of wealth and power.
  • The extractive sector: The case of Freeport-McMoRan (FCX)
  • Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) is the world's largest extractor of copper and gold. The company controls huge deposits in Papua, Indonesia, also operates in North and South America and Africa. In 2010 sold 3.9 billion pounds of copper, 1.9 million ounces of gold and 67 million pounds of molybdenum. In 2010 reported revenues of U.S. $ 18.9 billion and net income of 4.2 billion [11].
  • The Grasberg mine in Papua Indonesia employs 23,000 workers with wages below $ 3 per hour. In September 2011 workers went on strike for higher wages and better working conditions. Freeport had offered a wage increase of 22% and strikers said it was not enough, demanding an international standard of 17-43 dollars per hour. The pay dispute attracted to members of a local tribe, who had their own grievances over land rights and pollution. Armed with spears and arrows, joined workers blocked the access roads to the mine. [12] During the strikers attempted to block busloads of replacement workers, the state security forces killed and wounded several strikers.
  • Freeport has been criticized for paying for security authorities. Since 1991, has paid nearly 13,000 million to the Indonesian government at a rate of 1.5% royalty on gold and copper extracted and, consequently, have in their pockets to regional military police and Indonesian. In October 2011, the Jakarta Globe reported that Indonesian security forces in West Papua, notably the police, receive generous direct cash payments by Freeport-McMoRan. National Police Chief Timur Pradopo admitted that officers receive about $ 10 million annually, which Pradopo described as "lunch money". Prominent Indonesian NGO Imparsial direct annual payments stood at 14 million dollars [13].
  • These payments recall even larger payments made by Freeport to Indonesian military forces over the years, which were revealed when prompted an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission of USA on the responsibility of Freeport under the Foreign Practices Act U.S. corrupt.
  • Additionally, the State Police and the army have been criticized many times by human rights violations in the remote mountainous region, where a separatist movement simmered for decades. Amnesty International has documented numerous cases where Indonesian police used unnecessary force against strikers. For example, security forces attacked a mass rally in Jayapura, capital of Papua, and striking workers at Freeport mine. At least 5 people were killed and many more injured in assaults that show a continuous pattern of public violence against peaceful dissidents. Another brutal and unwarranted attack, which occurred on October 19, 2011, against thousands of papuenses exercising their right to assembly and freedom of expression, killing at least three civilians in Papua, batter of many, detention of hundreds and 6 arrest on charges of treason trial [14].
  • The Jakarta Globe reported on November 7, 2011 that "the striking workers employed by Copper & Gold, a subsidiary of Freepost-McMoRan in Papua, lowered their demands minimum wage increase from 7.50 to $ 4.00 per hour, said Workers Union All-Indonesia (SPSI, for its acronym in English) "[15]. Virgo Solosa, union official, told Jakarta Globe that he considered "the best solution for all" accept a salary above the minimum of $ 1.5 per hour.
  • Workers at Cerro Verde copper mine, Freeport in Peru, also went on strike at the same time, highlighting the global dimension of the confrontation with Freeport. The workers demanded wage increases of 11%, while the company offered just 3%.
  • The Peruvian strike ended on November 28, 2011 [16] and on December 14 Freeport-McMoRan announced a settlement in Indonesian mine extended the contract with the union for two years. Freeport workers continue with low wages, which currently amount to as little as $ 2 per hour and will rise by 24% in the first year of the collective agreement and 13% in the second year. The agreement also includes improvements in benefits and a one-time bonus equivalent to three months' wages [17].
  • In both strikes in Freeport governments pressured strikers for a solution that involved very high national and international levels. During the strike of Freeport-McMoRan Obama administration ignored the flagrant violation of human rights and, instead, strengthened the US-Indonesia military ties. The U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta who came to Indonesia in the immediate wake of the Jayapura attack, made no criticism of the assault and reaffirmed U.S. support for Indonesia's territorial integrity. Panetta also praised Indonesia's handling of the strike at Freeport-McMoRan [18].
  • President Barack Obama visited Indonesia in November 2011 to strengthen relations with Jakarta as part of the escalation of Washington's efforts aimed at combating Chinese influence in the Asia-Pacific. Obama had just announced that the U.S. and Australia begin a rotational deployment of 2,500 U.S. Marines at a base in Darwin, a movement ostensibly to modernize the U.S. presence in the region and to allow participation in the "common practice" to the counterparty Australian military. But some speculate that the U.S. has a hidden agenda. The Thai newspaper The Nation suggested that one reason would be to offer remote security guarantees far as two-hour flight, the gold owned by the U.S. company Freeport-McMoRan'sya copper mine in West Papua [19].
