So extraterriorial holdings and CC seats aside, do you think there are RL corporations with the clout and scale of AAAs in the fiction?

Microsoft
Various Oil Corporations
Sony (Maybe)

Mitsubishi.

...Proctor & Gamble.

AA at least, and perhaps AAA one day: Wal-Mart

anyone know how far wall mark has com with it's banking ambitions?

Monsanto
General Electric

General Electric
Exxon/Mobil
Krupp
Google?
Proctor & Gamble
Bayer
Mitsubishi
Hyundai
General Motors
DeBeers
Seimens
IBM

DeBeers only influences diamonds. So, it is not really a AAA, but it is more likely a AA, since it has complete control over the global diamond market.

I am unconvinced that you can really call a company AAA unless it has some form of demonstrable de jure (or even de facto) extraterritorial status.

Samsung, while in South Korea.
Marginally: Komatsu, Mistubishi, Mitsui.
Again, oil companies, maybe.

That's about it. People say Microsoft, but that's bull. Microsoft has nowhere near the clout or employee numbers to be considered a AAA.

Last I heard, Walley-world had retracted their bid for bank status due to huge public protest. Let the public shift their attention elsewhere though and ...

Emphasis mine


I your right. More specifically They don't have the breadth of an AAA. If they had their level of Clout in a another sector or two though...

GE is probably the only crop to qualify for AAA status today, as just about all of the other very large corps are only into a few things. Take a look at GE history list since 2000 (from Wikipedia):

2000 Montgomery Ward folded by GE Capital due to declining sales.
2001 General Electric and Honeywell agree to merge. The merger is blocked by European Union M&A chief Mario Monti.
2001 NBC acquires Telemundo, one of the leading Spanish language television networks.
2003 GE Healthcare acquires Instrumentarium.
2003 GE Capital acquires Transamerica Finance from AEGON, who retained the rest of Transamerica Corporation.
2004 NBC acquires the entertainment assets of Vivendi Universal, excluding Universal Music. This forms NBC Universal, of which General Electric owns 80%.
2004 GE Healthcare acquires Amersham plc.
2004 GE Capital acquires Dillard's credit card unit for US$1.25 billion.
2004 GE sells 60% stake in GE Capital International Services (GECIS) to private equity companies, Oak Hill Capital Partners and General Atlantic, for $500 million.
2004 Genworth Financial formed from General Electric's life and mortgage insurance assets.
2004 GE Security acquires InVision Technologies, a leading manufacturer of airport security equipment.
2005 GE Commercial Finance acquires the financial assets of Bombardier, a Canadian aircraft manufacturer for US$1.4 billion.[2]
2006 GE Healthcare acquires IDX Systems, a medical software firm, for US$1.2 billion.
2006 GE Advanced Materials division is sold to Apollo Management, L.P. for US$3.8 billion.
2006 GE Water & Process Technologies acquires Zenon Environmental Systems for $758 million.
2007 GE-Aviation acquires Smiths Aerospace for £2.4 billion.
2007 GE Oil & Gas acquires Vetco Gray for US$1.9 billion.
2007 GE Plastics is sold to SABIC for US$11.7 billion.

Mitsubishi probably also qualifies, since they have their tentacles in many different industries as well.

The only companies that behave like AAA megacorps are the big resource companies in russia - which have private armies etc, though the government could stomp on them at any time. Stuff like gazprom.

But realistically any modern corp is way to dinky to measure up to the AAA juggernauts.

It is not really desireable to be a Triple-A in the first place. Your revenue is bound to be average if you do everything. Unless you try to be technology leader in everything. In that case you go bankrupt.

I suspect that mega corps in SR verse have to function like GE today. Loose conglomerates where the core product of 'Ares' is really leadership talent which it can then farm out to all the subsidiaries.

Take the top ten from here. All reasonable selections

Here

HSBC pratically runs a number of monetary systems, acting as lender of last resort in a number of areas, in addition to producing the majority of notes used in Hong Kong, and the other 2 banks in the top ten are in similar positions. The three oil and gas companies will have some degree of extraterrititoriality in a number of locations. The other four are either heavily diversified, such as GE or in other fields that permit for fairly stable long run growth.

When thinking about nowadays megacorps, apart from the usual suspects, I always think of Kraft/Masterfoods and Nestlé.
Their reach stretches out into anything loosely food-related.
On the IT front, I find Google has become similarly dangerous to what people always say of Microsoft. We're all relying on Google for our information gathering and by that, we're easily diverted by what information Google wants to give us. Also there's the saying in the industry that any developer hired by Google "just vanishes"

Nestlé, Samsung, GE, Gazprom (mainly because it has it's own standing army).

I would totally wageslave myself to Google and "vanish" if given the chance.

Every one is focusing on the extraterritoriality issue but A real tripple AAA is not just powerful in it'sd field- Microsoft, GM, Beoing, The soviet Gas business

but dominant in multiple fields. A power broker in unrelated industries that can afford to take a big hit and keep rolling, unable to be bought out.


