The 10 Worst Corporations of 2002

By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

2002 will forever be remembered as the year of corporate crime, the
year
even President George Bush embraced the notion of "corporate
responsibility."

While the Bush White House has now downgraded its "corporate
responsibility portal" to a mere link to uninspiring content on the
White House webpage, and although the prospect of war has largely
bumped the issue off the front pages, the cascade of corporate
financial and accounting scandals continues.

We easily could have filled Multinational Monitor's list of the 10
Worst Corporations of the Year with some of the dozens of companies
embroiled in the financial scandals.

But we decided against that course.

As extraordinary as the financial misconduct has been, we didn't want
to contribute to the perception that corporate wrongdoing in 2002 was
limited to the financial misdeeds arena.

For Multinational Monitor's 10 Worst Corporations of 2002 list, we
included only Andersen from the ranks of the financial criminals and
miscreants. Andersen's assembly line document destruction certainly
merits a place on the list. (Citigroup appears on the list as well,
but
primarily for a subsidiary's involvement in predatory lending,
as well as the company's funding of environmentally destructive
projects around the world.)

As for the rest, we present a collection of polluters, dangerous pill
peddlers, modern-day mercenaries, enablers of human rights abuses,
merchants of death, and beneficiaries of rural destruction and misery.

Multinational Monitor has named Arthur Andersen, British American
Tobacco (BAT), Caterpillar, Citigroup, DynCorp, M&M/Mars, Procter &
Gamble, Schering Plough, Shell and Wyeth as the 10 Worst Corporations
of 2001.

Appearing in alphabetical order, the 10 worst a

Arthur Andersen, for a massive scheme to destroy documents related to
the Enron meltdown. "Tons of paper relating to the Enron audit were
promptly shredded as part of the orchestrated document destruction," a
federal indictment against Andersen alleged. "The shredder at the
Andersen office at the Enron building was used virtually constantly
and, to handle the overload, dozens of large trunks filled with Enron
documents were sent to Andersen's main Houston office to be shredded."
Andersen was convicted for illegal document destruction, effectively
putting the company out of business.

BAT, for operating worldwide programs supposedly designed to prevent
youth smoking but which actually make the practice more attractive to
kids (by suggesting smoking is an adult activity), continuing to deny
the harmful health effects of second-hand smoke, and working to oppose
efforts at the World Health Organization to adopt a strong Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control.

Caterpillar, for selling bulldozers to the Israeli Defense Forces
(IDF), which are used as an instrument of war to destroy Palestinian
homes and buildings. The IDF has destroyed more than 7,000 Palestinian
homes since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, leaving
30,000 people homeless.

Citigroup, both for its deep involvement in the Enron and other
financial scandals and its predatory lending practices through its
recently acquired subsidiary The Associates. Citigroup paid $215
million to resolve Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that The
Associates engaged in systematic and widespread deceptive and abusive
lending practices.

DynCorp, a controversial private firm which subcontracts military
services with the Defense Department, for flying planes that spray
herbicides on coca crops in Colombia. Farmers on the ground allege
that
the herbicides are killing their legal crops, and exposing them to
dangerous toxins.

M&M/Mars, for responding tepidly to revelations about child slaves in
the West African fields where much of the world's cocoa is grown, and
refusing to commit to purchase a modest 5 percent of its product from
Fair Trade providers.

Procter & Gamble, the maker of Folger's coffee and part of the coffee
roaster oligopoly, for failing to take action to address plummeting
coffee bean prices. Low prices have pushed tens of thousands of
farmers
in Central America, Ethiopia, Uganda and elsewhere to the edge of
survival, or destroyed their means of livelihood altogether.

Schering Plough, for a series of scandals, most prominently allegation
of repeated failure over recent years to fix problems in manufacturing
dozens of drugs at four of its facilities in New Jersey and Puerto
Rico. Schering paid $500 million to settle the case with the Food and
Drug Administration.

Shell Oil, for continuing business as usual as one of the world's
leading environmental violators -- while marketing itself as a
socially
and environmentally responsible company.

Wyeth, for using duplicitous means, and without sufficient scientific
proof, to market hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to women as a
fountain of youth. Scientific evidence reported in 2002 showed that
long-term HRT actually threatens women's lives, by increasing the
risks
of breast cancer, heart attack, stroke and pulmonary embolism.

What's the lesson to draw from this year's 10 worst list? Not only are
Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, Tyco and the rest indicative of a
fundamentally corrupt financial system, they are representative of a
rotten system of corporate dominance.

The full 10 Worst Corporations of 2002 list is available at
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate
Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington,
D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are
co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the
Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press;
http://www.corporatepredators.org).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

This article is posted at:
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail...us/2003/000138

Chive Mynde wrote:
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2002

By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

2002 will forever be remembered as the year of corporate crime, the
year
even President George Bush embraced the notion of "corporate
responsibility."


snip

Do you ever read rtmark.com?

--
theoneflasehaddock

(Chive Mynde) wrote in message om...
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2002

snip

Did you also check out Government Pollution, Devin?