  • The fact that workers in the copper mine of the Sociedad Minera Cerro Verde, in Peru Freeport, also were on strike at the same time highlights the global dimension of the confrontation of Freeport. Peruvian workers demanded wage increases of 11%, while only 3% offered Freeport. The strike was lifted on November 28, 2011 [20]. In both strikes, lobbied governments to subdue the strikers, not only with the presence of military and police force, but also involving international high. The fact that the U.S. Defense Secretary mentioned a national strike in Indonesian shows that problems affecting 1% corporate profits are at stake internationally at the highest level of power.
  • Indonesian public opinion is strongly against Freeport. On August 8, 2011, Karishma Vaswani, BBC reported that "U.S. mining corporation Freeport-McMoRan has been accused of everything from polluting the environment to funding repression in its four decades of operation in the province Indonesian Papua. Street ... Ask any Papuan Freeport what you think and tell you that the corporation is a thief, said Nelels Tebay, a pastor of Papua and network coordinator Papua Peace "[21].
  • Freeport Strikers won the support of the U.S. Occupy Movement. Activists from Occupy Phoenix and Action Network East Timor marched to the headquarters of Freeport in Phoenix, on October 28, 2011, to protest the killings of police Indonesian Grasberg mine of Freeport-McMoRan's [22].
  • James R. Moffett, president of the board of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc. (FCX), has more than four million shares worth close to $ 42.00 each (total $ 168 million). According to the annual report of FCX launched in June 2011, the annual compensation of Moffett in 2010 was 30.57 million dollars.
  • Richard C. Adkerson FCX ​​board chairman, owns about 5.3 million shares (222.6 million dollars). His total compensation was also 30.57 million dollars in 2010. The Moffett and Adkerson incomes place them in the upper levels of the world's top 1%. The interconnection with the highest levels of power in the White House and the Pentagon is expressed in specific attention given to them by both the U.S. defense secretary and, as circumstances suggest, awareness of the U.S. president. No doubt executives and directory-MacMoran Freepot are firmly positioned in the highest levels of transnational corporate class.
  • Board of Freeport-McMoRan
  • James R. Moffett, political and corporate affiliations: co-chairman, president and chief executive (CEO, Chief Executive Officer) of McMoRan Exploration Co., PT Freeport Indonesia, Madison Minerals Inc., Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Agrico, Inc., Petro-Lewis Funds, Inc.; Bright Real Estate Services, LLC; PLC-SALW, Inc., FM Services Co.
  • Richard C. Adkerson, political and corporate affiliations: Arthur Anderson Company, president of the International Council on Mining and Metals, member of the board of International Copper Association, Business Council, Business Roundtable, Board of Trustees of the Kissinger Institute, Madison Minerals Inc.
  • Robert Allison Jr., Corporate affiliations: Anadarko Petroleum (11 billion dollars in revenue in 2010) Projection Company Amoco.
  • Robert A. Day, corporate affiliations: CEO of WM Keck Foundation (with assets of more than a billion dollars in 2010), lawyer of Costa Mesa, California.
  • Gerald J. Ford, corporate affiliations: Hilltop Holdings Inc, First Acceptance Corporation, Pacific Capital Bancorp (annual sales: 13 billion dollars), Golden State Bancorp, FSB (Federal Savings Bank which merged with Citigroup in 2002), Rio Hondo Land & Cattle Company, Diamond Ford, Dallas (sales: $ 200 million), Scientific Games Corp., SWS Group (annual sales: $ 422 million); American Residential Cmnts LLC.
  • H. Devon Graham Jr, corporate affiliations: RE Smith Interests (asset management company; income: $ 670,000).
  • Charles C. Krulak, corporate and government affiliations: University President-South Birmingham College, Marine Corps commandant, 1995-1999; MBNA Corp., Union Pacific Corporation (annual sales: 17 billion dollars), Phelps Dodge (acquired by FCX in 2007).
  • Bobby Lee Lackey, corporate affiliations: CEO of McManusWyatt-Hidalgo Produce Marketing Co.
  • Jon C. Madonna, corporate affiliations: CEO of KPMG (audit professional services, annual sales: 22.7 billion dollars), AT & T (2011 income: 122 billion dollars), Tidewater Inc. (2011 revenue: 1.4 billion dollars).
  • Dustan E. McCoy, corporate affiliations: CEO of Brunswick Corp. (income: 4.6 billion dollars), Louisiana-Pacific Corp. (2011 revenue: 1.7 billion dollars).
  • BM Rankin Jr.., Corporate affiliations: vice chairman of FCX, cofounder of McMoRan Oil and Gas in 1969.
  • Stephen Siéguele, corporate affiliations: Founder / CEO of Advanced Delivery and Chemical Systems Inc., Advanced Technology Solutions, Flourine on Call Ltd.
  • The board of Freeeport-McMoRan represents a portion of the 1% Top which not only controls the largest mining gold and copper in the world, but are also interconnected through the boards of more than a dozen of the largest corporations corporations, banks, foundations, military leaders and major groups that set policies. This twelve-member board is a tight network of individuals intertwined, influencing the policies of other relevant corporations that control approximately 200 billion dollars in annual revenue.
