Community | May 21, 2012 | 93 comments

How the Ultra-Rich Betray America!

source: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/21

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kennymotown

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/21

More evidence of treason by so-called Americans!

The betrayals come in many forms. Here are a few of the more outrageous, and destructive, examples:

Evasion: Corporations suddenly stopped meeting their tax responsibilities

While corporate profits have doubled to $1.9 trillion in less than ten years, the corporate income tax rate, which for thirty years hovered around the 20-25% level, suddenly dropped to 10% after the recession. It has remained there for three years.

We are seeing a manifestation of the Shock Doctrine. Corporations are using the national emergency of the financial collapse to make a statement about taxes, and a traumatized nation is too preoccupied to do anything about it.

Delusion: Technology companies won't admit that much of their 'innovation' is due to public assistance

According to the report Funding a Revolution, government provided almost half of basic research funds into the 1980s. Federal funding still accounted for half of research in the communications industry as late as 1990. Even today, the federal government supports about 60 percent of the research performed at universities.

Apple's first computer was introduced in the late 1970s. Apple still does most of its product and research development in the United States, with US-educated engineers and computer scientists.

Google's business is based on the Internet, which started as ARPANET, the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency computer network from the 1960s. The National Science Foundation funded the Digital Library Initiative research at Stanford University that was adopted as the Google model.

Apple got its tax bill down to 9.8% last year. About 2/3 of its profits remain overseas for tax avoidance purposes. Google, like Apple, avoids taxes by moving most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda. Both Apple and Google, along with Microsoft and Cisco, are lobbying for a repatriation tax holiday to allow billions of overseas dollars to come home at a greatly reduced tax rate.

An Apple executive said: "We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems." That may be true, but they do have an obligation to pay the taxes that help America solve its problems.

Desertion: The people who benefit most from government are renouncing their citizenships to avoid taxes

Perhaps the ultimate insult to America is to just quit on your country after making a fortune off of it. In 2011 almost 1,800 Americans gave up their citizenship to avoid taxes.

The wealthy benefit disproportionately from property and inheritance laws, contracts, stock exchanges, favorable SEC regulations, the Small Business Administration, patent and copyright and intellectual property laws, estate planning, trust funds, Internet marketing, communications infrastructure, highway maintenance, air traffic control, local and national security, and 60 years of research in technology and other industries.

A recent outrageous example is Facebook part-owner Eduardo Saverin, whose family came to America from Brazil partly for safety reasons, and who happened to land Mark Zuckerberg as a roommate at Harvard. Now after falling into billions, he's decided to renounce his U.S. citizenship to avoid taxes.

Denial: Traders feel it's inappropriate to pay even a tiny tax on a quadrillion dollars in sales

A quadrillion dollars sounds like a fake amount. But it's all too real. That's a thousand trillion dollars of derivatives transactions which, along with the high-frequency computer-generated transactions (5,000 per second) that make up over half of U.S. stock trades, contributed to a financial meltdown and a $3 trillion bailout for reckless trading.

But there's no tax on these transactions.

While average Americans pay a 10% sales tax on necessities, millionaire investors pay just a .00002% SEC fee (2 cents for every thousand dollars) for a financial instrument. And their supporters claim, inexplicably after the disastrous trading frenzy in 2008, that a tax would increase volatility.

Illusion: The media leads us to believe we should all be cheering when the stock market is booming

Conservatives insultingly assure us that the "democratization of stock ownership" is gradually making America more equal, as evidenced by the flattening of wealth ownership among the richest 1% in recent years. So we should all be excited about a rising stock market.

Here are the facts. Data from Edward Wolff confirms that from 1983 to 2007 the percentages of net worth and financial wealth for the top 1% remained steady. But the percentages for the rest of the richest 5% increased by almost 20%, while the percentages for the lowest 80% of the population DECREASED by almost 20%.

In other words, the share of wealth owned by the top 1% leveled off because the "democratization of stock ownership" spread the wealth among just 5% of the population, those earning an average of $500,000 per year. A few people -- 5 out of 100 -- got very rich, but everyone else lost ground.

Conclusion

The issues are difficult to address with Congress largely on the side of the wealthy. At the very least:

(1) Eliminate the tax break on unearned income (capital gains). The richest Americans, who own most of the stocks, should not pay a smaller tax than everyone else.

