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US Ranks One of the Highest in Corporate Taxes
Currently, the average combined federal and state corporate tax rate in the U.S. is around 39 percent, second to Japan and 14 percent higher than the world's average.
Corporate taxes are passed onto employees and consumers; limit businesses in creating more jobs and making.
Could lowering the rate of that tax increase businesses production and create more jobs. Would it encourage businesses to stay in the US rather than shipping them overseas?
Could this be the source of out economic woes? Currently, the average combined federal and state corporate tax rate in the U.S. is around 39 percent, second to Japan and 14 percent ... more -
America pays the piper, big time (Part 2)
Robert Parry: Reagan told the American people the magic of the market will work.
There was an effort to build an infrastructure to sell the free market and reduced regulation for business society. Cut taxes and cut the social net was the sold as the magic fix.
Robert Parry is an American investigative journalist. He was awarded the George Polk Award for National Reporting in 1984 for his work with the Associated Press. In 1995, he established Consortium News as an online ezine dedicated to investigative journalism. From 2000 to 2004, he worked for the financial wire service Bloomberg. Major subjects of Parry's articles and reports on Consortium News include the presidency of George W. Bush, the career of Army general and Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell (with Norman Solomon), the October Surprise controversy of the 1980 election, the Nicaraguan contra-cocaine investigation, the efforts to impeach President Clinton, right-wing terrorism in Latin America, the political influence of Sun Myung Moon, mainstream American media imbalance, United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates, as well as international stories . Parry has written several books, including Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & "Project Truth." (1999) and Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq (2004).
See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89369029_america_pays_the_pipe...
See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89378110_americans_and_reality Robert Parry: Reagan told the American people the magic of the market will work. ... more -
The end of free-market fundamentalism
ANP: But is it really? And where is American capitalism headed?
Amid the chaos and chatter about this week's financial bailout, one clear theme emerged in some quarters: The era of free-market fundamentalism is over. But is it, really? ANP: But is it really? And where is American capitalism headed? ... more -
ANP: A market-based mindset
Underpinnings of the current economic meltdown and the future.
On Saturday, the Bush administration proposed what could be the largest government bailout of private industry in the history of the United States. Today, the architects of the proposal, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, will testify before the Senate banking committee. ANP caught up with Charlie Cray, Director and Policy Analyst at the Center for Corporate Policy, who spoke about the philosophical underpinnings of the current economic meltdown and his predictions for the future. Underpinnings of the current economic meltdown and the future. ... more -
The Unfortunate Case of Herbert Spencer
How a libertarian individualist was recast as a social Darwinist.
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IdeaChannel.tv
Milton Friedman's famous series: Free to Choose. Although it was made in 1980, it's still a great introduction to economics. Unfortunately, too many of the problems he talks about are still with us and are, in fact, worse. The first group of videos are a 1990 revision of some of the episodes from 1980 discussing the recent fall of communism in Eastern Europe. The second group is the whole 1980 series. Milton Friedman's famous series: Free to Choose. Although it was made in 1980, it's still a great introduction to economics.... more
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"The Dangers of Neo-Conservative Economic Policies" by Ron Paul
"The dangers inherent in the foreign policy advocated by the neo-conservatives are well known. While many Americans have become increasingly aware of those dangers, far less attention has been focused on the dangers of neo-conservative economic policies. This issue is of critical importance right now, because many are mistakenly pointing their fingers at the free market as the culprit behind our current economic plight.
There are only a few in elected office who have any real loyalty to free markets and limited government. The agenda of neo-conservatives in the economy calls for a very active central government. Indeed, while there are some neo-conservatives who continue to use the rhetoric of limited government, and who oppose increases in the federal income tax as a way to maintain the political benefits that apply to those who talk about free markets, it is now the neo-conservatives who promote fiat monetary policies even more than those on the liberal left.
While I have been a strong proponent of cutting taxes on all Americans, and therefore supported the tax reductions offered by President Bush, the neo-cons argue that tax rate reduction alone is the key to “getting the government out of the way” of economic growth. Moreover, they invariably argue for tax reductions targeted toward the wealthy, and toward multinational corporations.
