Dammit, wasted time, effort and eloquence on Serlin again.
After getting eyestrain reading all of the posts, I would add my 2 cents here.
I agree that many, not all, huge corporations have through price fixing, governmental lobbies, down right lying to the public, manipulating advertisements, cover ups, whisper campaign’s, often illegal deals and questionable practices reached such a powerful stage that they can control aspects of congress, therefore our laws and even, to some degree, our lives.
A company called Post Masters, which I nearly worked for, showed up with same day courier service, kicked the crap out of Federal Express, Airborne Express, UPS and most other overnight companies. These companies lost a lot of business, which meant they dumped a lot of employees, especially in areas where they used subcontractors. Post Masters hired owner operators to subcontract the areas, who then bought trucks, hired drivers, established the logistics and took the majority of the basic responsibility. A whole lot of private money went into this nationwide operation from little speculators who busted butt in hopes of making a good living in a few years.
All money was paid to the home office, who paid the subcontractors, who paid for their trucks and drivers. As expected, profits were minimal for the subcontractors at first.
Federal went on a hiring restriction, dumped older employees who were getting close to retirement to avoid having to pay out lots of benefits, reduced starting pay, reduced the amount of raises. The others did the same, plus drove the workers harder, which in the long run caused people to quit and increased the percentage of accidents involving drivers.
This went on for a couple of years. Then, one day Post Masters folded up and left, leaving thousands of subcontractors owed millions, who then owed money to drivers and to the companies they bought their trucks and fuel from. Plus they left the other major companies staggering, most of which returned to normal business, but, having found they could force people to work for less pay, did not return to normal conditions.
Eventually, it came out that Post Masters was a huge tax dump for several major sports teams’ players. Like, they were not making enough money. Post Masters was not supposed to be viable. Baseball, football, basketball and soccer players made a bundle in tax write-offs. Across the nation, thousands of ‘suckers’ lost their homes, businesses, jobs, and went into bankruptcy. The action cost long time employees of the other companies their jobs and retirements, made life much harder for those who remained, and even drove some of their subcontractors out of business.
Nothing was ever done to the major corporation who initiated Post Masters. They made their money, so did the investors. I think there might be some lawsuits still going on, but those will drag out for years and probably never be settled. Not one sports team was ever brought to task over this. Not one investor was ever held even partially responsible for wrecking lives and ruining businesses.
It was one of the biggest scams ever pulled by big business and hardly even discussed on the news. Shortly after, a major investment company started another ‘tax dump,’ which was to provide investments in a small residential community out West that was being built. The community was not intended to be viable nor even to be completed. That one was exposed and shut down, but similar ones have popped up, including one where I live.
I would consider that as a big business out of control when it can legally destroy the lives of thousands to generate tax cuts. Nor do I consider that good business, as some seem to. I can’t even imagine the millions that little scam cost so many innocent people who were just doing their jobs and trying to earn a living.
No, it is not. If I voted for Nader, say (I didn’t even vote, but anyway), because I supported every one of his stances and then Gore got elected (after the eighth and final recount ::snicker:
how do you figure I voluntarily entered into the government? Are you saying I should just swallow my pride and go, “Well, that’s how the system works.” I’m sorry, I don’t see that. The government will do things without consent of all individuals, corporations can only survive by people voluntarily agreeing with them. If I disagree with the government on an issue, its a fine, jail, or something inbetween for me. If I disagree with Wal-Mart? Nothing happens except they don’t realize a profit from me; I shop at a competitor’s store.
The example given about this shipping company is touching, but I guess you failed exactly to show me why this matters at all. What, the workers were coerced into employment? Prevented from leaving? And if big business was so evil, why didn’t the other shipping companies stop this one from ever emerging like oligarchies are so oft accused of doing?
The fact that wages were dropped is inconsequential. Wages are artificially high in most of the labor force due to union interference. Apart from that, even, why would a company want to happily re-hire a deserter? Corporations like loyalty too, just as much as the employees expect it.
