J. F. Gonzalez
THE CORPORATION
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power.”
PROLOGUE
FROM the New York Times
January 17, 1937
By Carl Jensen,
Times Business Staff Writer
It was announced today in a press conference that Hubert Marstein, the former President of Alexander Steel Corporation, is forming a private firm with businessmen Robert A. Mueller and Lance Erickson. The firm, Corporate Financial Consultancy Group, will be run out of an office on 202 Madison Avenue, and will primarily be a financial consultancy firm.
Mr. Marstein is credited with building Pittsburg head-quartered Alexander Steel to a level unprecedented in the industry. Their overall status in the industry rivals that of U.S. Steel. Alexander suffered only minimal losses in the stock market crash of 1929. Union officials say their stock has held steady for eight years due to strong-armed tactics that ex-employees of the company described as enforced slavery. Union official Jack Bryant was quoted as saying (continued page 43).
FROM FINANCIAL TIMES, April 1948
…in an unprecedented move, Rikon, the premier manufacturer of home radio equipment, announced today that they have retained Corporate Financial Consultancy Group of New York to manage the company’s finances and help move them to a more stable position after nearly declaring bankruptcy last June.
Corporate Financial Consultancy Group is one of the top Financial Services companies in New York and have assisted such firms as Sears Roebuck, Ford Motor Company, and Edison in various business dealings. Formed by the former president of Alexander Steel Corporation, Hubert Marstein, the firm’s top consultants will be on hand at Rikon’s Headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee to help oversee a revamped business plan that will attract (continued page 45).
EXCERPT FROM PRESIDENT’S message from the Employees Newsletter for the Automobile Club of Southern California
September, 1959
“…I’d like to extend a warm thank you to Arthur Adkins and Jerry Sprecher of Corporate Financial Consultancy Group, who were instrumental in assisting in the development of the Club’s long-term business plan. As we approach the close of this decade we are working at putting all we have planned into action to ensure the next ten years are more successful, which will ensure increased profits, better service to our members, and richer rewards for our loyal employees.”
LIST OF INDIVIDUALS and companies targeted by Weather Report, a radical anti-war group whose members were arrested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and had been under investigation for over a year. It was later proved by the FBI that the group was planning to plant explosives in their buildings or outright assassinate key figures.
NBC News
General Motors
Former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson
Senator Barry Goldwater, Republican (Arizona)
The John Birch Society
Chevron
Amoco
General Electric
Kraft Foods
Senator John Glenn, Democrat, Ohio
Congressman Alfred A. Wellman, Republican, Florida
Reverend Billy Graham
Elvis Presley
Aetna
Prudential Life Insurance
Firestone
United Airlines
John Wayne
Merle Haggard
Corporate Financial Consultancy Group
The Walt Disney Corporation
JUNE 5, 1974 — Mt. St. Helena, CA.
The naked man knelt before the altar.
The altar was comprised of heavy stone, imported from Wales. Hanging above the altar, fastened securely to the wall, was a gold crucifix, displayed upside down.
Directly behind the man, scrawled on the floor in blue chalk, was a large pentagram.
Black candles were placed strategically along the five points of the star and were lit.
The naked man was prostrate before the cross, eyes closed, arms raised in supplication. His lips moved, the Latin coming to him effortlessly, by memory.
In time, he rose to his feet and stepped back into the confines of the pentagram. Then, he sat down cross-legged and waited.
Outside, the sun slipped behind the peaks of the mountains, casting brilliant shafts of sunlight through the large plate glass windows that lined the west side of the house. The man had the house custom built six years ago and rarely had guests. Occasionally he brought a lover up to his lofty abode but he never let anybody set foot in this room. His ritual chamber.
The smoke from the candles rose, their scent intoxicating. The man remained sitting on the floor cross-legged, eyes closed, waiting.
And after a moment, it came.
NOVEMBER 4, 1989
Atlanta, GA
It was one of those days when Lori Masterton had to drag herself out of bed in order to hit the highway to be at work on time for her job at Corporate Financial in downtown Atlanta.
When she arrived at the office and was informed by her boss, Oliver Hyman, that her department was going to accompany him and his entire team of consultants to a meeting across town with their latest client, Automated Technical Corporation, Lori put on her best false face and gathered her things. Whatever. She had shit to do today and if her numbfuck of a boss wanted to waste it by having her sit in on a meeting she wasn’t going to get anything out of, that was his business. She was still getting paid.
Lori drove to the client company’s building with her co-worker Ken Miller. Their third cohort, Linda Alvarez, had called in sick. “Wonder what this is about?” Ken yawned over his cup of Starbucks.
“Who knows?” Lori said. All she cared about was running the graphics pit for the company; it was what she was hired to do, and she liked it. It kept her out of the bullshit Oliver’s consultants did, which was consult and advise their clients on how to run their businesses and save money.
When they arrived at the building and were ushered into the conference room, Lori grabbed some coffee. Oliver was already there with his staff—the best and brightest MBAs he could bribe fresh out of business school. They were all dressed impeccably and conferred with each other, occasionally talking and laughing. The people Lori didn’t recognize were obviously the financial echelons of Automated Technical who requested this session. Lori opened her spiral pad notebook, sat back, and waited to be bored out of her skull as Oliver rose to his feet and set the meeting to order.
She was bored quickly. She sipped coffee, doodled in her note-pad, and ignored the rest of her Corporate Financial co-workers who also feigned interest. Oliver went on his spiel about how they—Corporate Financial—were going to save Automated Technical a ton of money. He droned on in his Wall Street spiel about P&E this, earnings ratio that, and after awhile his voice became a low drone in Lori’s consciousness. She looked around the room. It looked like even some of Oliver’s MBA stars were glazing over, and then she was shaken to rude awakeness when she heard Oliver say, “…recommend you stop insuring the last year of life.”
The numbness was gone. The boredom was gone. Lori looked around the room, wondering if she’d heard that correctly. One of the things Automated Technical wanted advice on was their self-insured medical plan for their employees. She looked down at her notepad, which contained no notes. She caught the gaze of Naomi Walker, one of the newer MBA consultants, who was fresh out of the University of Chicago. She looked just as confused as Lori felt.