Minor Axis
Well-Known Member
If you vote for a Republican President this time I'm trying to figure out why. Yes, it's got to be because their heart is where you want a President to be, low taxes for the rich, big talk about religion but not acting like Christians, huge number of scandals from money grubbing bastards and two faced homophobes, those values?
In addition, this Republican Administration lied us into a war that has lasted longer than WWII, they have raped the taxpayers Treasury war with no bid contracts, and they have done their best to deregulate the U.S. Government leading to things like, I don't know, the burst housing bubble, 90 banks on the bust (as in going bust) list, degradation of the environment, a non-existant energy policy (other than go-drill-more-wells) and the wreck of the U.S Economy?
And if you are one of those who think labor unions are bad, compared to this Administration you can have a real laugh or get sober, get real, and realize the real threat to our country is currently in charge of it.
For your consideration: Deregulation: The Global War on Labor. BTW, this article blames, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, but W most of all. Labor, yes, most of you reading this in the U.S. is under attack. You've got your values and you've got your pocketbook. I guarantee that unless you are a millionaire, you are not a member of the Republican club. And if you are a worker voting Republican, you're just a sucker helping the big boys achieve their goals while shooting yourself in the economic foot.
Can you attest to any of the following? And if you are down on unions, I guarantee that unions and a pro-labor government is what got most of your parents decent jobs.
While the tax, trade, wage and benefits policies were being implemented top down during the two decade between 1980-2006 under four presidents from both parties, deregulated corporate policies and practices that further contributing to the growing income inequality gap were being simultaneously overhauled from the bottom-up, shifting from full-time, permanent jobs to part-time, temporary, and independent contract work. Growing consistently since the 1980s, more than 44 million of the 137 million employed workforce in the US, close to one third, are now part-time, temporary, and contract workers earning 60-70% of the pay of full-time workers and typically 20% of the benefits.
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Management promoted de-unionization policies launched in the 1980s resulted in the decline of union membership from 22% of the workforce in 1980 to barely 7% in the private sector in 2006. Two decades of corporate job outsourcing policies sent millions of high-paying, liberal benefit jobs in manufacturing, technology, and business professional services overseas, a loss filled with lower paying domestic service jobs—frequently part-time, temp, and contract jobs. Corporate fringe benefits policies shifted fundamentally during the same period, resulting in the dismantling of more than 100,000 traditional pension plans and their replacement with cheaper cost 401-K plans; the discontinuance and/or shifting of costs of health insurance plan coverage; widespread unilateral corporate elimination of retiree health benefits; reduction of paid vacation and other paid time off; and other similar company-driven cost reduction measures.
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Health Care and Pension
Government agency rule changes allowed corporations to extract pension fund surpluses for general business use and/or to delay properly funding pension plans. Government bodies like the National Labor Relations Board directly aided corporate efforts to de-unionize while government de-regulation and privatization of entire industries further decimated union membership ranks and undermined union bargaining effectiveness.
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Given the magnitudes of these income shifts from workers, it is not surprising that corporate profits have increased at double digit rates every quarter for the last three and a half years to more than $1.4 trillion; or that CEOs and the top 5 managers of US corporations have increased their total share of national income from around $50 billion a year in 2001 to more than $140 billion a year in just five years; or that the wealthiest 1% (1.1 million) households have seen their share of total national income reported grow to levels of 20-22% of total national income, levels not seen since the gilded age of the 1920s.
National income that passes through the conduit of the corporation is disbursed to shareholders, senior managers, and CEOs in the form of dividends, interest payment, capital gains, and various forms of deferred and total compensation. What is not disbursed may be accumulated and expended on corporate expansion (i.e., invested) or held by the corporation as retained profits or used for share buy-backs to lift share prices. Official figures for retained profits by US corporations are now at the level of more than $500 billion a year, about $200 billion a year higher than long term historical averages.
And those figures only represent retained profits that are reported. Largely unreported are additional profits by multinational corporations that get transferred by various accounting means to their offshore subsidiaries and affiliates and then held there as un-repatriated profits for years to avoid US taxes. The precise totals for such un-repatriated profits are not known, either by the IRS or the US government. Morgan Stanley in 2005 reported that the total in offshore un-repatriated profits held by US corporations amounted to about $700 billion.
A third and even more opaque category of profits consists essentially of unknown profits from domestic US or foreign operations that are diverted to offshore tax shelters and never reported to the IRS. The latest unofficial indication of the level of income held today in offshore tax shelters is about $7 trillion, up from $250 billion in the mid-1980s. At least $4 trillion of that $7 trillion is held by US corporations and wealthy households, the mix between corporate and individuals remaining unknown. An annual additional net flow of income from the US into such shelters is easily around $200 billion a year, not counting interest earned annually on the $4 trillion already there
If you believe any of this, you should be shitting a brick right about now...