Over the years, I have offered several tax plans designed to assist hard working middle-class Americans to pay for their needs, whether these needs be health-care related, educational or to pay the costs of fuel. A few years back when I introduced one such bill, a prominent Republican approached me on the House Floor and asked, half in anger and half in amazement “why did you do that?” Shortly after that, the committee chairman at the time, also a Republican, sent out a release strongly attacking my tax cut bill.
So, while the liberal economic agenda includes more taxes and spending, the neo-con economic program simply looks to target some tax cuts to preferred groups, but ignore the economic big picture. The neo-con economic agenda is to “borrow and spend” and it is that agenda, even more than the tax and spend ways of many liberals, that has cast us in economic peril at this time.
Simply, on spending, the neo-cons and the liberals share views, just as they share similar views on foreign policy. While each side tries to claim the mantle of change, reality is that more of the same is not change.
The fiat monetary policy we now follow is the most significant factor contributing to our economic peril, and it is central to the neo-con agenda. As we hear new calls to empower the Federal Reserve Board, we should be aware that underlying all neo-conservative policies is the idea of monetary inflation. Inflation is the technique used to pay for the regulatory-state and the costs of policing the world."
Article originally appears at link from Congressman Ron Paul's (R-TX) Texas Straight Talk weekly column.
For more speeches, statements, videos and articles by Congressman Paul click here
http://www.house.gov/paul/
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Ron Paul's "Campaign for Liberty"
The mission of the Campaign for Liberty is to promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a noninterventionist foreign policy, by means of educational and political activity.
For more information please follow this link http://campaignforliberty.com/
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Photo by flickr user PaisleyPitbull
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paisleypitbull/2516320087/...
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.e... "The dangers inherent in the foreign policy advocated by the neo-conservatives are well known. While many Americans have become ... more -
Economic Nonadvisers
Do you think the economic, energy and environmental policies of the presidential candidates are clear, understandable and plausible? If you answered "no" for at least one of the candidates, it is, in part, because the advisers have not done an adequate job. Do you think the economic, energy and environmental policies of the presidential candidates are clear, understandable and plausible? I... more
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Peruvian workers, farmers march against President
Thousands of Peruvians protested on Wednesday to denounce President Alan Garcia's free-market policies, which they say have failed to benefit the poor during six years of booming economic growth.
Protesters waving red banners put up road blocks on highways in regions including Ica, Puno and Cuzco, snarling traffic and closing rail service to the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu, Peru's top tourist destination.
The rallies, which coincided with a two-day farmers' strike that started on Tuesday, were the latest in a series of protests held to demand the government do more to spread the Andean country's new wealth to workers and the poor.
Marchers in the capital Lima carried signs urging Garcia to quit and calling him "right-wing" and a "traitor." Thousands of Peruvians protested on Wednesday to denounce President Alan Garcia's free-market policies, which they say have faile... more -
Corporate taxes suffocate growth
The historical and current belief is that taxes in America are low, compared to the world in general. America is the model of free markets, low regulation, and economic freedom. Right? This is simply not the case. The United States has high taxes in general and higher corporate taxes in particular.
In the 2008 Index of Economic Freedom, assembled by the Heritage Foundation, personal income taxes and corporate tax rates are compared across the globe — along with many other economic measures. In regard to personal income taxes, the United States ranks 87th out of 156 nations. And in corporate rates, it ranks 125th out of 156. In other words, 86 nations have lower tax rates on personal income than the United States, and 124 nations have lower corporate tax rates...[2]
Lower corporate taxes are associated with economic growth. This can be shown a priori and empirically... [please see main article]
[B]y definition, corporations do not pay taxes — people pay taxes. A corporate tax is either a tax on shareholders of the firm, customers of the firm, or employees of the firm. Less corporate tax means more innovation, capital savings, and spending by these groups — also known as economic growth...
A corporate tax is really a tax on shareholders, customers, or employees of the firm.
Life Savers moved production to Canada. Nabor Industries and Tyco International moved to Bermuda. Halliburton has announced a move to Dubai. In a globalizing economy, is it really a puzzle that firms prefer to operate in lower-taxing, less-regulated environments?
These are examples of what can be seen. As Frédéric Bastiat reminds us, however, it is imperative to also account for what cannot be seen. What would the wealth of our nation be today if the corporate tax rate had always been 10% or less? What creature comforts would have been innovated? What new technologies brought to market? What diseases cured?
