Monday, July 29, 2013
Thursday, July 25, 2013
ALEC ROCKS!
At least 117 bills introduced in 2013 fuel a "race to the bottom" in wages, benefits, and worker rights and resemble "model" bills from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), according to a new analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), publishers of ALECexposed.org.As working Americans speak out for higher wages, better benefits, and respect in the workplace, a coordinated, nationwide campaign to silence them is mounting -- and ALEC is at the heart of it. ALEC corporations, right-wing think tanks, and monied interests like the Koch brothers are pushing legislation throughout the country designed to drive down wages; limit health care, pensions, and other benefits; and cripple working families' participation in the political and legislative process. What is ALEX? This 3 minute video pretty well explains ALEC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXUPDAMc_6o
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Why is it that lead was added to our air, and water, even
though it was a known hazard?
Profits!
Why is it that asbestos was dumped into Lake Superior even
though it was causing severe lung problems? Profits!
Why is it that sulfur was added to our air even though we
knew it would combine with water to form acid rain? Profits!
Why do many of our food products have so many preservatives
added that it will have a shelf life of 10 to 42 days…and higher even though we
don't know the detrimental effect on people! Profits!
Why did companies fight to continue dumping asbestos into
Lake Superior, fighting regulations to clean up their act, even after it was a
proven carcinogen? Profits!
Why do we continue to add carbon to our air even though we
know the effects that have already happened, and will continue to happen
related to Global Climate Change? Profits!
Why are some corporations fighting so hard to do sulfide
mining in Northern Minnesota even though no company has ever done so without
leaving behind thousands of acres of polluted water? Profits!
Why do so many corporations fight limits on mercury release
even though our lakes, our fish, our food is showing dangerous increases in
mercury contamination? Profits!
Why did so many
corporations fight the removal of lead from household paint even though lead
was known to cause retardation in our children? Profits!
Why do corporations
continue to fight for the right to dump toxic wastes into our oceans even
though we know it can be quickly passed along the food chain and will end up
being in our seafood? Profits!
Why do many corporations
fight limits to what they can put into landfills, dumps, and mines even though
we know those landfills, dumps, and mines leak chemicals and heavy metals? Profits!
Why do corporations continue
to fight against limits to the lead they can dump into our oceans, and put into
their products such as lead batteries, fishing lures, bullets, some ceramic
ware, even though we know that that lead damages the brain, kidney,
reproductive systems, and has been shown to cause low IQ scores, slow growth,
and hearing problems for small children? Profits!
Why are we finding more
and more medical waste in our oceans, and environment, even though we know they
have an impact on the transmission of diseases? Profits!
The very things that help
keep too many mega-corporations alive kill and cripple people. Corporations are not people! Corporations should not have the same protections for their
money as people have for free speech.
The very things that harm people, help too many mega-corporations to
stay alive! Transparency should be
a requirement for corporations.
Corporations should be required to show what laws they are buying and
which politicians they are donating money to.
Monday, July 15, 2013
JULY 15, 2013
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans spent more at retail businesses in June, buying more cars and trucks, furniture and clothes. The Commerce Department said Monday that retail sales rose 0.4% in June from May, after a 0.5% increase the previous month.
Sales rose in June largely because of a 1.8% increase in auto purchases, the biggest since November. Higher gas prices also pushed service station sales up 0.7%.
Sales at home improvement stores, such as Home Depot are up nearly 10% compared to the past year. Americans continued to buy cars and trucks. Furniture sales jumped 2.4% last month, a sign that the housing recovery may be encouraging more home remodeling. And sales rose at clothing stores and general merchandise stores, which include Target and Wal-Mart.
The strongest part of the retail economy has been auto sales. Over the past year, car and truck sales are up 11.4%, according to the government's data.
Earlier this month the nation's automakers also reported robust sales in June. Sales totaled 7.8 million from January through June, the best first half since 2007. And the outlook for the rest of 2013 is just as strong. Wider credit availability and hot-selling new vehicles are helping to boost sales. Demand for big pickups has been a key factor in higher sales.
Monday's government report comes after some retail chains reported their strongest sales gains since January. Revenue at stores opened at least a year rose 4.1% in June compared with the same month a year ago, according to a preliminary tally of 13 retailers by the International Council of Shopping Centers.
Retail stores are benefiting from more hiring, which gives more people money to spend. Employers added 195,000 jobs in June. Job gains have averaged 202,000 for the past six months, up from 180,000 for the previous six months.
