The Committee That Runs The Global Economy

In 2007, 40% of the monetary value of 43,000 transnational companies (defined a companies with at least 10% of their holdings in more than one country), were controlled by just 147 companies. Diversification and indirect holding patterns made the effects less obvious, according to a July 28 preprint at arVix.org by Brandy Aven and James Glattfelder. The trend toward increasingly concentrated and transnational holdings is continuing to advance.

Moreover, business corporations tend to concentrate far more power in a CEO than comparable governmental organizations, so control by 147 companies pretty much implies that a group of people that can fit in a large college lecture hall control two-fifths of the globalized economy.