Disney, Sony, Apple, etc and the Corporate machine

Topic

A thread to discuss all things Oregon and also welcome our new corporate overlords.

Replies

or not.

I’m happy either way

An essential ingredient of any spaghetti bolognese.

I have no idea what this thread is for

Ah, young, innocent David.

The thread can be about whatever you would like:

What is the actual purpose of this thread?
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If it has no reason for being, it might just disappear.

The point of this thread is as a space to talk about issues concerning corporatisation. The Oregon Trail is probably too subtle a reference but it relates to the American Fur Company.

It isn’t something I particularly *want* to talk about because I think it’s ripe for a problematic discussion, and im liable to come down particularly hard on one side. But I didn’t want these discussions to detract from other threads, hence this one.

I’m happy if you close it. Or, otherwise we can make plans for our self-sustaining commune.

The Oregon Trail was mostly about dying with dysentery (or in my case fording all rivers even ones that really shouldn’t be).
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Anonymous wrote:

Or, otherwise we can make plans for our self-sustaining commune.

.
You filthy hippies can have your dirty commie commune.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregon_Trail_(series)?wprov=sfti1

Anonymous wrote:

The point of this thread is as a space to talk about issues concerning corporatisation. The Oregon Trail is probably too subtle a reference but it relates to the American Fur Company.

Wayyyyyyy too subtle for us. Maybe a renaming is in order if we want people interested in the topic to actually find it…

I for one am interested. It’s a complex topic and one that’s bound to be difficult in discussion, but I do think it’s one of the deciding issues of our time.

This will come as a surprise, but i had imbibed alcohol when I created this thread.

Perhaps some well-meaning Mod can rename the thread to something accessible like: “Disney, Apple and the Corporate Machine”

But that will ruin my oregano joke.

We are at an impasse then.

The Oregano Joke was very good after all…

I think there is no choice but to shut down the whole internet.

Anonymous wrote:

Perhaps some well-meaning Mod can rename the thread to something accessible like: “Disney, Apple and the Corporate Machine”

I think that ship has sailed. You might need to start a new thread, and let these posts merge into the random thread or just fade from memory (which is the same thing really).

No. I will not actively will this thread upon The Carrier.

Someone else has to do it.

Anonymous wrote:

I think there is no choice but to shut down the whole internet.

RonnieM wrote:

What is the actual purpose of this thread?
.
If it has no reason for being, it might just disappear.

There’s NR for TT.

Bruce wrote:

There’s NR for TT.

?

I think that stems from Jons use of OT in this discussion in the trailers thread which gave me the idea.

It’s probably ‘No Reason’ for ‘This Thread’.

It’s up to you guys. We nibble around the edges of this stuff in various threads and my preference would be to have a dedicated thread for it because my feeling is some posters aren’t interested in that side of things and don’t want to scroll through it when reading about new comics and films.

[Christian]

Great new name!

Okay, to get the ball rolling – a current example for typical corporate behaviour:

Koch Industries’ Mysterious ‘Internal Bank’ in Switzerland

The Koch brothers are renowned for their libertarian views, their political funding and influence, and their privately-owned global business empire. But you’ve probably never heard of Arteva Europe, a Koch Industries company whose Swiss branch makes hundreds of millions of dollars in interest income, pays very little tax, and – mysteriously – has no staffing costs.

The Guardian sent reporter Rupert Neate to Zurich to find out what happens at this lucrative office.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Christian.

Will there be breakups for some corporations becoming too big or too powerful?

Very much in my ball park (although i suppose the intent of the thread is to focus more on corporate control of media/tv/games/music etc).

The typical structure for most mega corporations is to have some kind structure where by the immediate parent (as opposed to the ultimate parents) are in fact shells incorporated in tax free, non-disclosure jurisdictions such as the BVI, Panama, Bahamas, Caymans or the Turks & Caicos islands. A good example is the Chinese mega property developer Country Garden who put out quarterly an annual reports such as this. That report will show you a lot of numbers and really does look like they’re doing their best to be transparent.

What it does not tell you, and what the documents issued to prospective investors does, is that the corporate structure looks like how it appears in at page 142 of tis link (the link to that whole document is here

Those top layers contain companies that are incorporated in jurisdictions where their information is not publishable. This means that we have to take their word that they are divesting their assets and following all the correct procedures as they impact companies incorporated in the *other* jurisdictions, but there is no way to check.

This isn’t news, we know corporations do this but this is how – they create a structure and incorporate in particular jurisdictions to maximise the accumulation of wealth. The *Better* Corporations are the ones that DONT do this, and we can actually follow the structure through and follow the money to confirm what they are doing – but, they still have other questionable practices, and for the most part, they all do.

EDIT: It appears i cant upload the file but the Corporate Structure for CG begins at page 142 of the document linked.

Al-x wrote:

Will there be breakups for some corporations becoming too big or too powerful?

No. We live in a world where transnational corporation exists. Apple has a larger GDP of some nations. Because corporation growth extends past the laws of most countries, we can’t pass laws which limit their growth. In fact, a major failing of the ICC and UNSC is they don’t care much about this area, because they consider it territory of the Wold Bank. The problem being one is about applying the Rule of Law and one is about facilitating the world markets.

What we can do is observe our rules regarding monopolisation and cartel-conduct and advocate for good, transparent, accountable corporate governance. Monopolisation you no doubt understand, but Cartel Conduct is when two corporations get together and more or less act together without competition, to the detriment of the consumer. Most western jurisdictions have good laws and bodies which facilitate the prevention of this, and for the most part we do a good job.

On Monopolisation, when Disney and Fox merged, there was a legal battle over whether it was justiciable because the question was whether the dominant market share would approach market control and promote anti-competitive behaviour. As you know, this didnt happen, and it was won on the data (as opposed to the law). This was probably the correct ruling, to be frank, because despite common perception, the economics does not indicate this merger has created (or more correctly will create) market control in any of the markets that Disney and Fox operate in. The important thing here is to understand what market control means in a legal sense, as opposed to common parlance, and that is to create a situation where competitors have no economic option but to vertically integrate with the dominant market force.

More controversial is the merger between AT & T and Time Warner, which the data DOES NOT support, was appealed and still approved.

With this said there HAVE been both horizontal and vertical mergers which have been knocked down, and to my memory they almost exclusively relate to Banks – so that may tell you something.