Again, this positive economic news is great news for indicating in which direction our economy is headed. It is particularly good news for U.S. businesses and corporations and the stock market will probably continue to reflect this solid news, even though it is already in record positive territory for any 4+ years of any administration, ever. This positive economic news for corporations and businesses is not being shared with those workers who are primarily responsible for this record good economic news. These two graphs show what is happening, economically, to a majority of citizens in the U.S.:
http://eskoresident.blogspot.com/2013_05_01_archive.html
Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low. This is both cause and effect. One reason companies are so profitable is that they're paying employees less than they ever have as a share of GDP. And that, in turn, is one reason the economy is so weak: Those "wages" are other companies' revenue.
In short, our current system, and philosophy, is creating a country of a few winners and 300 million workers who are not sharing in this amazing time in history. The system is working very well for the very few.
The ASSOCIATED PRESS ANNOUNCES MORE GOOD ECONOMIC NEWS!
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans spent more at retail businesses in June, buying more cars and trucks, furniture and clothes. The Commerce Department said Monday that retail sales rose 0.4% in June from May, after a 0.5% increase the previous month.
Sales rose in June largely because of a 1.8% increase in auto purchases, the biggest since November. Higher gas prices also pushed service station sales up 0.7%.
Sales at home improvement stores, such as Home Depot are up nearly 10% compared to the past year. Americans continued to buy cars and trucks. Furniture sales jumped 2.4% last month, a sign that the housing recovery may be encouraging more home remodeling. And sales rose at clothing stores and general merchandise stores, which include Target and Wal-Mart.
The strongest part of the retail economy has been auto sales. Over the past year, car and truck sales are up 11.4%, according to the government's data.
Earlier this month the nation's automakers also reported robust sales in June. Sales totaled 7.8 million from January through June, the best first half since 2007. And the outlook for the rest of 2013 is just as strong. Wider credit availability and hot-selling new vehicles are helping to boost sales. Demand for big pickups has been a key factor in higher sales.
Monday's government report comes after some retail chains reported their strongest sales gains since January. Revenue at stores opened at least a year rose 4.1% in June compared with the same month a year ago, according to a preliminary tally of 13 retailers by the International Council of Shopping Centers.
Retail stores are benefiting from more hiring, which gives more people money to spend. Employers added 195,000 jobs in June. Job gains have averaged 202,000 for the past six months, up from 180,000 for the previous six months.
Again, this positive economic news is great news for indicating in which direction our economy is headed. It is particularly good news for U.S. businesses and corporations and the stock market will probably continue to reflect this solid news, even though it is already in record positive territory for any 4+ years of any administration, ever. This positive economic news for corporations and businesses is not being shared with those workers who are primarily responsible for this record good economic news. These two graphs show what is happening, economically, to a majority of citizens in the U.S.:
http://eskoresident.blogspot.com/2013_05_01_archive.html
WHAT'S UP WITH JOBS AND CORPORATE PROFITS?
United States Corporate Profit Margins Are Higher Than Ever in History!
Corporate profit margins just hit an all-time high. Companies are making more per dollar of sales than they ever have before.
In short, our current system, and philosophy, is creating a country of a few winners and 300 million workers who are not sharing in this amazing time in history. The system is working very well for the very few.
WHAT'S UP WITH JOBS AND CORPORATE PROFITS?
United States Corporate Profit Margins Are Higher Than Ever in History!
Corporate profit margins just hit an all-time high. Companies are making more per dollar of sales than they ever have before.
Corporate profits as Percent of GDP
Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low. This is both cause and effect. One reason companies are so profitable is that they're paying employees less than they ever have as a share of GDP. And that, in turn, is one reason the economy is so weak: Those "wages" are other companies' revenue.
In short, our current system, and philosophy, is creating a country of a few winners and 300 million workers who are not sharing in this amazing time in history. The system is working very well for the very few.
YOU ARE AN ACTIVIST!
YOU ARE AN ACTIVIST!
This is why I think everyone should consider working with groups such as 350.organd https://movetoamend.org/ In both cases mega-corporations have learned to work the system to their benefit and our/our children's/our grandchildren's detriment."The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable."
Arundhati Roy
"Once you know it, you can't unknow it". A person doing nothing about an important situation is just as much of an activist as one who is considered to be an "in your face" political activist!"
https://movetoamend.org/
http://350.org/
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
BELIEVE IT -OR NOT!