Not very far, there was opposition in a lot of quarters. they were rescheduling it and were making some head way but the current banking disaster, caused in part by a loosening of regulaitions in the last few years, is going to block this pretty extensivley. The loop holes Walmart wanted to slip through will be closing up again once the current administration is out. Neither potential condidate is gonig to let them stand.

Sony, Fuji amd GE are the only ones I can think of that ocme close. Electronics, heavy industry and entertainment.

News Corp. I mean, they're a media company, but they're in every kind of media all over the world, from publishing to movies to the Internet. It's maybe not broad enough to be a AAA, but it gives them the requisite clout, since they control information as well as entertainment - they've got their paws into basically any kind of input we get that isn't face-to-face.

Duracell is my favorite AAA.

...take -2 Karma pun damage...

GE cant be AAA as I haven't heard much of them here in england so eather I am blind or they just aren't that international. Most of the other corp brought up I have heard of.

GE= General Electric makes of household stuff, engine , heavy industry and I think some military, they also have extensive entertainment stuff in that they own NBC one of the US's main TV networks

I know what they do I read up after realising that I did not know what they did still odd ive never really heard of them.

1
General Electric (GE) is not to be confused with The General Electric Company (GEC), which later became Marconi.

2
GE actually has a pretty big presence in the UK:
from www.ge.com/uk:



There's more info at their web site on exactly what they have over there...

To put a little perspective on GE it is a conglomerate of different businesses. To give you an idea on how large it is, at least 50% of your fridge was made with components by GE or through a subsidiary.

At least 50% of what is in your fridge was made by subsidiaries of Monsanto.

Which, actually, would make them the OCP. Arguably the image the SR1 devs had in mind when they conceived Ares.

I think none of the corporations mentioned here would qualify for AAA status. The turnover of such a corporation should rival the gross domestic product of an industry nation. The 163,000,000,000$ of GE are impressive, but still too low. They could be compared to Chile, though. And many of the corporations who came up here, still exist in 2070 - as part of some AAA. Best example for this is Krupp. Saeder-Krupp anyone?

I think in the first megacorps sourcebook, Nestle "before its implosion" was quoted as being bigger than the 50s SR megacorps.

Disney, Clear Channel, AOL/TW, News Corp, and Viacom are definitely AA's, and while easily large enough to be AAA's, I don't know if they have the international presence.

These five companies controlled 85% of all media in the United States in 2004 (according to Lawrence Lessig's book, Free Culture).

Magazines, music (both the record companies -and- the radio stations), books, newspapers, Cable and Broadcast television networks, internet service providers, satellite television, DVD's and film; not only the distribution, but the production studios for all of these mediums as well, and since they own the "intellectual property" for all of this media, they also effectively own or control any derivatives: lunchboxes, toys, t-shirts, board games. While media is only one industry, it's also the largest and most profitable, and the one with the most control over our culture.

(Edit) Correction: Possibly not as large as the food industry (/Edit)

These are the guys paying Motion Picture Association of America and RIAA lobbyists to "convince" the American government to make stupid changes to intellectual property law that make the Extraterritoriality agreement in SR look like a good idea in comparison. In the real world, these are the companies who will be first to have private armies on the payroll

None of these companies rivals the power of a first world country, which is what all the SR AAAs do.

..yet

Cheers,

Max

The GDP of Belgium (an industrialisted nation, if not the biggest one) is $453.600.000.000 billion - only four times of GE's turnover. Austria would be $317.8 billion, Switzerland $300.2 billion. Please note that Belgium's GDP is four times the size of the GDP of the entire middle east put together.

So yes, GE dies have a "gdp" rivaling a small industrialised nation, and surpassing most countries in the world (which aren't industrialised).

As for GE's power rivalling that of a nation ...

Not directly. Since it's an entity primarily acting in First world countries, where there's a strictly enforced state monopoly on executive power, GE would have a hard time in anything like a military conflict - it could hire some mercenary companies, but those are so dependent on militaries and not very well rounded as forces to stand on their own that that wouldn't really help them a lot either.

In terms of soft power, however, such a company has enormous clout, by lobbying with several governments, putting economic pressure on governments ("we might rconsider out decision to close down out operations in your poverty-ridden area, if you ..."), by being very well organised almost worldwide and coordinating such efforts ... what GE could accomplish that way is pretty impressive. Most of the world's nations can only dream of having such an influence.

Now, GE certainly isn't a Mega in SR's sense. But it is an entity rivaling, even surpassing many states in power nonetheless.

In terms of really being able to influence stuff enough to be above the law:
Pemex
Aramco
Some of the Russian oil and resource firms
Possibly Norinco
Possibly TotalFinaElf

No US company.

Didn't Blackwater have a standing army of over 200,000 mercs? They probably aren't AAA but they could run security for a few metroplexes with those kind of numbers.

Um, no.

They have maybe 2000 contractors at any given time, most of whom are in Iraq or Afghanistan, with some on R&R between cycles. The US State Dept Diplo Security contract is for under 1000, with others being employed by groups that want the better grade of security they provide.

Thank you, I read in some wacko publication that they had some ridiculous figure in the neighborhood of 200,000. Wasn't sure if it was true.

