Estimates are that the total
world’s wealth is close to $200 trillion, with the US and European
elites holding approximately 63 percent of that total; meanwhile, the
poorest half of the global population together possesses less than 2
percent of global wealth. The
World Bank reports that, 1.29 billion people were living in extreme
poverty, on less than $1.25 a day, and 1.2 billion more were living on
less than $2.00 a day. Thirty-five thousand people, mostly young children, die every day from malnutrition.
While millions suffer, a transnational financial elite seeks returns on
trillions of dollars that speculate on the rising costs of food,
commodities, land, and other life sustaining items for the primary
purpose of financial gain. They do this in cooperation with each other
in a global system of transnational corporate power and control and as
such constitute the financial core of an international corporate
capitalist class.
Project Censored has just finish a
year long study on the people on the boards of directors of the top ten
asset management firms and the top ten most centralized corporations in
the world. With overlaps there is a total of thirteen firms in our
study: Barclays PLC, BlackRock Inc., Capital Group Companies Inc., FMR
Corporation: Fidelity Worldwide Investment, AXA Group, State Street
Corporation, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Legal & General Group PLC
(LGIMA), Vanguard Group Inc., UBS AG, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch,
Credit Suisse Group AG, and Allianz SE (Owners of PIMCO) PIMCO-Pacific
Investment Management Co. The boards of directors of these firms,
totaling 161 individuals. They are the financial core of the world’s
Transnational Capitalist Class. Collectively, these 161 people manage
$23.91 trillion in funds impacting nearly every country in the world.
The institutional arrangements
within the money management systems of global capital relentlessly seek
ways to achieve maximum return on investment, and the structural
conditions for manipulations—legal or not—are always open (Libor
scandel). These institutions have become “too big to fail,” their scope
and interconnections pressure government regulators to shy away from
criminal investigations, much less prosecutions. The result is a
semi-protected class of people with increasingly vast amounts of money,
seeking unlimited growth and returns, with little concern for
consequences of their economic pursuits on other people, societies,
cultures, and environments.
One hundred thirty-six of the 161
core members (84 percent) are male. Eighty-eight percent are whites of
European descent (just nineteen are people of color). Fifty-two percent
hold graduate degrees—including thirty-seven MBAs, fourteen JDs,
twenty-one PhDs, and twelve MA/MS degrees. Almost all have attended
private colleges, with close to half attending the same ten
universities: Harvard University (25), Oxford University (11), Stanford
University (8), Cambridge University (8), University of Chicago (8),
University of Cologne (6), Columbia University (5), Cornell University
(4), the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (3), and
University of California–Berkeley (3). Forty-nine are or were CEOs,
eight are or were CFOs; six had prior experience at Morgan Stanley, six
at Goldman Sachs, four at Lehman Brothers, four at Swiss Re, seven at
Barclays, four at Salomon Brothers, and four at Merrill Lynch.
People from twenty-two nations
make up the central financial core of the Transnational Corporate Class.
Seventy-three (45 percent) are from the US; twenty-seven (16 percent)
Britain; fourteen France; twelve Germany; eleven Switzerland; four
Singapore; three each from Austria, Belgium, and India; two each from
Australia and South Africa; and one each from Brazil, Vietnam, Hong
Kong/China, Qatar, the Netherlands, Zambia, Taiwan, Kuwait, Mexico, and
Colombia. They mostly live in or near a number of the world’s great cities: New York, Chicago, London, Paris, and Munich.
Members of the financial core take
active parts in global policy groups and government. Five of the
thirteen corporations have directors as advisors or former employees of
the International Monetary Fund. Six of the thirteen firms have
directors who have worked at or served as advisors to the World Bank.
Five of the thirteen firms hold corporate membership in the Council on
Foreign Relations in the US. Seven of the firms sent nineteen directors
to attend the World Economic Forum in February 2013. Seven of the
directors have served or currently serve on a Federal Reserve board,
both regionally and nationally in the US. Six of the financial core
serve on the Business Roundtable in the US. Several directors have had
direct experience with the financial ministries of European Union
countries and the G20. Almost all of the 161 individuals serve in some
advisory capacity for various regulatory organizations, finance
ministries, universities, and national or international policy-planning
bodies.
Western governments and
international policy bodies serve the interests of this financial core
of the Transnational Corporate Class. Wars are initiated to protect
their interests. International treaties, and policy agreements are
arranged to promote their success. Power elites serve to promote the
free flow of global capital for investment anywhere that returns are
possible.
Identifying the people with such
power and influence is an important part of democratic movements seeking
to protect our commons so that all humans might share and prosper.
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