Interlocking Clause

Categories: Board of Directors

See: Interlocking Directorates.

The "clause" here has nothing to do with the big jolly fellow. Rather, it spells out how interlocking directorates are defined.

And that fine pencil point matters. One can imagine that clever lawyers could help install those friendly-to-whatever-evil-mastermind is trying to take over the world...but who are juuuust outside of what normative laws would define as being "affiliated," such that the boards of directors are interlocked.

The goal was to achieve a kind of level playing field and fair practices...in the U.S. And that's a problem, because other countries view interlocking directorates as an asset, not "an enemy of the people." So other countries, more or less, view corporations as being their entire country in a smackdown against the rest of the world. And as the world turns, it'll be likely more and more challenging for the U.S. to compete against forces and resources vastly larger than any one American company.

But for now, we have The Clause. No ho ho.

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Finance: What are Interlocking Directora...14 Views

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Finance a la shmoop what are interlocking directorates? got global

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corporate Skull and Bones conspiracy theory on the brain well you'll need it [Man holding skull and bones conspiracy theory]

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when you think about this one an interlocking Directorate happens when a

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number of companies share directors so that each company is you know business

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friendly with the other the heyday of interlocking directorates was the

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Rockefeller era when the former wealthiest man in the world wanted to [John Rockefeller appears]

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control more or less everything in and around discovery, drilling, storage,

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distribution and banking in and around Big Oil

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so the Rockefeller interlocking Directorate of say nine white men on

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each board and yes in those days they were all white and men well three of

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them on this board overseeing the rockefeller holdings in drilling would

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also be on the board of well his company holdings in oil storage and

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these other three who sat on his oil storage board would also sit on his

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train plane and automobile distribution businesses well the boards are

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interlocked to be sure that each of the vertically integrated monopolies played

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nice with each other and you know kept the monopoly party going ooh and the [Board members playing monopoly]

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party did rage on for a very long time interlocking directorates got a lot of

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grief in the U.S at the time yes they did and that's noteworthy because well

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in Japan and Korea and Russia and other countries which make big products like

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cars and washing machines and cell phones that are competitive with the big [Kids playing sack race]

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US companies well they're interlocking directorates are the normal way of doing

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business you know the norm if gravity still

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exists well over time those interlocking directorates carry a structural

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advantage over the US system because they can rely on each other for supply

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and for demand they can plan many many years into the future and they can elbow

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out any would-be competition who might be there with huge heft in government [Man performs karate move on another man]

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help in the U.S it's kind of the opposite it's more like every company

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for him or herself so there's no cooperation there and the government

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it's more the enemy half the time than your business partner

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well interlocking directorates are not necessarily evil they're just a [Man with horns appears]

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component of a globally competitive industry where the structure of company

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ownership needs to reflect the basic concept that each share of common stock

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could and should carry one vote so now that you understand interlocking

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directorates we can finally get back to the question of who killed Kennedy this

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guy sure doesn't have an alibi [Big foot walking in a misty forest]

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