For what it's worth, while Disney may not have Extraterritorial enclaves scattered around the world, they're certainly working on their first one. They have a large chunk of central Florida real-estate that has been in what I would classify as a "proto-extraterritorial" arrangement since 1966. In theory, the Reedy Creek Improvement District is just another Florida municipality/special taxing district, with a Board of Supervisors elected by residents of the local cities in the district. However, the only two incorporated "cities" in the District, Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista had populations of 23 and 16 during the 2000 Census, consisting exclusively of Disney employees and their families. Both these cities' populations are smaller by a few orders of magnitude than a third community located in the district: Celebration, which has a population just over 2700. Celebration was deliberately de-annexed from Bay Lake so that Disney could easily maintain its own people on the District Board of Supervisors.

So, why go to the trouble to start up and maintain perpetual control of a local government in central Florida? To quote the Washington Post: "The Reedy Creek government can regulate land use, provide police and fire services, license the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, build roads, lay sewer lines, construct waste-treatment plants, carry out flood projects - even build an airport or nuclear plant, all without local or state approval." They can also issue tax-free bonds for local improvements, and can even exercise the power of Eminent Domain to condemn and force the sale of property adjacant to, but outside of the district's borders. Not to mention the benefits of circular bookkeeping: The District charges taxes to the landowner (which is Disney, with the exception of a few five acre undeveloped tracts owned directly by the Disney employees who sit on the Board of Supervisors) for the purposes of providing water, power, and Fire & EMS services; Reedy Creek then contracts these services out to providers who are wholly owned subsidiaries of Disney.

While not entriely exempt from Local, State and Federal laws, I'm sure that if they could figure out a way to achieve that status, they would.

No, Disney still has the local and county police do the actual policing of their complexes. In both FL and CA Disney could have gone and created their own PD if they had wanted, but they have declined to do so.

A fact that I attribute to them not having full autonomy and still being subject to state and federal criminal codes. What good is having a private police force if you can't cover up what outsiders might call kidnapping or manslaughter without the FBI or the State Law Enforcement's Internal Affairs Department trying to second guess you?

Disney in Florida is incorporated as it's own town with it's own police and admin-the HQ building is by "Pleasure Island."

Disney, THE Disney, was upset by the reliance onl ocal authorities in California so when he set up Disnery world, he incorporated it was it's own town. for all it's power disney is not even close to a AAA because it is extremely limited to just one industry-entertainment. movies/trid/tv with a few complexes and cruise ships for tourists but thats it and a crash in that one industry leaves them serriously out on a limb.

Blackwater is a good example of the private sec corps like Lone Star- armed thugs with government back immunity, but they are far from anything like AAA staus, heck Lone Star, the biggest private sec corp is only AA.

AFAIK, the Orange county sheriff does all the arrests and investigation in Disneyworld.

This was my understanding as well. Of course, Disney's own security personnel try to handle as much as they can in-house, but anything that reaches the level of severity where it can no longer be handled by kicking the offending party off the property with a lifetime ban, and giving the victim free admission for the balance of their visit gets turned over to the Sheriff Departments of the two counties that the Reedy Creek Improvement District is a part of.

Another criteria for a megacorporation is central banking. I know GE and Mitsubishi both maintain their own banks thru which they provide financing to their own subsidiaries and to consumers who want to buy their products. I'm sure some of the other corporations listed here do the same.

Despite the "Big Bad Oil Company" myth perpetuated by the media, I would not attribute oil companies with megacorporate status. While they enjoy a lot of favor with industrialized governments (because oil is currently essential to their existence) they only produce one thing- oil. Also most of the worlds major oil producing companies are nationalized (Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria) or moving in that direction. The private ones are certainly not tax exempt, and are owned in large part by hedge funds, mutual funds and pension plans. That means the image of the fat, greedy, cigar-smoking oil executive that is supposedly driving up the cost of gas so he can make "obscene profits" is actually a myth. The "owners" of the major oil companies are any average shmucks that own a retirement account that invests in mutual funds. Anyway, I don't think "Big Oil" really qualifies for AAA status.

Well, there's Big Oil and then there's Standard Oil. Modern oilmen have nothing on Rockefeller, which is one of the reasons that oil prices are so high. Standard was most certainly a AA and, if taken with all of Rockefeller's other assets, powerful enough to be a AAA.

It should be needless to say that the big decision makers at any public corporation receive large amounts stock options as part of their compensation packages, so yes, those decision makers are lining their own pockets by increasing profits.

Top 10 companies of 2007, as according to Fortune:

Rank Company Revenues
($ millions) Profits
($ millions)
1 Wal-Mart Stores 351,139.0 11,284.0
2 Exxon Mobil 347,254.0 39,500.0
3 General Motors 207,349.0 -1,978.0
4 Chevron 200,567.0 17,138.0
5 ConocoPhillips 172,451.0 15,550.0
6 General Electric 168,307.0 20,829.0
7 Ford Motor 160,126.0 -12,613.0
8 Citigroup 146,777.0 21,538.0
9 Bank of America Corp. 117,017.0 21,133.0
10 American Intl. Group 113,194.0 14,048.0

To see it better:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/for...list/index.html

-Chrysalis