President-elect Obama’s (mostly) financial advisors’ corporate and institutional ties

Below is an NNDB map I made showing the companies and institutions which President -elect Barack Obama’s (mostly) financial advisors have ties to. Now you might say, “well, I’m sure the Clinton and Bush administration advisors were at least as tied in.” Yeah, but once again, my point is this- how much change and how much business as usual can we expect/ hope for here?http://mapper.nndb.com/maps/428/000003419/
Here’s a linked list of the individuals who tied in with all of those institutions, companies, etc.
Eric Schmidt
Antonio Villaraigosa
William Donaldson
Laura Tyson
David Bonior
Robert Rubin
Joseph Biden
Jennifer Granholm
Paul Volcker
Rahm Emanuel
Richard Parsons
Anne Mulcahy
Lawrence Summers
Roger Ferguson
Penny Pritzker
John Podesta
Roel Campos
Robert Reich
William Daley

perhaps you recall that in my previous post I posted a list of some of the largest contributors to Obama’s campaign (from OpenSecrets)
names which were on that list and also show up on the advisors’ ties map include:
Goldman Sachs
JP Morgan Chase
Citigroup
Time Warner
Morgan Stanley
Google

Nearing 100,000 blog views

Based on view count averages over the last month or so, I should pass the 100,000 views mark for this blog sometime in the next 24 hours. Around a month ago, I was thinking that would probably happen sometime slightly before the end of the year, but the release of the sequel to Zeitgeist has brought a significant upsurge in viewers here, so things are well ahead of that schedule. Anyway, while I’m looking at the most popular posts here and stats and so forth, I thought I’d take this opportunity to link some of them here and also link some (IMO) deserving but less well read posts- an update on anything which is more current than 05/05/2008; the last time I wrote here about some of my less read (but IMO deserving) posts So, here goes…

Top 10 all time viewed blog posts (and date written)
1. Peter Joseph’s movie Zeitgeist 15,645 01/14/2008
2. A “debunking” of the movie Zeitgeist 5,276 05/06/2008
3. Reviews of the movie Zeitgeist by Peter Joseph 3,651 01/17/2008
4. Alleged Spitzer call girl bikini picture (and probable debunk of “Kristen” profile pic) 2,125 03/13/2008
5. WTC 7 survivor Barry Jennings dead? 1,890 09/17/2008
6. Kill The Messenger- the Sibel Edmonds documentary – watch it here, since you can’t get it from Netflix 1,482 11/25/2007
7. Fortune 500 companies board of directors overlap project 1,414 02/12/2008
8. update on my big muckety social mapping project 1,395 02/02/2008
9. What this blog is not about- “naked YouTube where I can her boobs” 1,378 01/13/2008
10. Ashley Alexandra Dupre- a volcanically hot trend 994 03/13/2008

As far as less viewed but deserving posts go, not too much to add to the old list; the blog has been on the back shelf a bit lately due to other projects/interests. Some worthwhile new additions to the mapping Fortune 500 companies and their interlocking directorships can be found within the Fortune 500 category.

Most of the rest seems to be along the lines of topical news commentary as I see new stories come along. And, if you haven’t already started learning how to read between the MSM li(n)es yourself, shame on you and get to work on that!

Yahoo news- InBev agrees to buy Anheuser for $50 billion

InBev agrees to buy Anheuser for $50 billion

This merger of two of the top 1000 companies in the world, InBev and Anheuser-Busch, (at #149 on the US list, Anheuser-Busch falls just below the global Fortune 500 threshhold- #148 Fluor ranks globally at #500) creates the world’s largest beer maker and shrinks the playing field some more.

more on the fortune 1000 companies board overlaps

I have been working (off and on) for awhile to try to get all my names and companies listed here more or less arranged alphabetically and onto a single NNDB map. Unfortunately, it seems to be too much data for one map to handle effectively- or at least the map seems to be permanently bogged down when I try to add more names, so I’ll just have to give you what I’ve got and leave it at that, I think. Actually, I’ve got two different projects here, which I’ll combine in this single post. One is the uncompleted single map, the second one took people’s names who didn’t make it into the original project due to too many of their companies having already made it onto the list and made up a new alternate map for them. So far, I haven’t tried to combine the two lists of names and companies, but I think a rough ballpark figure is that 200 (and change) people’s names would cover ~650 different companies total. I’ll include below links for individual maps for those names and a list of their companies. Larger views of the two maps can be seen by clicking on the screenshots below. And yes, there are still worthy names (using 3M execs as examples- George W. Buckley, Peter G. Peterson and Vance D. Coffman) which didn’t make it onto either map due to company overlaps having pretty well already covered what they would have added at that point.