Due to a history of high corporate taxes these answers are not known, and we are worse off because of it.
(End of excerpt)
Full article at link by Sterling T. Terrell// Ludwig von Mises Institute (Mises.org) The historical and current belief is that taxes in America are low, compared to the world in general. America is the model of free mar... more -
E.U. Agriculture Commissioner proposes some deregulation
[T]he European Commission's agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel of Denmark... proposes scrapping all but 10 of the regulations [on marketing standards for fruits and vegetables], arguing that they are needlessly cumbersome and bureaucratic, and that they lead to people throwing away perfectly edible fruits and vegetables for cosmetic reasons at a time when the world is suffering food shortages and rapid price increases. She hopes representatives from the 27-nation bloc will vote to streamline the regulations at a meeting this month.
"We don't need 34 regulations to decide how round an artichoke should be or how thin a cucumber can be," said Boel's spokesman, Michael Mann, noting that such rules give the E.U. its reputation as an out-of-control bureaucracy. "A bent cucumber is as good as a straight one," he declared. "Let the shopper decide."
(End of excerpt)
Full article "Europe Debates Perfection It Demands of Its Produce" at link by John Ward Anderson// Washington Post [T]he European Commission's agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel of Denmark... proposes scrapping all but 10 of the reg... more -
Who are these Libertarians, and why should we care?
[U]nderstanding libertarianism is vital if the United States is ever to reverse the current 100-year trend away from freedom. What most Americans don’t know is that libertarianism is simply the modern political label given to the philosophy that the United States was founded upon. It is the philosophy of individual liberty. Without rediscovering what that means, the United States may soon be a glorious experiment with self governance by a free people that ultimately devolved into just one more socialist mediocrity or authoritarian nightmare...
... While most Americans still consider the United States the “land of the free,” few probably understand that “free” means individual liberty. Most Americans in 2008 have either never heard of individual liberty, or haven’t heard about it in so long that they have forgotten what it means. After decades of immersion in collectivist ideology, most Americans have been led to believe that freedom is “democracy.” Most Americans are content to be told that they are free, so long as the evening news explains why the most recent decisions made about their lives are really in their best interests. They are content to derive their “freedom” from government.
Imagine the presidential campaign of 1796 with today’s political frontrunners and today’s American psyche. John McCain is promising a generous helping of warfare, without neglecting essential welfare. Barack Obama is promising a generous helping of welfare, without neglecting essential warfare (at least on behalf of Israel). As these two titans battle for the prize, Thomas Jefferson, the Libertarian candidate, and John Adams, the Constitution Party candidate, answer the occasional question from the debate moderator in those states where they are able to get onto the ballot and into the debates at all. What might our country have become if this had been reality in 1796? What is it becoming now?
Certainly there will not be a Libertarian Party candidate elected president in 2008, nor likely in 2012 or 2016. The most successful LP candidate for president was Ed Clark in the 1980 election, with a whopping 1% of the vote. While it would be wonderful to see the Libertarian political party gain prominence and power, this is not the essential priority. What is much more important is that the American people start rediscovering libertarianism, the philosophy of individual liberty, and once again start demanding to be free. Libertarianism must again dominate the platforms of all political parties, as it once did, if the present trends toward socialism and authoritarianism are to reverse. Only when a libertarian Republican runs against a libertarian Democrat, with perhaps even a libertarian third party candidate in contention, will we have a chance to restore the freedom that fueled America’s mercurial rise to greatness. Only by restoring individual liberty will America return to prosperity, and once again become the land of the free.
(End of excerpt)
Full article at link by theskeptic// BREAK THE MATRIX [U]nderstanding libertarianism is vital if the United States is ever to reverse the current 100-year trend away from freedom. What mos... more -
Does Being An "Ethical" Corporation Pay? MIT Study Says YES.
For corporations, social responsibility has become a big business. Companies spend billions of dollars doing good works—everything from boosting diversity in their ranks to developing eco-friendly technology—and then trumpeting those efforts to the public.
But does it pay off?
