Listening to Republicans, it appears as if America's major affliction is a generation of wimpy, girly-men CEOs.
Their fathers and mothers muddled through the Great Depression, and then mobilized, fought and won the Second World War. They used the GI Bill (a government program) to get their education, and created a juggernaut of an economy.
Although it required major struggles, they also tore down the walls of segregation, and opened the doors of opportunity to people from widely diverse backgrounds.
But, their offspring? Especially, those who have made it to the top of industry?
Not a patch on their parents. Indeed, an embarrassment.
Listen to their whiny, petulant, petty complaints.
It appears that they are no longer interested in making profits if they may have to pay a bit more in taxes on the profits. Their parents paid far higher taxes, sucked it up, helped grow the middle class (aka consumers, remember those folks, they buy what businesses made) and laid the foundation for a vibrant economy.
OK, it is not the taxes, they whine, it is the uncertainty. Uncertainty! If you go to corporate boardrooms, THAT is what they get paid the big-bucks for tackling. And now, they are sitting on their hands because their profits-after-taxes may be a slightly lower percentage.
Imagine the dread, the nightmares, the unspeakable terror! I mean, the men shivering in foxholes that were being bombarded by Nazi artillery at the Battle of the Bulge, they did not suffer such horrors. Or, perhaps those profits-after-taxes (just to be clear, all employee expenses are deducted BEFORE taxes) might actually be 50% higher if the economy had recovered and consumers actually had some money to spend.
Or, it is really regulation, they moan. Look at these poor, poor banks, making money hand-over-fist by borrowing money from the Fed, purchasing Treasury securities and pocketing the difference in interest rates. But, you see, they are shaking in their shoes because the Consumer Financial Protection Agency -- newly created under Dodd-Frank -- may require them to let everyone know the truth about a loan or investment they are about to make. The truth!! How can they make good money telling the truth?!?!
OK, the real problem, they whimper, is that President Obama doesn't like them. Sure he has lathered benefits on them, sure some of his best friends are corporate executives, sure his Administration is not prosecuting the fraudsters for crimes against Americans, but, but he has called them names. Or, to quote my 3-year-old niece when told that her last aria was the final song of the evening, "you hurt my feelings."
And, he fired incompetent executives at GM when taxpayers bailed them out so that it was more likely to succeed, to turn a profit -- since when do profits matter more than CEO job security? Remember Lehman Brothers? In a decade they gave $53B in bonuses to their execs, and paid out $3B in dividends to their shareholders.
No, what really hurts, they cry, is that they have all these profits overseas, but "cannot" bring them back home because of taxes. So, if a company has $10B in profits stashed overseas, and has to pay $3.5B to bring them back to the US, that is a terrible deal -- for whom? Shareholders who would like that $7.5B in dividends? The company who could deploy that $7.5B to grow their business? The American taxpayer whose debt could be reduced by $3.5B?
Indeed, I will give them a chance to prove me wrong. Let Republicans propose a 25% corporate tax rate for companies that increase their US workforce by 10%, and maintain the current tax rate (instead of increasing it) on small businesses that file under the individual tax code for doing the same.
Republicans know the real culprit. It is corporate welfare. It has made them lazy, slothful, risk-averse.
After all, that is what they tell us that welfare and unemployment insurance does to the poor and middle class... and we all have learned from Mitt Romney that corporations are people.
Follow Paul Abrams on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pabrams2001
You wrote, "Republicans know the real culprit. It is corporate welfare..."
I also think it relates to the loss aversion heuristic. That, & apparently people are more likely to react to (whine about) myths rather than deal with reality. Please see Reagan's story of a 'Welfare Queen driving a Welfare Cadillac.'
"As a bit of class warfare, however, it was brilliant. It diverted public attention from insider traders in their limousines to Welfare Queens in their Cadillacs, even though the former were stealing thousands of times more from the American people than the latter. Just one example of the cost of white collar crime would become apparent a few years later, when President Bush bailed out the Savings & Loans industry with $500 billion of the taxpayer's money -- enough to fund 20 years of federal AFDC."
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfarequeen.htm
& today's reality certainly is stranger than the fictions of the good ole daze.
By the way, I really enjoyed reading your piece. You have 'embodied' what Benjamin DeCasseres said about progress: "... nothing but the victory of laughter over dogma."
Whiners: C'mon, get over it already, there's work to do.
Location, advertising, pricing, customer service and infrastructure. With out one of these you have a struggling business.
Drop the price of your product or service,, take some of that heavily invested lobbing money and turn them into advertising dollars, soak the market (you've got the money) , and drive demand to your door!
Look, out of 163m American workers, 140m of them have jobs. If advertising didn't work, we'd have streaming tv shows, and monolithic talk radio.
