Dreary eyed bean counters can crawl out from under the heaping mounds of ticker tape, now that the financial reporting on US corporations is complete. And the verdict? It’s U-G-L-Y!
Author Paul Buchheit sums it up nicely:
“The top 100 companies, with $5 trillion in 2010 revenue and $500 billion in pre-tax earnings, paid less than 10% last year in non-deferred federal taxes. If these 100 companies had paid the 35% tax designated by U.S. tax law, an additional $140 billion would have been collected in federal taxes in just one year. This is approximately equal to the total budget deficits for all 50 states.”
Did you catch that? All of these shortfalls – deficits which have been used to justify breaking the unions – are the result of giant corporations not paying their fair share. Disgusting… not unlike a certain Nobel Peace Laureate who starts a new war before finishing his other two.
Speaking of institutionalized armed conflict, hasn’t anyone noticed how much these wars are costing? With budgets over a trillion dollars a year, the defense industry has clearly gone AWOL. And until the American people pull back the purse-strings, these war-mongers will keep acting like spoiled rich kids set loose with their daddy’s credit card.
Many Americans have fallen on tough times. Yet the solution to their woes seems so obvious: end the wars and tax the wealthy. Either step alone would put the US back into the black, and both together would cement America’s position as a leader for years to come.
Implementing this strategy would be simple, if it weren’t for one fact: the democratic system in the US is broken. When it comes to corporatism, tax-cuts for the rich, and exorbitant military expenditures, both parties toe the same line. The US people simply cannot wait for a politician in shining armor to come to their rescue, since any such hero would likely be filtered out long before rising to power.
This leaves the onus on the US population itself, to enact the changes needed using methods outside the mainstream political system.
People who are appalled by all the atrocities being committed by their armies. Citizens who are sick of growing poorer while the wall street fat cats make off with billions. Folks who’ve had it with Washington and the whole screwed up system that caters to the rich instead of the many.
These hundreds of millions of discontent Americans need to unite! While they don’t necessarily need to go all Egypt on their establishment, embracing the revolutionary spirit and harnessing social media will go a long way to help Americans reclaim their lost democracy.
Sure, it’s an uphill battle, but Americans, like humans everywhere, are capable of remarkable things. It won’t be long until the US population joins the world’s great awakening, embracing people power to create a more just global civilization.
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Tags: complex, corporatism, industrial, military
I have a theory about who thinks and votes democrat / or progressive…
here it is..
the bulk of the democratic party is made up of people who FEEL they are vicitims of discrimination of some sort by society…so you get many blacks, jews, hispanics, some women, criminals, gays, hillbillies (white trash), etc..that vote their hate against their perceived oppressors..(mainstream society)..then you have the intelligentsia consisting of self important narcissistic people seeking unearned power over others….who direct that anger..at the targets the narcissists deem evil…….
and who are more narcissistic and self important than Hollywood Stars, liberal newscasters and professors, and children just old enough to have the right to vote!….
Tax the wealthy..great idea except if you translate the words into their real meaning ..you get..confiscate resources from the nations greatest job creators and spend it on a nice banquet for the poor.
you do that too much..and soon you have neither job creators nor a banquet for the poor..
@steve gall: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/home.php?sk=group_197285590303188&ap=1
add this as well, get the word out. we need to destroy mainstream, ignite the fumes of our oppressive government and corporate media into the pits they drained from us.
Yeah, you still got that FED thing n so on…
@steve gall:
but do that not enough and you have inequality, so I guess what he is saying is tax the rich more, not tax the rich out of existence…
@Steve Gall
Sure, Walmart has created tons of jobs! But stolen them from non-chain stores (and don’t forget factory workers) and paid workers less than they would have been paid at those non-chain stores / factories. And moved factory workers out of the country.
Great job creators?
If anything, they owe America the wages they should have paid American factory workers and the difference between minimum wage and a living wage they pay their in-store associates.
Off topic: I’d really like to pick your brain for a while. Do you really not think that blacks / hispanics / gays are being discriminated against in any way?
@steve gall:
Clearly you’d prefer to think of this in terms of personal attacks.
