 Which Rl corporation will be the first to go mega? |
  |
 Apr 27 2006, 04:26 PM
Post
#1
|
|
|
Dragon  Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019  |
Who do you envision getting extraterritoriality from world governments before everyone else? And if you want to post a mini-essay, how do you envision them getting it, and do you view that as a good or bad thing?
|
 |
 
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 04:34 PM
Post
#2
|
|
|
Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
Too late, it's already happened.
Megacorp #1 was given "the rights to autonomous territorial acquisitions, to mint money, to command fortresses and troops and form alliances, to make war and peace, and to exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction over the acquired areas." Megacorp #2 "was the richest private company the world had ever seen (at the time), with over 150 merchant ships, 40 warships, 50,000 employees, a private army of 10,000 soldiers, and a dividend payment of 40%." |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 04:35 PM
Post
#3
|
|
|
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019 |
But neither of those exist today. The whole Megacorporations thing was always very Industrial-Revolutiony, anyway. Corp scrip wasn't invented by Fasa, it was present during the IR.
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 04:40 PM
Post
#4
|
|
|
Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Dosen't matter. They were in fact the first Megas. And like Fuchi will (theoretically) go under, so too did those august giants crack, crumble and falter under the weight of their own self-assumed executive authority.
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 04:41 PM
Post
#5
|
|
|
Bushido Cowgirl Group: Members Posts: 5,782 Joined: 8-July 05 From: On the Double K Ranch a half day's ride out of Phlogiston Flats Member No.: 7,490 |
It was a tossup between Haliburton and MicroSquish.
The reason I picked Haliburton is that for now, they have key components in the right places (like the executive branch of the US government and almost a monopoly on exclusive contracts overseas). MS on the other hand is still facing some stiff opposition in the Euro community for it's marketing tactics. Yeah Gates has the business and home computing world by the nards for now, but competitors like Linux have made appreciable gains. Also, don't rule out the Pharmaceutical giants like Merck. These corps already have a the beginnings of extra-territoriality considering their plants (most of which are in the Caribbean) pay little if any local taxes while gouging us for prescription drugs. My worst horror for becoming Mega is the Clown prince of corps - Mc Donalds. |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 04:53 PM
Post
#6
|
|
|
Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
If you want strictly modern corporations, I'd vote ExxonMobile or similar oil company, or maybe Disney. Other than Haliburton, none of the corporations on the list are in a position to become nations unto themselves, nor do they really have the motivation.
Oil companies, OTOH, go to backwater regions of the world and bring cash, organization, and security. ExxonMobile (about 12x as big as Haliburton) is providing social services to communities near its oil fields in Africa, probably providing more organization and help than the local governments. The only thing it hasn't done is form its own nation. Disney has some limited, town-like government privileges in central Florida. I think Seagrams tried to form an independent nation in the Caribbean, even got a nation to cede an island to it, but no one's recognized it. |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 04:56 PM
Post
#7
|
|
|
Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,026 Joined: 23-November 05 From: Seattle (Really!) Member No.: 7,996 |
The reason that the Corp as nation vision presented in SR doesn't quite work in SR is that there are lots of functions that Goverments fill that cannot be done profitably, and hence corporations simply want nothing to do with them when the costs can be born by goverments, and in turn spread out among the citizenry.