  • Freeport-McMoRan mining exemplifies how the extractor acquires common wealth of natural heritage materials, which legitimately belongs to us all, through the appropriation of the surplus labor of the people and practicing common theft in our territories. This process is protected by the governments of several countries that exploits Freeport minerals and guarded by the ultimate protector, which is the U.S. military empire and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
  • Furthermore, Feeport-McMoRan is connected to one of the largest transnational capitalist elite of the world: more than 7% of the shares of Freeport are stored by BlackRock, Inc., one of the largest investment management corporations, with headquarters in New York.
  • The investment sector: The case of BlackRock, Inc.
  • Many firms operate internationally as primary investment organizations, managing principal and investing in other corporations. These firms often do not really do anything except money, and are coordinated to prevent interference by the rapid withdrawal of their capital if anywhere in the world are affected by taxes, regulations or government interventions.
  • BlackRock, based in Manhattan, is the largest corporation in the asset management world, with more than 10,000 employees and investment branches in 27 countries. Its customer base includes private and public corporations, unions, retirement systems industry, governments, insurance companies, third-party mutual funds, financial foundations, charities, corporations, official institutions, capital sovereign funds, banks, professional financiers and individuals worldwide.
  • BlackRock purchased Barclay Global Investors in December 2009. By March 2012, managed assets amounting to 3.68 billion in equity, fixed income, cash management, alternative investment, real estate and advisory strategies [23]. Freeport-McMoRan addition, BlackRock Chevron maintains significant holdings (49 million shares, 2.5%), Goldman Sachs Group (13 million shares, 2.7%), Exxon Mobil (121 million shares, 2.5 %), Bank of America (251 million shares, 2.4%), Monsanto Company (12 million shares, 2.4%), Microsoft Corp. (185 million shares, 2.2%), and many more [24].
  • BlackRock manages investments of public and private funds, including the Pension System California Public Employees Retirement System and the California State Teacher of the national system of mortgage Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (known as Freddie Mac), Boy Scout of America, Boeing, Sears, Verizon, Raytheon, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG & E), Pension Systems of the City of New York, Association of Pensions of Employees of County of Los Angeles, General Electric (GE), Cisco and numerous other funds and corporations.
  • According to the annual report to shareholders of BlackRock April 2011, the board consists of 18 members. The board is divided into three equal groups-Class I, Class II and Class III, with a fixed term of membership in each class expiring each year by rotation. The members of each class are generally selected in the annual meetings and serve as the office for a period of three full years, or until their successors are elected and qualified. Each class consists of approximately one third of the total number of directors constituting the entire board.
  • BlackRock equity agreements with Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary entire Bank of America Corporation, and Barclays Bank PLC and its subsidiaries. Two to four members of the board come from BlackRock, a director is appointed by Merrill Lynch, two directors are elected by the PNC Bank, each in a different class; Barclays elects two directors, each different class, and the remaining directors are independent.
  • Class I Directors (term expires in 2012):
  • William S. Demchak, corporate affiliations: Senior Vice President of PNC Bank (assets: U.S. $ 271 billion), JP Morgan Chase & Co. (active 2011: 2.2 billion).
  • Kenneth B. Dunn, PhD, corporate and institutional affiliations: financial economics professor David A. Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, former managing director of Morgan Stanley Investment (assets: 807 billion dollars).
  • Laurence D. Fink, corporate and institutional affiliations: President / CEO of BlackRock, manager of New York University, manager of the Boys Club of New York.
  • Robert S. Kapito, corporate and institutional affiliations: President of BlackRock, administrator of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School.
  • Thomas HO'Brien, corporate affiliations: Former CEO of PNC, Verizon Communications, Inc. (2011 revenues: 110 billion dollars).
  • Ivan G. Seidenberg, corporate and political affiliations: President of the board of Verizon Communications former CEO of Bell Atlantic, Honeywell International Inc. (2010 revenue: 33.3 billion dollars) Pfizer Inc. (2011 revenue: 64 billion dollars) , chairman of the Business Roundtable, the National Security Advisory Committee on Telecommunications, Chairman of the Board of the Academy of Sciences of New York [25].
  • Class II Directors (term expires in 2013):
  • Abdlatif Yousef Al-Hamad, corporate and institutional affiliations: board chairman board of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (assets: $ 2.7 trillion), former Minister of Economy and Planning Minister of Kuwait, Authority Kuwait Investment, Multilateral Development Banks, International Advisory Board of Morgan Stanley Bank, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., American International Group, Inc. and National Bank of Kuwait.
