Corporate Dominance: Profits Over People

Corporations and Public Health:Profits Before People Martin Donohoe

Am I Stoned? A 1999 Utah anti-drug pamphlet warns: “Danger signs that your child may be smoking marijuana include excessive preoccupation with social causes, race relations, and environmental issues”

Corporations Dominate the Global Economy • Almost 6 million corporations • 90% of transnational corporations headquartered in Northern Hemisphere • 500 companies control 70% of world trade

Corporations Dominate the Global Economy • 53 of the world’s 100 largest economies are private corporations; 47 are countries • Wal-Mart is larger than Israel and Greece

The Stock Market • The top 1% of Americans owns 51% of all stocks, bonds, and mutual fund assets • Consequences of Differential Stock Ownership • Corporations are answerable to their shareholders • Governments are answerable (at least in theory) to their citizens (either through elections or revolutions)

Corporations • Internalize profits • $2.1 trillion (2013) • Externalize health and environmental costs

Corporate Taxation • Corporations shouldered over 30% of the nation’s tax burden in 1950 vs. 8% today • Nearly 1/3 of all large U.S. corporations pay no annual tax

Corporate Taxation • Big business claims that U.S. corporations pay the highest corporate taxes in the world (35%) • FALSE: The rate actually paid, after foreign governments get their cuts, money sent to foreign subsidiaries, loopholes, etc. = 2.3% (U.S. Treasury Department); 17% for corporations with assets over $10 million

Reasons for Inadequate Corporate Taxation • Corporate tax breaks/loopholes • Corporate welfare • Cheating and under-payment common

Offshore tax havens shelter capital • Up to $32 trillion estimated (1/3 of all global wealth) • $11.5 trillion in individual wealth • U.S. GDP = $16 trillion • Cayman Islands: • Population 150,000 • Home to 92,000 corporations

Ugland House, Cayman Islands18,000 Corporations Registered Here

Job Creators?

Corporate Taxation • 2004: Bush administration offered temporary tax holiday on foreign earnings • $300 billion in profit repatriated • 92% went to dividend payouts, stock buybacks, and corporate coffers • Only 8% went to R and D, new factories, and hiring

Exorbitant CEO Pay • Median U.S. CEO salary (for S and P 500 corporations) = $11.7 million (2014) • CEO salaries up 997% since 1978 • Average worker pay up 11%

Exorbitant CEO Pay • The average CEO makes 373X the salary of the average U.S. worker (1960 - 41X) • Mexico 45:1 • Britain 25:1 • Japan 10:1 • US Military: 20:1 (top rank : lowest rank) • US ratio of average CEO to minimum wage worker = 774:1

Minimum Wage ≠ Living Wage • Federal minimum wage = $7.25/hr • 18 states and DC have higher minimum wages (Oregon = $9.10/hr, 2014) • $10,423/yr for full-time job • Real value down 42% compared with 1968 • Inadequate to pay rent, buy food and clothing

Minimum Wage ≠ Living Wage • Increasing to $9.25/hr on Jan 1, 2015 • Movements supporting $15/hr (still inadequate) • Over ½ of nation’s basic public assistance funds go to working families (substitute for benefits, therefore, taxes support corporations)

Solutions:Living Wage • Over 140 municipalities have adopted living wage laws • Including NY, LA, SFO, Seattle, Chicago, and Philadelphia • 15 states now have minimum wages that exceed the federal requirement • 10 states have passed pre-emptive laws forbidding cities and counties from raising the minimum wage

Corporate PR Tactics • Advertising • “The art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.“ (Will Rogers) • Astroturf - artificially-created grassroots coalitions • Corporate front groups • Corporate espionage: spying, bribes

Corporate PR tactics • Invoke poor people as beneficiaries • Characterize opposition as “technophobic,” anti-science,” and “against progress” • Portray their products as environmentally beneficial despite evidence to the contrary • Host all-expense paid educational seminars for federal judges

Greenwash • Public relations / ad campaigns • BP invests $100 million annually in clean energy = amt. it spends annually to market itself as moving “Beyond Petroleum”

Sponsored Environmental Education Materials (Examples) • International Paper -“Clearcutting promotes growth of trees that require full sunlight and allows efficient site preparation for the next crop” • Exxon’s “Energy Cube” -“Gasoline is simply solar power hidden in decayed matter” -“Offshore drilling creates reefs for fish”

Sponsored Environmental Education Materials (Examples) • American Coal Foundation’s “Power from Coal”: • “The earth could benefit rather than be harmed from increased carbon dioxide.”

