US Investment 'heroes' Are The People You Love To Hate

Which corporations invest most in the USA? A ranking by the favourite think-tank of the Democratic Party leadership might leave the Party's net roots choking on their muesli.

The Progressive Policy Institute has ranked US corporations by the amount they invest in the country, and excluded financial companies from the list. It’s a hot topic, as populists of various flavours have accused US corporations of taking investment (and jobs) offshore.

But topping the rankings for domestic investment are companies that the Party’s own net roots love to hate. Two telcos top the list, and three make the top 10. Energy companies, which can be guaranteed to rile most internet slacktivists, also figure prominently. Two companies founded in the PC boom of the 1970s - Apple and Microsoft - make the list at 11th and 14th respectively. The even older Intel makes 18th spot.

Google owner Alphabet and Amazon.com are the only “new economy” (as we used to call them in the 1990s) companies to invest in the United States. Alphabet is seventh and Amazon 15th. Yet if you combined the US investment of both companies, making $11bn, it would still only place the joint entity in third place - far behind Verizon ($16.5bn) and AT&T ($18.7bn).

What’s interesting is how the political power of the two internet companies far exceeds their domestic capital investment. Telcos and media companies have been left on the sidelines in the Obama administration, as Silicon Valley-friendly officials at agencies bent the rules to favour Big Tech (eg: TV, internet regulation, and music) and turned a deaf ear to competition complaints from smaller internet companies.

Building infrastructure costs a lot of money - as Alphabet has found out. Google recently scaled back its Fiber project, touted by the net roots as a “white knight” for US broadband.

Perhaps there isn’t a magic money tree, after all. ®

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