(article continues)
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This study is interesting in light of recent conversations on Current on the topic of corporate responsibility vs. greed, CEO vs. worker pay, etc. My contention all along has been that corporations, bound by their duty to provide shareholders with maximum return on their investments, will only act responsibly when consumers start to reward them when they do and punish them when they don't.
So let this serve as another reminder to keep the pressure on EACH OTHER -- as consumers -- to demand more of the companies that serve us, and then watch as the corporations eventually follow suit. For corporations, social responsibility has become a big business. Companies spend billions of dollars doing good works—everything fro... more -
Tisk, Tisk, Tisk! What The FCC Is Doing Wrong Now
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is holding an open meeting today, giving students of public policy a chance to observe an especially egregious arm of the regulatory state. If you want to see what's wrong with Washington, the FCC is as good a place as any to start looking: Since its birth in 1934, it has manifested three fundamental problems ...
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An interesting editorial about how the FCC does, or doesn't, act in the public's best interest. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is holding an open meeting today, giving students of public policy a chance to observe an ... more -
The conditioned insanity of corporations
I think the danger of corporate structures is that too many of them shut out criticism from the people who do the actual work, many are organized as a series of mini-dictatorships. As an interactive designer/programmer in the advertising industry, I’ve been mostly tertiary to this decision making process, but I have on occasion seen how the authoritarian nature of corporate hierarchies can be harmful on a number of levels.
First and foremost, I’m quite simply someone who hates to do something that I find to be illogical or pointless, or the worst reason of all “because I say so”. Over the years, though, I’ve conditioned myself to know what battles to fight in order to maintain a career and “go along to get along”, but my battles usually consisted of merely having to “make the logo bigger”, change this button from blue to red, etc–nothing I’ve ever “gone to the mat” over.
But now that I’ve been on my own freelancing for the past year, this self-conditioning process looks more and more like collective insanity to me.
For instance, a old college friend of mine is now a data-analyst for a major pharmaceutical company. On many occasions he has casually explained how his job is essentially to participate in a highly sophisticated system of targeted payola aimed at getting doctors to prescribe his company’s drug. Never once does it occur to him that his drug may be less effective than his competitors and that it is (in my opinion, at least) fairly amoral for such an aggressive system of coercion of professional medical opinions to be implemented at all. Unfortunately, it’s all about his “team”, not the positive or negative effects of his job upon society.
Of course, I’ve been acutely aware of my personal relationship to authority figures and a keen observer others' ever since reading Bob Altemeyer’s long-term psychological study of authoritarian tendencies, The Authoritarians (link to a free pdf copy of the book in the comments). In a super-small nutshell, we all must struggle against our desire to grant certain authorities unquestionable fealty. Authority can be defined as just about anything, a parent, an idea, a religious leader, hell a can of soup. It’s been one of the most enlightening reads I’ve had in my ongoing struggle to understand our ongoing struggles, and everyone I’ve recommended to has tended to agree that the book changed the way they see their enemies and allegiances. Ironically, the book has become my authority on the value of questioning authority, especially of my own in-group and finding the most effective means of communicating with "outsiders".
So while I do agree with the fundamental critiques of the film “The Corporation”, I would not necessarily personify them as BEING insane, but rather they condition people to working against their own interest, often without ever realizing it. This is largely accomplished by the mere fact that most large corporations prevent honest and pointed criticism at the bottom from rising to the failing leadership at the top (something that most people would call democracy).
They seem to forget that unions exist merely to get the bosses to sit at a table listen. It's only their fevered egos that require us to amass such great numbers just to attain their presence, but usually not their respect. I don't know why this is, other than some people just didn't have the experiences necessary to understand the value of and invite criticism. When someone says you suck, just see it as an opportunity to either improve, or justify your actions when questioned. Don't just tell them to shut up.
Perhaps a good regulation would simply be for every employee to be required by law to read independent analysis of their corporation's behavior. I do believe that we can all only be expected rise to the level of our awareness. Unfortunately, many corporations take an active roll in propagandizing from within and to without. I think the danger of corporate structures is that too many of them shut out criticism from the people who do the actual work, many ar... more -
Time-Warner customers will have to pay for bandwidth
"This Thursday, new cable Internet customers in Beaumont, Texas will no longer have unmetered Internet bandwidth - they’re guinea pigs in a new pricing scheme being pushed by Time-Warner that will give users between 5 and 40 gigabytes in total monthly data usage (uploads and downloads combined). Data usage over that amount will be billed at $1 per gigabyte. Competitor Comcast is also considering metered bandwidth.
