Okay, so my question is this:
When Thursday is talking to her parents about disappearing towards the end of the book and her father talks about sideslipping her into the world as *we know it, Thursday asks if Goliath will be there and he says that t will be, but under a different name. I would like to know what he's talking about. Now it's probably something completely obvious and I'm just reading to much into, but just in case it's not... The only thing I can think of is the Virgin corporation. Even before I went to London earlier this summer I noticed that Virgin seems to own at least one of everything. I was only in London for about a week (and it didn't rain once!) but being there really just seemed to prove my theory that if nothing else, then that Virgin owns something of everything. Is this correct? Have I just rambled on for too long? Someone help me please.

Anyone out there? Can anyone decipher anything I wrote?

Hi!
I think that Jasper didn't have any one particular corporation in mind when he wrote that line.


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"Customers are advised that this product may
contain meat from re-engineered speices."

Yeah, that crossed my mind, too. Something about thinking too hard.

Even in Australia, Virgin has quite a few companies. I don't mind it though. You should read Richard Branson's Auto biography 'Losing my Virginity'. You don't seem to mind quite so much then.

Ehh. They don't bother me so much. It just seemed like the company that would be most closely related to Goliath because it owns so much, well...stuff. However, they don't have evil Schitts running the company and holding the government in it's back pocket.

You could kinda see it happening tho. They have music labels, stores, cosmetics, trains, planes, an outlet to influence everyone.

don't forget the mobile phones...they have those too...

so in effect, they own media, commerce, hygeine, travel and communications...next I bet they start buying banks...

pretty soon they'll be a "religion" ;-)

What I'm really worried about is Disney. I mean, any corporation taking over the world is bad, but Disney sure owns a lot, and they wouldn't stop until they'd taken over our minds and remade the whole world into Disneyland, the happiest place on earth.

Contenders for 'our world' Goliath.....

Microsoft
Starbucks
McDonalds
Virgin
@#$%&
News Corporation

My money is on News Corp - one half of name matches, Murdoch does seem to have world domination on his mind......

Someone mentioned Disney at one point, although I think that's on it's way down.

When I mentioned Disney, I wasn't so concerned with a real possibility of them taking over the world. Rather, I was worried about how truly frightening it would be if they did.

In order to take over the world, they would have to be worldwide, right? So what is News Corp? Because it's not over here in the States, or at least it's not that popular.
More like Associated Press if you want something with unlimited access to everything.
The Starbucks line was alright, but they're on the verge of collapse if their stock goes down anymore. And this is really bad, because I live in Seattle, where there is literally a Starbucks on every corner.
And as for Microsoft...give it a rest already.
Oh, and @#$%& has more than enough competition in the US alone to keep it out of the running.

Geez I sound bitter.

My bet's on Walmart.



"I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance."
Jew of Malta, prologue
Christopher Marlowe

News Corp is owned by Rupert Murdoch and he is indeed over here in the US. Fox TV, 20th Century Fox, New York Post, etc are part of his empire. I'd say his network of companies would make a 'good' Goliath.

spike_fan wrote:


> I'd say his network of companies would
make a 'good' Goliath.

Yup, I think Murdoch is definitely a contender. Anyone who owns that much of the media and dabbles in politics should come under suspicion. But I was reading the bit in SR when it mentions that Goliath actually own Goliathopolis (?) and was scarily reminded that the same thing happened with Disney in Florida. Apparently they actually own the land Disneyworld is built on and have their own government for it, the American Government have no authority on that bit of land (which for any UK readers who haven't been, is roughly the same size as greater Manchester).

Just thought you'd like to know. Am off to make more little tin foil hats to stop Murdoch/Mcdonalds/Starbucks/Virgin/the BBC getting into my head...

I wouldn't have thought it was Walmart. They are nothing over here. They only own Asda. Tescos is far bigger here, but it couldn't be that as it is mentioned in the books.



Post Edited (02-18-05 23:22)

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'Pompadour,' spat my mother. 'Living in sin with his pompadour.'

There are Virgin Finacinal products out there,now

phoenixAsh wrote thusly:

"In order to take over the world, they would have to be worldwide, right? So what is News Corp? Because it's not over here in the States, or at least it's not that popular."

News Corp *is* in the US, having owned and/or controlled studios such as 20th Century Fox and its associated television networks, at least one US satellite TV broadcaster, one large publishing house (HarperCollins) and populist newspapers such as the "New York Post". They also have substantial media holdings in Asia, Australasia (where the company was formed in the 1960s) and Europe (where, amongst other titles, News Corp own three London mastheads -- "News of the World", "The Sun" and "The Times").

But News Corp, Starbucks, WalMart and others mentioned here are IMHO too narrow in focus to be an equivalent for "Goliath". My bet would be that it's an amalgam of companies such as GE (which is a major media owner (NBC) as well as a major aircraft, shipbuilding and armaments manufacturer) and massive mercantile concerns of the past such as the Dutch East India Company, the British East India Company and the Hanseatic League (each of which were private corporations that maintained their own colonial empires and military forces and were effectively superpowers in their own right).

Jasper hinted that it might be Ikea actually! He said, the always get away with it, they're a huge multi-national corporation, and yet there always seen as fluffy because they're blue and yellow and scandinavian.



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'Pompadour,' spat my mother. 'Living in sin with his pompadour.'

mebbeido wrote:

> and yet there always seen as fluffy because
> they're blue and yellow and scandinavian.

Ah, that's everyone's excuse nowadays...

I bet Dan Brown is single-handedly running Goliath and just created this Holy Grail thing to throw us off the scent...