MEDIA ROOTS- In an empirical study using complex systems analysis models, mathematical theorists in Zurich have revealed the architecture of transnational corporations’ (TNCs) interconnectedness. The report bolsters the charges made of late by the Occupy Wall Street Movement touting society’s obscene inequality—1% of the population owns almost half of all U.S. wealth.  This study’s findings, an uncanny correlative of the individual TNC to the individual ruling-class elitist, reveal that less than 1% of all TNCs essentially control 40% of the global economy. 

Messina

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NEW SCIENTIST— AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters’ worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study’s assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world’s transnational corporations (TNCs).

“Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it’s conspiracy theories or free-market,” says James Glattfelder. “Our analysis is reality-based.”

The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What’s more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world’s large blue chip and manufacturing firms – the “real” economy – representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

Read more about the capitalist network that runs the world.

© 2011 Reed Business Information Ltd.

Image by PLoS One

TED– Can we reach biosphere consciousness and global empathy in time to avert planetary collapse? In this talk from RSA Animate, bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways it has shaped human development and society.

From YouTube user Digital Bob 8

MEDIA ROOTS- In an ideal world, your partner would not judge you based on the way your last relationship ended. Unfortunately, as a recent study in the scientific journal Evolutionary Psychology discovered, the real world is a little different.

It is no surprise that neither men nor women find their partners more attractive after discovering that they were on the receiving end of their last break-ups. The flip-side, however, is a different story.

According to the study, titled “Rejection Hurts: The Effect of Being Dumped on Subsequent Mating Efforts,” the average woman actually finds her partner more attractive after discovering that he initiated the split with his last partner.

The subjects of the study rated fictional personal ads for individuals of their genders of choice before and after they learned whether the fictional people had dumped their last partners, had been dumped, or refused to say. According to the results, nobody will like you better if you’ve been dumped, and nobody will like you better if you won’t tell – but women will like you better if you were the one to end your last relationship.

As with any scientific study, this does not apply to everyone; it merely points out a trend. And the trend, in this case, appears to be that you can’t win with men no matter what you do, and you can only win with women by breaking someone’s heart.

Don’t come to any conclusions about what you should do with your current relationship just because of this study; all of the differences in preference were relatively minor. But if you date women, and you expect your current relationship to end soon, you might want to consider doing the dirty work yourself. It may help you in the long run.

Mitchell Singer is an SFSU undergraduate student with a great interest in all types of verbal expression. Aside from newswriting, blogging, and freelance copywriting, he spends his time sampling different media of visual art and reading books on a variety of subjects.

Photo by flickr user oedipusphinx