Jason

On Mon, 13 Jan 2003 19:43:10 -0500, harvest dancer wrote:

(Chive Mynde) wrote in message
om...
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2002

snip

Did you also check out Government Pollution, Devin?

Jason

What about the Midge's ISP?

Excellent article, Chive. Very worthwile reading.

Lush

"Chive Mynde" wrote in message
m...
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2002

By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

2002 will forever be remembered as the year of corporate crime, the
year
even President George Bush embraced the notion of "corporate
responsibility."

While the Bush White House has now downgraded its "corporate
responsibility portal" to a mere link to uninspiring content on the
White House webpage, and although the prospect of war has largely
bumped the issue off the front pages, the cascade of corporate
financial and accounting scandals continues.

We easily could have filled Multinational Monitor's list of the 10
Worst Corporations of the Year with some of the dozens of companies
embroiled in the financial scandals.

But we decided against that course.

As extraordinary as the financial misconduct has been, we didn't want
to contribute to the perception that corporate wrongdoing in 2002 was
limited to the financial misdeeds arena.

For Multinational Monitor's 10 Worst Corporations of 2002 list, we
included only Andersen from the ranks of the financial criminals and
miscreants. Andersen's assembly line document destruction certainly
merits a place on the list. (Citigroup appears on the list as well,
but
primarily for a subsidiary's involvement in predatory lending,
as well as the company's funding of environmentally destructive
projects around the world.)

As for the rest, we present a collection of polluters, dangerous pill
peddlers, modern-day mercenaries, enablers of human rights abuses,
merchants of death, and beneficiaries of rural destruction and misery.

Multinational Monitor has named Arthur Andersen, British American
Tobacco (BAT), Caterpillar, Citigroup, DynCorp, M&M/Mars, Procter &
Gamble, Schering Plough, Shell and Wyeth as the 10 Worst Corporations
of 2001.

Appearing in alphabetical order, the 10 worst a

Arthur Andersen, for a massive scheme to destroy documents related to
the Enron meltdown. "Tons of paper relating to the Enron audit were
promptly shredded as part of the orchestrated document destruction," a
federal indictment against Andersen alleged. "The shredder at the
Andersen office at the Enron building was used virtually constantly
and, to handle the overload, dozens of large trunks filled with Enron
documents were sent to Andersen's main Houston office to be shredded."
Andersen was convicted for illegal document destruction, effectively
putting the company out of business.

BAT, for operating worldwide programs supposedly designed to prevent
youth smoking but which actually make the practice more attractive to
kids (by suggesting smoking is an adult activity), continuing to deny
the harmful health effects of second-hand smoke, and working to oppose
efforts at the World Health Organization to adopt a strong Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control.

Caterpillar, for selling bulldozers to the Israeli Defense Forces
(IDF), which are used as an instrument of war to destroy Palestinian
homes and buildings. The IDF has destroyed more than 7,000 Palestinian
homes since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, leaving
30,000 people homeless.

Citigroup, both for its deep involvement in the Enron and other
financial scandals and its predatory lending practices through its
recently acquired subsidiary The Associates. Citigroup paid $215
million to resolve Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that The
Associates engaged in systematic and widespread deceptive and abusive
lending practices.

DynCorp, a controversial private firm which subcontracts military
services with the Defense Department, for flying planes that spray
herbicides on coca crops in Colombia. Farmers on the ground allege
that
the herbicides are killing their legal crops, and exposing them to
dangerous toxins.

M&M/Mars, for responding tepidly to revelations about child slaves in
the West African fields where much of the world's cocoa is grown, and
refusing to commit to purchase a modest 5 percent of its product from
Fair Trade providers.

Procter & Gamble, the maker of Folger's coffee and part of the coffee
roaster oligopoly, for failing to take action to address plummeting
coffee bean prices. Low prices have pushed tens of thousands of
farmers
in Central America, Ethiopia, Uganda and elsewhere to the edge of
survival, or destroyed their means of livelihood altogether.

Schering Plough, for a series of scandals, most prominently allegation
of repeated failure over recent years to fix problems in manufacturing
dozens of drugs at four of its facilities in New Jersey and Puerto
Rico. Schering paid $500 million to settle the case with the Food and
Drug Administration.

Shell Oil, for continuing business as usual as one of the world's
leading environmental violators -- while marketing itself as a
socially
and environmentally responsible company.

Wyeth, for using duplicitous means, and without sufficient scientific
proof, to market hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to women as a
fountain of youth. Scientific evidence reported in 2002 showed that
long-term HRT actually threatens women's lives, by increasing the
risks
of breast cancer, heart attack, stroke and pulmonary embolism.

What's the lesson to draw from this year's 10 worst list? Not only are
Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, Tyco and the rest indicative of a
fundamentally corrupt financial system, they are representative of a
rotten system of corporate dominance.

The full 10 Worst Corporations of 2002 list is available at
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate
Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington,
D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are
co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the
Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press;
http://www.corporatepredators.org).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

This article is posted at:
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail...us/2003/000138