For many liberals, it’s really simpler than that, even: statistics tend to support a reducing nationally measured inequality as effective for developing sustainable economic growth and improving quality-of-life indicators.
I could make this personal too: claim that all conservatives are merely callous, insensitive people who have an ignorant and insecure need to pretend they’re better than everyone else (namely all these “weak” classes that they just wish would “quit whining”).
But I feel that would do the discussion a disservice. I think people can be conservative and not be rotten to the core. I’m sorry you don’t feel the same way about the people with whom you happen to disagree.
LOL, America is too busy playing World Police to care about its own sheeples problems.
Your analysis is unfortunately correct. No changes will come from either Democrat or Republican party. We live in a plutocracy, where wealthy elites and career bureaucrats game the system to benefit themselves, their families and their friends. They get rich in the process but the other 90% of the population loses out.
Keep up the good work.
Editor X
MAKETHEMFEARYOU.COM
This article is a joke. There are so many things wrong with it I don’t even know where to begin. You criticize the electoral system insinuating it’s corrupt to the point that a socialist leader could not become president, when maybe that is due to the fact that the United States was founded on capitalism and has advocated against socialism for years. Your arguments of putting the glory of the country before its people are reminiscent of the former USSR. I won;t even waste my time going on, but for for the future, using terms such as “Wall Street Fat Cats” makes you appear dumb, and loses all remaining credibility you had left.
@steve gall: Great. Now we have seen the two extremes. Tax the wealthy = throw away money, or cut taxes for the wealthy = more jobs. I’m sorry, taxes are NOT back breaking by any means at 35%. Corporations are already NOT paying those taxes. The wealthy have the means to avoid as much taxes as possible. NOT taxing the wealthy? Well, then they do what they always do. Report losses publicly and make wads privately (unless they are one of the good companies that pay their taxes, then we don’t hear about them at all).
What SHOULD be happening here? We should stop all the finger pointing, everyone should own up and do their part to help the country. That means paying your taxes, helping the little guy, and helping the big guy. But NOT giving the big guy more money. He already has that. The big guy needs people who support him, and workers that work hard for him. And he needs to be a leader that people WANT to follow.
Do people want to work for someone who reports losses for the company while secretly making bank AND avoiding taxes? No. Because that same person will pay employees as little as possible and give them as few benefits as they can get away with. That’s not the type of leaders we need.
My boss at my company is friendly, helpful, gives great benefits and nice pay checks. When people screw up, he looks at how it can be avoided in the future, not who to blame. He talks rather than yelling and pointing fingers. What does he get back? All his employees are loyal, friendly and HAPPY, and we try our best for our customers too! Our customers see us as helpful people who actually talk to them on a personal level, and get to know them. All because we don’t have to fear our customers, or our boss. It works all around!
Stop the fear. Stop the blame game. Pick up the ball and help those around you. Own up to your responsibilities.
It’s hard at first, ’cause it seems everyone is opening themselves up for backstabbing, so don’t rush. Just take one step at a time. You’ll get used to being more vulnerable at first, then you’ll find all the people you helped are now watching your back for you. (Most of them will be, anyway) Own up. Man up. Do the right thing for everyone.
Bring down the FED.Close it! Kill it! FED Is a private bank who just know how to print money to bail out the falling Big C. That why you pay higher taxes every year.
It would be nice if your opinions were based on facts. Since your training is in science and not in finance, allow me to enlighten you. The quote at the top of this blog got my attention when it said “paid less than 10% last year in non-deferred federal taxes”. That is simplly not true! Ten minutes of research confirmed that. The annual reports of every publically traded company are available for any and all to read. Here is a random sampling of four very large corporations and the percetage of their earnings they paid in taxes in 2011. Chevron 43.3%. Merck 12.8%. Apple 24.2%. Microsoft 19.7%. Obviously these numbers are all well over 10%. Your source is a bald faced lier. If you are going to be sending out blogs you owe it to your readers to at least tell them the truth.
I wonder why you would want the government to collect more taxes from anybody anyway. All they do is waste the money on wars and other useless projects. Wouldn’t all that money be better spent by regular people?