What you fail to see is that, in investing, there are no guarantees. As unhappy as it makes me to see people suffer, they entered into an agreement knowing full well that if it folded so did they. And if they didn’t know that, then I feel even less sorry for them.
neither is a race. But it is made up of people. Hurt corporate america and you hurt me, as a member of such. When you take away money from my company, it has to come from somewhere, and ultimately, it comes from the people.
As for “showering the rich with tax breaks”: so it is a good idea to make 10% of the population pay for the other 90%? IT is not about showering the successful with tax breaks, it is about a more equitable distribution of the tax burden.
quick example. I had two employees at one point. One made $30 k, one made $25k. The $30 K employee made good decisions, married a nice lady and put off having kids. THe $25K emp. had kids with drug dealers and felons, used grugs and in general made bad decisions. She brought home $25k and the other emp. brough home $22, in part to pay or the social programs and EIC of the $25k emp.
Don’t kiull the goose that lays the golden egg out of class envy and prejudice against corporations.
Mr. Zambezi: *As for “showering the rich with tax breaks”: so it is a good idea to make 10% of the population pay for the other 90%? *
It seems to me like an excellent idea to make the part of the population that has most of the money provide most of the tax revenues. If most of the money is heavily concentrated within a small group of people, then that group will naturally pay a larger per capita share of taxes. If Bill Gates all by himself owned 50% of the national wealth, I wouldn’t consider that he was being mistreated by not being allowed to pay the same flat tax rate as people who own a thousandth or a million of what he owns.
IT is not about showering the successful with tax breaks, it is about a more equitable distribution of the tax burden.
Your idea of “equitable” seems to be colored by the idea that it’s the taxation of individual entities that ought to be made more equitable. If we think of taxation in terms of taxing income and wealth, rather than the people who happen to own variously sized chunks of income and wealth, it is obviously more equitable to take bigger tax cuts out of the bigger chunks.
*quick example. I had two employees at one point. One made $30 k, one made $25k. The $30 K employee made good decisions, married a nice lady and put off having kids. THe $25K emp. had kids with drug dealers and felons, used grugs and in general made bad decisions. She brought home $25k and the other emp. brough home $22, in part to pay or the social programs and EIC of the $25k emp. *
Man, I love “Mr. Zambezi logic.” Stripping your example of its extraneous moral outrage over drugs, crime, bastardy, and taxation, what I learn from it is that the employee who had kids got more tax breaks and hence had, despite a lower salary, a higher net income than the employee who was married with no kids. Good heavens! Our massively unjust tax code and social system give financial breaks to people who are supporting children! What are we thinking?? :rolleyes: Yes, it’s a pity that such tax breaks sometimes go to people who make bad decisions, and that the absence of them sometimes makes life harder for people who make good ones. But unless you’re going to require people to be screened for social responsibility and lawfulness before permitting them to reproduce, it’s not really possible to avoid all such cases.
Don’t kiull the goose that lays the golden egg out of class envy and prejudice against corporations.
As jshore pointed out, plenty of people like himself who make damn good salaries working for corporations are still able to recognize the practical disadvantages of undertaxing corporations and the wealthy. That’s not class envy and anti-corporate prejudice, that’s simply common sense.
aynrandlover: The example given about this shipping company is touching, but I guess you failed exactly to show me why this matters at all.
Seemed to me that GTO’s example matters very much as an illustration of how a corporate venture that is intended by its backers to fail can scam employees and investors who believed that it was founded in the hopes of making it a successful business. That’s not quite the same as accepting that any investment may fail. If the owners had warned the people they dealt with that they meant the whole thing to collapse in a year or so to get the tax write-off, then I’d agree with you that the people who lost money on it had only themselves to blame. But somehow I think that wasn’t what happened. So are you saying it’s okay for corporations to fundamentally misrepresent their purposes and attempt to entice others into financial loss just so that their backers can get tax write-offs? Sure sounds like “businesses out of control” to me.
*Originally posted by Kimstu *
It is a pity, I agree. What’s even more a pity is not that we help people who make such mistakes with our tax system, but that we are, in effect, punishing the people who don’t make those mistakes. Psychology names negative reinforcement as providing pain for bad instead of rewarding good, but what is providing pain for good and rewarding bad?
