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Posts Tagged ‘CHRISTOPHER LASCH’

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BENEDICT ARNOLD–CAPITALIST HERO: PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 2, 2015 at 12:01 am

Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern politics, warns in his masterwork, The Discourses:

All those who have written upon civil institutions demonstrate…that whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.

If their evil disposition remains concealed for a time, it must be attributed to some unknown reason; and we must assume that it lacked occasion to show itself. But time, which has been said to be the father of all truth, does not fail to bring it to light.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Where the crimes of corporate employers are concerned, we do not have to wait for their evil disposition to reveal itself. It has been fully revealed for decades.

It’s time to recognize that a country can be betrayed for other than political reasons.  It can be sold out for economic ones, too.

Trea$on

The United States desperately needs a new definition of treason–one that takes the above-mentioned truth into account.

  • Employers who set up offshore accounts to claim their American companies are foreign-owned—and thus exempt from taxes—are traitors.
  • Employers who enrich themselves by weakening their country—by throwing millions of qualified workers into the street and moving their plants to other countries—are traitors.
  • Employers who systematically violate Federal immigration laws—to hire illegal aliens instead of willing-to-work Americans—are traitors.

And with a new definition of treason should go new penalties–heavy fines and/or prison terms–for those who sell out their country to enrich themselves.

A starting-point must be an all-out campaign to educate voters on the need for major reforms in corporate law.

One non-profit, non-partisan organization that’s already pursuing this is Public Campaign.

Its goal: Eliminating special interest money in American politics by securing publicly-funded elections at local, state and federal levels.

According to its website:

“Twenty-five profitable Fortune 500 companies, some with a history of tax dodging, spent more on lobbying than they paid in federal taxes between 2008 and 2012….

“Over the past five years, these 25 corporations generated nearly $170 billion in combined profits and received $8.7 billion in tax rebates while paying their lobbyists over half a billion ($543 million), an average of nearly $300,000 a day.

“Based on newly released data by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), these 25 companies actually received tax refunds overall those five years.

“So most individual American families and small businesses have bigger tax bills than these corporate giants. Unfortunately, most American families and businesses do not have the lobbying operation and access these 25 companies enjoy.”

25 Companies That Spent More On Lobbyists Than Taxes | Public Campaign

Then comes the list:

Several companies on this list are well-known–and spend millions of dollars on self-glorifying ads every year to convince consumers how wonderful they are.

Among these:

  • General Electric
  • PG&E Corp.
  • Verizon Communications
  • Boeing
  • Consolidated Edison
  • MetroPCS Communications

But non-profit organizations alone can’t mount and sustain the sort of nationwide, bluntly-worded educational effort that’s long overdue.

The United States Government–through such agencies as the Justice Department–should start and maintain a nationwide advertising campaign of its own.  Its goal: To educate voters on the real-life greed and public irresponsibility of such corporations.

It should be modeled on the efforts of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to  publicize the dangers of organized crime.

During that campaign, he issued the following warning:

“If we do not, on a national scale, attack organized criminals with weapons and techniques as effective as their own, they will destroy us.”

That warning applies equally to criminal corporations.

Robert F. Kennedy

Republicans–and some Democrats–have worked tirelessly to defend the greed of the richest and most privileged 1% of America.

For example, they ingeniously dubbed the estate tax–-which affects only a tiny, rich minority–-“the death tax.”  This makes it appear to affect everyone.

As a result, millions of poor and middle-class Americans who will never have to pay a cent in estate taxes vigorously oppose it.

By doing so, they unknowingly support the greed of the very richest Americans who despise the needs of those poorer than themselves.

Democrats should thus cast reform efforts in terms that will prove equally popular.  For example:

“Corporate Criminals: Giving You the Best Congress Money Can Buy.”

“De-regulation = Let Criminals Be Criminals.”

“[Name of corporation] Pays a Lower Percentage in Taxes than You.”

“Corporations Are Greedy People, Too” 

“Owning a Corporation Shuldn’t Be a License for Treason”

Such an advertising campaign could lay the groundwork for an all-out Federal effort to reign in that greed and irresponsibility thrugh appropriate reform legislation.

It was Stephen Decatur, the naval hero of the War of 1812, who famously said: “Our country, right or wrong.”

Stephen Decatur

Billionaire tax-cheats and their Right-wing allies have coined their own motto: “My wallet–first and always.”