  • Mathis Cabiallavetta, corporate affiliations: Swiss Reinsurance Company (2010 revenue: 28 billion dollars), CEO of Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. (2011 revenue: 11.5 billion dollars), Union Bank of Switzerland, UBS AG ( assets 2012: 620 billion dollars), Philip Morris International Inc. (2010 revenue: 27 billion dollars).
  • Dennis D. Dammerman, corporate affiliations: General Electric Company (2012 revenues: 147 billion dollars), Capmark Financial Group Inc. (formerly GMAC), American International Group (AIG) (2010 revenue: 77 billion dollars), Genworth Financial (2010 assets: 100 billion dollars), Swiss Reinsurance Company (active 2012: 620 billion dollars), Discover Financial Services (2011 revenue: 3.4 billion dollars).
  • Robert E. Diamond Jr., Corporate and political affiliations: CEO of Barclays (2011 revenue: 32 billion), International Advisory Board of British American Business.
  • David H. Komansky, corporate affiliations: CEO of Merrill Lynch (division of Bank of America 2009, Management 2011: assets: 2.3 billion), Burt's Bees, Inc. (owned by Clorox), WPP Group plc (2011 revenues: 15 000 million).
  • James E. Rohr, corporate affiliations: CEO of PNC (2011 revenue: 14 billion dollars).
  • James Grosfeld, corporate affiliations: CEO of Pulte Homes, Inc. (2010 revenue: 4.5 billion dollars), Lexington Realty Trust (2011 assets: 1.2 billion dollars).
  • Sir Deryck Maughan, corporate and political affiliations: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (2011 assets: 8.6 billion dollars), former CEO of Salomon Brothers from 1992 to 1997, president of the US-Japan Business Council, GlaxoSmithKline plc (2011 revenues: 41 billion dollars), Thomson Reuters Corporation (2011 revenue: 13.8 billion dollars).
  • Thomas K. Montag, corporate affiliations: President of Global Banking & Markets for Bank of America (Income 2011: 94 billion dollars), Merrill Lynch (division of Bank of America, 2009, assets under management 2011: 2.3 billion), Goldman Sachs (2011 revenue: 28.8 billion dollars).
  • Class III Directors (their terms expire in 2014):
  • Murry S. Gerber, corporate affiliations: EQT CEO (2010 revenue: 1.3 billion dollars), Halliburton Company.
  • Linda Gosden Robinson, corporate affiliations: Former CEO of Robinson Lerer & Montgomery, Young & Rubicam Inc., WPP Group plc (2011 revenue: 15 billion dollars), Revlon, Inc. (2011 revenue: 1.3 billion of dollars).
  • John S. Varley, corporate affiliations: CEO of Barclays (2011 revenue: 32 billion dollars), AstraZeneca PLC (2011 revenue: 33.5 billion dollars).
  • BlackRock is one of the most concentrated power networks 1% globally. Members of the "dieciochocena" (eightteen) board are connected with a significant part of the heart of the world financial capital. Their decisions can change empires, destroy currencies and impoverish millions. Some of the biggest financial giants of the capitalist world are connected weaving their boards in BlackRock, including Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, PNC Bank, Barclays, Swiss Reinsurance Company, American International Group (AIG), UBS AG, Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, JP Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.
  • Research from the University of Zurich in 2011, completed by Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder and Stefano Battiston at the Swiss Federal Institute, reports that a small group of corporations, mostly banks-handle huge power over the global economy [26]. Using data from Orbis 2007, a database covering 37 million companies and investors, Swiss researchers applied the global economy mathematical models usually used as natural models.
  • The study was the first to observe 43,060 transnational corporations and study the web of ownership between them. The research created a 'map' of 1,318 companies in the core of the global economy. The study found that 147 corporations form a "super entity 'within this map, controlling 40% of the wealth. The "Top 25" among the 147 super-connected companies include the following corporations:
  • 1. Barclays PLC *
  • Two. Capital Group Companies Inc.
  • Three. FMR Corporation
  • April. AXA
  • May. State Street Corporation
  • June. JP Morgan Chase & Co. *
  • July. Legal & General Group PLC
  • August. Vanguard Group Inc.
  • 9. UBS AG
  • 10. Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. *
  • 11. Wellington Management Co. LLP
  • 12. Deutsche Bank AG
  • 13. Franklin Resources Inc.
  • 14. Credit Suisse Group *
  • 15. Walton Enterprises LLC
  • 16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
  • 17. Natixis
  • 18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. *
  • 19. T Rowe Price Group Inc.
  • 20. Legg Mason Inc.
  • 21. Morgan Stanley *
  • 22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc.
  • 23. Northern Trust Corporation
  • 24. Societe Generale
  • 25. Bank of America Corporation *
  • (* Directors of BlackRock)
  • Notably, for our purposes, the BlackRock board members have direct connections with at least 7 of the 25 top corporations Vitali and others identify as "super international entity." BlackRock's board has direct links with 7 of the 25 interconnected societies in the world. Eighteen members of the board of BlackRock control and influence tens of billions of dollars of wealth in the world and represent the core of super-connected corporations financial sector. Below is a sample cross section of key figures and corporate assets of the "global economic super-entity" identified by Vitali and others.