Uh-huh. Well, I call it stealing when people take my money from me without my consent for whatever reason. I don’t know what you call it. Here’s what Webster calls it:
Steal:
[ul][li]To take the property of another.[/li][li]To take away by force or unjust means.[/li][/ul]
Interestingly enough, my dictionary would not allow me to call the tax-man a theif, because the definition given inplied legality, not just removal of stuff. Illuminatus, here we come. ::rolleyes::
So, criminals are thieves, and the the government just steals from its citizens. Its common sense! What else would they do?
aynrandlover, who did not put words in Kimstu’s mouth this time FOR SURE
Oh, why were they doing this? I seem to forget…OH yeees, a TAX scam, as in, avoiding taxes. Who was it that told me if we eliminated taxes we wouldn’t see this? I guess someone else proved it for me.
To think, technology created big business, and the government created big business scams.
arl: *Oh, why were they doing this? I seem to forget…OH yeees, a TAX scam, as in, avoiding taxes. Who was it that told me if we eliminated taxes we wouldn’t see this? I guess someone else proved it for me. To think, technology created big business, and the government created big business scams. *
Why yes, arl, if we had no taxes, we would have no tax scams. Good point. (If we had no heads, we’d never get headaches, either.) Interesting reasoning: “Corporations lie to employees and investors and con them into losing money in order to take advantage of the tax laws…It’s the government’s fault!! Kill the government!”
(By the way, what do you mean by “technology created big business”? There were powerful corporate oligopolies and monopolies long before the modern technology industries.)
Do you think, then, that if we had no taxes and no government (or vastly reduced versions of both), that businesses would somehow cease to be “out of control” and would not unfairly exploit consumers and workers? How you figure? [Sits back and waits for the standard libertarian rant about the automatic self-regulating power of the “free” market in which all private actions are described as fully consensual and voluntary and all government actions are described as unjust and coercive.]
Oh, c’mon; really, we’ve gone over all of this before. You disingenuously pretend not to know that “coercion” is the term in libertarian philosophy that is used to mean initial force. Initial force is the only kind of ethical force that libertarianism opposes on principle. I’ll assume you didn’t know that because I’ll assume you are honest. Harumph!
(Sorry. Somebody has to make statements like the above while Lib’s away from the boards! 
)
Thanks, xen. Apparently it is not permissible to trust people and then punish after they commit a crime, it is much better to just punish them outright on the thought that they can commit a crime.
Kimstu, it might be implied in my post that I don’t want any taxes. This is not the case. I don’t feel that a large government can exist on donations alone, but I do feel that a large government can function efficiently without controlling the economy, without regulating business, and by using their force in response to the excersize of immoral commercial practice. They can do this with a fair flat tax because with deregulation whole segments of the government don’t need to exist, and thus don’t need huge taxes to pay for them.
Moreover, this puts more people in the work force actually producing, which only leads to greater creation of wealth (something the government cannot do if it is to operate at a loss, which is what governments do anyway) and more revenue for the small taxes the government is already collecting. This means the government, collecting their moderate tax and finally befriending producers, can continue to grow and provide the court system and roadwork and everything else a centralized entity can do more efficiently.
Where Big Business went wrong was in thinking they could befriend politicians in the first place.
As for the OP
I pose the counter question, what made us think that a limited government could do it any better than free thinking individuals?
(Thanks, xeno. I needed that. ;))
Wow, arl, that was more fair, calm, and reasonable than I’ve come to expect from many of the libertarian persuasion (not including folks like Gilligan and waterj2, of course). Thank you. Just one question:
*Where Big Business went wrong was in thinking they could befriend politicians in the first place. *
How do you mean, “went wrong”? It’s actually been a terrific strategy for them. As Billionaires for Bush (or Gore) humorously but accurately notes, corporate “investment” in legislative activity can pay off in the tens-of-thousands-to-one range:
And it often is, as the accompanying figures about specific lobbying “investments” show. So my question is: what makes you think that less regulatory oversight would make corporations less likely to screw the consumer, the employee, the competition, and the public in general? Please note that I am not an anti-corporate fanatic convinced that corporations are evil; but I am quite firmly convinced that corporations’ overriding purpose is to make money (duh), and that breaking the law and/or giving those in weaker positions a raw deal is often an excellent way to make money (double duh). If you say that the power of consumer choice and the free operation of markets are all that’s required to keep people from getting a raw deal from corporations, then I’m afraid I’m not the one who’s being naive here.