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BENEDICT ARNOLD–CAPITALIST HERO: PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 1, 2015 at 12:54 am

The British offered Revolutionary War General Benedict Arnold £20,000 for betraying West Point to the Crown.

Benedict Arnold

But Arnold was a piker compared to companies that are raking in literally billions of untaxed dollars by betraying the United States in its time of economic trial.

To avoid paying their legitimate share of taxes, they move their headquarters overseas to countries with reduced tax rates. In tax parlance, this is called an “inversion.”

For almost 20 years, tax-avoiding corporations fled to Caribbean countries such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. But in 2004, Congress ruled that American companies could relocate overseas if foreign shareholders owned 20% of their stock.

But increased media attention to “income inequality” has led Democratic lawmakers to press for a long-overdue reform: Raising the stock threshold to 50%.

This would make it harder for firms to abandon their country.

These are the companies abandoning the U.S. to dodge taxes – The Washington Post

Yet a more comprehensive reform package would include:

  • American companies that move their headquarters out of the United States would be officially declared “agents of a foreign power engaged in treasonous activity against the United States.”
  • Under this designation, these “foreign-owned” companies would be forbidden to sell products within the United States.
  • As “agents of a foreign power,” their assets would be subject to confiscation by agents of the Internal Revenue Service.
  • The citizenship of those Americans engaged in such treasonous activity would be revoked and they would be ordered to leave the United States on pain of criminal prosecution for treason.

Below is a chart compiled by the Ways and Means Committee Democrats of the U.S. House of Representatives.  It compiles 47 corporate “inversions” within the last decade.

From the chart’s introduction:

“Forty-seven U.S. corporations have reincorporated overseas through corporate inversions in the last 10 years, far more than during the previous 20 years combined, according to new data compiled by the Congressional Research Service [CRS].

“In total, 75 U.S. corporations have inverted since 1994 – with one other inversion occurring in 1983. What’s more, there are a dozen prospective inversion deals involving U.S. corporations looking to reincorporate overseas, according to CRS

“The new data underscores the significant increase in the number of U.S. corporations that have or are seeking to lower their U.S. taxes by reincorporating overseas.

“It also adds urgency to a legislative solution. Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin in May introduced legislation that would tighten rules to limit inversions.

“The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the legislation would save $19.5 billion over 10 years. Companion legislation was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Carl Levin.

“‘Barely a week seems to pass without news that another corporation plans to move its address overseas simply to avoid paying its fair share of U.S. taxes,’” said Ranking Member Levin.

“These corporate inversions are costing the U.S. billions of dollars and undermining vital domestic interests.

“‘We can and should address this problem immediately through legislation to tighten rules to limit the ability of corporations to simply change their address and ship U.S. tax dollars overseas.’”

New CRS Data: 47 Corporate Inversions in Last Decade | Committee on Ways and Means

Among those companies that have chosen to betray their country in its time of economic need:

  • Medtronic Pharmaceuticals.  Revenues: $16.5 billion
  • Perrigo/Elan Pharmaceuticals.  Revenues: $3.5 billion
  • Chiquita Brands.  Revenues: $3 billion
  • Liberty Global PLC Cable Company.  Revenues: $17.3 billion
  • Eaton/Cooper Power Management.  Revenues: $22 billion
  • Pentair Water Filtration.  Revenues: $7.5 billion
  • AON Insurance.  Revenues: $11.8 billion
  • Global Indemnity Insurance.  Revenues: $319 billion
  • ENSCO International (oil and gas drilling).  Revenues: $4.9 billion
  • Coviden Healthcare.  Revenues: $10.2 billion
  • Herbalife International (nutrition).  Revenues:  $4.8 billion
  • Ingersoll-Rand (industrial manufacturer).  Revenues: $12.3 billion
  • Accenture Consulting.  Revenues: $28.6 billion
  • Seagate Technology.  Revenues: $14.4 billion
  • Tycho International (manufacturing).  Revenues: $10.6 billion
  • Chicago Bridge & Iron.  Revenues: $11.1 billion
  • Transocean (offshore oil drilling).  Revenues: $9.4 billion
  • White Mountain Insurance.  Revenues: $2.3 billion

The most popular countries for these “inversions” are:

  • The Cayman Islands
  • Bermuda
  • Canada
  • United Kingdom
  • Ireland
  • Switzerland
  • Netherlands

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BENEDICT ARNOLD–CAPITALIST HERO: PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 29, 2015 at 12:08 am

On May 13, 2012, Forbes magazine ran an Op-Ed piece under the headline: “For De-Friending The U.S., Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Is an American Hero.”