  • Other key figures and corporate connections within the highest levels of the "global economic super-entity":
  • A private group capital corporation based in Los Angeles handles $ 1 trillion in assets.
  • FMR, one of the corporations largest mutual fund in the world, manages $ 1.5 billion in assets and serves more than twenty million individual and institutional customers, its president and CEO is Edward C. (Ned) Johnson III.
  • AXA manages $ 1.5 trillion in assets, serves 101 million customers, CEO Henri de Castries, also director of Nestlé (Switzerland).
  • State Street Corporation, operates from Boston and manages assets of $ 1.9 trillion, its directors include Joseph L. Hooley, CEO of State Street Corporation, Kennett F. Burnes, retired chairman and CEO of Cabot Corporation (2011 revenue: 3.1 billion dollars).
  • JP Morgan / Chase (2011 assets: $ 2.3 trillion), Board of Directors: James A. Bell, Vice President (VP) retired executive of The Boeing Company, Stephen B. Burke, CEO of NBC Universal and Comcast Corporation Executive VP (cable TV), David M. Cote, CEO of Honeywell International, Inc., Timothy P. Flynn, retired chairman of KPMG International, and Lee R. Raymond, retired CEO of Exxon Mobil Corporation.
  • Vanguard (assets under management in 2011: 1.6 billion), Directors: Emerson U. Fullwood, VP of Xerox company, JoAnn Heffernan Heisen, VP of Johnson & Johnson, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Mark Loughridge, IBM CEO Global Financing, Alfred M. Rankin Jr., CEO of NACCO Industries, Inc., National Association of Manufacturers, Goodrich Corp and chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
  • UBS AG (active 2012: 620 billion dollars), its directors including Michel Demaré, Syngenta Council member and IMD Foundation (Lausanne), David Sidwell, former CEO of Morgan Stanley.
  • Merrill Lynch (Bank of America), 2011 Assets under management: $ 2.3 trillion. Directors include Brian T. Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, Rosemary T. Berkery, legal director of the Bank of America / Merrill Lynch (formerly Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.), member of the Legal Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange, Director of Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, Mark A. Ellman, managing director of Credit Suisse First Boston, Dick J. Barrett, co-founder of Ellman Stoddard Capital Partners, MetLife, Citi Group, UBS, Carlyle Group, ImpreMedia, Verizon Communications (cable TV and communications), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Org, Fluor Corp, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs Group.
  • The directors of these super corporations connected represent a small portion of the Top 1%. Most people with assets over $ 588,000 are not major players in international finance. In the best of cases, companies use asset management to produce returns on their capital. Their net worth often involves non-financial assets, such as real estate and businesses.
  • Analysis: CCT and world power
  • How transnational corporate class (CCT) maintains the concentration and power of wealth in the world? The richest 1% of the world population means about 40 million adults. These people are the richest segment of the first steps of the population of the more developed countries and, intermittently, in other regions.
  • Most of this 1% insurance plays professional jobs or working in activities associated with establishment institutions. Approximately 10 million of these individuals have assets in excess of a million dollars and about 100,000 have financial assets greater than $ 30 million.
  • Immediately below 1% of the first step are those who work, usually in major corporations, governments, businesses themselves and various institutions worldwide. This first tier is about 30-40% used in the core of the major developed countries and about 30% are in the second tier of economies, while 20% of below corresponds to the peripheral economies (formerly referred to as " third world "). The second tier of global workers represents the growing army of casual labor: global factory workers, street workers and day workers employed intermittently, more with less help from government organizations and social assistance.
  • These workers, mostly concentrated in mega-cities, 30-40% are in the central industrialized staff and another 20% to the second tier and the peripheral economies. This leaves a third tier of global reach homeless people, whose 30% are adults in the central and secondary economies complemented with 50% of people in peripheral countries with extremely limited income opportunities, struggling to survive on a few dollars per day. It is 2.5 billion people living on less than two dollars a day, tens of thousands die every day from malnutrition and easily curable diseases, and probably have never even used a telephone. [27]
  • As observed in our sample extractor mining sector and investment, corporate elites are interconnected through direct links on the boards of the 70 largest multinational corporations, political organizations, media groups and other academic or non-profit.
  • The investment sector sample exhibits much stronger financial ties to the mining sector extractor. However, both sectors represent vast networks of resources concentrated on the boards or boards of directors of each corporation. The cut sample resources directors and 8 super-connected corporations replicates this model corporate connections on multiple boards, for example, groups or political parties, mass media and government, thus controlling extensive global resources. The gear ratios are repeated through top corporations interconnected transnational corporate class, resulting in a highly concentrated and powerful network of individuals who share a common interest in preserving its dominance of elite.