"The goal is to limit average data usage, allowing Time-Warner to get more customers into their existing fiber infrastructure. Since there is little or no competition for Internet connectivity, they don’t have to worry so much about losing customers."
Ah, the joy of cable and internet monopolies. "This Thursday, new cable Internet customers in Beaumont, Texas will no longer have unmetered Internet bandwidth - they’re guinea... more -
Raj Patel, "Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System&...
As both obesity and hunger are on the rise, a new book shows why we shouldn't feel guilty about our food choices but angry with a corrupt food system.
TV dinners were launched at a time when only a small percentage of Americans actually owned TVs. Thus, the meals, writes Raj Patel, "were what people ate while they dreamed of affording one." In the American dream, we imagine a bucolic Midwest, a place of bounty, yet the reality is that the breadbasket of America is rife with poverty and a declining life expectancy. The idyllic vision of quaint American farmland doesn't work like that "except in fiction," says Patel, and there is perhaps no greater fiction than the comforting hand of the free market -- particularly as it pertains to food.
Patel's new book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System makes visible the people behind the abstraction and reveals a global food system that, with our complicity, continues to alienate farmers and consumers alike, all while fattening the pocketbooks of a few middlemen.
To read Patel is to understand the logic behind the sweets company, Nestle, acquiring the weight loss magnate Jenny Craig or why Wal-Mart is free to raise prices in areas where they have already killed off the competition. In the language of markets, these problems are not "self-correcting." Only the profound failure of the prevailing metaphor of the Invisible Hand hampers us from seeing what Patel has spent years of research making visible. In an interview with AlterNet, Patel explains how "the way we choose food today comes from distinctly abnormal roots," how these roots connect us to farmers and consumers around the world, and why we should get angry, not feel guilty.
Onnesha Roychoudhuri: Of the origins of the supermarket, you say: "Shoppers' freedom of choice was born in a cage. What we have come to believe in as 'unfettered freedom to consume' was always intended to be guided by chicken wire." Can you explain?
Raj Patel: The original supermarket was a cost-saving invention born around 1917, the same time as the U.S. was experiencing food riots. Retailers needed to be able to find a cheaper way of selling the same food to a public that demanded low prices because their incomes weren't increasing and the price of food was going through the roof.
There's a route through the supermarket that looks like an elementary rat in maze experiment where you enter one end of the supermarket and follow a path that takes you through everything that there is to offer. Saunders insisted that the store clerks not be allowed to talk to anyone. Their job was solely to make sure that things were filled high on the shelves. Instead, it was consumers who would do the assessment of goods and pile them into a cart or a basket and then pay for them at the end of this long maze. In other words, it was a very constrained and funneled environment.
OR: Can you point out some more of the ways in which the supermarket experience is such a constrained environment?
RP: The resemblance to rats in cages in laboratories is more than cosmetic. The way that we shop today in supermarkets is profoundly manipulated. Everything about it is the result of millions of dollars in investments and experiments. Everything about it: the lighting, the positioning of things, the reason that the milk is always at the back, all of these are ways in which we're manipulated. The profound irony is that we go into supermarkets and we are made to believe that we choose freely, but the moment we step through the doors of the supermarket, we have been made for our food. We are being crafted in that environment into people who will impulse purchase, will accept a range of fruits and vegetables that is very narrow, will think that when we pick between Coke and Pepsi, that that's real choice. As both obesity and hunger are on the rise, a new book shows why we shouldn't feel guilty about our food choices but angry with a... more -
The Really Really Free Market
When you think of the Free Market, you think of Adam Smith and the Invisible hand, or stock brokers on Wall Street, but this Free Market is a little different.
This Free Market, is just that. It's a regualr market that has nothing to sell, because all of its items are free.
The market relies on people who have things they don't need, gifting them to people who want them.
It's a Burning Man ethic, anywhere.
Sounds like fun. When you think of the Free Market, you think of Adam Smith and the Invisible hand, or stock brokers on Wall Street, but this Free Mark... more
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