"BELIEVE IT OR NOT!
13 MIND-BLOWING FACTS ABOUT AMERICA'S TAX-DODGING CORPORATIONS!!
1. We're told we can't "afford" full Social Security benefits, even though closing corporate tax-haven loopholes would pay for Obama's "chained CPI" benefit cut more than ten times over!
Abusive offshore tax havens cost the US $150 billion in lost tax revenue every year (viaFACT Coalition). That's $1.5 trillion over the next ten years.
The "chained CPI" cut, proposed by President Obama and supported by Republicans, is projected to "save" a total of $122 billion to $130 billion over the same time period by denying benefits to seniors and disabled people.
It's true. "Serious" politicians and pundits are demanding that ordinary people sacrifice earned benefits, while at the same time allowing corporations to avoid more than ten times as much in taxes.
2. Corporate tax rates are near their 60-year low, even though profits are at a 60-year high!
Need we say more?
(Source: Americans for Tax Fairness.)
3. Wells Fargo got $8 billion in tax breaks, even as executives at its subsidiary Wachovia avoided indictment for laundering money for the Mexican drug cartels!
That's right. Wells Fargo paid a negative tax rate of -1.4 percent between 2008 and 2010 while Wachovia, a Wells Fargo subsidiary, admitted to laundering more than $378 billion for Mexican drug gangs.
We're talking about crazed killers like "El Loco" and gangs like "Los Zetas" - gangs who cut people's heads off and toss them out onto disco dance floors or display them in the town square.
Wachovia bankers ignored repeated warnings from law enforcement officials, and continued to launder money for cartels that have murdered tens of thousands.
And yet no criminal indictments were handed down because, as a Senate investigator toldBloomberg News, ""There's no capacity to regulate or punish them because they're too big to be threatened with failure."
4. Some other huge corporations paid less than nothing, too.
Pepco Holdings (-57.6 percent tax rate)
General Electric (-45.3 percent)
DuPont (-3.4 percent)
Verizon (-2.9 percent)
Boeing (-1.8 percent)
Honeywell (-0.7 percent)
(Source: Citizens for Tax Justice)
5. The amount of money US corporations are holding offshore is an estimated 1.6 trillion dollars!
Rather than tax these profits the way other countries do, corporate politicians are promoting a tax "repatriation" break that would let corporations "bring this money home" while paying even less than their currently low rates.
They tried that in 2004 and it didn't create any jobs. In fact, corporations took the tax break and then fired thousands of people. What "repatriation" did do is line a lot of wealthy investors' pockets.
So, naturally, they want to do it again.
6. One building in the Cayman Islands is the official location of 18,857 corporations!
According to the Government Accountability Office, a five-story building called "Ugland House" is home to nearly twenty thousand corporations. That's impressive, especially for such a small edifice. (Perhaps it has supernatural half-floors and space-time defying "mind tunnels" like the office in Being John Malkovich.)
While impressive, Ugland House's distinction pales next to that of 1209 North Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware. According to one investigation, that address is home to 217,000 corporations.
That's because Delaware has very generous tax rules - and, as a result, is home to more than half of all the corporate subsidiaries in the United States.That's startling, since only 1/342th of the nation's population lives in that state (917,092 residents, out of a national total of 313,914,040, according to the latest census results).
7. Conservatives complain about the "official" corporate tax rate in this country, but corporations actually pay roughly one-third of the official rate in actual taxes.
The official, or "statutory," corporate tax rate is 35 percent. But the actual rate paid by American corporations is only 12 percent, less than that paid by many middle-class Americans.
(Source: The FACT Coalition.)
In fact, US Corporations pay less tax as a percentage of the GDP than corporations in Canada. Or Japan ...
... or South Korea. Or Norway. Or Luxembourg, New Zealand, Israel, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, and Italy.
(Source: OECD StatsExtract interactive database.)
8. Corporations used to pay 30 percent of Federal taxes, and now they pay less than 7 percent!
That's because the corporate tax rate has plunged since Dwight D. Eisenhower was President and is now the lowest it's been in modern history.
(Source: FACT Coalition.)
9. Big corporations paid $216 million to Congress and got $223 billion in tax breaks!
As Citizens for Tax Justice and USPIRG reported, 280 large and profitable corporations contributed $216 million to Congressional campaigns over four election cycles and got nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars in tax breaks.
That's a terrific investment for them - a return of more than a thousand to one - but it's a bad deal for the American people.
