The 'New World Order'

In a running disagreement between many regular contributors to OLive, some folks try to pretend that the influence of Big Business is not out of hand nor of any greater significance than it has been in the past. I predictably counter that point of view with claims that many transnational corporations have operating budgets larger than many nation states, and now use traditional nation states as clients who do their bidding (rather than the other way around). In the last two days, two disparate articles have come to my attention that forcefully make this point. I shall summarize both, then post links for those seeking to verify my conclusions and to absorb the much deeper details provided in the links.

The first deals with the sudden and unexpected crash of oil prices. This actually is a big story, is multi-dimensional, and is going to have far-reaching economic, social, political, and possibly military ramifications.

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