Also your list is pretty bizzarre. There are some huge corporations missing, Royal Dutch Shell is conspicuously absent as is Matsushita, the Daimler-Chrysler group, DuPont, IBM, British Petroleum, etc. GM is the largest of the Global 500 on your list and they are number 5 after Walmart, BP, Exxon-Mobil, and Royal Dutch Shell. Haliburton, Apple, Nintendo, and Google just aren't comparatively all that big, I don't think they are even on the global 500 list. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/glo...l500/index.html |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 04:59 PM
Post
#8
|
|
|
Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
Incidentally, for those interested in forming megacorps, I do note some things form the historical examples:
1) Get yourself chartered somewhere where the government can't revoke your charter of incorporation. i.e., a pet government. British East Indies corp lost its Indian empire to a wave of a British pen. 2) To set yourself up for the long term, make sure you have some revenue streams independent of the changing times - like taxes. Several of the big trade companies folded for low revenue when they were sitting on tax payers in their pet nations. |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 05:07 PM
Post
#9
|
|||
|
Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
I've heard that, and I wonder. Some governments have tried to privitize various departments, like the US and its Postal Service (which hasn't worked as well as hoped, but...) or assorted US cities and their schools. Corporations are happy to run those government functions if they smell a profit, and the citizens are sometimes willing to turn government functions over to them. So, here's my theory for a corporation running most or all government functions: You just need to remove the "real" government as the middle man between the corporation and taxes. Let the corporation collect taxes directly. Companies collect garbage now (and build roads, and fix sewers, and dig ditches...), knowing they're getting a steady stream of cash from the government (i.e., taxpayers). Once the megacorp IS the government, why not collect taxes, too? Then, sure, the corporation would be happy to provide all those messy, boring "government" services. Corporations already do them, just as government subcontractors. A megacorp would be its own employer for those services. In a lot of nations, you'd have to talk the locals into accepting corporate leadership, but it's been done. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Apr 27 2006, 05:09 PM
Post
#10
|
|
|
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019 |
Maybe we should form another thread about corporations that have a chance at becoming extraterritorial; I obviously know nothing about extraterritoriality.
And on the subject of extraterritoriality, I'd hate to literally live where I work; having industrial productivity forced on me in every part of my life is something I would hate. Employers already have power over you that no one expects the government to; expanding their influence is just a bad idea. |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 05:25 PM
Post
#11
|
|||
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
General Electric, they're the only one listed that makes any sense. Microsoft? Google??? Small fry, they aren't even in the top 50 largest corporations. GE is #2 as of this year. From Wikipedia:
Sound like a familiar organization style? Toyota might have a shot, they are after all diversifying into biotech, but they're still mostly a one-trick pony. Mitsubishi is, again, too small for consideration. Moreover, it isn't even a single corporation—it's a group of independent companies sharing a brand name. Then again, that could help it if the parent corporation became more powerful (see point about GE and its finger-in-every-pot style), and it has financial, nuclear, and chemical wings for diversification. Halliburton is again way too small, but it has the subsidiaries-everywhere thing going. Apple… well, short of people like me overthrowing the government to install a fundamentalist Dictatorship of the Steve, see comments about Microsoft/Google. Too tiny and too specialized. It would take a second "tech bubble", only non-bursting and lasting at least a decade, for any of those three companies to reach that status. Nintendo might have a shot, but only if they abandon their recent efforts to break into the video games market and return to their core business. General Motors, too small and too nondiversified. Sony is too small, but like Halliburton and General Electric they're structured like a megacorp—if there's any single company today I could see with one subsidiary staging runs against another in the same company, it would be Sony. That said, that kind of thing tends to be particularly detrimental if it starts happening before one achieves Mega status. So yeah. GE is my vote. ~J |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Apr 27 2006, 05:36 PM
Post
#12
|
|
|
Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
My vote is none of them. The first corporation to try it will find it's ass stonewalled when the UN gets pissy. Remember, governments don't like competition. And the governmental bisuness is one with some very steep entry barriers - barriers with names like USMC, Royal Air Force, People's Liberation Army, and so forth...
Frankly, the certainty of economic sanctions and the possibility of war is unprofitable. Unprofitable in the EXTREME. |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 05:43 PM
Post
#13
|
|
|
Man In The Machine Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,264 Joined: 26-February 02 From: I-495 S Member No.: 1,105 |
Yeah, I was going to say either Honda or GE.
