Bigger and badder corporations

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Globe-spanning corporations may have taken a big public-relations hit in the streets of Seattle and other cities over the past year, but it sure doesn’t seem to have slowed them down any.

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According to a new report from THE INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES, 51 of the world’s 100 largest economic entities are now corporations, not countries. Moreover, the world’s top 200 corporations account for over a quarter of the planet’s economic activity — but employ less than one percent of its workforce.

Where does all that money go? Not back to the rest of us, anyway. Forty-four of the US corporations on the list paid less than the full standard 35 percent federal corporate tax rate between 1996 and 1998 — and seven of them paid no federal taxes at all.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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