[Senko]

Snicker that tv commercial went to a shot of a pair of cheerleaders bending over and showing their panties when it ended. Anyway I can think of several real life companies that would easily be A or AA if it weren't for the pesky matter of extraterritoriality.

[Reaver]

They are. And last time I checked, they were a single A company almost making AA rating and the corporate court decision was imminent. Something was going on with Aztech as well. Either they were owned by them or the big A was the largest competitor in the UCAS. I'll recheck...

Well, Aztecnology controls about 80% of the foodstuff market either directly or indirectly (Corp Guide). That might be what you are thinking of..

[Ursus Maior]

They are. And last time I checked, they were a single A company almost making AA rating and the corporate court decision was imminent. Something was going on with Aztech as well. Either they were owned by them or the big A was the largest competitor in the UCAS. I'll recheck...

Well, Aztecnology controls about 80% of the foodstuff market either directly or indirectly (Corp Guide). That might be what you are thinking of..

Ha! Found it!

It's in Dirty Tricks p. 86 (the chapter on CAS-economy):

"Aztechnology has the smallest footprint, of course, but it still exists. Of the local corporations, Lone Star is the only one rated AA, but Wal-Mart has both Wuxing and Evo backing their case next year to the corporate court."

The "case" mentioned here seems to be the AA-status for Wal-Mart. It goes on in the section about Arkansas (p. 104):

The center of the state’s where Little Rock sits, along with half the population. The primary employer here is Wal-Mart, an A-rated corporation that at one time was the biggest corp on the planet."

The passus goes on, telling how WM was once the bigges corporation before the 2029 crash and that it had the most powerful computer network in the USA, only second to NORAD. By then they had already lost much of their share, because the Waltons had not been up to corporate warfare. The crash however doomed the family fortune, when the Crash Virus lingered in their data vaults for some time, only to use WM's comsats to reach the rest of the world. The whole data-network of the Waltons basically got fried and most of the Waltons left the sinking ship like rats. Except for William "Willy" Walton, who managed to restore the corporation "to a fraction of its old status". They are still almost unknown in the UCAS, but are as common as Stuffer Shacks in the CAS "and have penetrated into the NAN as well". By the time Dirty Tricks was released they had teamed up with Wuxing to spread into the Chinese market, an operation run by "Kong Wal-Mart", which is going very well as it seems.

That's it folks. As it seems, WM is back on the rise and making Chinese and Confeds super happy thriving non-Aztech buying folks.

[Sendaz]

Nice find.

[Reaver]

They are. And last time I checked, they were a single A company almost making AA rating and the corporate court decision was imminent. Something was going on with Aztech as well. Either they were owned by them or the big A was the largest competitor in the UCAS. I'll recheck...

Well, Aztecnology controls about 80% of the foodstuff market either directly or indirectly (Corp Guide). That might be what you are thinking of..

Ha! Found it!

It's in Dirty Tricks p. 86 (the chapter on CAS-economy):

"Aztechnology has the smallest footprint, of course, but it still exists. Of the local corporations, Lone Star is the only one rated AA, but Wal-Mart has both Wuxing and Evo backing their case next year to the corporate court."

The "case" mentioned here seems to be the AA-status for Wal-Mart. It goes on in the section about Arkansas (p. 104):

The center of the state’s where Little Rock sits, along with half the population. The primary employer here is Wal-Mart, an A-rated corporation that at one time was the biggest corp on the planet."

The passus goes on, telling how WM was once the bigges corporation before the 2029 crash and that it had the most powerful computer network in the USA, only second to NORAD. By then they had already lost much of their share, because the Waltons had not been up to corporate warfare. The crash however doomed the family fortune, when the Crash Virus lingered in their data vaults for some time, only to use WM's comsats to reach the rest of the world. The whole data-network of the Waltons basically got fried and most of the Waltons left the sinking ship like rats. Except for William "Willy" Walton, who managed to restore the corporation "to a fraction of its old status". They are still almost unknown in the UCAS, but are as common as Stuffer Shacks in the CAS "and have penetrated into the NAN as well". By the time Dirty Tricks was released they had teamed up with Wuxing to spread into the Chinese market, an operation run by "Kong Wal-Mart", which is going very well as it seems.

That's it folks. As it seems, WM is back on the rise and making Chinese and Confeds super happy thriving non-Aztech buying folks.

good find!

[Namikaze]

*snipped*

+10!

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

Thanks, from the heart of WM's he... I mean home area. Also, when in the SR timeline is that quote from. Trying to get an idea of MW's power level in current SR timeline.

[Ursus Maior]

Not sure if this was a question, but "Dirty Tricks" is 2073 if I remember correctly. So it's pretty recent. But Wuxing and Evo might have already lifted WM to AA-status.

[Aryeonos]

Currently wally world is considered "luxury" ish market place in china. Which is at odds with the meth/crack five finger discount store it is here in the states. The way they`re run and organized here in the states I have no idea how they stay in business. Honestly I`m not surprised they wouldnt survive when other companies started playing rough, and smart.