Humf, odd that that list is Walmart, 3 oil companys, 4 car companys, and then GE (who just owns everything), and another oil company. |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 05:51 PM
Post
#14
|
|||
|
Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
That depends on how the megacorp runs its mini-nations. I'm willing to bet most mega-corps won't closely cross-reference the behavior of employees inside the office with their outside lives until, say, you get on the evening news for being caught in a strip club with a goat and two dwarves. Then working and private lives might collide in the form of a strong suggestion to resign. But consider a scenario where, say, GM becomes (nearly) a megacorp by "buying out" Detroit and you happen to be a GM car designer. As a loyal GM employee, you dilligently bought a GM car and got financing though GM's financial half, GMAC (which is actually slightly larger than the manufacturing half now). When you bought a home, you got your mortgage through GMAC. Now GM runs Detroit, maybe with a thin overlay of elected officials. GM collects local taxes. To keep up its half of the social contract with Detroit's taxpayers, GM has to turn around and use most of those taxes to supply all the normal Detroit services: garbage collection, policing, firefighting, patching potholes, running the sewers, etc. It probably subcontracts out some of those services like Detroit did, while former civil servants like police become GM employees. Maybe if GM's accountants and business analysts do a good job of streamlining the government and cutting out bureaucratic bloat, GM can turn a profit off taxes. Does GM suddenly start looming over every action you, a corporate employee, make? Probably not. The garbage man might be a GM subcontractor, but he won't care what you do at home. The police still have criminals to catch rather than keep an eye on your life. Your life will go on as normal. And if your GM bosses fires for the aforementioned bachelor party? GMAC won't care. Your GMAC mortgage manager doesn't sit beside your old car designing manager, and your GMAC car financier probably doesn't sit near either of them. They're not going to coordinate and make your life hell. The GMAC people just care about delinquincy on bills. The police don't care (well, they have crime scene photos enlarged and posted on the internet, but...). The garbagemen don't care (though they ask for your autograph on some downloaded crime scene photos). Most of Detroit's civil servants are still just civil servants and couldn't care what happened in the engineering wing of a car factory. They're not going to coordinate to micromanage your life. Many of the businesses in town probably won't belong to GM, so they won't care (though they might point and laugh about the goat thing). Of course, in more artificial environments (an oil rig, an isolated mining town), the circumstances might be a bit different, but in a typical corporate community, the megacorp won't be as all-encompassing, all-knowing, and all-interfering as you might hope. After a while, all that micro-managing just starts dragging on profits. It takes a lot of personnel to micromanage a population's lives. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Apr 27 2006, 06:16 PM
Post
#15
|
|
|
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019 |
What about pollution? Do you think extraterritoriality would allow for greater pollution since they have no government to answer to, or do you think the theoretically greater municipal efficiency would allow them to coordinate environmental initiatives better?
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 06:19 PM
Post
#16
|
|
|
Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Environmental protection pays poorly.
At least, until it starts to degrade your performance by degrading the physical and psychological health of your employees, but by then it's too late to save the environment, so you just invest heavily in hermetically-sealed environments and indoor food growing. |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 06:25 PM
Post
#17
|
|
|
Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,028 Joined: 9-November 02 From: The Republic of Vermont Member No.: 3,581 |
Personally, I think Shadowrun-style extraterritorial megacorps are naïve. There's no reason to become the government, with all the advantages and disadvantages thereof, when you can simply buy the government that you want, run everything from behind the scenes, and get the advantages of controlling the government without the disadvantages of having to fund stuff that doesn't produce a profit, and getting blamed when things go wrong. And if the politicians that you bought get voted out of office, well, no biggie... just buy the new ones, and life goes on.
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 06:34 PM
Post
#18
|
|
|
Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
If you note, that's exactly what happens. It just so happens that the SR-style megacorps also don't have to worry about things like bribing politicians not to interfere with what they do on their psuedoextraterritorial territory.
~J |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 06:39 PM
Post
#19
|
|
|
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019 |
A lot of SR megacorps are unrealistically very ideology-driven.
Shiawase =big, happy Japanese family. Ares = AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!!! Renraku = everybody should live in our arcologies and be connected to the net. S-K = conquer the world, dip into the CEO's personal coffers if need be. Aztechnology = Sell our souls and everybody else's to the Horrors. Yamatetsu = Metahuman rights, transhumanism, and the worldwide spread of hipness and modernity. The only ones that behave like primarily profit-driven corporations are NEONet and maybe Wuxing and Horizon. |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 06:43 PM
Post
#20
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 976 Joined: 16-September 04 From: Near my daughters, Lansdale PA Member No.: 6,668 |
You need a company who has dangerous facilities. Extraterritoriality came from a company having the right to use ofrce to protect the general public. Google and microsoft are not even close.