10. We don't even know who owns some corporations, even though that makes it easier toevade taxes, dodge creditors, avoid paying alimony or child support, and even fund terrorism!
Here are some examples of investments that might represent a terror threat. Corporate interests are blocking disclosure rules that would help protect our national security.
11. Bank of America committed foreclosure fraud, was bailed out by the government, and then paid no taxes on $4.4 billion in profit!
That's right. In 2010, while BofA was negotiating a sweet settlement deal for its foreclosure fraud, it paid nothing in taxes. (Source: FACT Coalition.) Zero, on $17.2 billion in offshore earnings. (Source: Americans for Tax Fairness.)
Its $4.1 billion tax break came on the heels of the bank's taxpayer-funded bailout, immunity from prosecution for its criminal employees, and a cushy government settlement for its foreclosure fraud.
Now David Dayen reports that the bank has apparently continued to defraud customers in violation of its government settlement. Whistleblowers have stated in affidavits that they were "told to lie" to customers, continued to deceive homeowners before foreclosing on them, and flipped customers to new servicing companies to invalidate previous homeowner agreements.
12. What they call "tax reform" would actually prevent our elected representatives from giving businesses financial incentives to improve our lives!
The word "reform" is an honorable one that's been put to some dishonorable uses lately. "Entitlement reform," for example, is merely a euphemism for gutting Social Security and Medicare.
Similarly, corporate-backed politicians are pushing a formula for permanent corporate tax breaks and calling it "tax reform." They insist their "reform" be "revenue neutral" and say it will "broaden the base while lowering the rate."
Here's an English translation: The current, unsustainably low rates for corporations would be made permanent, while eliminating many tax deductions in the name of "simplification."
Here's what that really means: The domestic tax credit for creating jobs? Gone. Tax breaks for protecting the environment with clean energy, rather than harming other people's health and leaving a mess for the rest of us to clean up? Gone.
All in all we'd lose dozens of important policies that make our lives better, while permanently fixing corporate taxes at today's cushy giveaway rates.
"Reform"? Ripoff is more like it.
13. Despite their greed, mismanagement, and freeloading, tax-dodging corporations are using shell organizations like "Fix the Debt" and "the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget" to tell ordinary Americans they have to sacrifice even more to preserve corporate wealth!
BELIEVE IT - OR NOT!
1. We're told we can't "afford" full Social Security benefits, even though closing corporate tax-haven loopholes would pay for Obama's "chained CPI" benefit cut more than ten times over!
Abusive offshore tax havens cost the US $150 billion in lost tax revenue every year (viaFACT Coalition). That's $1.5 trillion over the next ten years.
The "chained CPI" cut, proposed by President Obama and supported by Republicans, is projected to "save" a total of $122 billion to $130 billion over the same time period by denying benefits to seniors and disabled people.
It's true. "Serious" politicians and pundits are demanding that ordinary people sacrifice earned benefits, while at the same time allowing corporations to avoid more than ten times as much in taxes.
2. Corporate tax rates are near their 60-year low, even though profits are at a 60-year high!
Need we say more?
(Source: Americans for Tax Fairness.)
3. Wells Fargo got $8 billion in tax breaks, even as executives at its subsidiary Wachovia avoided indictment for laundering money for the Mexican drug cartels!
That's right. Wells Fargo paid a negative tax rate of -1.4 percent between 2008 and 2010 while Wachovia, a Wells Fargo subsidiary, admitted to laundering more than $378 billion for Mexican drug gangs.
We're talking about crazed killers like "El Loco" and gangs like "Los Zetas" - gangs who cut people's heads off and toss them out onto disco dance floors or display them in the town square.
Wachovia bankers ignored repeated warnings from law enforcement officials, and continued to launder money for cartels that have murdered tens of thousands.
And yet no criminal indictments were handed down because, as a Senate investigator toldBloomberg News, ""There's no capacity to regulate or punish them because they're too big to be threatened with failure."
4. Some other huge corporations paid less than nothing, too.
Pepco Holdings (-57.6 percent tax rate)
General Electric (-45.3 percent)
DuPont (-3.4 percent)
Verizon (-2.9 percent)
Boeing (-1.8 percent)
Honeywell (-0.7 percent)
(Source: Citizens for Tax Justice)
5. The amount of money US corporations are holding offshore is an estimated 1.6 trillion dollars!
Rather than tax these profits the way other countries do, corporate politicians are promoting a tax "repatriation" break that would let corporations "bring this money home" while paying even less than their currently low rates.
