Corporate Profits: Corporate Blackmail

[georgephillip]

For the production and management of items, a well regulated capatilistic system has worked better than any other yet devised. For national projects, defense, health care, national parks, maintenance of the commons, government has done a better job.

I really don't give a damn about the ideologies of the two differant camps, I want to see what has worked in the past, and for whom.

National projects like high speed rail and universal internet would seem like a good way to put millions of Americans back to work at a living wage.

The dominant ideology today seems to require privatizing as much of the commons as possible and sticking future generations of Americans with a debt burden they will bear from cradle to grave.

Maybe that's a legacy of unregulated capitalism?

 

[georgephillip]

What a crock.

Are you afraid of a little competition?

"Inform them that the government will proceed to finance and organise state-operated companies to compete directly with threatening businesses."

Common Dreams

Say what? You want private industry, who are beholden to the laws passed by government, to compete with an entity (government) that doesn't have to answer to owners; doesn't have to earn a profit; has an endless supply of taxpayer revenue at its disposal and can print money out of thin air? How exactly does the private sector compete against government? Oh yeah, it can't.

But advocating that they be forced to do so gets us closer to your common dream. Communism is responsible for starving and murdering hundreds of millions of people. Maybe you just think it just hasn't been tried by the right people yet, and that this time it will be different.

Sure.

Economics, it's not for everyone.

How many has the profit motive killed?

"17 Million killed by Capitalist Britain in India,
18 Million slaves killed by Capitalist & Rightist Europeans during the Atlantic Slave trade,
5-10 Million Native Americans Killed by Capitalist & Expansionist Europeans during the invasion of the Americas,
8 Million Killed by King Leopold with the help of Capitalist Enterprise in the Congo,
15 Million slaughtered in the Capitalist reordering of WWII,
55 Million killed in the Nationalist Imperialist invasion of Europe by Hitler & the resulting WWII,
3 Million killed by the Capitalist U.S. led U.N. “police action” in Korea to stop the North from repatriating their country,
3.5 Million killed by Capitalist U.S. in Vietnam,
1 Million killed in the 9 years (mostly) secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia & Laos (prior to Pol Pot),
1 Million slaughtered in Indonesia by proxy Capitalist dictator Suharto (helped by ‘death lists’ sent by the CIA & MI6),
1 Million slaughtered by U.S. installed Fascist dictators throughout Latin America (including 200k in Guatemala, 100k in El Salvador),
1.3 Million killed in U.S./U.K. led U.N. Iraqi sanctions (UNICEF estimating 500k child deaths),
1 Million killed in current U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq,"

The Capitalism Death Toll Project « Blue Linchpin

Mass Murder played a big role on both side of the iron curtain.

It still does.

 

[Toro]

Sky-high corporate profits occurring at the same time most US families continue to struggle with high unemployment and stagnant wages are said the be beyond the reach of government.

Any attempt by natural citizens at taxing windfall profits or stopping the billion$ in government subsidies and tax loopholes would result in corporations relocating their production or reducing the activities in the US. Or both.

Elected Republicans AND Democrats fall over each other caving in to corporate blackmail.
Is there an alternative?

Here's "a brief and partial list" of how elected officials could respond to such threats:

"• Inform such threatening businesses that the US government will shift its purchases to other enterprises.
• Inform them that top officials will tour the US to urge citizens to follow the government's example and shift their purchases as well.

• Inform them that the government will proceed to finance and organise state-operated companies to compete directly with threatening businesses.

• Immediately and strictly enforce all applicable rules governing health and safety conditions for workers, environmental protection laws, equal employment and advancement opportunity, etc.
• Present and promote passage of new laws governing enterprise relocation (giving local, regional and national authorities power of veto over corporate relocation decisions).
• Purchase energy and pharmaceutical outputs in bulk for mass resale to the US public, passing on all the savings from bulk purchases.

• Seize assets of enterprises that seek to evade or frustrate increased taxes or reduced subsidies."

The Great Corporate Tax Swindle | Common Dreams

FLUSH the DC toilet in 2012.

If you want to drive the economy back into recession, this is a great way to do it.

The recession never ended for the vast majority of Americans while the richest 1% of Americans have increased their "fair" share of national wealth since late 2008.

Your prescription would make things far far worse.

 

[Toro]

Are you afraid of a little competition?

"Inform them that the government will proceed to finance and organise state-operated companies to compete directly with threatening businesses."

The Great Corporate Tax Swindle | Common Dreams

State owned enterprises are notoriously poor allocators of capital. They generally destroy wealth. I certainly don't want my tax money going towards equity for a wealth-destroying enterprise.