Haliburton is my best guess. |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 06:51 PM
Post
#21
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 160 Joined: 16-August 03 Member No.: 5,501 |
A corporate script exists! => Canadian Tire™ money
I think that if we had a true case of corporate/government extraterritorially it would be a good thing, If the corporation/government was responsible for what happened on their land. Examples: Should we just dump toxic chemicals into the ground water? Pros for dumping the chemicals into the ground water: It saves money by not paying to dispose of the chemicals properly. It’s fast. Cons for dumping the chemicals into the ground water: Local residents hold you responsible for damage caused and clean up (which may be just about impossible to complete.) Upgrading the local water treatment plant to make drinkable water out of the contaminated ground water may be impossible. Trucking in water is not viable. Water costs more than Fuel. PR damage for being damaging the environment will cost lots of money in the long term. Corporate/government extraterritorially is only a bad thing when corporations/governments are not held responsible for their actions. And as long as I’m dreaming about how to make the world a better place, I want to win a million dollars, once a year, for the rest of my life. It is way more likely to happen than governments and corporations becoming accountable to the public for their actions. in the end, even the government doesn't really want to be the goernment, they just want power. |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 06:59 PM
Post
#22
|
|||
|
Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,026 Joined: 23-November 05 From: Seattle (Really!) Member No.: 7,996 |
That's pretty much the point. SR corps don't behave like real life corporations, they behave the way they need to do drive the game. They have wacky agendas, do strange things, and have extraterritoriality as a reason for you as the player to hold to when you ask the GM "Well why does the government allow them to do THAT?!" It's almost like in the the Austin Powers movies where Robert Wagner (number 2) is trying to explain what Virtucon has been up to Mike Myers (Dr. Evil version) while he's been frozen in space. They have money making diversified enterprises, and then in comes the boss who says "lets build a Laser on the moon and hold the world hostage!" or "Lets steal a nuke and use it to set off a lot of volcanos!" SR Corps fill the second role, they exist to have something driving the sinister plots the characters have to occasionally thwart in between maintaining a meager existence. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Apr 27 2006, 07:02 PM
Post
#23
|
|||||
|
Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
I have to wonder. Some governments don't give a wet fart about competition - they'll sell out in a second. And some nations are in such miserable circumstances that corporate administration would be a step up. Consider a hypothetical oil-rich, former USSR fragment in central Asia named (in proper South Park style) Kerblakistan. Like many post-USSR nations, Kerblakistan can't find its ass with both hands and a road map. The artificial Soviet-era economy collapses when it meets the real world. Crime skyrockets. Average male life spans go from 75 to 45 in a decade. Social services evaporate and government employees go for months at a time without a paycheck. Criminals - many of them government employees - sell off military gear, government buildings, nuclear bombs, whatever can get them out of this Hell. Governments switch between reformist groups, nationalist groups, and Communists before settling on an ex-KGB strongman who has a political party with a fancy name that only exists to rubberstamp his laws. But now Kerblakistan turns out to be sitting on those Caspian Sea oil reserves, a gajillion barrels of wonderful, light sweet crude. Oil companies stampede to Kerblakistan's doors, sniff things out, and all the while the nation's dictator and his cronies are developing a curious eye affliction where their pupils take on the shapes of dollar signs. In typical oil company fashion, one oil company, ShellExxon, manages to promise the biggest profits to the dictator, so ShellExxon gets the contract to drill and pipe oil out of Kerblakistan. The opposition parties are unusually strong that year, so the giga-bribes to the dictator take the typical legal form of "excise taxes" that technically go into government coffers. The dictator n pals have to embezzle on their own, but they've got that down pat. ShellExxon sets up epic oil fields and builds mammoth pipelines toward Europe and China, requiring armies of workers. Most of the workers are locals and think they're in heaven for the $100/mo+benefits paycheck that ShellExxon is paying. Since Kerblakistan is barely able to organize its government to get rifle bullets to the Kerblakistan Armed Forces, it's up to ShellExxon to handle the logistics of mobilizing tens of thousands of workers. (This is business as usual in many nations, so no other nations come screaming into