These are the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS John C. Stennis, two of the ten nuclear-powered Nimitz-class aircraft supercarriers in service with the United States Navy

1. The US Dollar: It is the trading currency for oil and almost every other commodity in the world. However there is a challenge now; Wiki: “the New Development Bank… is (a) multilateral development bank operated by the BRICS states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as an alternative to the existing World Bank and International Monetary Fund. ” The position of the dollar has given the US an enormous economic and political advantage over its rivals. Wars against Iraq, Libya, and Ukraine today are primarily launched to protect this privileged position which enables it to rob every other nation. This is the main driving force towards WWIII.
2. The world’s leading financial centres: New York tops the list with London very close behind in second-place followed by Hong Kong and Singapore. according the Global Financial Centres Index 15, March 2014. New York and London have dominated global finance for the past couple of centuries. http://www.longfinance.net/images/GFCI15_15March2014.pdf

Moscow is 73 in this index, although China has three at nos. 3, 18 and 49.

3. Top 2,000 multi-nationals: We have abstracted these details from Forbes Global 2000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_Global_2000) for 2014: 1, United States 564, 2 Japan

225, 3 China 207, 4 United Kingdom, 91, 5 France, 66, 6 South Korea, 61, 7 Canada, 57, 08 India, 54, 9 Germany, 52, 10 Switzerland, 48, 11 Taiwan, 47, 12 Australia, 36, 13 Italy, 30, 14 Russia, 28, 15 Netherlands, 27, 15 Spain, 27, 17 Sweden, 26, 18 Brazil, 25, 19 Saudi Arabia, 20, 20 Ireland, 19

In 2004 when the list first appeared the US had almost 1,000 in the top 2,000. The decline is largely due to US transnationals locating their HQs abroad for tax avoidance purposes. Ireland’s 19 companies apparently place it in the same league as Saudi Arabia, a ridiculous comparison. In reality up to half of those ‘Irish’ companies are not really Irish at all except in name. Its top company in 2013 was Accenture plc; “engaged in providing management consulting, technology and outsourcing services”. It was 318th with a market capitalisation of $53.34 Billion. It had 257,000 employees in 120 countries, only 1,300 in Ireland. It is a US transnational, of course.

And not only does the US have all these companies located abroad but the US dominate many others by virtue of its stock holdings. Some statistics on this would reveal the true nature of US imperialism’s domination of almost every aspect of the trade, commerce and lives of the majority of population of the planet. And those it does not fully dominate it demonises, organises coups and internal wars against for regime change and/or it bombs and invades them.

Finance capital is interlinked in a global web of dominance spreading out from Wall Street and the City of London. If we take, for example, the role of Swiss banking is not a secret that it has strong links with the City of London. Also important are the so-called ‘tax havens’ and money laundering centres, Luxembourg, Jersey, Guernsey, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, etc.

Finance capital plays a major role in the Spanish banking sector for example – there is the curious phenomenon of its relations to the Basque and Catalan banks, which are not really Spanish and behind much of the separatist agitation. Finance capital of British origin plays a big role in maintaining Gibraltar as a tax haven.

4. Top Stock Exchanges 2013: Here are the statistic for the top ten stock exchanges ($US billions) 1. NYSE Euronext, United States/Europe, $14,085. 2. NASDAQ OMX Group, United States/Europe, $4,582. 3. Tokyo Stock Exchange, Japan $3,478. 4. London Stock Exchange, $3,396. 5. Hong Kong Sock Exchange, $2,831. 6. Shanghai Stock Exchange, $2,547. 7. TMX Group, Canada, $2,058. 8. Deutsche Börse, Germany, $1,486. 9. Australian Securities Exchange, $1,386. 10. Bombay Stock Exchange, $1,263. Note the two US stock exchanges are as big as the next eight combined; with its allies it is absolutely dominant. (Moscow is not there at all. Although China is at nos. 5 and 6, but who owns these Chinese companies?).
5. Ranking by Gross Domestic Product: The ranking of countries by Gross Domestic Product, this time the top 10: (Millions of $US), World $70,201,920. 1. United States $14,991,300, 2. China $7,203,784, 3. Japan $5,870,357. 4. Germany $3,604,061. 5. France $2,775,518. 6. Brazil $2,476,651. 7. United Kingdom, 2,429,184. 8. Italy $2,195,937. 9. India $1,897,608. 10 Russia $1,857,770.

Although China is No. 2 that must be seen in perspective of what is the per capita gross domestic product. China is 93 and Russia is 58 on that index.

6. Biggest military expenditure 2013: The top 15 for military expenditure. ($US billions): 1. United States $682.0. 2. China $166.0. 3. Russia $90.7. 4. United Kingdom $60.8. 5. Japan $59.3. 6. France $58.9. 7. Saudi Arabia $56.7. 8. India $46.1. 9. Germany $45.8. 10. Italy $34.0. 11. Brazil $33.1. 12. South Korea $31.7. 13. Australia $26.2. 14. Canada $22.5. 15. Turkey $18.2. Note, US expenditure is equal to the combined total of all the other 14 on the list, all Nato or close US allies apart from Russia and China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures.
7. Fleets and aircraft carriers: The US has five battleship fleets, the Second Fleet in the Atlantic, the Third Fleet in the Eastern Pacific, the Fifth Fleet in the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean, the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and the Seventh Fleet in the Western Pacific. No other nation gets a look in here. This is a list of the aircraft carriers in service in 2013: United States 10, Italy 2, United Kingdom, 1, France 1, Russia 1, Spain 1, India 1, Brazil 1, China 1 and Thailand 1.
8. Military bases: “The US operates and/or controls between 700 and 800 military bases Worldwide… (there is a) presence of US military personnel in 156 countries. The US Military has bases in 63 countries. Brand new military bases have been built since September 11, 2001 in seven countries. In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide.” (http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-worldwide-network-of-us-military-bases/5564). In addition, other NATO countries, such as France, the UK, etc. have a further 200 military locations within the network of global military control. The biggest “host” countries are those that once lost a major war in which the US was involved. Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea are the four biggest ‘hosts’. France and the UK mainly have bases in the remains of their colonial empires. (http://www.tni.org/primer/foreign-military-bases-and-global-campaign-close-them)

Russia currently has five military facilities in former Soviet republics (down from six since it incorporated the Crimea) and India has one in Tajikistan. China has no US-style overseas bases.