How much wealth has Wall Street destroyed lately?

$40 trillion globally is the latest figure that I've seen.

$40 trillion is wrong.

I'm not going to defend Wall Street but what you are proposing would make things much worse. I would move all my capital out of the US if this were to happen, and I can guarantee trillions would follow.

 

[Toro]

Say what? You want private industry, who are beholden to the laws passed by government, to compete with an entity (government) that doesn't have to answer to owners; doesn't have to earn a profit; has an endless supply of taxpayer revenue at its disposal and can print money out of thin air? How exactly does the private sector compete against government? Oh yeah, it can't.

But advocating that they be forced to do so gets us closer to your common dream. Communism is responsible for starving and murdering hundreds of millions of people. Maybe you just think it just hasn't been tried by the right people yet, and that this time it will be different.

Sure.

Economics, it's not for everyone.

How many has the profit motive killed?

"17 Million killed by Capitalist Britain in India,
18 Million slaves killed by Capitalist & Rightist Europeans during the Atlantic Slave trade,
5-10 Million Native Americans Killed by Capitalist & Expansionist Europeans during the invasion of the Americas,
8 Million Killed by King Leopold with the help of Capitalist Enterprise in the Congo,
15 Million slaughtered in the Capitalist reordering of WWII,
55 Million killed in the Nationalist Imperialist invasion of Europe by Hitler & the resulting WWII,
3 Million killed by the Capitalist U.S. led U.N. “police action” in Korea to stop the North from repatriating their country,
3.5 Million killed by Capitalist U.S. in Vietnam,
1 Million killed in the 9 years (mostly) secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia & Laos (prior to Pol Pot),
1 Million slaughtered in Indonesia by proxy Capitalist dictator Suharto (helped by ‘death lists’ sent by the CIA & MI6),
1 Million slaughtered by U.S. installed Fascist dictators throughout Latin America (including 200k in Guatemala, 100k in El Salvador),
1.3 Million killed in U.S./U.K. led U.N. Iraqi sanctions (UNICEF estimating 500k child deaths),
1 Million killed in current U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq,"

The Capitalism Death Toll Project « Blue Linchpin

Mass Murder played a big role on both side of the iron curtain.

It still does.

This is utterly ridiculous. Most of this had absolutely nothing to do with capitalism.

And I love the sympathetic point about North Korea. lol. Outstanding.

 

[Londoner]

And it will continue as long as Einstein's like YOU don't blame who is at fault. The policy's of our current "fearless rockstar leader" -- Herr Obama -- have created this.

Corporations have existed since this Nation began. Obama's Euro-leftist tax any-and-everything to death policies have not. The corporations wouldn't leave without a bunch of government-forced, socialist regulations ripping them off.

It disgusts me to see people can be so blind and stupid.

Big corporations in the USA pay less taxes than any advanced industrial nation. They are subsidized beyond belief. The USA is one of the only countries where many corporations pay zero taxes.

ExxonMobil made 19 billion last year and received a rebate of 156 million. They paid less than zero taxes. Chevron made 10 billion and received 19 million back from Uncle Sam.

America is owned by large corporations which fund elections, staff government, and write the tax code. Once you factor in loopholes and subsidies, the middle class pays much higher taxes than most corporations - yet those same corporations receive unbelievable amounts of government services, especially from the Pentagon, which protects 3rd world supply chains.

Guess what those corporations do with their subsidies and tax breaks? Do you think they reinvest in American jobs? Nope. They pour money into Conservative talk radio for the purpose of lying to morons about the tax rate. Meanwhile, in the absence of revenue, this country's infrastructure and schools wither away.

You have been fooled. Your information sources are on the payroll.

 

[georgephillip]

Taboo Economics

"I have a proposal: Let’s double US government funds devoted to promoting renewable energy. Let’s expand allocations for foreclosure prevention to help another million Americans keep their homes.

"Let’s launch a $10-billion infrastructure programme to repair crumbling roads and bridges.

"Let’s double the number of new maths and science teachers that President Obama hopes to train, bringing the total to 200,000. And let’s hire back all of those police officers fired by the city of Camden, New Jersey – already among the most dangerous places in the country before budget constraints compelled it to dismiss half of its police force in December.

"While we’re at it, let’s reduce the deficit by about $40 billion.

"This proposition is not voodoo economics. It is taboo economics.

"All of these things could be accomplished by trimming US military spending by just 10 per cent.

"Some of these suggestions (teacher training, Camden cops) are trifling items by the standards of Pentagon budgeting, together accounting for less than the cost of a single Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jet."