  • Sociological research shows that interlocking directorates have the potential to facilitate political cohesion. A collective sense of "we" emerges within these networks of power, making members think and act in unison, not only for themselves and their individual corporations, but with a greater sense of purpose "good for the order" so to speak. [28]
  • Our sample of 30 companies into highly connected directories influences some of the most powerful interest groups or policy-setting bodies in the world, as the British-American Council of Business, Business Council US-Japan Business Roundtable, Business Council and Kissinger Institute. Influencing ten trillion in monetary resources and control the working life of many hundreds of thousands. All in all, are elite power for themselves, acting in a world of networks of power elites in fact behave as a ruling class of the capitalist world.
  • Moreover, this global elite 1% dominates and controls public relations companies and global corporate media, which protect their interests serving as the super-class propaganda machine. The corporate media provide entertainment for the masses and distort the realities of inequality. Corporate news are handled by 1% to maintain the illusions of hope and exonerate the responsibility of the powerful in hard times [29].
  • In our sample, 4 of 30 super-corporations directors are connected directly with companies public relations (PR) and mainstream media. Thomas H. O'Brien and Ivan G. Seidenberg are on the board of Verizon Communications, where Seidenberg is chairman. Verizon reported more than 110 billion dollars in revenues in 2011 [30]. David H. Komansky and Linda Gosden Robinson are on the board of WPP Group, which describes itself as a world leader in marketing communications services with revenues greater than 65 billion dollars in 2011. WPP is a conglomerate of several major PR and marketing companies in the world, in fields including advertising, media investment management, consumer insight, branding and corporate identity, advertising, communications, and health care, driving Digital marketing promotion and relationship marketing [31].
  • Even in the depths of 1% of the rich elite is what David Rothkopf called super-class. Rothkopf, former managing director of Kissinger Associates and commissioned as secretary of commerce for international trade policy in 2008 published his book "Super-class: the Global Power Elite and the World they are Creating" [32]. According to Rothkopf, the superclass are about 0.0001% (1 millionth) of the world's population and comprises about 6000-7000 people, although others point 6.660. Are those attending each year the Forum in Davos, fly or sail in private jets and yachts, money capital embedded, interwoven mega-corporations, the elite policy makers of the world at the absolute top of the pyramid of world power.
  • 94% of this super-elite is male, predominantly white, and especially North America and Europe. These are the people who set the agendas in the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, G-8, G-20, NATO, World Bank and WTO. They come from the highest levels of financial capital, transnational corporations, government, military, academia, NGOs, religious leaders and other elites in the shade. The elites in the shade include, for example, policies deep national security organizations in connection with the international drug cartels, which annually draw 8,000 tons of opium in U.S. war zones after launderers 500 000 000 000 dollars using transnational banks, half of them located in the U.S.. [33]
  • Billionaires and 1% overall are similar to the colonial planters. They know they are a small minority with extensive resources and power, but still must worry constantly to prevent the exploited masses explode into rebellion. As a result of this insecurity group, the superclass work hard to protect this structure concentrated wealth. The capital protection is the first reason that now NATO countries account for 85% of the world's defense spending, with the U.S. spending more on military than the rest of the world combined [34]. The fear of rebellions by inequality and other forms of discomfort motivate the global agenda of NATO in the war on terrorism [35]. The declaration of the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago says:
  • "As leaders of the Alliance, we are determined to ensure that NATO retain and develop the skills necessary to perform its essential core task of collective defense, crisis management and security cooperation and, thereby, play an essential role in promoting security of the world. We must address this responsibility while facing an acute financial crisis and challenges us to engage in geo. NATO allows that together we added security that if any of the Alliance could act alone.
  • "We confirm the importance of continued strong transatlantic link and Alliance solidarity as well as the significance of sharing responsibilities, roles and resolve risks facing together the challenges of the U.S. and European allies (...) With confidence we have set the goal for NATO forces 2020: modern, secured and equipped troops, trained, exercised and commanded so that they can act together, with partners, in any environment "[36].
  • NATO is fast emerging as the police force transnational corporate class. While CCT emerged more strongly in the 80s, NATO began broader operations, coinciding with the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). NATO first ventured into the Balkans, where still present, and then moved to Afghanistan. NATO began a training mission in Iraq in 2005, recently conducted operations in Libya and since July 2012, considers military action in Syria.
  • It has become clear that the superclass NATO used for global security. This is part of a strategy to expand the U.S. military dominance around the world, while the empire military-industrial-media USA / NATO acting in the service to the transnational corporate class international capital protection anywhere in the world [37] .