Kerblakistan to righteously kick ShellExxon's butt.) ShellExxon houses the workers, feeds them, clothes them, etc. (probably through subcontractors). Since some of the workers are ex-Soviet PhDs and highly educated folks, they can do the math and see that ShellExxon is paying them a pittance. They start talking to their fellow workers, who all agree ShellExxon should be a little more generous. Since ShellExxon is taking some foreign media heat for abusing impoverished locals, it doesn't ask Kerblakistan's dictator to send in the troops. Instead, it ups the wages and benefits of the workers (as is happening in Africa to oil companies today). Benefits are easy: it can get local workers (at pittance wages) to expand pipeline and oil field housing to provide housing for the workers' families. It can hire local unemployed teachers and doctors (for pennies on the dollar) to provide education and health care for the families and workers. It can hire local cops and soldiers to reduce crime in the work camps; by quadrupling their wages (to almost $200/mo), ShellExxon earns their undying affection and willingness to even police the oil fields without even demanding bribes from civilians. To support the oil fields, ShellExxon is also expanding road and rail networks, which also help the locals. In short, ShellExxon is getting very popular with the locals. When the dictator hints that its time to up the excise taxes, ShellExxon executives take a moment to assess the Kerblakistan. The public likes ShellExxon. If ShellExxon has a PR problem in Kerblakistan, it's that many citizens aren't receiving oil money. That's not exactly ShellExxon's fault; it's giving money to the government to give to the people. Certain government officials are just keeping it for their own use (as in the real world), but ShellExxon is still taking some heat (as in the real world). Further, ShellExxon's been working closely with Kerblakistan Armed Forces to provide protection for the oil fields (nothing new there), so it has a good rapport with the leading generals. It certainly pays their paychecks ($5000/mo, wee), the ones that aren't pocketing oil money out of the exise fees. And ShellExxon has good communications with the dictator, if not a good relationship. So, ShellExxon talks to some opposition leaders, talks to some Dictator Party Leaders, talks to some generals, talks to some reporters, and comes up with a plan. The first step of the plan is to have abnormally bilateral vote in Kerblakistan's Congress, arranged via ShellExxon-backed politicians. This vote is over management of the oil exise fees. The Dictator vetoes the bill, of course. The second step is for the military to politely tell the Dictator to get bent when ordered to crack down on misbehaving politicians and the growing rabble in the streets. The military is having an attack of conscience (well, inflated bank accounts) and thinks that the established judicial system should handle the matter. The third step is for ShellExxon to sweep in and offer the Dictator a sweet job offer in Western Europe. It's called "Vice President of Condo Operations," comes with a 6-figure salary, a single 10,000-square foot condo to manage, and some hired domestic staff to supervise in between shopping expeditions. This job would be on top of anything in the Dictator's personal accounts, of course. Since the Dictator's power base is coming apart, he accepts and flees ahead of charges of murdering opposition leaders. At this point, ShellExxon as a corporate entity was happy with installing a new government that gave better PR by actually spending some oil money on Kerblakistan, and one that would lower the exise fees a bit to swell ShellExxon's profits. But ShellExxon is run by humans, and they have an idea. To all their pet politicians and generals, ShellExxon proposes that Kerblakistan hire ShellExxon to supply assorted government services to all of Kerblakistan, much like it's doing around the oil fields. Opposition leaders have already been upholding ShellExxon's efficient administration of work camps as how Kerblakistan's bloated, incompetent government should be running. Why not put the money where their mouths are? The public gets told that ShellExxon is, in fact, going to be redirecting billions in petrodollars into Kerblakistan. Everyone's going to get some of the fun. Crowds enthusiastically support this plan (while not being allowed to see the fine print) and soon ShellExxon is "contracted" to "provide government services to Kerblakistan" via a popular referendum. A number of amendments are made to the Kerblakistani Constitution and soon ShellExxon has carte blanche to run most of the Kerblakistani government except for the Congress, Presidency, and a few other elected positions. Now some other nations look askance at this. The US, EU, and UN have ethical concerns and demand investigations. The investigations find that the takeover is popular with the Kerblakistani public and no voting irregularities occurred, except among the rear guard of the Dictator's Party. Quite a few people scream that ShellExxon is somehow going to abuse its new power to extort even more oil