The US military/security complex makes Murder, Inc. look charitable.
If the standards applied at Nuremberg and Tokyo applied to today's capitalists, thousands of politicians, generals and CEOs would drop through trap doors at the end of a short rope.

Instead, they retire to Fox News.

 

[georgephillip]

How many has the profit motive killed?

"17 Million killed by Capitalist Britain in India,
18 Million slaves killed by Capitalist & Rightist Europeans during the Atlantic Slave trade,
5-10 Million Native Americans Killed by Capitalist & Expansionist Europeans during the invasion of the Americas,
8 Million Killed by King Leopold with the help of Capitalist Enterprise in the Congo,
15 Million slaughtered in the Capitalist reordering of WWII,
55 Million killed in the Nationalist Imperialist invasion of Europe by Hitler & the resulting WWII,
3 Million killed by the Capitalist U.S. led U.N. “police action” in Korea to stop the North from repatriating their country,
3.5 Million killed by Capitalist U.S. in Vietnam,
1 Million killed in the 9 years (mostly) secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia & Laos (prior to Pol Pot),
1 Million slaughtered in Indonesia by proxy Capitalist dictator Suharto (helped by ‘death lists’ sent by the CIA & MI6),
1 Million slaughtered by U.S. installed Fascist dictators throughout Latin America (including 200k in Guatemala, 100k in El Salvador),
1.3 Million killed in U.S./U.K. led U.N. Iraqi sanctions (UNICEF estimating 500k child deaths),
1 Million killed in current U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq,"

The Capitalism Death Toll Project « Blue Linchpin

Mass Murder played a big role on both side of the iron curtain.

It still does.

This is utterly ridiculous. Most of this had absolutely nothing to do with capitalism.

And I love the sympathetic point about North Korea. lol. Outstanding.

It's "utterly ridiculous" and/or "lol" only when for profit bombs are not killing you and yours, right?

"On 12 August 1950 the USAF dropped 625 tons of bombs on North Korea; two weeks later, the daily tonnage increased to some 800 tons.[143]

"Bruce Cummings, a historian at the University of Chicago, has said that U.S. warplanes dropped more napalm and bombs on North Korea than they did during the whole pacific campaign of WW2.[144]

"As a result, eighteen of North Korea's cities were more than 50% destroyed.

"The war's highest-ranking American POW, US Major General William F. Dean,[145] reported that most of the North Korean cities and villages he saw were either ruins or snow-covered wastelands.[146]

"As well as conventional bombing, the Communist side claimed that the USA had used biological weapons."

Korean War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How many millions of innocent human beings has the profit motive murdered during your life?

How much money have you made from their deaths?

lol all the way to the bank.

 

[editec]

FLUSH the DC toilet in 2012.

Good idea.

And replace them with whom?

I think that is almost doesn't matter, GP.

It's the stuctural concentration of powerthat is the heart of the problem.

I suspect even if you or I were given that much power, we'd end up arrogant and corrupted by it. How easy it is to rationalize going along to get along.

I also suspect that we'd convince ourselves that we weren't corrupt, but simply being pragmatic. (and to some extent that rationalization is true!)

Yes, there are obviously people who are corrupt. No doubt about that.

But the system itself is corrupt.

Money isn't the root of all evil.

MAN is the root of all evil.

 

[georgephillip]

ed...At this point all we're left with is a political leap of faith, imho.

Republicans AND Democrats are structurally deformed by the process of raising campaign funds before they enter their first primary.

Greens and Libertarians would also become vulnerable to the same dynamic; however, they would not arrive in DC with their moral descent already mapped out and waiting for them.

I don't think most of us, including you and I, fully appreciate how rotten to the core our system is. Do you remember Israel's 1967 attack on the USS Liberty? Until this morning I assumed the assault stemmed from Liberty intercepting incriminating Israeli radio communications possibly involving the mass execution of Egyptian POWs or the impending Israeli assault on the Golan Heights after Syria withdrew from the war.

A recent 5:07 video posted here (Link #7) offers a completely different motivation.

Briefly, Lyndon Johnson conspired with Israel to sink Liberty and murder every American on board as part of Operation Northwoods. Apparently the idea was to blame Egypt and use that as an excuse to involve the US in the '67 war, taking control of a substantial portion of Middle Eastern/North African oil in the process.

Americans will never get the answers to questions like Liberty and 911 if Republicans OR Democrats are involved. And the crimes necessary to continue Empire will become orders of magnitude greater.

We need to start filling US prisons with the richest 1% of Americans and their political handmaidens.

P.S. Do you think the Fall of Man is metaphor for the first private fortunes, fortunes that would never exist without chattel slavery?