In modern society, voting with your money is often more powerful than casting a ballot at the polls.
As they have every year since 1992, the non-profit group Multinational Monitor has released its list of the worst greed-mongers, polluters, & otherwise nefarious companies that are most deserving of boycotts, LTE campaigns, & other bad press.
Join me below the fold for a list of the 10 worst corporations of 2008.
Without further adieu, the list:
- AIG
- Cargill
- Chevron
- Constellation Energy
- CNPC
- Dole
- GE
- Philip Morris International
- Imperial Sugar
- Roche
Yes, some of us will wonder where certain well-known household names of evil are on the list (cough, cough, Halliburton, cough [2005]). Many of them have been previously listed, or would make good candidates for worst corporations of the decade in a few months when the current decade ("The Ohs"? "The Twooze"? "The WeGotFuckedByBushAndCheneys"?) winds down.
Let us briefly look at the reasons each evildoer was called out this year.
AIG: Money for Nothing
* Guilty of dealing in high risk "credit default swaps" but treated it as a safe practice.
* Over the course of a weekend in September, the amount of money AIG owed shot up from $20 billion to more than $80 billion.
* And how can we forget?
In September, less than a week after the bailout was announced, the Orange County Register reported on a posh retreat for company executives and insurance agents at the exclusive St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California. Rooms at the resort can cost over $1,000 per night.
Cargill: Food Profiteers
Over the last three decades, the [old "world food system"] abandoned. It was replaced by a multinational-dominated, globally integrated food system that gave enhanced power to a handful of global grain trading companies like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, as well as to seed and fertilizer corporations.
In the second quarter of 2008, Cargill reported over $1 billion in profits.
Chevron: "We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies"
The quote was given to Newsweek by an actual Chevron lobbyist in August.
They have an tanker named after Condi Rice.
They spend millions on marketing ("Chevron Cares") while running up record profits quarter after quarter polluting the planet.
Nuff said?
Constellation Energy: Nuclear Operators
Dangerous, expensive and too centralized to make sense as an energy source, nuclear power won’t go away, thanks to equipment makers and utilities that find ways to make the public pay.
Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC): Fueling Violence in Darfur
Many of the world’s most brutal regimes have a common characteristic: Although subject to economic sanctions and politically isolated, they are able to maintain power thanks to multinational oil company enablers. Case in point: Sudan, and the CNPC.
Dole: The Sour Taste of Pineapple
Starting in 1988, the Philippines undertook what was to be a bold initiative to redress the historically high concentration of land ownership that has impoverished millions of rural Filipinos and undermined the country’s development. The Comprehensive Agricultural Reform Program (CARP) promised to deliver land to the landless. It didn’t work out that way. Plantation owners helped draft the law and invented ways to circumvent its purported purpose. Dole pineapple workers are among those paying the price.
GE: Creative Accounting
General Electric (GE) has appeared on Multinational Monitor’s annual 10 Worst Corporations list for defense contractor fraud, labor rights abuses, toxic and radioactive pollution, manufacturing nuclear weaponry, workplace safety violations and media conflicts of interest (GE owns television network NBC). This year, the company returns to the list for new reasons: alleged tax cheating and the firing of a whistleblower.
Imperial Sugar: 13 Dead
It must be nice to own your own Senator. The February 7 explosion that rocked the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia was preventable. Imperial Sugar knew of the conditions in its plants; it had been repeatedly warned by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Saxby Chambliss has resisted an order to give evidence in a lawsuit by families of victims killed or hurt in the refinery disaster. Our thoughts are with the people affected by this tragedy.
Philip Morris International: Unshackled
A commentator for The Motley Fool investment advice service wrote, "The Marlboro Man is finally free to roam the globe unfettered by the legal and marketing shackles of the U.S. domestic market."
Roche: "Saving Lives is Not Our Business"
Monopoly control over life-saving medicines gives enormous power to drug companies.
The full quote: "We are not in business to save lives, but to make money. Saving lives is not our business."
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Please feel free to offer you own lists of other evil faceless entities who deserve Dishonorable Mention, or share you own thoughts on the ones listed above.
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Multinational Monitor is a magazine founded by Ralph Nader, but don't let that diminish its value on the watchdog front. This is what Nader does (did?) best.