Ah, you’d have to catch me in some other threads. I lose control as easy as the rest of them haha
The point you bring up, Kimstu, is exactly why I feel the government should be out of the economy in the first place. I don’t know if it was in this thread, but I quoted some author whose name I can’t remember or I’d give him credit, “When buying and selling can be legislated the first thing bought and sold are legislators.” This is the corruption government-controlled economy brings with it. Obviously, the politicians aren’t doing as great as we would expect, the dirty [expletive deleted]
Nothing makes me think there would be less bad guys out there. Laws don’t eliminate crime, either. From a business standpoint, reputation is essential. The longer a business is in operation, the more careful it has to be. In a free market, what we have is the businessman’s desire for more money driving him to higher means of efficiency and integrity.
There will always be businesses that are about scamming people. I don’t know if you’ve noticed (I’m sure you have) but regulation hasn’t eliminated this. Deregulation will not either, but it will be more difficult for these businesses to get started in such a “cut-throat” or “dog eat dog” economy. They will have to stand up against two forces: giants with reliability, and small businesses with a loyal customer base.
As an example, take fast food. McDonald’s, on a national level, has its popularity for mediocre food that is reasonably the same everywhere. Consumers get predictability. On a local level, McDonalds has a strong loyal base. (I worked for a local franchise chain for 5 years, trust me). The same folks stop in daily. If we were to have a case of food poisoning, I guarantee the loyalty would vanish very quickly. In no way has regulation accomplished anything to provide better food or anything to the customer.
Had an outbreak occurred, there would be fines, food liscences revoked, AND a lawsuit, and customers would drop. Without regulation there would be a lawsuit and a customer drop. In both cases, the restaraunt is done for and vengence (read: compensation )is done. In the former case, the government gets a cut of the misery for having done nothing. The regulation in no way makes people smarter, more trustworthy, or better. I really, honestly, have no idea why regulation is there at all.
Here’s what I think about unions. They are not acting to aid the worker in the long run, but destroy the business they work for.
Anyway, I can elaborate more if necessary or requested
For those who are concerned with such things, I’d like to point out a difference between libertarians such as myself and Libertarian (not entirely sure of Gilligan’s position on the issue) and objevectivists. We consider all coercion to be wrong, while the objectivists consider a government with a monopoly on coercion to be necessary to best protect individual rights.
I’ll elaborate on my feelings about government interference. Basically, I would divide my distaste for government power (except for the Navy, the Navy is good and deserves more money) into two related causes. The first is the Law of Unintended Consequences. The methods the government tries usually become subverted and cause additional problems. Aside from smallpox, government efforts to cure the ills of society have never really eliminated them. Plus, the political process rewards good intentions more than realistic solutions.
The other is the principle that evil can only use the tools you give it. If I, as a meek and powerless individual, consent to the government having more power over me, I should not expect to always have the reins in my hand. As I see it, my power is maximized when everyone has objective and equal limitations on theirs. If I allow myself to be taxed, someone with more power than me will find a way to get his hands on some of that, hence corporate welfare.
Yeah, it does require a good deal of faith in “the invisible hand” to seriously advocate removing government from the picture, but I’ve read enough on economics, and seen enough of the world to feel comfortable with that. And there’s always the Cato Institute to provide examples of how some of these principles relate to real life and policies.
Incidentally, when are we scheduled for the next periodic innundation of GD with libertarian topics? It’s been a while, and you guys (and girls) know how much I love debating with you.
arl: As an example, take fast food. McDonald’s, on a national level, has its popularity for mediocre food that is reasonably the same everywhere. Consumers get predictability. On a local level, McDonalds has a strong loyal base. (I worked for a local franchise chain for 5 years, trust me). The same folks stop in daily. If we were to have a case of food poisoning, I guarantee the loyalty would vanish very quickly. In no way has regulation accomplished anything to provide better food or anything to the customer.