  • Sociologists William Robinson and Jerry Harris anticipated this situation in 2000, when they described "a change of the social welfare state to state social control (police) ahíto dramatic expansion of public security forces and private mass incarceration of people excluded (disproportionately minority), new forms of social apartheid ... and anti-immigrant law "[38]. The theory of Robinson and Harris predicted exactly the agenda of today's global superclass, including:
  • Continuation of President Obama's police state agenda of the governments of its predecessors, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George HW Bush.
  • Agenda of global domination, long range, the superclass, which uses U.S. military / NATO to discourage resistance states and maintain internal policies of repression in the service of maintaining the order of the capitalist system.
  • And the continued consolidation of capital worldwide, without interference from governments or egalitarian social movements [39].
  • In addition, this agenda led to further impoverishment of the poorest half of the world's population, and an inexorable downward spiral of wages for everyone from the second tier, and even some inside the first step [40] . This is a world facing economic crises, where neoliberal solution is to spend less on human needs and security [41]. It is a world of financial institutions acting as alienated, where the answer to bankruptcy is to print more money through quantitative facilitations, with billions of new dollars producing inflation.
  • As Andrew says Kollin in State Power and Democracy "there is an Orwellian dimension in the government's perspective (first Bush and then Obama), who chose to disregard the law and, instead, create ordinances to legitimize illegal actions, giving yourself permission to act without any appearances to share power under the Constitution or international law "[42].
  • In Globalization and the Demolition of Society, Dennis Loo writes: "After all the fundamental division in our society is between those whose interests lie in the domination and plans to monopolize society and the planet's resources and among those interested in the exploitation of those resources for the benefit of all, not some "[43].
  • The Occupy movement used as main concept the slogan "el1% versus the 99%" on their expression disruptions and challenges to the practices of transnational corporate class, inside which the global superclass are a key to carry out the agenda of the super-elite for permanent war and total social control. Occupy is exactly what I fear most superclass global democratic movement to denounce the CBT agenda and the continuation of the theater of government elections, where the actors changed costumes can only but remain the same. While most reject Occupy cooperate with CCT agenda and mobilize more activists, it is more likely that the whole system of domination of the CCT their knees under the power popular democratic movements.
  • Notes:
  • 1. For a deeper academic knowledge on this topic is required reading these texts:
  • -C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, New York, Oxford University Press, 1956;
  • -G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America, 6th edition, Boston, McGraw Hill Higher Education, 2009;
  • -William Carroll, The Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class, Zed Books, 2010.
  • Two. Leslie Sklair, The Transnational Capitalist Class, Oxford, UK, Blackwell, 2001.
  • Three. Leslie Sklair, "The Transnational Capitalist Class And The Discourse Of Globalization", Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2000, http://www.theglobalsite.ac.uk/press/012sklair.htm
  • April. Tax Havens: Super-rich hiding at Least $ 21 trillion, BBC News, July 22, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18944097
  • May. Tyler Durgen, A Detailed Look At Global Wealth Distribution, 10/11/10, http://www.zerohedge.com/article/detailed-look-global-wealth-distribution .
  • June. "World Bank Sees Progress Against Extreme Poverty, But Vulnerabilities Flags", World Bank, Press Release No. 2012/297/Dec., February 29,
  • July. Mark Ellis, The Three Top Sins Of The Universe, http://www.starvation.net/
  • August. "Corporations are Still Making a Killing from Hunger", April 2009, Grain, http://www.grain.org/article/entries/716-corporations-are-still-making-a-killing-from-hunger .
  • 9. On the extraction of surplus-value from labor, see Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 3 (New York and London: Penguin, 1991 [1894]).
  • 10. See, eg, Paul Burkett, Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective (New York: St. Martins, 1999), Chapter 6, for additional information on the Fair Share of the Common Heritage see, http://www.fairsharecommonheritage . org / .
  • 11. Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold, Notice of Annual Meeting of Stockholders, June 15, 2011, document April 28, 2001, http://www.ecocumentview.com/FCX_MTG .
  • 12. "Freeport Indonesia Miners, Tribesmen Defend Road Blockades", Reuters Africa, November 4, 2011, http://af.reuters.com/article/metalsNews/idAFL4E7M410020111104 .
  • 13. "Police Admit to Receiving Freeport 'Lunch Money,'" Frank Arnaz, Jakarta Globe, October 28, 2011, http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/police-admit-to-receiving-freeport-lunch-money/474747
  • 14. "Indonesia must investigate mine strike protest killing", Amnesty International News, October 10, West Papua Report, November 2011, http://www.etan.org/issues/wpapua/2011/1111wpap.htm
  • 15. Camelia Pasandaran, "Striking Freeport Lower Wage Employees Increase Demands", Jakarta Globe, November 7,
  • 16. Alex Emery, "Freeport Cerro Verde, Workers Sign Three-Year Labor Accord," Bloomberg News, December 22,
  • 17. Eric Bellman and Tess Stynes, "Freeport-McMoRan Indonesia Says Strike Ends Pact," Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203893404577098222935896112.html
  • 18. John Pakage, "When there is no guarantee of the security of life for the people of Papau", West Papua Media Alerts, March 1, 2012, http://westpapuamedia.info/tag/freeport-McMoRan/ .