(2) Implement a small financial transactions tax. It would be easy to administer on computer trades, it would generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue, and it would help guard against the reckless speculation that devastated the financial markets and our country.


Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.
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93 comments // How the Ultra-Rich Betray America!

  • gatormouth
    • +1
      gatormouth  

    • Bribery was redefined as lobbying at the same time as money was redefined as speech. "Our" Supreme Court has actually sanctified corruption. "Pay for Play", the business model of the brothel, is now an SOP for the US.. I wonder what JC would do to the proprietors of THIS temple?

    • 12 months ago
  • gatormouth
    • +2
      gatormouth  

    • Hey SCOTUS: "GOP Outside Groups Plan $1 Billion Blitz ". Make you kind of proud?

      "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

      No one will ever blame you for doing nothing.

    • 12 months ago
  • galwayman
    • +1
      galwayman  

    • It is well past time for Americans to come together and take our government back and send to the wall these scum and their political lackies!

    • 12 months ago
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
    • +1
      COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM  

    • FGS! Stop the bitching and revive the guillotine! Has not history shown that there is only one way to deal with destructive and murderous tyrants? Isn't that what the American Revolution was all about? If you don't like French traditions, hangings and firing squads on the Capitol steps are far less messy than tar and feathers. But, tar and feathers for the ride to the Capitol steps makes for good scenery and effects. When government itself is so riddled with the cancer of corruption that it can't be cut out, and it isn't capable of curing itself, what does the Declaration of Independence state is "the" necessary course of action?

    • 12 months ago
  • Edward_Tilton
  • wolfess
    • +1
      wolfess  
    • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM:

      This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their REVOLUTIONARY right to DISMEMBER or OVERTHROW it!

      Pwr 2 the resolute peons! GUILLOTINE COMPLACENCY!

    • 12 months ago
  • gump
  • Paratus
    • -4
      Paratus  

    • I must say I thought I had heard of everything but "tax responsibilities" is a new one. People, and corporations, pay taxes per the law not what some one somewhere has deemed to be "responsible". Who makes that determination anyway?? If you don' t like the tax law than change it. Avoiding taxes is not bad it is evasion of taxes that is illegal and not paying due to provisions in the tax code is not "evasion".
      Capital gains should not be taxed at all. This is where the gains come from on our retirement funds. This is money that has already been taxed then invested. Of course my advice to everyone is to have a Roth IRA where the income and gains are not taxed.
      I also do not agree with a financial transactions tax. There is really no good reason for it other than to confiscate money from people who invest. Again this would be money that I have already paid taxes on. It makes no sense, except to a statist who thinks the state should have a bite of everyones wallet, for the gov. to tax this money again because someone purchases securities.
      There is no federal tax on "necessities". There are usually sales taxes on items at the state or local level but income and sales taxes are two different things much like capital gains and income taxes. They should not be equated.
      I have no problem with anyone renouncing their citizenship for whatever personal reason exists. The Facebook guy is Brazilian by birth and U.S. by choice. If he can opt in he can opt out. Money is fungable. Why should he live and pay tax in a country that it hostile to the concept of making and keeping a dollar. He said in an interview that most of his business happens in Singapore I believe. I don't blame him for moving his physical presence there if he wants.
      Something like 47% of the tax filers inthe U.S. pay no federal income tax. They live on the tax payments of others. Make the "system" fair. Everyone pays a set percentage, no deductions.
      Oh, I really don 't believe we should be paying income taxes on our earned W2 income either but that was not addressed here.

    • 12 months ago
  • fiberbundle
    • +4
      fiberbundle  
    • Paratus:

      People, and corporations, pay taxes per the law not what some one somewhere has deemed to be "responsible". Who makes that determination anyway?? If you don' t like the tax law than change it.

      Who makes the law?
      Lobbyists for the rich

      If you don' t like the tax law than change it.
      That's pretty much what the author is saying.

    • 12 months ago
  • carmalite
  • Paratus
  • Paratus
    • -2
      Paratus  
    • carmalite:

      "the country" did not allow him to become wealthy. Facebook is an internet business not tied to a country but a concept. No bricks and morter. It transcends boundaries. He contributed 30k in startup capital. He could have done it from Singapore or anywhere.

