Some have tried to blame the current wave of corporate criminal deeds
on Bush or Clinton, but such greed goes back to at least WW II.

In the years just prior to WW II, some U.S. corporations deliberately
violated embargoes on the sale of certain strategic items and technologies
to Japan...

   http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh55-6.html
   Senator Harley M. Kilgore and Japan's World War II Business Practices

   "...By early 1944, Kilgore was convinced that if international cartel
   agreements had been investigated before 1936, the United States would
   have had a more realistic view of the international situation. The
   committee devoted much attention to the impact of cartels in the
   development of the German military machine. However, it was the
   startling testimony on the use of business relationships by Japan to
   further its militaristic policies that was most revealing to the
   Kilgore Committee.

   In September 1944, James S. Martin, Chief of the Economic Warfare
   Section of the War Division of the Justice Department, testified, "in
   the decade before Pearl Harbor, a constant stream of information
   flowed to Japan as a result of Japanese Commercial transactions with
   American firms--technical information and economic data of the utmost
   importance to Japan's armed forces." Industries most involved included
   oil, aircraft, machine tools, and electronics. Kilgore pointed out
   that this occurred while American citizens were not even permitted to
   determine whether or not they were being fortified.

   [snip]

   Some aircraft parts manufacturers cooperated with the Japanese and
   offered ways around the embargo. Bethlehem Steel Export Corporation
   accepted orders on the basis of part numbers with no reference to the
   fact they were airplane parts. The American Hammered Piston Ring
   Company, which could not conceal the fact the parts were for aircraft,
   accepted orders made directly through its export manager. Only part
   numbers were ordered and all other specifications were provided in a
   separate confidential letter. The Aluminum Company of America refused
   to accept orders, but it sold the dies and shipped them to another
   factory where the parts could be produced. Canton Prop Forgings &
   Manufacturing Company shipped to the Japanese if they ordered part
   numbers and Thompson Products, Inc. shipped valve forgings utilizing
   the same process. After the president's embargo of military equipment
   and parts, which became effective on July 5, 1940, Douglas Aircraft
   Company offered to deliver ordered parts to the Mitsui office with the
   suggestion that the Japanese label them as automotive parts.

   [snip]

   In fact, the committee and the Justice Department's Board of Economic
   Warfare cooperated fully, and the possibility that information gleaned
   through Justice Department investigations might get to Kilgore struck
   fear in the hearts of business executives who did not want their
   questionable activities exposed..."

Here's a site that shows the Japanese versions of the Douglas DC-3,
whose design was licensed by Douglas...

   http://www.wwiitech.net/main/japan/aircraft/l2d/
   WWII TECH: World War II History - Japanese Aircraft -
   Douglas / Showa / Nakajima L2D (Tabby)

Fortunately for the U.S., the "cooperation" between U.S. corporations and
the government that exists today did not exist in the years prior to WW II,
or we'd speaking Japanese now. Japan had biological and chemical weapons
developed by their Unit 731:

   http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/NanjingMassacre/NMU731.html
   Unit 731: History and New Evidence

   http://www1.odn.ne.jp/~cam39380/epage/epage139.htm
   Pioneer of Biological Warfare, Japan (Unit 731)

and submersible aircraft carriers/submarines that were built for air
strikes against the West coast:

   http://www.pacerfarm.org/i-400/i-400.htm
   The Transpacific Voyage Of the I-400

Considering that some corporations have been securing secret "dead
peasant" life insurance policies on low-level employees, it won't be
long before they claim salvage rights on employees that die on the job,
so organs may be harvested and sold to add to senior management bonuses.

--Jerry Leslie   (my opinions are strictly my own)
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