The rise of the new Feudalism? REH
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2011 1:17 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] The corporate control reticulum http://arxiv.org/pdf/1107.5728v1 The network of global corporate control Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston 28 July 2011 I've only reached p. 5 (of 36) but this is intriguing. I once asked my father-in-law (who was the CFO of a small liberal arts college) what would happen if a corporation bought all of its own shares. "Couldn't happen", was his reply. He wouldn't even contemplate the notion as an hypothetical scenario. Okay, okay, I get it. The shareholders are likely to say, "Wait! If you're making piles of money, enough to offer to buy back my shares, just give me a dividend or do something cool that increases share value." But do the execs/managers/players *really* have to put up with that in today's world? My original thought was that management would love to wield the power of the corporation without the restraint of shareholder scrutiny or demands. Well, now, this paper suggests that there's now an ownership/control topology among TNCs such that it appears (to a financial dumbo such as I) to achieve something close to the functional equivalent of a corporation buying itself. The actual paper is only 8 pp., the rest labeled as "supporting information" but the latter is really the explanation of what they're getting at. The prose is a little turgid and has errors, both perhaps due to English not being the first language of the author. But it's the first thing I happen to have seen that takes an approach to the subject that I might, with some effort, understand. Digraphs, reticula, flow charts and the like make more sense to me than the more typically seen statistical or financial tables. FWIW, - Mike -- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. /V\ [email protected] /( )\ http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