    • 12 months ago
  • fiberbundle
  • carmalite
    • +1
      carmalite  
    • Paratus:

      Then why did he do it here? He did it here because we have such a good court system for business and he did not need to pay off every single offcial as he would have in many other countries.
      I have lived in a foreign country and its much easier to to start any kind of business here and if you invest here, it is generally safer.

    • 12 months ago
  • Paratus
  • fiberbundle
  • Paratus
  • Tayllerand
  • Paratus
    • -1
      Paratus  
    • Tayllerand:

      Don't know why he did it here. I suspect his contribution was made some time ago. I have no idea what was going on in his life at that time. It is my understanding that he had only been a citizen for a couple of years. He may have given Zukerberg the bucks prior tohis becoming a citizen. As I said, I don't know the timeline. I don't see this as him betraying this country. It is his money and he is under no obligation to dontate it to the government or anyone else.

    • 12 months ago
  • gatormouth
    • +4
      gatormouth  

    • From the point of view of the corporate think tanks directing much of our political activity this next election is going to be critical for them and there is now a beginning public awareness in what they have been doing which must be stopped, and their best move is to spread divisiveness and mistrust among their potential opponents. All these new law models coming out in Blue states encouraging personal carry and shoot first laws are not intended to calm things down, either. Other laws discouraging voting and union participation and promoting the intransigence of fundamentalist religion also have much the same effect. What they fear is solidarity and unity of purpose.
      Polls show that the popular will of the people is not with the corporate agenda. The Corporatists will not willingly allow the popular will to be transformed into votes. The only thing that might save us now is a Justice Department and administration willing to defend the Constitution from a hostile takeover. We were promised hope, but hope without action is weak tea.

    • 12 months ago
  • CoronaAdvances
  • carmalite
  • Vic_Romano
    • +3
      Vic_Romano  

    • Don't ask me for real solutions, as I'm just an ordinary working stiff. But man, shit is truly fucked up. Articles like this really point it out.

      Good post man.

    • 12 months ago
  • kennymotown
  • Gravity_Man
  • gatormouth
    • +1
      gatormouth  
    • Gravity_Man:

      Since before Constantine and Theodosius organized religion has been the handmaid of empire. We will get our reward in the hereafter, so we should shut up and obey our "betters". Hold your breath. Please.
      “It is not their love for men, rather it is the impotence of their love that hinders Christians of today from burning us.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

    • 12 months ago
  • carmalite
    • +3
      carmalite  
    • Gravity_Man:

      Jesus chased the money changers out of the temple. He healed on the sabbath, which was illegal, and he placed being His brother's keeper keeper above all.

      He was an activist. If you live in the sweet by and by, you won't help the poor and needy who are sufferring here now. I suspect that is what lots of severe conservatives want fundamentalists to do.

    • 12 months ago
  • carmalite
  • fiberbundle
    • +3
      fiberbundle  

    • Also don't forget the insiders always go short just like they did when the Great Depression was upon us. They even let their lackeys, e.g., Spencer Bachus Alabama's 6th congressional district,get in on the action. "Just shut up and go short the S&P Mr. Bachus, ranking member of the House Committee on Financial Services." WINK WINK.

    • 12 months ago
  • gatormouth
    • +5
      gatormouth  

    • It seems no matter how they appear to differ, the party leaderships on both sides seem to have a lot in common.
      Both major parties have had Neoliberal leadership since Carter. There have been differences in degree, but deregulation, outsourcing and Globalization guided by Corporatist and multinational money and influence have been a constant theme.
      Wedge issues have been used to guide us without endangering the Corporatist Neoliberal agenda. Our political/economic system has been hijacked. Our congress has adopted "pay for play" - the business model of the brothel.
      . For reading query "corporate colonialism " and "corporate mercantilism" ..also query . Reagan, Thatcher, Bush, Clinton, Neoliberal ... with no quotation marks. The last president with Progressive tendencies was Nixon.

    • 12 months ago
  • kennymotown
  • MSII
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
    • +4
      COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM  

    • All of this is the symptomatic essence of how institutionally organized crime has been lobbying Congress for covert ways to distill the public wealth from the public, into the hands of those who consider themselves deserving of stolen wealth, ever since would be aristocrats lobbied for America to become a monarchy after the Revolution. The informed have been fighting this battle ever since then while the citizens have been systematically and institutionally raped ever since then. It's time to take our money back from the usurpers, and have them publicly shot on the Capitol steps, as a deterrent to future treason against everything good about America.