They tried that in 2004 and it didn't create any jobs. In fact, corporations took the tax break and then fired thousands of people. What "repatriation" did do is line a lot of wealthy investors' pockets.
So, naturally, they want to do it again.
6. One building in the Cayman Islands is the official location of 18,857 corporations!
According to the Government Accountability Office, a five-story building called "Ugland House" is home to nearly twenty thousand corporations. That's impressive, especially for such a small edifice. (Perhaps it has supernatural half-floors and space-time defying "mind tunnels" like the office in Being John Malkovich.)
While impressive, Ugland House's distinction pales next to that of 1209 North Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware. According to one investigation, that address is home to 217,000 corporations.
That's because Delaware has very generous tax rules - and, as a result, is home to more than half of all the corporate subsidiaries in the United States.That's startling, since only 1/342th of the nation's population lives in that state (917,092 residents, out of a national total of 313,914,040, according to the latest census results).
7. Conservatives complain about the "official" corporate tax rate in this country, but corporations actually pay roughly one-third of the official rate in actual taxes.
The official, or "statutory," corporate tax rate is 35 percent. But the actual rate paid by American corporations is only 12 percent, less than that paid by many middle-class Americans.
(Source: The FACT Coalition.)
In fact, US Corporations pay less tax as a percentage of the GDP than corporations in Canada. Or Japan ...
... or South Korea. Or Norway. Or Luxembourg, New Zealand, Israel, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, and Italy.
(Source: OECD StatsExtract interactive database.)
8. Corporations used to pay 30 percent of Federal taxes, and now they pay less than 7 percent!
That's because the corporate tax rate has plunged since Dwight D. Eisenhower was President and is now the lowest it's been in modern history.
(Source: FACT Coalition.)
9. Big corporations paid $216 million to Congress and got $223 billion in tax breaks!
As Citizens for Tax Justice and USPIRG reported, 280 large and profitable corporations contributed $216 million to Congressional campaigns over four election cycles and got nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars in tax breaks.
That's a terrific investment for them - a return of more than a thousand to one - but it's a bad deal for the American people.
10. We don't even know who owns some corporations, even though that makes it easier toevade taxes, dodge creditors, avoid paying alimony or child support, and even fund terrorism!
Here are some examples of investments that might represent a terror threat. Corporate interests are blocking disclosure rules that would help protect our national security.
11. Bank of America committed foreclosure fraud, was bailed out by the government, and then paid no taxes on $4.4 billion in profit!
That's right. In 2010, while BofA was negotiating a sweet settlement deal for its foreclosure fraud, it paid nothing in taxes. (Source: FACT Coalition.) Zero, on $17.2 billion in offshore earnings. (Source: Americans for Tax Fairness.)
Its $4.1 billion tax break came on the heels of the bank's taxpayer-funded bailout, immunity from prosecution for its criminal employees, and a cushy government settlement for its foreclosure fraud.
Now David Dayen reports that the bank has apparently continued to defraud customers in violation of its government settlement. Whistleblowers have stated in affidavits that they were "told to lie" to customers, continued to deceive homeowners before foreclosing on them, and flipped customers to new servicing companies to invalidate previous homeowner agreements.
12. What they call "tax reform" would actually prevent our elected representatives from giving businesses financial incentives to improve our lives!
The word "reform" is an honorable one that's been put to some dishonorable uses lately. "Entitlement reform," for example, is merely a euphemism for gutting Social Security and Medicare.
Similarly, corporate-backed politicians are pushing a formula for permanent corporate tax breaks and calling it "tax reform." They insist their "reform" be "revenue neutral" and say it will "broaden the base while lowering the rate."
Here's an English translation: The current, unsustainably low rates for corporations would be made permanent, while eliminating many tax deductions in the name of "simplification."
Here's what that really means: The domestic tax credit for creating jobs? Gone. Tax breaks for protecting the environment with clean energy, rather than harming other people's health and leaving a mess for the rest of us to clean up? Gone.
All in all we'd lose dozens of important policies that make our lives better, while permanently fixing corporate taxes at today's cushy giveaway rates.
"Reform"? Ripoff is more like it.
13. Despite their greed, mismanagement, and freeloading, tax-dodging corporations are using shell organizations like "Fix the Debt" and "the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget" to tell ordinary Americans they have to sacrifice even more to preserve corporate wealth!
BELIEVE IT - OR NOT!
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