Bobby Ray Inman Admiral, NSA Director, Deputy CIA Director
Jeffrey D. Benjamin Apollo Management
Rozanne L. Ridgway Asst. Secy. of State for Europe, 1985-89
James A. Quella Blackstone Group
Gary G. Michael CEO of Albertson’s, 1991-2001
Tony L. White CEO of Applera
Robert M. Calderoni CEO of Ariba, Inc.
Stephen P. Kaufman CEO of Arrow Electronics, 1986-2
John H. Dasburg CEO of ASTAR Air Cargo
Kenneth T. Derr CEO of Chevron, 1989-99
Richard L. Sharp CEO of Circuit City, 1986-2
J. Michael Cook CEO of Deloitte & Touche, 1989-99
Gerald Grinstein CEO of Delta Air Lines, 2004-07
John P. Reilly CEO of Figgie International, 1995-98
W. James Farrell CEO of Illinois Tool Works, 1995-2005
Arnold W. Donald CEO of Merisant, 2-03
William A. Osborn CEO of Northern Trust, 1995-2008
Michael A. Miles CEO of Philip Morris, 1991-94
H. William Habermeyer, Jr. CEO of Progress Energy Florida
W. Frank Blount CEO of Telstra, 1992-99
J. Pedro Reinhard CFO of Dow Chemical, 1995-2005
J. Michael Losh CFO of General Motors, 1994-2
Jerry York CFO of IBM, 1993-95
Ronald L. Kuehn, Jr. Chairman of El Paso
Gwendolyn S. King Commissioner of Social Security, 1989-92
Charles M. Herington EVP at Avon
Virgis W. Colbert EVP at Miller Brewing, 1997-2005
Felix Rohatyn Financier, Lazard Frères
Rodney F. Chase Former BP executive
Henry B. Schacht Former CEO of Cummins, Lucent
Alan H. Washkowitz Former Partner, Lehman Brothers
David L. Boren Governor and Senator from Oklahoma
Milton Carroll Instrument Products, Inc.
Michael W. Michelson Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
Gerhard Schulmeyer President of Siemens US, 1999-2001
Thomas W. Jones President of TIAA-CREF, 1993-97
John M. Palms President, University of South Carolina, 1991-2002
Joseph B. Anderson, Jr. TAG Holdings LLC
George J. Mitchell US Senator from Maine, 1980-95
Lawrence V. Jackson Wal-Mart executive
Kathryn D. Wriston Wife of Walter B. Wriston

COMPANY
3M
ABB
Abbott Laboratories
Agilent
Alcan
Alcatel-Lucent
Alcoa
Allied Waste Industries
Allstate
Altria
American Airlines
American Axle & Manufacturing
Amphenol
AOL Time Warner
Aon
Apple
Applera
Arrow Electronics
ArvinMeritor
Assurant
AT&T
AutoZone
Avery Dennison
Avon
Baxter International
Biomet
Blackstone Group
Boeing
Boise Cascade
Brink’s
British Petroleum
Brunswick
Burger King
C. R. Bard
Calpine
Cardinal Health
Carmax
Caterpillar
CBS
Celanese
CenterPoint Energy
Chevron
Chiquita Brands
Circuit City
Citigroup
Clorox
Coca Cola
Colgate-Palmolive
Comcast
Computer Sciences Corporation
Conoco-Phillips
Countrywide
Crown Holdings
Cummins
Dana
Dell
Delphi
Delta Airlines
Devon Energy
Disney
Dollar General
Dominion Resources
Dow Chemical
Dun & Bradstreet
Ecolab
EDS
El Paso
Eli Lilly
Emerson Electric
Entergy
Exelon
Exide Technologies
FedEx
Fiat
Flextronics
Fluor
Fortis NV
Freddie Mac
General Motors
Goodyear
Halliburton
Harrah’s Entertainment
Harris Corporation
HCA
IBM
Illinois Tool Works
Ingram Micro
International Flavors & Fragrances
ITT
Johnson & Johnson
Juniper Networks
KLA-Tencor
Korn/Ferry International
Kraft Foods
L-3 Communications
Laclede Group
Lear
Lehman Brothers
Lockheed Martin
Manitowoc
Manpower
Marriott
Marsh & McLennan
Martin Marietta
Masco
Massey Energy
Merrill Lynch
MGM Mirage
Michaels Stores
Molson Coors Brewing
Monsanto
Morgan Stanley
Motorola
Nalco Holding
National Australia Bank
Nicor
NII Holdings
Northern Trust
Northrop Grumman
Northwest Airlines
Northwestern Mutual
OfficeMax
Oracle
Owens-Illinois
PACCAR
Peabody Energy
Pepsi
Pfizer
Potlatch Corporation
Praxair
Progress Energy
Protective Life
Questar
R.R. Donnelley & Sons
Radio Shack
Raymond James Financial
Regions Financial
Reliant Energy
Rite Aid
Royal Bank of Canada
Ryder
Safeway
SAIC
Sara Lee
Schlumberger
Scotts Miracle-Gro
Sears Roebuck
Siemens
Sierra Pacific Resources
Sigma-Aldrich
Southern Co.
Stanley Works
Staples
Starwood Hotels
Telstra
Temple-Inland
Tenneco
Tesco
Tesoro Petroleum
Texas Instruments
The New York Times Company
The Travelers Companies
Thermo Fisher Scientific
Thomas & Betts
TIAA-CREF
Timken
Torchmark
Tribune Co.
TRW Automotive Holdings
Tyco
UAL Corporation
UBS
Unilever
USEC
Vanguard Health Systems
Virgin Media
Wal-Mart
Winn-Dixie
WR Grace & Co.
Xerox
Zürich Financial Services

The Fortune 500 world looks to shrink once again with NRG Energy bidding on Calpine

Calpine shares jump after bid from NRG Energy

#403 NRG Energy bids for #318 Calpine. In honor of the bid, I’ve drawn up an NNDB map showing both Calpine and NRG Energy on the same map amidst the other Fortune 1000 companies which people associated with those companies are also associated with. As I blogged awhile back, the recent Hewlett Packard bid for EDS was another case of the shrinking playing field, and the earlier Bear Sterns buyout was a third (which didn’t show up on the 2008 list). As you’ll no doubt be aware, I’ve been attempting to map out just how small the world of the top global companies actually is. Pretty small and looking to shrink further. We’ll have to see how the Yahoo/Microsoft/Google/whoever thing plays out…