    • 12 months ago
  • kennymotown
  • gatormouth
  • MSII
  • rossmick
  • wolfess
  • carmalite
    • +3
      carmalite  
    • wolfess:

      When I was in college, I studied in Mexico City , and everyone from Mexico told me that the goverment was corrupt, every elected official was corrupt, and the situation was hopeless. I used to get up every morning and express thanks to the first cause that I was an American.
      Now I see that we are becomming just like Mexico. Being born poor there is like trying to crawl out of a pit and that is where we are headed with the corrupt corporate mafia and the officials who are bought off.

    • 12 months ago
  • kennymotown
  • gatormouth
  • carmalite
    • +2
      carmalite  
    • gatormouth:

      Clinton actually sold us down river. He did not veto when the Republican controlled Senate decided to get rid of Glass-Steagle, he was gung ho NAFTA, and he allowed the Futures commodities modernization act (always reverse these words), and when he changed welfare, he did nothing to insure that the people could get decent jobs.

      He could have changed the trajectory but he joined the corrupt instead. His little darling daughter was a hedge fund manager......lol.........

      He knew darn well what Nafta would do. I did not vote for him because of NAFTA. Only 4 economics courses and I could see what would happen.

    • 12 months ago
  • gatormouth
    • +1
      gatormouth  
    • carmalite:

      True dat! There are different wedge issues to motivate the bases, different degrees of insanity or deceit, but essentially opposite faces of the same coin when you consider the underlying corporate agenda. We are literally becoming a post-national corporate colony. A Corporate "Neocolonialism" has arrived, and this time we are supposed to provide the Hessians.

    • 12 months ago
  • SFirman
    • +7
      SFirman  
    • Image

    • The issues are difficult to address with Congress largely on the side of the wealthy. At the very least:

      Eliminate the tax break on unearned income (capital gains). The richest Americans, who own most of the stocks, should not pay a smaller tax than everyone else. We need a new congress. The House Republicans are only for the wealthy Kenny.

    • 12 months ago
  • kennymotown
  • CounterPoint
  • MSII
  • carmalite
    • +2
      carmalite  
    • kennymotown:

      Kenny, dude you have no idea how stupid, ignorant and religiously insane the southern boobs are. I live around them...........................its like trying to reason with a person who is severely mentally retarded

    • 12 months ago
  • SFirman
  • SFirman
  • kennymotown
  • carmalite
  • kennymotown
  • dugdog47
    • +2
      dugdog47  

    • I actually cheer when the stock market crashes. Last time two companies that were my companie's competiters went under, and we got their business. Bring on the crash, I love em. It's a dog eat dog world, and this dog is hungry.

    • 12 months ago
  • carmalite
  • MSII
    • +1
      MSII  
    • carmalite:

      "the scum who are destroying our economy might have gotten what they deserve."

      A lynching? Serious real prison time in a real prison (not a corporate-class resort)?

    • 12 months ago
  • carmalite
  • MSII
  • carmalite
    • +1
      carmalite  
    • MSII:

      In 2000 when the Supreme court elected GW Bush than doing the right thing and having a recount or even a re-vote in Florida, my spouse said to me "We never thought our country wouild become like this."
      Never did it cross my mind that this is how it would end up. We had a bloodless coup by the upper 1% with GW and we are moving faster and faster into Corporatism or as Musolinni called it Facism.
      Those Dems attacking Obama for calling Bain what it is should be run out of the party.

    • 12 months ago
  • MSII
  • Leen61
    • +4
      Leen61  

    • Great article! F**K the rich! They also betray America by dumping their citizenship so they can go live in places where they won't pay taxes.....in other words, they made their money here but won't give back because of their greed (think the co-founder of Facebook). But we are supposed to cheer people like this on? I think not!

    • 12 months ago
  • kennymotown
  • Leen61
  • kennymotown
  • Leen61
  • kennymotown
  • Leen61
  • rossmick
  • Leen61
    • +2
      Leen61  
    • rossmick:

      I have heard reference to legislation that Jack Reed from (D-RI) sponsored back in the 90's that could indeed make this illegal. We will see how this plays out.

