Pacific Views

The 10 worst corporations for 2003.

Every year, Multinational Monitor compiles a list of the 10 worst US corporatations. This year, corporations behaved so badly that it was a hard task to pick just ten, but the indomitable Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman were equal to the task.

Boeing: In one of the grandest schemes of corporate welfare in recent memory, Boeing engineered a deal whereby the Pentagon would lease tanker planes – 767s that refuel fighter planes in the air – from Boeing. The pricetag of $27.6 billion was billions more than the cost of simply buying the planes. The deal may unravel, though, because the company in November fired for wrongdoing both the employee that negotiated the contract for Boeing (the company's chief financial officer), and the employee that negotiated the contract for the government. How could Boeing fire a Pentagon employee? Simple. She was no longer a Pentagon employee. Boeing had hired her shortly after the company clinched the deal.

Brighthouse: A new-agey advertising/consulting/ strategic advice company, Brighthouse's claim to infamy is its Neurostrategies Institute, which undertakes research to see how the brain responds to advertising campaigns. In a cutting-edge effort to extend and sharpen the commercial reach in ways never previously before possible, the institute is using MRIs to monitor activity in people's brains triggered by advertisements.

A an article listing all ten of the worst corporations is available at AlterNet. You can find a longer, more detailed version of the article at Multinational Monitor's website.