Corporate Control of Public Health: Case Studies and Call to Action

1. Corporate Control of Public Health:Case Studies and Call to Action Martin Donohoe

2. Am I Stoned? A 1999 Utah anti-drug pamphlet warns: “Danger signs that your child may be smoking marijuana include excessive preoccupation with social causes, race relations, and environmental issues”

3. Corporations “The [only] social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” - Milton Friedman

4. Corporations “Corporations [have] no moral conscience. [They] are designed by law, to be concerned only for their stockholders, and not, say, what are sometimes called their stakeholders, like the community or the work force…” -Noam Chomsky

5. Outline • Corporate Domination of World Economy • Corporate Taxation • Corporate Crime • Corporations and Education • Corporations and the Media

6. Outline • International Non-Cooperation and Isolationism • Case Studies • Solutions • Discussion

7. Corporations Dominate the Global Economy • Almost 6 million corporations • 90% of transnational corporations headquartered in Northern Hemisphere • 500 companies control 70% of world trade • 148 corporations control 40% of world’s wealth (most are financial institutions)

8. Corporations Dominate the Global Economy • 53 of the world’s 100 largest economies are private corporations; 47 are countries • Wal-Mart is larger than Israel and Greece • Apple is larger than Poland

9. The Stock Market • The top 1% of Americans owns 51% of all stocks, bonds, and mutual fund assets • Consequences of Differential Stock Ownership • Corporations are answerable to their shareholders • Governments are answerable (at least in theory) to their citizens (either through elections or revolutions)

10. The Stock Market • Interesting Fact: As a group, U.S. Senators beat the market by an average of 12% from 1993-98 (study published 2004) • The best fund managers average 3% • STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act passes Congress (2012): • Removes loophole exempting Congressional lawmakers and staff members from being prosecuted for “insider trading” for using knowledge gained in their work (political intelligence)

11. Congressional Wealth and Influence • ½ of legislators are millionaires (vs. 1% of U.S. citizens) • Average personal fortune: • Senator = $13 million • Representative = $5 million

12. Corporations • Internalize profits • Externalize health and environmental costs

13. Corporate Taxation • Corporations shouldered over 30% of the nation’s tax burden in 1950 vs. 8% today • Nearly 1/3 of all large U.S. corporations pay no annual tax

14. Corporate Taxation • Big business claims that U.S. corporations pay the highest corporate taxes in the world (35%) • FALSE: The rate actually paid, after foreign governments get their cuts, money sent to foreign subsidiaries, loopholes, etc. = 2.3% (U.S. Treasury Department)

15. Corporate Taxation • 2004: Bush administration offered temporary tax holiday on foreign earnings • $300 billion in profit repatriated • 92% went to dividend payouts, stock buybacks, and corporate coffers • Only 8% went to R and D, new factories, and hiring

16. Reasons for Inadequate Corporate Taxation • Tax breaks, corporate welfare, corporation-friendly tax laws, loopholes, transferring assets overseas • Cities and states offer incentives to companies to locate in their communities, in exchange for the promise of jobs • Companies often leave when a better offer becomes available

17. Reasons for Inadequate Corporate Taxation • Incentives: • Cash grants and loans • Sales tax breaks • Income tax credits and exemptions • Free services • Property tax abatements • Highway and school construction • $80 billion in 2011 • Income tax breaks - $18 billion • Sales tax relief - $52 billion

18. Reasons for Inadequate Corporate Taxation • Cheating and under-payment common • Auditing program understaffed and underfunded • 1/3 high school students admits to stealing something from a store in the past year

19. Reasons for Inadequate Corporate Taxation • Offshore tax havens shelter capital • Estimated 1/3 of global assets • $11.5 trillion in individual wealth alone • 83 of the largest 100 US companies have subsidiaries in tax havens • Lost annual tax revenue: • $250 billion worldwide • $100 billion in US

20. Ugland House, Cayman Islands18,000 Corporations Registered Here

21. Job Creators?

22. “White Collar” (Corporate) Crime vs. “Blue Collar” (Street) Crime” • Each year in America, we lose; • $3.8 billion to burglary and robbery • Hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars to white collar crime

23. Why So Much Corporate Crime • Fines meager, often considered a cost of doing business • Corporate crime under-prosecuted, prosecutors under-funded • Confidential legal settlements keep important public health and safety information secret • May delay governmental intervention, cause unnecessary morbidity and mortality

24. Corporate Crime • Companies mandating forced arbitration • SCOTUS allows corporate binding arbitration contracts, limiting class action lawsuits (AT&T v. Concepcion, 2011) • Arbitration Fairness Act would counteract ruling

25. Consequences of Corporatization • Increasing industry consolidation/mergers • Inflation • Rising unemployment

26. Consequences of Corporatization • Rise of the “permatemp” • Expatriation of jobs • 2000-2011: U.S.-based multinational corporations cut 2.9 million jobs in U.S. while increasing foreign employment by 2.4 million • Overseas factories often lack adequate occupational health and safety and environmental standards • Decline in labor union membership