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York angrily disagreed.

Chuck Shumer

“It is scary. It is a scary, absurd place where even a tax dodger who renounces America for his own 30 pieces of silver is celebrated as a patriot and an American hero.

“It is perverse. I am appalled by making heroic a man who renounces citizenship to escape a tax rate of capital gains of 15%.

“No one gets rich in America on their own,” Schumer said. “And when people do well in America, they should do well by America. I believe the vast majority of Americans believe this too.”

From that Op-Ed piece:

“Saverin’s flight from the U.S. is yet another reminder of the superiority of a national consumption tax that in a perfect world would be implemented in concert with the abolition of the I.R.S.”

It’s tempting to imagine a world without an agency to collect taxes. But it’s nightmarish to contemplate a world where there were no taxes to pay for

  • a powerful military to protect us;
  • an FBI to combat terrorism and organized crime;
  • an FAA to safely regulate airline traffic;
  • agencies to repair roads;
  • agencies to erect public buildings (such as schools, courts and libraries) and
  • agencies (such as the EPA and FDA) to protect us from predatory businessmen.

The Op-Ed piece further asserts that “you cannot limit the power of the Federal Government if its officials hold the power to tax incomes.”

Every nation in history–-whether a democracy or a dictatorship, whether capitalist, socialist or communist–-has understood the absolute necessity for collecting public revenues. And it has created means by which to do so.

“When individuals resist governmental hubris, we should exalt their actions.”

We should, in short, celebrate those who come to the United States to make fortunes they could not make anywhere else–-and then, when they do, turn their backs on their adopted country.

We should rejoice that they have stuffed billions of dollars more into their already-fat pockets and left their supposed fellow countrymen to shift for themselves.

“In an ideal world the Federal Government should implement a consumption tax.  And if, as a result, poor people suffer because they’re taxed at the same level as rich ones, fine. 

“Everyone should know how much it costs to run the government.”

Of course we should have a “regressive” tax that “hits low incomes at the same percentage as high ones.”  

Of course, those who are barely able to feed their families or can’t afford medical care should pay as much in taxes as a rich parasite who, like Mitt Romney, throws out $10,000 bets like so many dimes.

“If the Federal Government can’t fund all its programs because rich people like Saverin refuse to pay taxes, then U.S. taxpayers generally will have to make good for the missing taxes.  It’s the fault of Congress that it cannot put an end to any program.”

For billionaires like Saverin and the well-heeled types who subscribe to Forbes, it doesn’t matter that “fewer government programs will achieve funding.”

San Simeon, estate of William Randolph Hearst

Greed-obsessed “swells” like Saverin:

  • don’t depend on Medicare–they can easily afford the best doctors money can buy;
  • don’t have to depend on Social Security to see them through old age;
  • don’t have to worry about standing in food bank lines;
  • don’t need to rely on police departments–if they’re threatened, they can easily afford round-the-clock bodyguards;
  • don’t need consumer protection agencies; if they’re victimized by unscrupulous businessmen, they can hire platoons of lawyers and private detectives.

A contemporary writer who warned of America’s abandonment by its privileged classes was Christopher Lasch. In his posthumously published last book, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy [2005] he wrote:

The Revolt Of The Elites And The Betrayal Of Democracy

“There has always been a privileged class, even in America. But it has never been so dangerously isolated from its surroundings.

“George Bush’s [the president who served from 1989 to 1992] wonderment, when he saw for the first time an electronic scanning device at a supermarket checkout counter, revealed…the chasm that divides the privileged classes from the rest of the nation.”

Until recently, wrote Lasch, American cultural and economic elites willingly shouldered civic responsibilities.  But in post-modern capitalism, a professional elite defines itself as entirely separate from civic concerns.

The new elites flourish through enterprises that operate across international borders.  The rich in America have more in common with the fellows in Europe or Asia than with the vast majority of their fellow Americans who don’t share their comfortable surroundings.

Thus, the privileged class in America–-the top 1%–has separated itself from the crumbling public services and industrial cities that are used and lived in by the rest of the country’s citizens.

Even worse, our society has condoned their exalted status. The dust jacket blurb for James Patterson’s crime-thriller, NYPD Red, says it best:

“NYPD Red is a special task force charged with protecting the interests of Manhattan’s wealthiest and most powerful citizens.”

