It was not my intention to misrepresent your points, my intent was to show you how ridiculous it is to ignore the fact that corporations get what they want despite the harm it will do to our economy or society and that you are playing along with that.
I was thinking more in terms of standards of living being lower, and thus to meet those standards one needs less income.
Sure, if you decide that your company can only increase it's profits by reducing wages then you are going to do so, forget about innovation or making a better product or increasing your product offerring. If you find that you can no longer decrease your payroll then you might think, hmm, I'll join the other corporations in pressuring congress (money=speech) to let us take jobs overseas so we can pay our workers less and then sell our products to the very people we ****canned.
This harms our economy. You might say well, that company would go out of business otherwise so they HAD to move their manufacturing. So, that's how the market works. But corporations don't want to play by the rules so they work to change the rules in their favor and who suffers? The American worker, the American economy and ultimately our society.
Not that increased standards of living are a bad thing, but that is the basis behind higher wages…or the demand for such.
So we need to decrease our standard of living to 3rd world standards in order for corporations to maintain or increase profits? Don't you think this will/is creating a class gap? Historically, what happens when all the money is held by a few at the top?
It is the lower wage per work produced which attracts companies. Increasing the penalties for having jobs overseas would most likely cause them to incorporate overseas, and just import stuff here…then you would have to increase import penalties, which would increase prices to an extent…ah well, I’m just rambling.
The point is, the barriers for moving overseas jobs would not mean much without import barriers as well…And, in general, if something involves government restricting/controlling something, I tend strongly towards opposition to said something.
We basically have no tariffs currently. How's that working out for the American economy? The American family? THe American government?
It seems a company could simply incorporate outside the US to avoid any penalties for operating part of their US incorporated company outside the US. Such penalties would seem to simply drive corporations – and their taxable income - outside the US.
Exactly, which is why we shouldn't allow it. I have to pay taxes, even if it means I have to file for bankruptcy or live on the street, what makes a corporation so important? They create jobs? Isn't your point that they will move jobs overseas to increase profits?
How did we ever manage all those years before Reagan? How did American corporations survive?
I was actually alluding to the possibility of a reasonable relaxation of restrictions. Obviously, some restriction is necessary (like, don’t go purchasing fully assembled nuclear weapons and shipping them to your garage…).
What restrictions? Can you go buy tires for your car? You can? How is that possible when we imposed a 50% tariff on tires from China? Did China stop selling tires to the USA? Did China punish us by stopping their imports?
Sigh…
Again, you misinterpreted my point.
I was actually suggesting that a reasonable reduction/restructuring of the environmental protection restrictions (EPR’s?) in the US might be of some help.
No, what you're actually suggesting is that corproations need to be able to do whatever they want regardless of the consequences to our nation. Relax EPA restrictions? Why? So they can dump some chemicals into the water supply instead of disposing of those chemicals in an environmentally sound fashion which will eat into their massive profits...
My addendum to that comment was intended to highlight that, IMO, some EPR’s are unreasonable and overly restrictive (taken on a state-by-state basis), while others might need reinforcement.
That bit could be applied to most laws in existence, of course.
Again, which restrictions? What makes you think there are any restrictions that are unreasonable?
I ran across this a while back:
Representation Without Taxation: Study Says Most Corporations Avoid US Income Tax
WASHINGTON — Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.
The study by the Government Accountability Office released Tuesday said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.
Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO's estimate.
"It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.
An outside tax expert, Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, said increasing numbers of limited liability corporations and so-called "S" corporations pay taxes under individual tax codes.
"Half of all business income in the United States now ends up going through the individual tax code," Edwards said.
The GAO study did not investigate why corporations weren't paying federal income taxes or corporate taxes and it did not identify any corporations by name. It said companies may escape paying such taxes due to operating losses or because of tax credits.
More than 38,000 foreign corporations had no tax liability in 2005 and 1.2 million U.S. companies, or 66.7 percent of them, paid no income tax, the GAO said. Combined, the companies had $2.5 trillion in sales. About 25 percent of large U.S. corporations _ those with at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts _ did not pay corporate taxes.
