Transparency in Corporate Reporting index ranks the world’s 105 largest companies
Transparency International have ranked the world’s 105 largest companies in their Transparency in Corporate Reporting index. Researchers evaluated each organisation in terms of the steps it takes to fight corruption and the openness of its financial self-reporting. Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil was the clear leader, while the Bank of China came in last place. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway came 101st and Barclays, in 71st, was the UK’s lowest rated company. Use the interactive to explore the data, including a breakdown of each company’s score across the three assessed categories (second tab of the graphic) Dark colours and low scores indicate the least transparent companies.
Walmart closes, Community builds a giant library
It appears where retail giants fail, public libraries succeed. McAllen, Texas converted a 124,500 sqft “big box” into the largest single floor library in the US.
The LA Times reports:
McAllen is near the southernmost tip of Texas, on the Mexico border. “In a city like McAllen, with cartel violence across the river (less than 10 miles away from the library), I think it’s amazing that the city is devoting resources to a) not only saving a large and conspicuous piece of property from decline and vandalism, but b) diverting those resources into youth and the public trust,” Ramirez writes. “It’s easy to fall into drugs, drinking, and violence when you live on the border. It’s not really easy to find a place to hang out when you’re 14 that’s not the mall, the movies, or Mexico. And a giant library — a cool-looking open space devoted to entertaining the imagination? Well, I think that’s the best counter-move against violence imaginable. And you don’t even have to wait for a computer now.”
Duke Energy CEO will receive a $44 million payout despite resigning on his first day
Nice work if you can get it.
ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC’s operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. Learn more at ALECexposed.org.
This article contains the names of for-profit corporations, law firms and governmental groups that are known to be, or have been, American Legislative Exchange Council(ALEC) members or supporters. For corporate trade groups involved with ALEC, see the list here. For think tanks and other non-profit groups involved with ALEC, see the list here.
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