Oh?
From the 12/21/99 Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
arl, I think you may be a little bit naive about the vigilance of corporations on behalf of public safety (and long-term reputations as opposed to short-term profits) and the ability or willingness of consumers to stay adequately informed about all the potential threats to it. I’m sure your local McDonalds franchise was a thoroughly conscientious and reputable one, but unfortunately not every business is like that. Health and safety precautions are often cumbersome and costly to comply with, and sometimes if a company can cut corners on them, it will. There is more food poisoning and other contamination being unintentionally spread by the fast-food industry than you might like to believe, and it doesn’t always produce the libertarian happy ending of eliminating the offending company in favor of a more responsible competitor. Personally, I believe my chances of getting sick from commercially provided food would be a lot higher if it weren’t for FDA requirements and Board of Health inspections, so I can’t agree with you that “regulation hasn’t accomplished anything to provide better food to the consumer.”
Having been inspected before, I can assure you it isn’t anything exciting protecting the ever-precious consumer from the big bad corporation. Inspections occur twice a year and are announced. Announced, see? If there have been complaints then there are more inspections, like, one more. So out of 363 days of operation, you can be rest assured that two of them are safe as can be.
First, a point about our tax system, since I see a bunch of talk about “flat tax”. The fact is that if you include ALL federal, state, and local taxes and not just income tax, our tax system is pretty flat now. Here’s a quote from a book I am reading called “What Government Can Do: Dealing with Poverty and Inequality” [probably not one of the first titles on the Cato Institute reading list ;)] by Benjamin Page and James Simmons:
They go on to note that by 1985, “any progressivity in U.S. taxes had almost completely vanished. Even under the most optimistic assumptions, effective rates rose from 21.9% on the first income decile to just 25.5% on the top 1% of incomes. Under the least progressive assumptions, the tax system had become significantly regressive.” Since then, things have been made a little bit more progressive for the federal income tax, although this has been partially offset by increasing reliance on payroll and sales taxes. [By the way, as you might gather from the context, progressivity in the above is defined as a tax rate…as a percentage of total income…that increases with increasing income and regressivity as one that decreases with increasing income.]
So, if problems aren’t completely eliminated then government has failed? Isn’t that a high standard to hold anybody up to? Clearly we should get rid of our military…Why, they weren’t even able to stop some two-bit terrorists with some explosives from blowing up one of our ships, for God’s sake! The fact is that the “war on poverty” was quite successful when it was waged…Poverty rates dropped quite dramatically before going back up when we backed off on it. (I can try to find cites on this if you want.) And, Social Security greatly decreased poverty of the elderly.
I am getting sort of confused here…Why is it that “voluntary contracts” entered into with corporations are good and wholesome but “voluntary contracts” entered into to form self-government or to form a labor union are bad?
Well, what you call “a good deal of faith” I would call “a good deal of naiveity and willful suspension of disbelief”. Ah…the good old Cato Institute. If you can’t believe everything they say, who can you believe?!?
Well, it seems to be starting now!
Perhaps if the government was trying, say, to stop drug use and there were (comparable to the terrorist) an isolated incidence of drug use in Ohio. Then, perhaps, I might concede, “Hey, there’s something to this government controlling everything after all!” This is not the case. Crime is still widespread. Drug use is still widespread. There are still mild recessions (but nothing like the big one when the government first got involved!). Should I point out all the problems in society that the government is combatting?
The largest problem in the government regulating business is that businesses need long term plans. When corporations know that the government can pass a regulation or law that will halt growth, it becomes harder to justify long-term plans. This slows growth.
The socialistic goals you ascribe as successes are now eating holes in our economy. Social security? Employers pay into that much more than is ever taken out of your taxes. With that money think of how they could match your 401K plans! When a company has more money, it can pay its employees more in hopes of getting the best workers. I’d rather accept the consequences of not preparing for my future than having my present swept away to combat problems that aren’t disappearing.
Yup…after the Great Depression, government got much more into the business of regulating the economy…And you know what? There hasn’t been another great depression since!
