The Toll of Corporate Control

Neither Honest Nor Trustworthy:
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2007

by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

The U.S. public holds Big Business in shockingly low regard. A November 2007 Harris poll found that less than 15 percent of the population believes each of the following industries to be "generally honest and trustworthy:" tobacco companies (3 percent); oil companies (3 percent); managed care companies such as HMOs (5 percent); health insurance companies (7 percent); telephone companies (10 percent); life insurance companies (10 percent); online retailers (10 percent); pharmaceutical and drug companies (11 percent); car manufacturers (11 percent); airlines (11 percent); packaged food companies (12 percent); electric and gas utilities (15 percent). Only 32 percent of adults said they trusted the best-rated industry about which Harris surveyed, supermarkets.

With the 10 Worst Corporations of 2007, we aim to show - again - that Big Business is out of control and to connect comparable abuses to the failure of government overseers, regulators and enforcers. MORE >>

High Flyers and the Grounding of Equality

by Samuel Bollier

Private and corporate jet sales are taking off, reflecting an increase in the extreme concentration of wealth in the United States and around the world.Worlwide sales of private jets have more than doubled since 2003, to $19.4 billion in 2007. The number of jets sold increased 28 percent between 2006 and 2007 alone. Sales of these jets increased 18 percent between 2005 and 2006 alone. And corporate jet ownership has increased by about 70 percent since the early 1990s. MORE>>

The Pickens Water Play

by Andrew Wheat

A political shopping spree may have accelerated the efforts of Dallas billionaire T. Boone Pickens to hijack sweeping government powers of eminent domain. The tycoon wants these extraordinary powers to benefit his private utility companies: Mesa Water and Mesa Power. The $1.8 million that Pickens spent on Texas' last two elections made him the state's number 5 individual donor - up from number 12 in 2002. Pickens wants condemnation powers to lay 320 miles of utility lines from suburban Dallas to the Texas Panhandle - with or without the approval of the owners of the private land that he would excavate. MORE>>

Financialization and Its Discontents: How Wall Street's Political Triumph Led to Economic Crisis

An interview with Robert Kuttner

Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect. He is the author of The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity (2007), Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets (1997) and five other books. Kuttner is a co-founder of the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive economic think tank in Washington, D.C. He is currently a distinguished senior fellow with Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action. MORE>>

How Eliminating User Fees Helped 2 Million Kenyan Kids Go to School

An interview with Mary Njoroge

Mary Njoroge was Kenya's National Coordinator for Early Childhood Development and the Director of Basic Education until her retirement in 2006. She oversaw the Abolition of School Fees Initiative in 2003 and was awarded the Moran of the Burning Spear, one of Kenya's highest honors. Njoroge now works as an educational consultant. Multinational Monitor interviewed Njoroge in December 2007, before Kenya's national election. MORE>>