In the autumn of  2011 an already legendary study by a number of Swiss scientists revealed that a small number of banks controlled a decisive stake in the globe’s economy.

  The study, called ‘the Network of Global Corporate Control’ was done by Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston, in Zurich, Switzerland. The method was datamining the Orbis Marketing Database 2007, with data on more than 30 million economic actors (companies and investors) worldwide, including asset positions.

(Data mining is the process of discovering patterns in large data sets involving methods at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, statistics, and database systems).

The study was published in the New Scientist, a highly respected outlet of mainstream science.

  The results were interesting, although basically predictable – you are already familiar with most of these ‘financial institututions’.

The banks own everything, including all the major industries. Oil, Weapons, Pharmaceuticals, Food, Telecom and IT, etc. It’s all one massive monopoly. Controlled from the top down.

 ”Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organised, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”  Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1856-1924)

Same man: “I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” -Woodrow Wilson, after signing the Federal Reserve into existence

What are the most obvious attributes of this group?

Massive centralization - there are about 43,000 companies that are Transnational according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) definition.

A top 1,318 of them seem to be at the centre of it all. This core group has three important characteristics.

1. Between them, they generate 20% of the world’s income.

2. They own each other – Basically it is one company with 1,318 “Profit Centers”.
The Orbis database clearly showed that most shares of these corporations were owned by other members of the group of 1,318. This means that the biggest, most profitable and influential corporations in the world all own each other and are basically one massive cartel, or even monopoly. They are competing only nominally. Competition is sin.

3. The core owns all the other biggest 43,000 Transnational corporations.
These companies generate another 60% of the entire world’s income. So not only is the top of the business world one major cartel, it controls or outright owns all of its lesser brethren, confirming the idea of one incredible monopoly owning the entire world.

Besides these three issues with the core of 1,318, there are two more shocking observations:

4. 80% of the total control was in the hands of an even smaller group of 737 corporations.

5. And last but not least: at the very top, only 147 corporations directly control 40% of the west’s total wealth.

That may be why, by growing your own food and ‘getting off the grid’ (quitting the cartel) is so frightening to this group – it does not want ‘sovereign’ citizens controlling their own lives!

Conclusion and list of top 50 HERE