Look back ath where they began. They used Junk Bonds to take over Corporations just to gain access to the Cash Reserves in the Bank Accounts and the Retirement Funds then selling off parts of the Corpration for even more profits. Many of those operations were bought and shut down to prevent competition.
While we were in Vietnam and the Nation distracted by war the Oil Companys took on debt to buy up small Oil Companys who owned Refinerys and shut them down, even tearing down refinerys to make sure there would be no competition for there ever again.
"And now, they are sitting on their hands because their profits-after-taxes may be a slightly lower percentage." The one thing they are judge on, BY the shareholders, is profits. They are expected to turn maximum profits. Don't like it? Talk to the shareholders.
"I mean, the men shivering in foxholes that were being bombarded by Nazi artillery at the Battle of the Bulge, they did not suffer such horrors. " What a disgusting load of crap. You want to use WW2 imagery to slander CEOs doing their jobs. I don't agree they should get paid that much, but I certainly can't imagine telling people they aren't fit to do their jobs because they didn't go to war. These people are paid to map out the futures of corporations.
This whole article is a big fat whine. Boo hoo, someone beat their own ass, made it through school and worked hard, became a CEO and makes alot of money. Maybe you can't ever see yourself being one, so you choose to slander these people?
In reality, the CEOs don't really make decisions based on any of this crapola. What is happening today is that the business lobbies are using our economic difficulties to try to extract more benefits for themselves pretending that, but for these incentives, they would be hiring en masse.
So, my proposal is rather simple: if you do increase your US workforce by 10%, you pay taxes at a lower rate. Who could ask for a better deal?
2. Then why use it? You can simply state that you don't feel they are brave enough to go against the grain and lose profits for the sake of more employment. Do you need that imagery to get people to read your article?
3. "What is happening today is that the business lobbies are using our economic difficultiÂes to try to extract more benefits for themselves pretending that, but for these incentivesÂ, they would be hiring en masse." - With all due respect to someone that has been a CEO, this is your experience/knowledge base. You don't use government to get more money from a corporation or make them hire. You use government to INCENTIVIZE behaviour, as long as it doesn't FORCE the entity into a certain path. At that point, it's like holding sand in your fist...hold it tight! There it goes....the corp will FIND a way to keep more and don't be surprised when they do.
All things being equal, and you can increase workforce by 10%, how do you ensure taxes will go down? Each congress writes checks that the next one can't or won't deliver on. Any wonder why there is insecurity?
1. Eliminate the Corporate tax in exchange for a requirement that companies pay at least 90% of their profits as DIVIDENDS, taxable as ordinary income. For those that don't pay the 90% DIVIDEND rate, raise taxes on profits to 75%. The effect on the Treasury will probably be a wash, but this will force our Billionaries to pay substantially higher taxes. It will also allow corporations to repatriate overseas profits as long as they share them with their shareholders.
2. Tax unrealized Capital Gains on stocks held the entire year. This is very similar to what is already done for mutual funds. This used to be taken care of by the Inheritance Tax, but now the Billionaires hide their wealth in tax free foundations where it is never taxed. If we were to levy such a tax (taxing the price increase year over year on stocks not traded), Bill Gates first year tax bill would be about $20 Billion. This isn't UNFAIR, rather this is playing catchup with the tax rates paid by the rest of us on our wealth increases.
Fanned!
Yes, let's tax money that hasn't been made yet! Then we can spend it before it's collected! That shouldn't cause any problems....
I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe… corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln, conspiracy theorist"
We are seeing the worst case scenario of the Boomers. Terminal solipsism. "Greed is good." As children Mommy and Daddy pampered them based on Dr. Spock's advice. As grown-ups they feel very, very ENTITLED--not in the sense that they disparage low, middle income workers, clutching at Medicare and social security to cushion old age as retirement nears. They hold these workers in total contempt. They know they are the chosen ones, the ones who did things the right way. They inherited.
TR
I think you are smarter than me. Or at least better educated.
F&F and Badged!
Not better educated. (Life counts for extra credit).
Just a committed lefty still trying to make the world a better place for everyone.
Thanks.
Excellent point, without a doubt very true.....
As we all know, welfare for the wealthy is perfectly acceptable and justified. It's very disturbing that so many people continue to ignore just how lop sided our system has really become. Unlimited bailouts, tax cuts and special deals for those who need nothing. To even suggest they pay a tiny bit more is taxes is now considered punishing success...
Meanwhile, those at the bottom have truly been punished and will continue to suffer and sacrifice for the benefit of the have-mores who will soon have-it-all.
Why are the have-mores always evil and oppresive? Why can't they have worked hard to achieve their position? Why is it that because they make lots of money, they are causing this suffering?