profits from Kerblakistan, but governments stop rattling sabers when ShellExxon lives up to its word to give bajillions of petrodollars to the Kerblakistani people. ShellExxon does this by screwing over the dethroned dictator and his cronies. Via its new Kerblakistani government lawyers and diplomats, ShellExxon asks Switzerland and other nations to freeze the dictator's assets and return the stolen monies to Kerblakistan. These are monies that ShellExxon has already paid in the form of those excise fees, so it's no skin off ShellExxon's nose to give these billions and billions to Kerblakistan, but it can sure play up the donation. It can also now bring in foreign auditors and show that all new exise fees are flowing to many different government branches - education, health care, basic infrastructure, etc. (ShellExxon loves working in Kerblakistan - it can hire two dozen doctors for the price of one American doctor, and its such easy PR.) However, in addition to the starched-underwear nations, there are some nearby nations with more pragmatic concerns about this corporate annexation. Russia is quite sure that somehow ShellExxon is a US-Euro attempt to acquire power in Russia's Central Asian backyard. Russia makes ugly noises and rattles it saber until ShellExxon donates some Kerblakistani oil field to a Russian oil company and grants Russia several military bases in Kerblakistan in perpetuity. Russia moves in some troops to the free bases, starts earning money from Kerblakistani oil, and sees that no American troops are moving in. It is mollified and, really, ShellExxon doesn't care - it wasn't a tool of the Americans and doesn't mind letting foreign troops sit on some abandoned, polluted farmland. China doesn't share a border with Kerblakistan, but it has similar concerns to Russia. The lack of American troops sneaking into Kerblakistan to destablize Central Asia largely calms China, but it's not going to tell ShellExxon that. Instead, it keeps rattling its saber until it gets discounts on Kerblakistani oil. Liberal anti-globalization wankers keep screaming that somehow, someway, Kerblakistan is getting screwed over by ShellExxon. However, they have nothing objective to show for it other than the massive downsizing of the bloated Kerblakistani bureaucracy. Kerblakistanis are definitely getting better government services; billions of petrodollars are definitely being spent on the nation; corruption is down (because government wages are up); and crime is down (because standards of living are up and police are being paid well enough that they don't have to be so corrupt). Further, Kerblakistan is still technically ruled by a group of elected officials. Now, as it happens, any government directives from the elected officials have to go through ShellExxon's senior manager in Kerblakistan for implementation via ShellExxon's newly expanded Human Resources department (which is the employer for most Kerblakistan government workers), and Kerblakistan's constitution gives ShellExxon a permanent contract to run the nation, but what can other nations do? Kerblakistanis are solidly backing the new government and even if it's stingy with petrodollars, ShellExxon IS doing a better job than the old criminal dictator and his corrupt cronies.
Agreed. Most attempts to foster company loyalty last until you get downsized. Real world corporations that have tried to come up with corporate anthems and such just get laughed at by their employees. |
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
Apr 27 2006, 07:25 PM
Post
#24
|
|
|
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019 |
SR really IS the 80's. The "traditionalism vs. rampant corporatism" thing doesn't really work as a stark dichotomy anymore; that's why my game doesn't have it.
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2006, 08:03 PM
Post
#25
|
|||
|
King of the Hobos Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,117 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 127 |
Definately General Electric all the way I say.
Well GE owns and operates a number of nuclear power stations in the US and was heavily involved with nuclear weapons production in the past, don't know what their current involvement is. Most nuclear power stations have armed guards and response teams and with the current security fears I know that at least three states - Arizona, Texas and Kansas I believe - have passed laws allowing them to use lethal force and shoot to kill procedures to protect their sites as well as detain people in certain curcumstances. There was even a bill put forward in the Senate a while back to allow this in all states but I don't know what ever happened to it. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 25th April 2024 - 09:20 AM |
Topps, Inc has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the game Shadowrun. Topps, Inc has granted permission to the Dumpshock Forums to use such names, logos, artwork, marks and/or any proprietary materials for promotional and informational purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not affiliated with the Dumpshock Forums in any official capacity whatsoever.