Bernie’s campaign is brilliantly exposing the Big Business schema... and in the process, he is showing us where our money is going.
WalMart is the largest employer in the nation, and ranked first on the 2014 Fortune 500 list of the world's largest companies by revenue.
Its workers are on food stamps -- taxpayer dollars. Its workers live in subsidized housing -- taxpayer dollars.
WalMart is closing 154 stores in the U.S., presumably to keep that profit margin steady. “The WalMarts being shut down were generally poor performers, and most were situated within 10 miles of another location. Two-thirds are smaller Wal-Mart Express locations, 12 are U.S. Walmart Supercenters, and four are Sam’s Clubs.”
Two years ago, Bernie asked a panel of ‘experts’ on income inequality, “Do you think the wealthiest family in this country should have large numbers of employees that depend on Medicaid?”
In the following clip, Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich pointed out that WalMart, the largest employer in America, paid an average of $8.80 an hour — and then contrasted that against GM in 1955, which paid the equivalent of $37/hr.
Oil companies make huge profits, yet they get subsides -- taxpayer dollars.
““At a time when scientists tell us we need to reduce carbon pollution to prevent catastrophic climate change, it is absurd to provide massive taxpayer subsidies that pad fossil-fuel companies’ already enormous profits,” said senator Bernie Sanders.”
1. State and local subsidies to corporations: An excellent New York Times study by Louise Story calculated that state and local government provide at least $80 billion in subsidies to corporations. Over 48 big corporations received over $100 million each. GM was the biggest, at a total of $1.7 billion extracted from 16 different states, but Shell, Ford and Chrysler all received over $1 billion each. Amazon, Microsoft, Prudential, Boeing and casino companies in Colorado and New Jersey received well over $200 million each.
2. Direct federal subsidies to corporations: The Cato Institute estimates that federal subsidies to corporations cost taxpayers almost $100 billion every year.
5. Subsidies to the fast food industry: Research by the University of Illinois and UC Berkeley documents that taxpayers pay about $243 billion each year in indirect subsidies to the fast food industry because they pay wages so low that taxpayers must put up $243 billion to pay for public benefits for their workers.
9. Huge corporations that engage in criminal or other wrongful activities protect their leaders from being prosecuted by paying huge fees or fines to the government. You and I would be prosecuted. These corporations protect their bosses by paying off the government. For example, Reuters reported that JPMorgan Chase, which made a preliminary $13-billion mortgage settlement with the U.S. government, is allowed to write off a majority of the deal as tax deductible, saving the corporation $4 billion.
The single-payer proposal takes direct aim at the health insurance industry. "UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurer, reported last week that it made $10.3 billion in profits in 2014 on revenues of $130.5 billion. Both profits and revenues grew seven percent from 2013. United’s share price was $30.40 on March 23, 2010, the day President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. Since then, the company’s price per share has increased an astonishing 375 percent. That’s way more than either the Dow Jones or Standard & Poors averages has grown during the same period."
I wrote about Big Pharma profits here the other day -- "Fibromyalgia is thought to be the result of overactive nerves. LYRICA is believed to calm these nerves." Amgen's drug 'is believed' to lessen the pain of a condition that 'is thought' to be overactive nerves. This little fairy-tale situation brought them over a BILLION DOLLARS in three months. "Pain drug Lyrica brought in $1.22bn, beating estimates of $1.11bn."
Oh, yes -- my focus on 'taxpayer dollars' for this article:
"Drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration as "orphan drugs" have seen sales increase from $46.6 billion in 2014 to $54 billion this year in the U.S. alone. Sen. Sherrod Brown: "At a time when rising drug prices are at the top of Americans' health-care concerns, we should be focusing on policies that ensure accessibility and affordability. This means closing the loopholes that pharmaceutical companies have created and ending the abuse of market exclusivity and tax-benefit provisions that exceed the intent of the law."
The new study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Oncology, argues that while the ODA has fostered drug development for patients with rare cancers and other diseases, current data suggest that companies are "gaming the system to use the law for mainstream drugs.""
Wall Street crashed the economy by breaking the law, yet the penalties they paid were less than 1% of their profit in a single year. Elizabeth Warren wrote in an op/ed in the NYT: "In a single year, in case after case, across many sectors of the economy, federal agencies caught big companies breaking the law — defrauding taxpayers, covering up deadly safety problems, even precipitating the financial collapse in 2008 — and let them off the hook with barely a slap on the wrist. Often, companies paid meager fines, which some will try to write off as a tax deduction."
More? "From 2008 to 2013, while GE made over $33.9 billion in United States profits, it received a total tax refund of more than $2.9 billion from the Internal Revenue Service. G.E.’s effective U.S. corporate income tax rate over this six-year period was -9 percent. In 2012, GE stashed $108 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying income taxes. If this practice were outlawed, GE would have paid $37.8 billion in federal income taxes that year."
The taxpayers have lost their savings and homes, and the rich have gotten richer.
When Sanders says, ‘All the earnings are going to the top 1%’ he’s not just whistling Dixie.
Robber Barons.
Bernie is exposing them all.
What's that, Hillary fans?
You don't want to look, hey?
But how can you look away? It’s two days from the Iowa primary, and the headlines about Clinton’s email situation are not going away. And it’s not RWNJ blather, either. Seriously.
You’ve all whined and cried about how Candidate Bernie will put a Republican in the White House, yet you ignore the fact that any hint of wrongdoing on her part from this investigation will absolutely tank her candidacy. I mean, my objections to her agenda notwithstanding, this is a very real concern.
As for my objections to her agenda… Last week, at a fundraiser at Franklin Square Capital Partners -- $2700 for a selfie with Hil.
Meanwhile, #BernieFliesCoach.
I am voting for the candidate that is a member of the middle-class, for the first and possibly only time in my life.
I am voting for political revolution.
Sunday, Jan 31, 2016 · 7:47:17 PM +00:00 · martinV
"Since 2003, state and local governments from Alabama to Tennessee have given more than $120 million worth of taxpayer funds to at least seven major firearms companies, according to research by Mother Jones. Most of those subsidies—nearly $100 million—have been pledged just over the past three years by states seeking to lure gun producers from the Northeast, where new firearm regulations have angered industry leaders."