While I agree BW, how about just sticking it in the 114 Oil thread?

Are oil companies evil?  No more than any other company.  Should they lower their profit margin and lower the privce of gas?  Of course not.  If BW's numbers are right Exxon-Mobil has a profit margin of 10%.  There are small businesses that have greater profit margins than this.  10% is by any definition an acceptable profit margin and some may even argue it's low (many companies strive for at least 15%).  People get hooked on the value but the percent is more telling.

If prices were what they are now and Exxon was pulling 50% profit I'd be running through the streets, axe in hand, calling for their heads, but it's only 10% of their total Revenue so leave them alone.

According to BW, as long as an oligopoly is 'publically' traded, it's ok for it to CONTROL the market.  Who's the leftist, BW?  Lol.  YOU ARE.

"As long as at least 51% of common stock is released to the public,"

And which 'public' would that be?

First, let's differentiate between such countries as the US and such countries as Nigeria.  The former is often called a 'developed' country and the latter a 'developing' country.  Let's reconsider these labels for a moment and realize both countries, more accurately, as 'developing', the US being further developed and also more quickly developing, and Nigeria being less developed and less quickly developing.

Let's say the majority of shares of a company (any company) is owned by the 'public'.  Wouldn't you agree that this 'public' would primarily consist of people in the middle to upper class from the more quickly developing / more developed countries?  The 'public' certainly wouldn't include those of the lower-class in Nigeria or Sudan who wouldn't have $100 to spend on food never mind stocks.  So, whose interests do you think these publically traded companies would represent?  The middle-upper class shareholders of the more developed / faster developing countries, of course.

But, there is more to it than that.  The 'more developed / faster developing nations' middle-upper class publically traded corporations' have a vested interest ingrained into the system of maintaining the purchasing power and rate of development of the faster developing / more developed nations, while maintaining a relatively slower pace of  development of the less developed / more slowly developing countries (a social inequality which is reminiscent of wealth inequalities of feudal Europe prior to the French Revolution BTW).

The trend is to maintain as long as possible a labor pool whose members are kept incapable of elevating their standard of living to the equivalent of a developed country.  Who would manufacture the products for the more quickly developing world if the more slowly developing world actually started developing faster?  The companies would have to close up shop, relocate to cheaper labor markets, build more factories, invest more capital, revamp their production lines, etc., etc..

Thus, for a these publically traded corporations to retain it's share price and remain competitive, its employees in the more slowly developing countries (who don't own shares) are kept for as long as possible from being capable of purchasing shares, their salaries being incremented carefully according to inflation (and even below inflation rate). 

It is as if the publically traded  corporations in the more slowly developing nations are on one hand strangling the domestic market by keeping it on a choke-chain, while at the same time dangling piece of meat (the promise of development) in front of it's nose, and in the end tossing the meat to the more quickly developing nations instead.

How hypocritical the 'democracies' of the world.

Expanding the class and number of stockholders boosts stock prices beyond the dreams of avarice.  There wasn't much difference between the manner in which stocks were traded in 1900 and 1800.  By 2000 every guy Fred with a $500 credit card could buy into IBM.  IBM likes it, that's why major companies issue MILLIONS of shares.  Nobody forces them to do that.  Google could only offer 10,000 shares but they'd lose massive profits waiting for folks to trade a $33,000 share of Google.

The reason Nigeria remains poorer than the USA is that a guy with a thousand rifles can steal more personal power in Nigeria than he could in the United States.  Now that wasn't always true of the United States, and if you look back, there were parts of this country run by riflemen and not Boards of Directors.  The Boards won through.  In Sudan and Somalia, those riflemen are even more lucrative than any industry you can name, and consequently, there isn't much industry in Sudan or Somalia--it's like bringing presents for the warlords to send anything of value into the country.

that or more civic-spirit in riflemen

"If the world were communist or Socialist or a Corporate Oligarchy"

But it is communist, socialist, fascist, democratic,  libertarian, draconian, anarchist, a 'Corporate Oligarchy' - you name it.  Look at a world map lately?  Now, the problem is that your god - err global market - doesn't discriminate.  It does business with all of them.  Infestors (excuses the spelling mistake) don't refuse to purchase shares in a company just because it disagrees with the personal philosophies of the x-politi-bureau members gone venture capitalists who run it.  Nope, the market only considers share value.  The market does the same with anyone, as long as it isn't 'illegal'.  But people like you, BW, want even less restrictions on who the market can do business with.  So don't tell me you care about American values, BW, for you have no more moral principles or value systems operating than anyone else on the Street.  You guys will invest in the anti-christ one minute, dump shares and invest in Mohamed the next, dump a miniute later and invest in Stalin, and then dump again and buy Jesus #%^#-ing Christ.  You guys don't care.  Whatever will make you a buck by the end of the day.

You, like everyone else who participates in this new global marketplace with lightning-quick share transactions, is an amoralist.  You don't believe in anything. Because if you did, you would invest your conscience.

But how is this relavent to being "trapped in a Communist like shell"?  Well, it just so happens that the New World Order that is now being invested in by the market is 'Communist' - that is in every corrupt and ironically fascist sense of the word - The market is buying into a system of social and economic control that is taking the freedom out of free market system as we speak. And, laughably, people like you aren't only tooting their horn, but, even worse, it is being arranged with your money!  The Street is actually constructing its own prison and you don't even see it.

"Ironically, you or I have the Due diligence to invest, FREELY, in any company we wish to."

Sure, but the market fluctuations are manipulated, even controlled.  We are 'free' to invest in, but not in a 'free' market.  We certainly can invest in companies that are tightly controlled by malevolent powers whose effects on the global society are disruptive rather than constructive, and 'free' to profit from the misery these companies perpetuate upon the more slowly developing world.  But why are you associating this 'freedom' you speak of as if it is an American value?  Are you saying that your patriotic 'freedom' upon which the American way of life was established is the freedom to profit from the perpetuation of misery?  Is the American way the 'freedom' to profit from the bondage tyrants impose upon their citizens?  If that's American 'freedom', then, well, no thanks.

Why are you sidetracking the issue, BW.  We are not talking about how the investors are 'free' - we know they are.  We were talking about how the market is not 'free' - as in to what extent it is regulated.

So why, BW, are you trying to confuse the issue?