Academics/Professional Organizations Affected • Increasing corporatization of academia • ↑Private commercial funding of university research • Undone research • Secrecy/Gag Clauses • Corporate-sponsored harassment of scientists • For-profit colleges growing, marked by corruption, high interest rates on loans to the un- and under-qualified

Academics/Professional Organizations Affected • Dramatic decrease in tenured faculty, rise in administrators • Gagging of researchers at federal agencies demoralizing, can affect recruitment of quality scientists

Union of Concerned Scientists (2015)

The Media • 5 corporations control majority of US media (down from 50 in 1983) • Extensive corporate-media links • American Council on Science and Health

Global Warming: Controversial? • Of 928 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, none were in doubt as to the existence or cause of global warming • Of 636 articles in the popular press (NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, WSJ), 53% expressed doubt as to the existence (and primary cause) of global warming Science 2004;306:1686-7 (Study covers 1993-2003)

Lobbying • Approximately 40,000 lobbyists (11,781 full-time) • Estimates of return on lobbying range from $28 to $212 for every $1 spent (higher values more likely) • Return on campaign contributions for elections for the most politically active companies = $760 per $1 spent

Lobbying • Federal lobbying groups spent $3.2 billion in 2014 • All single issue ideological groups combined (e.g., pro-choice, anti-abortion, feminist and consumer organizations, senior citizens, etc.) spent well under $100 million

Top-Spending Industries, 2014 • Pharmaceutical industry - $230 million • Business Associations - $163 million • Insurance industry - $151 million • Oil and gas industry - $141 million • Computers/Internet - $140 million • Electric utilities - $122 million

Campaign Cash and Lobbying • Citizens United • Lobbying promotes international non-cooperation/isolationism

The alliance between GE Medical Systems and NY-Presbyterian Hospital

General Electric • Ranked by Forbes as world’s largest company (based on equal weighting of sales, profits, assets, and market value) • 2014 revenues of $149 billion • Close to the GDP of more than 2/3 of U.N. member states • 2014 net after-tax profits of $15.2 billion • Majority from overseas operations

General Electric • Makes household appliances, lighting, and medical equipment • Plastics division, which produced bisphenol A, spun off in 2008 • Produces jet engines and military hardware

General Electric • Charles Wilson (CEO of GE pre- and post-WW II; helped oversee U.S. military production during WW II): • “The revulsion against war…will be an almost insuperable obstacle for us to overcome. For that reason, I am convinced that we must begin now to set the machinery in motion for a permanent wartime economy.”

General Electric • Has built 91 nuclear power plants in 11 countries (including the troubled Fukushima Daishi plants in Japan) • Including 23 plants at 11 sites in U.S. • e.g., Hanford • ¼ of GE’s US reactors found to be defective

General Electric • Operates coal-burning power plants • Major releasers of toxic mercury • Produces nearly 40 technologies used in fracking • Increasing investments in fracking

General Electric • Operates a large financial services group • Responsible for over 50% of company’s profits in recent years • 2015: company plans to sell off majority of GE Capital (now Syncrhony Financial) over next 2 years • Under investigation by the Justice Department for over potential bankruptcy violations

General Electric • Until recently, owned 49% of a multi-billion dollar media empire • Including NBC, Telemundo, and Universal Studios • Comcast owned 51%; bought out GE in 2013

GE’s History • Conducted unethical human subject experiments on prisoners, involving testicular irradiation, from 1940s to 1960s • Intentionally-released excessive radiation from its Hanford, WA nuclear reactor in the 1980s, to determine how far it would travel

GE’s Record • Sued radiologist who brought to light dangers of GE’s contrast agent, Omniscan • Causes nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (FDA black box warning) • Ordered to pay $11.4 million to Bracco Diagnositcs for falsely/misleadingly claiming that its x-ray contrast agent Visipaque was superior to BD’s Isovue

GE’s Record • America’s largest corporate polluter • 116 Superfund sites nationwide • Approximately 13 in NY

GE’s Record • Between 1947 and 1977, two of its capacitor manufacturing plants dumped at least 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson River • Probable human carcinogens with adverse effects on liver, kidney, nervous system, and reproductive organs (EPA) • 200 mi of Hudson = Superfund site

GE’s Record • Eliminated 34,000 US jobs between 2000 and 2010 • Added 25,000 overseas jobs over same period • One of nation’s top out-sourcers of jobs

GE’s Record • Cited by Human Rights Watch for “systematic workers’ rights violations” in the U.S. and abroad • Extensive record of tax violations, military procurement fraud

GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt • 2014 total compensation = $37.2 million (up from $25.8 million in 2013) • Named “World’s Best CEO” in 3 separate Barron’s polls • 2006 - 2011 - On Board of NY Federal Reserve Bank

GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt • 2008 – Named one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World” by TIME Magazine • 2009 - Appointed by President Obama to his Economic Recovery Board • GE then became eligible, via a loophole, for ¼ of the $340 billion Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (debt support)

GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt • 2011 - Appointed by Obama as Chair of his outside panel of Economic Advisors and of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness • On the board of directors of “The Robin Hood Foundation”!

Corporate Dominance: Profits Over People