    • 12 months ago
  • wolfess
    • +2
      wolfess  
    • kennymotown:

      A number of years ago there was a cartoon where the cat said his family loved him, they fed him, they gave him a warm bed to sleep in, they CASTRATED him :-)! I want to show these rich narcissists how much we care for them ----- castration sounds so much better than simply giving them a 'barbeque' :-)!

      Pwr 2 the FED-UP peons! GUILLOTINE COMPLACENCY!

    • 12 months ago
  • kennymotown
  • MSII
  • kennymotown
  • rossmick
  • kennymotown
  • carmalite
  • kennymotown
  • MSII
  • kennymotown
  • wolfess
    • +5
      wolfess  
    • kennymotown:

      No! It's time to GUILLOTINE them! It's also time to guillotine whoever comes down on the wrong side -- the right side is the one we peons are on!

      GUILLOTINE WALL STREET!
      GUILLOTINE FEAR!
      GUILLOTINE COMPLACENCY!

    • 12 months ago
  • kennymotown
  • Des_Akkari
  • wolfess
  • Des_Akkari
    • +2
      Des_Akkari  
    • wolfess:

      Hey if Obama say Holder has to follow the law as AG and he has no control....if you were the AG/ Minister of GA then we can let you loose to do the people's work.

      When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

      Set us FREE Minister of Guillotine Affairs!!!!!!

    • 12 months ago
  • CounterPoint
  • hammywill
  • wolfess
    • +1
      wolfess  
    • CounterPoint:

      My husband fought in Vietnam -- we have our very own AR15 -- I'll be go to hell if any narcissistic HOARDER is going to take my freedom away from me!

      Pwr 2 the veteran peons! GUILLOTINE COMPLACENCY!

    • 12 months ago
  • wolfess
    • +2
      wolfess  
    • Des_Akkari:

      When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. Aren't these some of the most beautiful words ever spoken?

      A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both!

      This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing governmnet they can exercise their constitutional right of amending iit, or their REVOLUTIONARY right to DISMEMBER or OVERTHROW it!

      Pwr 2 the FED-UP peons! GUILLOTINE COMPLACENCY!

    • 12 months ago
  • MSII
    • +2
      MSII  
    • wolfess:

      When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

      Agree! Very fine and beautiful words, need to bring about that sweet world where they're true!

    • 12 months ago
  • wolfess
    • +1
      wolfess  
    • MSII:

      I can't take credit for those words -- Des_Akkari stated them in his comment to me, but I agree -- we "need to bring about that sweet world where they're true!" They have been true in the past, we peons just need to resolve to steadily and systematically slog forward until they are true again.

      Pwr 2 the resolute peons! GUILLOTINE COMPLACENCY!

    • 12 months ago
  • wolfess
    • +1
      wolfess  
    • hammywill:

      Sorry it took me so long to respond ... I had to do some research on him ... Based on what I discovered I would say that to a great extent at least in his youth I would have to agree with him, his ideas and his principles. He believed in the good of man, and that the people of France could govern themselves; he did not believe in rule by monarchy (but neither did our founding fathers). I like the idea that he was part of a sort of 'democratic' board, but somewhere in there his ideas on 'terrors' got carried away -- much as I believe this country under Bush and now Obama have gone basically the same way. I would be interested to discuss this further :-).

      Pwr 2 the resolute peons! GUILLOTINE COMPLACENCY!

    • 12 months ago
  • hammywill
    • +1
      hammywill  
    • wolfess:

      He's a perfect example of the maxim "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." Thomas Payne was a big supporter of Robespierre until shortly before the Terrors. Robespierre had great intentions until he gained power. Then he became the same type of Hitlerian monster everyone fears.

    • 12 months ago
  • wolfess
    • +1
      wolfess  
    • hammywill:

      Good quote, and right on the money -- it seems when we discuss things rationally many of us find we share commonalities. Isn't that what all we peons should be centering on, instead of continuing to allow the narcissistic hoarders (I know, the fact that I am calling them out with negativity means I'm still dividing in hopes of conquering) to divide and conquer us?
      Isn't that part of the reason our forefathers set up our government the way they did? So that no one part has absolute power.

    • 12 months ago

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