The Best of the America’s Worst

by | posted in: External Charts, The Economics Devision | 1

The voting has ended over at The Consumerist and Electronic Arts has won the title of Worst Company in America for 2012.

Bank of America made it to the final match-up for a second year in a row, but failed to worst EA this year as it did with BP in 2011.  The bracket brought together 32 of the least admired companies America has to offer and you can click on the image for the full bracket and blow-by-blow accounts of this year’s battle.

If you’d like to explore the history of the contest, here’s an archive of all the tournaments going back to The Consumerist’s start:

WCIA 2011 – BP beats Bank of America [bracket]
WCIA 2010 – Comcast beats Ticketmaster [bracket]
WCIA 2009 – AIG beats Comcast [bracket] WCIA 2008 – Countrywide Home Loans beats Comcast [bracket]
WCIA 2007 – RIAA beats Halliburton [bracket]
WCIA 2006 – Halliburton beats ChoicePoint [bracket]

Notice all the repeats.  Apparently “worst” doesn’t mean they won’t be around next year.  But where else are you going to take your demand when the largest companies control almost all of the supply?

Corporate Voltron Forms Giant Ironic Bow-Tie

by | posted in: External Images, The Economics Devision | 0

Whether you  think the world is too large and diverse to be controlled by a relatively small group of gigantic companies or assume that it’s not and they do, a small team in Zurich has finally done the work to find out.  The short of it?  It’s not and they do, sort of.  Here’s what it looks like:

What is that?  It’s 1,318 companies in 26 countries and their 12,191 links.  At the core of this network, the study found that 147 transnational corporations (TNCs) form a “super entity” with control over 40% of the economic value of all 43,060 TNCs in the world.

Who would be the tight-knit group at the core of a “giant bow-tie structure” of TNCs?  That’s right, financial institutions. It’s not really a surprise though.  Banks are financing this little tragic comedy we’ve got going on here. The goal of the study, The network of global corporate control (PDF), was not to unearth a conspiracy, but to confirm the existence of such an economic Voltron so that we might further assess it’s nature and potential risk to the global economy.  And considering the banks’ track record, it’s about time.

[via Boing Boing]