On topic I`m wondering. If the population (at large, or allot of?) is at work 80% of the time and have so minute buying power, how in Hyena`s name can the world be so add plastered and commercialized? I mean, if everyone is scraping to get by, wouldnt the commercialized state be fairly dreary, instead of sugar blasted ad candy on every corner? How does anyone have time to even think about going out to go shopping in conditions like that?

[Herr Brackhaus]

Aryeonos
I don't think your depiction of working hours is entirely on the mark. Yes, the setting is an oppressive dystopia, and yes, the term wageslave exists for a reason, but a key part of the setting is the control over the population the megacorporations have.

So, while a wageslave might work a long week (and I'm not entirely sure every wageslave does work 80 hour weeks), the corp wants them happy enough so they don't just up and kill themselves. This concept is further reinforced by the fact that wageslaves are paid in corporate scrip, which can be used at corporate stores for their full value, to buy all the things the corporations sell, creating a sort of incestuous economy.

There are posts on the forums describing why this doesn't work on a theoretical level, but it is very much a setting staple so I just go with it. The megacorps obviously blast everyone with as much ad as possible, because everyone isn't just scraping by with the bare minimum or there wouldn't be a marketplace for all the things the corporations manufacture. As a point of example, a 40 hour/week Day Job nets you 5k a month, enough for a low lifestyle (2k/month) and various sundries not covered by lifestyle (like car payments, nice meals out with the significant other, etc). A middle lifestyle (5k/month) would need two jobs or two people working 40 hours to maintain, more if you're living in Manhattan.

In other words, I don't think "everyone is scraping to get by", and I don't think everyone spends "80% of the time at work". But that's just my view of the setting.

[Aryeonos]

I'm just going off of what is said earlier in the thread, which I draw issue with. I tend to GM the setting the way you describe it. I'm of the Mirror's edge mindset, you're "Free" to do whatever you want, it's just that the only things you see are stuff we've already vetted and approved, and we're just keeping an eye on you at every waking moment to make sure you don't get lost. The world remains polished and everything that doesn't fit the mark is pushed to the sides. Reading through corporate guide seems to reaffirm this, I can't see where people work 12-16 hour days, but I'm sure there are plenty middle classish corporate civies that do. Just I don't think most of them, cause who's gonna buy your crap if everyone is in an office.

Edit: just after I post this I notice right on page 39 of Corporate Guide under parenting and role of the corp Dev/grrl mentions 12-14 hour workdays.

[Kincaid]

The 12-hour workday is absolutely the reality for many professions today.  Attorneys average 66 hours/week.  If you're trying to make partner, working 66 hours a week will seem like a nice alternative.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/30/americans-now-view-40-hou_n_888231.html

[Aryeonos]

Depressing, but still, the percentage of people working over 40 is the minority. I"m guess that to live in an arcology you are the minority though, your life becomes work blah blah blah. I'm just thinking the population at large, to me wage slave is just starting to look like a minority office drone of the working population. Granted as deregulation increases and wage disparity does too, I can see plenty of low skill manual labour workers trying to get to 50 and 60 hours a week.

Time to start a Lawyer on the side of the people quest.

[Ursus Maior]

Depressing, but still, the percentage of people working over 40 is the minority. I"m guess that to live in an arcology you are the minority though, your life becomes work blah blah blah.

I would argue along the same line. Look at what opportunities new smartphone technology gives you and the corporation you would be working for in the SR-universe to "enhance daily productivity". Note, that this implies a huge amount of social engineering going on.

If a corporation issues comlink to every of its citizens and this comlink measures everything - biometric data, communicational data etc. - and grants access to all parts of live via AR, apps etc. then your spare time, becomes productive time as well. Whenever your comlink generates your biometric data, you become part of "Big Data", enabling your corporation to know about you, its population and humanity in general. Same goes for statistics generated out of millions of user data generated by the comlinks. And in a distributed network calculations concerning Big Data would be distributed to the comlinks of the corporation's citizens (think SETI@home etc.). You can even make games out of that, in which solving mathematical problems - e.g. data analyzes - is linked to solving motoric problems, like gameplay.

In this way, you can be productive even after your 12h shift in the office. You are useful to your corporation even when you sleep, because they can run tests on you through the sensors in your bed, induce drugs into the ventilation system and do many more of these nice little things. Not to speak for you signing up for extracurricular experiments, like wearing trodes in sleep or anything more sinister.

[Aryeonos]

That sounds oddly pleasant, and oddly believable. I mean, think of the profits of selling everyone say longer REM cycles in the form of a cheap implant or nanites taken via gel cap. It helps you reach lucid dreaming faster and longer, you get better sleep, and as a bonus you have a binding agreement that all of your dreams are now the corps intellectual property if they decide to use them. Everybody wins!