28. Exorbitant CEO Pay • CEO salaries up 759% since 1978 • Average worker pay up 6% • The average CEO makes 350-400X the salary of the average U.S. worker (1960 - 41X) • Mexico 45:1 • Britain 25:1 • Japan 10:1 • US Military: 15-20:1 (top rank : lowest rank)

29. CEO Personality Characterisitics • Some data suggest certain traits common among psychopaths are also commonly found in CEOs (and politicians, world leaders, and serial killers): • Grandiose sense of self worth • Persuasiveness • Superficial charm • Ruthlessness • Lack of remorse • Manipulation of others

31. The Mega-Rich • Worried / Investing in personal security • Bodyguards • Armored cars • Bullet-proof windows; machine gun proof doors • Home security fogs • Panic rooms • Fully-stocked home medical suites • Yachts with escape submarines • Islands

32. Corporate Involvement in Education

33. Would You Sign a Petition to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide? 1. It can cause excessive sweating and vomiting2. It is a major component in acid rain3. It can cause severe burns in its gaseous state4. It can kill you if accidentally inhaled5. It contributes to erosion6. It decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes7. It has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients

34. Geographic/Scientific Ignorance, Pseudoscience • Percent of US teens unable to locate the following on a map: • United States – 11% • Pacific Ocean – 29% • Japan – 58%

35. Pseudoscientific Beliefs Percentage of Americans who believe “at least to some degree” in these “phenomena” 1997 1976 • Astrology 37% 17% • UFOs 30% 24% • Reincarnation 25% 9% • Fortune-Telling 14% 4%

36. Ignorance/Pseudoscientific Beliefs • Half of US citizens do not believe in evolution and do believe that humans and dinosaurs coexisted (2007) • 40% think scientists still generally disagree about evolution • Only 12% of U.S. Protestant pastors believe in evolution • 70% believe in global warming

37. Pseudoscientific Beliefs • 37% believe places can be haunted (2007) • 25% believe in UFOs (2007) • 24% believe in astrology (2009) • 16% believe that people with the “evil eye” can cast curses or harmful spells • 14% have consulted a psychic or fortune teller (2009

38. Ignorance/Pseudoscientific Beliefs • 22% of Americans don’t know whether an atomic bomb has ever been dropped (2000) • 20% of Americans don’t know the earth revolves around the sun (1999) • 18% believe in Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster (2007) • 8% of men / 18% of women believe in astrology and fortune tellers (2007)

39. Public Education in Disarray • U.S. Schools ranked lowest among western nations • Some states require instructors to teach “creation science,” “intelligent design,” and “climate change skepticism” • Despite politicians’ statements, 72% of Republicans believe global warming is occurring (92% of Democrats)

40. Public Education in Disarray • Inadequate funding, decaying infrastructure • National HS graduation rate 65-70% • No change from 1970s • Lower incomes youths 6X as likely to drop out • College tuition costs rising • Increasingly marginalizes poor, minorities

41. Legislative Mandates • Bills allowing teaching of creationism or “intelligent design” alongside evolution • Bills requiring global warming to be taught as a “theory”

42. Anti-Science Legislators • Members of the House Science Committee (2012) • Paul Broun (R-GA): Evolution, embryology, and the Big Bang Theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell;” climate change is a “hoax” • Ralph Hall (R-TX): Agrees with TX Governor Rick Perry that climate scientists are involved in a conspiracy to receive research funding. • Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI): The science on global warming is “inconclusive”

43. Anti-Science Legislators • Members of the House Science Committee (2012) • Todd Akin (R-MO): “If it’s legitimate rape,” women will not get pregnant (lost 2012 election) • Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA): Claimed an earlier period of global warming may have been caused by “dinosaur flatulence,” suggested that if global warming is real it could be addressed by cutting down trees, does not believe that CO2 is a cause of global warming

44. Nation’s Schoolchildren Call For Cuts in Math/Science Funding

45. Benefits of Education • For every $1 spent on early childhood education, up to $17 are saved from increased school achievement, improved health, reduced crime, and reduced reliance on public assistance • Income increases 11% for every year of education

46. Benefits of Education • College graduates live 5 years longer than high school dropouts • Eliminating educational inequities would have saved 8X as many lives as medical advances from 1996-2002

47. Television and the Media • The average American youth spends 900 hrs/yr in school, 1,500 hrs/yr watching TV • By age 65, the average American will have spent 9 yrs watching TV

48. Corporate PR Tactics • Advertising • Astroturf - artificially-created grassroots coalitions • Corporate front groups • Invoke poor people as beneficiaries

49. Corporate PR tactics • Characterize opposition as “technophobic,” anti-science,” and “against progress” • Portray their products as environmentally beneficial despite evidence to the contrary • Corporate espionage: spying, bribes

50. Greenwash • Public relations / ad campaigns • BP invests $100 million annually in clean energy = amt. it spends annually to market itself as moving “Beyond Petroleum”