  • 19. "Reasons to go the Darwin", The Nation (Thailand), November 30, 2011, http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Reasons-to-go-to-Darwin-30170893.html
  • 20. "Cerro Verde strike to be over by November 28 - Peru", Business News Americas, November 24, 2011, http://www.bnamericas.com/news/mining/cerro-verde-strike-to-be-over-by -november-28
  • 21. Karishma Vaswani, "U.S. Firm Freeport Struggles to Escape Its Past In Papua", BBC News, Jakarta, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14417718
  • 22. Phoenix Arizona, October 28, 2011, Youtube report: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvJxy2GvOHE .
  • 23. BlackRock About Us: http://www2.blackrock.com/global/home/AboutUs/index.htm .
  • 24. Data for this section is drawn for StreetInsider.com.
  • 25. Data for the corporations listed in this section comes from the annual report at each corporation's website. Biography information was Gained from the FAX annual report to investors and online biographies available for Individuals whine.
  • 26. Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston, "The Network of Global Corporate Control", PLoS ONE, October 26, 2011, http://www.plosone.org/article/info 2F10.1371%%% 3Adoi 2Fjournal.pone.0025995 .
  • 27. William Robinson and Jerry Harris, "Towards a Global Ruling Class? Globalization and the Transnational Capitalist Class ", Science and Society 64, no. 1 (Spring 2000).
  • 28. Val Burris, "Interlocking Directorates and Political Cohesion Among Corporate Elites," American Journal of Sociology 3, no. 1 (July 2005).
  • 29. Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff, "Truth Emergency: Inside the Military-Industrial Media Empire" Censored 2010 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2009), 197-220.
  • 30. Verizon Financials 2012, http://www22.verizon.com/investor/ Hoovers Verizon describe as, "the # 2 U.S. telecom services provider after AT & T overall, but it holds the top spot in wireless services ahead of rival AT & T Mobility." Hoovers Inc. http://www.hoovers.com/company/Verizon_Communications_Inc/rfrski-1.html .
  • 31. WPP: http://www.wpp.com/wpp/about/wppataglance/
  • 32. David Rothkopf, SuperClass: the Global Power Elite and the World They are Making (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008).
  • 33. Peter Dale Scott, American War Machine, Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010). See also Censored Story # 22, "Wachovia Bank Laundered Money for Latin American Drug Cartels", in Chapter 1.
  • 34. David Rothkopf, Superclass, Public Address: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 9, 2008.
  • 35. NATO: Defence Against Terrorism
  • 36. NATO, Summit Declaration on Defence Capabilities: Toward NATO Forces 2020, May 20, 2012, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-1CE3D0B6-393C986D/natolive/official_texts_87594.htm .
  • 37. For an expanded analysis of the history of U.S. "global dominance", see Peter Phillips, Bridget Thornton and Celeste Vogler, "The Global Dominance Group: 9/11 Pre-Warnings & Election Irregularities in Context", May 2, 2010, http: / / www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/the-global-dominance-group/ and Peter Phillips, Bridget Thornton, and Lew Brown, "The Global Dominance Group and U.S. Corporate Media" Censored 2007 (New York: Seven Stories, 2006), 307-333.
  • 38. William Robinson and Jerry Harris, "Towards a Global Ruling Class? Globalization and the Transnational Capitalist Class ", Science and Society 64, no. 1 (Spring 2000).
  • 39. John Pilger, The New Rulers of the World (New York: Verso, 2003).
  • 40. Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall, eds., The Global Economic Crisis (Montreal: Global Research Publishers, 2010).
  • 41. Dennis Loo, Globalization and the Demolition of Society (Glendale, CA: Larkmead Press, 2011).
  • 42. Andrew Kolin, State Power and Democracy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, c2011), 141.
  • 43. Loo, Globalization, op cit., 357. Similar Posts: Exposing the One Percent: Freeport McMoRan Exploits Workers and the Environment The Global Dominance Group: 9/11 Pre-Warnings & Election Irregularities in Context Who are the Global One-Percent Ruling Class_on Project Censored Barack Obama Administration Continues U.S. Military Global Parent .
  • * Phillips is professor of sociology at Sonoma State University and president of the Media Freedom Foundation / Project Censored. Soeiro sociology student at Sonoma State University, librarian, researcher and activist. Thanks to Mickey Huff, Director of Project Censored, and Andy Roth, associate director, for editing and important suggestions for this in Censored 2013, Seven Stories, New York, October 2012: The Global 1%: Exposing the Transnational Ruling Class;