There seems to be a common thread of Corporate fascism, and how corporate campaign contributions (small time) and money spent on lobbyists (BIG TIME) are the problem.
OK. I'll go with "they" (campaign contributions and lobbyist funding) are part of the problem. Corporate power comes from their ability to collect TAXES. The S&P 500 employs MILLIONS of people and collects income taxes from these folks before they are paid. They pay BILLIONS in corporate taxes, fees, collect sales taxes in the Bizzilions, etc...
And therein lies their leverage and power.
(Now guess who benefits the MOST from the tax collections? Tax Receivers. You see, in our democracy ANYBODY can vote, but not everyone is a Taxpayer. In fact, more than half of the voting age population, and 100% of the student voting age population, is a net Tax Receiver - they receive more in government assistance than they pay in taxes. No wonder student protests always seem to lean a certain way...)
Corporations are the efficient tax collection machines that have enabled (as in enabling an alcoholic) the U.S. social programs to get to sufficient size to bring down the entire system. Argue all you want, but America will be undone by Medicare and Social Security before the end of the decade, about the time my younger son will be entering high school... to put that in a time perspective. Our social programs will accomplish what Nazi tanks and Soviet missiles could not do, and these programs could NEVER, EVER have been funded without payroll tax withholding by the large corporations. Particularly by the big, polluting, environmentally destructive industrial corporations that the supporters of these programs pretend to HATE.
Talk about FOS (for a better explanation of FOS, please see George Carlin video I posted earlier).
7 comments:
The imminent destruction of the American Social Security and Medicare programs is complicated by the fact that many European nations have even BIGGER social welfare nets, and after several decades, they are running just fine. The taxes are higher in Europe, that is true. But somehow, they have made generous socialist benefits work. Some would say it is preferable living there than living in the U.S. (Michael Moore certainly makes that case.) Only thing that stops higher taxes/better benefits here are the wealthy, who would pay the tax (The top 50% of U.S. income earners here pay 97% of Federal tax), and their hard-core Christian toadys (1/3rd of the Republican vote) who vote however the rich tell them to. :)
I don't know about you, but it seems paying the interest on the national debt will take up most of the tax revenues within a decade. Unless producers continue taking our IOUs and green backs we will have a problem :)
Europe made their social welfare nets behind the US military shield. NATO has been a wonderful thing for Europe, it allowed them to minimize defence outlays throughout the Cold War and was a secondary wealth transfer via our personnel. Without that, those generous benefits would not have been possible for long.
I would not characterize the European system as 'running fine', either. There are holes aplenty in that net, and they are growing fast.
Payroll income tax deductions provide the great majority of tax income to the federal government, but the Europeans have done the US one better with the VAT - a federal sales tax. So far, no one has been serious about implementing such a thing, but who knows?
Bur:
I can't even respond to such a silly statement.
Come on, you are an engineer for Xmas sake! You can work a calculator.
I recommend you read the Wiki article on Fascism and think about German history from 1933 on. The boyz from Krupps and IG Farben were not the ones to go to the camps. The free love Libertarians were some of the first...even before the Jews. Corporate socialism, privatize the profits and socialize the costs, is the mirror image of state socialism. Corporate socialism will always end up in monopoly or a collusive duopoly...think ATT and Verizon. It was what the Enron boyz were going for and is what TBTF is all about.
The whacko environmentalist have their heartburn about the corporate externalization of costs...ie. shitting in the commons. That's more privatize the profits, externalize the costs.
That also why Jay Hanson's dieoff.org presents such dim prospects. The hopelessness of the earlier dieoff material has been replaced with the ideas at warsocialism.org. For that,I admire him, but a religious conservatarian must hate it.
Again, I quote Madison: "If men were angels, government would not be necessary"
When you show me pic of 80 year old Europeans on the assembly line cause they had to go back to work cause their benefits got cut, you call me. :)
Europeans also expect a lot less in retirement than Americans. European elderly go to the market to buy radishes and onions for their Sunday meal (watch "The Grocer's Son" movie). Americans jump on a cruise ship for the week. :)
Greg,
And I thought I was the only loon to think that the American Left wanted to destroy the United States!
Everyone else,
Kind of makes Obama's outreach to the banks, GM, etc. make sense. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. To understand the real goal, go to the source. This bunch of socialist scum is not shy about telling you their goals, although they have gone somewhat into stealth mode since they got the majority in Congress. Suffice it to say their ultimate goal is a weak US under the control of a worldwide socialist government. Please read for yourselves. I see no reason not to take them at their word.
To see who, look at the list of Congressmen and Senators in the Progressive Caucus. Please visit:
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/
To see what they stand for, please visit:
http://dsausa.org/about/where.html
The the Progressive Caucus members used to proudly proclaim their membership and support for the DSA, and vice versa. Sometime around 2006, both sites were sanitized, and there is now no reference to one by the other. I don't think that means that the CPC members have changed their politics. Former DSA members include Nancy Pelosi and Barak Obama, among others. I do not believe they have changed their stripes either.
This unholy alliance between the corporations and the left is very dangerous. They are like the last two contestants on a reality show. They have to pretend cooperate right up until one figures out how to put the knife in the other's back. It's all about gaining complete power. Neither side gives a flying f**k about the people.
Regards,
Coal Guy
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