It’s democracy, stupid
Lots of people talk about corporate power, fewer can tell you how it actually works. Katharine Ainger sheds a little sunlight on the discussion.

A tale of two coups
What happens when a country offends transnationals? Greg Palast reveals the suppressed story of the military coup in Venezuela and compares it with the international financiers’ coup in Argentina.

The naked lobbyist
Corporate Europe Observatory uncovers the mightiest business lobby groups you’ve never heard of.

For their eyes only
The confidential, corporate-friendly, free-trade agreement that deregulates democracy. Greg Palast has the documents.

CORPORATE INFLUENCE – THE FACTS

Earth summit for sale
On the eve of the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, Katharine Ainger finds out how the UN learned to stop worrying and love big business; PLUS deconstructing corporate eco-speak, with help from Orwell.

Corpocrats
The rise of global managerial culture, by Andrew Simms.

A short history of corporations
A whirlwind ride from the East India Company to ExxonMobil, replete with monopolies, 19th-century free-trade bun fights and revolutions.

The big guns
Who is profiting from the ‘war on terror’? Tim Shorrock investigates the Bush family’s links with defence contractor the Carlyle Group.

Spanners in the works!
A four-step guide to jamming the corporate cog-wheels of power.

Thomas Schmidt / Stone

First, a message from my sponsor. I’m pleased to announce that, as of yesterday and following an extended period of investigation into the covert political activities of transnational corporations, my brain has been bought out as the result of an aggressive take-over bid. This edition of the NI is now brought to you by the NI Megacorporation^TM.

They’ve just informed me of their concern that the public might lose sight of how important the company is to job-creation and the economy when they read the anti-freedom, anti-market views expressed in these pages. The public might not fully appreciate the importance of the Megacorporation^TM framing global policy in its own self-interest.

So the NI Megacorporation^TM decided this morning to buy up all the copies of this magazine they could lay their hands on and has already begun shredding them like so many Enron accounts. Please co-operate if a Megacorp team turns up at your house to re-appropriate the magazine.

As for me, I’ve been touched by the invisible hand of the market, convinced by the soundness of the economic arguments and the basic common-sense self-interest of it all.

After all, this is how the world works – and we may as well get used to it… right?

Karl A Trentberg
for the NI Megacorporation^TM
Co-operative
KAT@newint.org
(A Rapacious Corporate Clone for which Katharine Ainger provided the genetic material.)