Oh boy, you just hit a very sore spot so you are going to have to deal with a little diatribe here: What freakin’ planet do you guys live on, for God’s sake? Corporate America and long-range thinking? Boy, that ought to be good for big laughs at the lunch table tomorrow at the Fortune 500 company I work for! Would that our company would actually try to do some long-range thinking! (And, no, it ain’t all the government’s fault that they are not!) See, there is this magical phrase called “changing business conditions” and top management just chanting this means, “I can justify any about-face I want to make…I don’t have to be accountable for any decision I made more than a couple of months ago!” Last year’s “most important R&D project” is this year’s cancelled project, to point out just one example!
You libertarian-types live in some magical fantasyland where corporations have no petty and counter-productive bureaucracies. No, no, no, that only exists in government. You just mutter a little mumbo-jumbo about the “invisible hand” and “survival of the fittest in the marketplace” and all this stuff just magically disappears. Now, we liberals may be a bit naive sometimes, but I don’t think that we ever have nearly the naiveity about the effectiveness and efficiency of government that you have about the effectiveness and efficiency of the market and corporate America!
In the 1980s, Americans turned into the ‘I-got-mine’ generation, concentrating on individual wealth with a fervor not seen since the 1920s and basically ignoring the trials and hardships of the many less fortunate who had become victims of the late 1970s economic crunch. Corporate America was delighted.
Major banking institutions, which used to understand when a person fell on hard times and often would extend loan or mortgage payments, even remove interest rates or late penalties, capitalized quite well on the economic crisis which swept the US. For one thing, even with the volatile and erratic oil prices, they invested heavily in the product, a move which actually pushed prices up at the pump.
Instead of working with the many small loan recipients and home owners who had been hit by the unsettling times, the Banks started calling in their loans and notes. They sold mortgages to companies in package deals at a profit, then those companies foreclosed on the properties, turned around and placed them on the public market with an investment advertising campaign directed towards the ‘yuppie’ market.
Remember those ads? Thousands of repossessed properties for sale. Buy now for a song, slap on a coat of paint, resell for a major profit and buy more homes and do the same. Capitalize on the hardships and misfortunes of others. Instead of waiting for people to be able to start making full payments again and possibly not making the normal profits they were used to, banks kicked people out of homes and sold them.
Everyone made a profit except for the original owners.
The result was that thousands of people hit the Social Services, causing a major drain on the system, the ranks of the dispossessed homeless swelled, crime went up accordingly, and the employment market promptly changed to a harsh ‘Employers Market.’ That means, with more people available for work than there were jobs, employers started people at as low a wage as possible, were able to stop offering benefits, could intimidate workers into working harder than they should have and even violate labor laws by making it known that there was plenty of help ‘out there’ to do the work.
Many a major company expected various parts of the work force to ‘voluntarily’ work additional hours for free.
As a result, by the time the dust had started to settle in the 90s, the major banking institutions had grown tremendously in strength and wealth, over ran many small financial institutions who were offering competition, locked up major chunks of previously unavailable real estate, suffered very few losses and were able to push interest rates up. I recall when if a loan company charged over 18% interest, it was real close to racketeering. Now, your charge cards and bank loans can charge up 22%.
The major banking institutions made major money off of the hardships of people, contributing to the devastation of lifestyles and inhibiting the slow recovery of many. Plus sister corporations dealing in promoting ‘distressed real estate’ encouraged note holders to not work with people in extending payments by offering them quick profits with less delay.
There was a time when banks would suspend payments of loans to assist people in recovering rather than take over ownership of properties that then would not move well in a depressed market. The greed oriented 1980s found a way around that by playing the newly wealthy off of the newly poor.
I do not consider it to be shrewd or good business for corporations to heavily capitalize on the misery of a large chunk of the attendant population in the name of profit.
A classic example is the Swiss Banks who readily accepted billions in Nazi wealth, then fought returning it to the rightful owners for decades or ‘disposed’ of thousands of accounts belonging to Jews who could not produce the confusing array of documents required by them to claim what was theirs. The banking system profited from the massive suffering caused by WW2.