In addition, this Republican Administration lied us into a war that has lasted longer than WWII, they have raped the taxpayers Treasury war with no bid contracts, and they have done their best to deregulate the U.S. Government leading to things like, I don't know, the burst housing bubble, 90 banks on the bust (as in going bust) list, degradation of the environment, a non-existant energy policy (other than go-drill-more-wells) and the wreck of the U.S Economy?
And if you are one of those who think labor unions are bad, compared to this Administration you can have a real laugh or get sober, get real, and realize the real threat to our country is currently in charge of it.
For your consideration: Deregulation: The Global War on Labor. BTW, this article blames, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, but W most of all. Labor, yes, most of you reading this in the U.S. is under attack. You've got your values and you've got your pocketbook. I guarantee that unless you are a millionaire, you are not a member of the Republican club. And if you are a worker voting Republican, you're just a sucker helping the big boys achieve their goals while shooting yourself in the economic foot.
Can you attest to any of the following? And if you are down on unions, I guarantee that unions and a pro-labor government is what got most of your parents decent jobs.
While the tax, trade, wage and benefits policies were being implemented top down during the two decade between 1980-2006 under four presidents from both parties, deregulated corporate policies and practices that further contributing to the growing income inequality gap were being simultaneously overhauled from the bottom-up, shifting from full-time, permanent jobs to part-time, temporary, and independent contract work. Growing consistently since the 1980s, more than 44 million of the 137 million employed workforce in the US, close to one third, are now part-time, temporary, and contract workers earning 60-70% of the pay of full-time workers and typically 20% of the benefits.
///
Management promoted de-unionization policies launched in the 1980s resulted in the decline of union membership from 22% of the workforce in 1980 to barely 7% in the private sector in 2006. Two decades of corporate job outsourcing policies sent millions of high-paying, liberal benefit jobs in manufacturing, technology, and business professional services overseas, a loss filled with lower paying domestic service jobs—frequently part-time, temp, and contract jobs. Corporate fringe benefits policies shifted fundamentally during the same period, resulting in the dismantling of more than 100,000 traditional pension plans and their replacement with cheaper cost 401-K plans; the discontinuance and/or shifting of costs of health insurance plan coverage; widespread unilateral corporate elimination of retiree health benefits; reduction of paid vacation and other paid time off; and other similar company-driven cost reduction measures.
///
Health Care and Pension
Government agency rule changes allowed corporations to extract pension fund surpluses for general business use and/or to delay properly funding pension plans. Government bodies like the National Labor Relations Board directly aided corporate efforts to de-unionize while government de-regulation and privatization of entire industries further decimated union membership ranks and undermined union bargaining effectiveness.
///
Given the magnitudes of these income shifts from workers, it is not surprising that corporate profits have increased at double digit rates every quarter for the last three and a half years to more than $1.4 trillion; or that CEOs and the top 5 managers of US corporations have increased their total share of national income from around $50 billion a year in 2001 to more than $140 billion a year in just five years; or that the wealthiest 1% (1.1 million) households have seen their share of total national income reported grow to levels of 20-22% of total national income, levels not seen since the gilded age of the 1920s.
National income that passes through the conduit of the corporation is disbursed to shareholders, senior managers, and CEOs in the form of dividends, interest payment, capital gains, and various forms of deferred and total compensation. What is not disbursed may be accumulated and expended on corporate expansion (i.e., invested) or held by the corporation as retained profits or used for share buy-backs to lift share prices. Official figures for retained profits by US corporations are now at the level of more than $500 billion a year, about $200 billion a year higher than long term historical averages.
And those figures only represent retained profits that are reported. Largely unreported are additional profits by multinational corporations that get transferred by various accounting means to their offshore subsidiaries and affiliates and then held there as un-repatriated profits for years to avoid US taxes. The precise totals for such un-repatriated profits are not known, either by the IRS or the US government. Morgan Stanley in 2005 reported that the total in offshore un-repatriated profits held by US corporations amounted to about $700 billion.
A third and even more opaque category of profits consists essentially of unknown profits from domestic US or foreign operations that are diverted to offshore tax shelters and never reported to the IRS. The latest unofficial indication of the level of income held today in offshore tax shelters is about $7 trillion, up from $250 billion in the mid-1980s. At least $4 trillion of that $7 trillion is held by US corporations and wealthy households, the mix between corporate and individuals remaining unknown. An annual additional net flow of income from the US into such shelters is easily around $200 billion a year, not counting interest earned annually on the $4 trillion already there
If you believe any of this, you should be shitting a brick right about now...
I have not called anyone stupid. You probably won't ever believe this but I used to vote Republican. They have totally lost their way besides not caring squat for the little people. You mean the millionaires can't afford to pay a higher percentage of their earnings, why not? That has always been a progressive tax policy philosophy. As Warren Buffet, the billionaire said, "Is there any reason my sectretary should be paying a higher percentage of her earnings to taxes than I do?" Obviously he thinks the answer is no. When you've got millions or more money than you can spend, are you really going to care if you pay 15% or 30% to taxes? Well, yes the greedy bastards will care. 