It’s time to protect the 99% of America’s citizens against the predations of its 1% wealthiest.

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BENEDICT ARNOLD–CAPITALIST HERO: PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 28, 2015 at 12:28 am

On May 15, 2012, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin renounced his U.S. citizenship.

Born in Brazil, the 30-year-old Saverin became a U.S. citizen in 1998 but had lived in Singapore since 2009.

Eduardo Saverin 

Giving up his citizenship allowed him to avoid paying taxes on billions of dollars on capital gains when Facebook launched its IPO on May 18, 2012.  Singapore does not have a capital gains tax.

And America’s fascist Right couldn’t have been happier.

Take Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing talk-show host.  The Rush Limbaugh Show airs throughout the U.S. on over 400 stations and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United States.

When Limbaugh speaks, his “dittohead” audience listens—and acts as he decrees.

Rush Limbaugh

“So if it’s a more favorable tax haven that you can find elsewhere and you go there,” asked Limbaugh, “why is it automatically that you are unpatriotic?

“Why is it automatically that you are a coward, that you are not paying your fair share? It’s this whole class envy thing rearing its head again.”

For Limbaugh, the villain isn’t a billionaire who turns his back on the country that gave him the opportunity to become one.  No, the villain lies in those who believe that even wealthy businessmen should behave like patriots–instead of parasites.

“But [Barack Obama is] out there demonizing successful people every day,” said Limbaugh, “targeting successful people every day, running a presidential campaign based on class warfare, trying to get the 99% of the country who are not in the top 1% to hate the 1%, to literally despise ’em.”

Consider the implications of this:

On November 1, 2011, Forbes magazine reported that, in 2007, the richest 1% of the American population owned 34.6% of the country’s total wealth, and the next 19% owned 50.5%.

Thus, the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the country’s wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 15%.

According to Limbaugh’s philosophy, the bottom 80% of the popularion owning 15% of the country’s wealth should pay homage to the top 20% of Americans who own 85% of the country’s wealth.

In short, they should “know their place” and not expect the moneyed few to pay their fair share of taxes.

Of course, this is to be expected of Limbaugh—whose own wealth makes him a multi-millionaire.  In 2001, U.S. News & World Report noted that Limbaugh had an eight-year contract, with Clear Channel Communications, for $31.25 million a year.

And according to a July 2, 2008, Matt Drudge column, Limbaugh signed a contract extension through 2016 that is worth over $400 million.

And Limbaugh wasn’t alone in his praise for Saverin.

Another right-winger who defends those who run out on their country is anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.

On May 7, 2012, two Democratic Senators—Chuck Schumer of New York and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania—introduced legislation designed to tax expatriates even after they have left the country.

Their “Ex-PATRIOT Act” would impose a mandatory 30% tax on American investments for those who renounce their citizenship and would also prohibit individuals like Saverin from re-entering the country.

“Saverin has turned his back from the country that welcomed him, kept him safe, educated him and helped him become a billionaire,” Schumer said at a press conference. He added that it was time to “de-friend” the Facebook co-founder.

Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATF) said the targeting people that turn in their passports reminded him of regimes that had driven people out of the country, only to confiscate their wealth at the door.

Grover Norquist

“I think Schumer can probably find the legislation to do this,” said Norquist. “It existed in Germany in the 1930s and Rhodesia in the ’70s and in South Africa as well. He probably just plagiarized it and translated it from the original German.”

On the floor of the Senate, Schumer denounced Norquist in return:

“I know a thing or two about what the Nazis did. Some of my relatives were killed by them.

“Saying that a person who made their fortune specifically because of the positive elements in American society, in turn, has a responsibility to do right by America is not even on the same planet as comparing to what Nazis did to Jews.”

Chuck Schumer

Schumer added that he found it troubling that conservatives would lionize someone like Saverin, who was called “an American hero” by Forbes magazine.

On May 13, 2012, Forbes–which describes itself as “The Capitalist Tool”–had run an Op-Ed piece under the headline: “For De-Friending The U.S., Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Is an American Hero.”

“Can you believe it?” asked Schumer.  “An American hero? Renouncing your citizenship now qualifies as heroic for the hard right-wing?”

“This has gone so far, this idolatry they have taken to such an extreme end, they make Eduardo Saverin into their patron saint.  In the name of low taxes for the wealthy, they have lionized an inherently unpatriotic person.”