Yet our politicians seem to bend to their every whim
More and more, we hear that nothing can be done to tax major corporations because of the threat of how they would respond. Likewise, we cannot stop their price-gouging or even the government subsidies and tax loopholes they enjoy.
The attitude is one of helplessness, I won't get corporate money; therefore I can't win an election.
Then there is the idiotic meme:
The reason: corporations would then relocate production abroad or reduce their activities in the US or both. And that would deprive the US of taxes and lose more jobs. In plain English, major corporations are threatening us.
The easy way to curb their enthusiasm for dictating policy and hurt their bank balances, stop buying their products. As for the oil companies they are not going anywhere, leave their main markets...not likely. Its a great deal of hot air, like the playground bully threatening to take the ball away, all they end up with is nobody to play with.
Of course, there are always two possible responses to any and all threats. One is to cave in, to be intimidated. That has often been the dominant "policy choice" of the US government. That's why so many corporate tax loopholes exist, why the government does so little to limit price increases, why government does not constrain corporate relocation decisions, etc. No surprise there, since corporations have spent lavishly to support the political careers of so many current leaders.
Basically our politicians are either cowards or in it for their own personal gain, after all there must be some benefits for subsidizing the most profitable industries in the world against all reason. I thought capitalism was meant to generate healthy competition rather than be a welfare program for the rich.
In effect, corporate boards of directors and major shareholders seek to shift tax burdens onto employees. Their success over the last half-century is clear. Tax receipts of the US government have increasingly come, first, from individual rather than corporate income taxes and, second, from middle and lower individual income groups rather than from the rich.
So in the end we pay for all their benefits.
1] Supply them with highly educated personnel yet very few have any say in how they are run.
2] The infrastructure to carry out business, we will even give them further tax incentives to come to our area.
3] We are their consumers; yet pay their taxes.
4] We elect politicians that do their will often based on lavish disinformative campaigns.
Corporations are feudal systems that have too great an influence on a democratic society.
I used to work for one of the largest of these General Electric and left to start my own business. I have never looked back; the real job creators are small businesses. To my mind the greatest drain on our resources are the corporations.
You want the best bang for your buck? Then stop giving the corporations subsidies and give that money as low interest loans to small innovative businesses, the tax returns will fuel a boom rather than maintain the moribund and belittling status quo.
They need us more than we need them.