Even as the Apple Corporation is being roundly criticized for using its Irish affiliates -- some of which have no actual employees -- to avoid paying billions in US taxes, elected US officials continue to call for LOWER corporate taxes to make the United States more "competitive." The cause of this seeming disconnect: a worldwide "race to the bottom" in which nations compete to attract capital investment, typically by cutting corporate tax rates, dismantling regulations and driving down wages. As a result, the power of transnational corporations continues to grow while individual nations lose their capacity to control their own markets.

There is a solution, however. In this video Robert Reich (Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, and former Labor Secretary) explains how large economic entities, such as the United States and the European Union, can leverage one important bargaining chip -- access to their consumer markets -- to curb the power of corporations and serve their citizens, rather than the profit-at-all-costs interests of global capital.