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Why don't they...
... end the corporate shakedown of America?
Bermuda Shorts as Stanley Chisels
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
Feb. 25, 2002 -- Mt. Shasta (APJP) -- While the government has been distracting the masses with frenzied flag-waving and cries of "praise the lord!" the shafting of America has been continuing apace.
The NY Times, still in the process of rediscovering itself and finding that it's not supposed to act as a cheerleader for the administration, ran an article this past Monday (2/18/02) that related that the latest hot "megatrend" among the big corporations is to file papers of incorporation in Bermuda and other overseas havens, and save a fortune in taxes. Among other examples cited in the piece (written by David Cay Johnson) are the following:
And it costs $1,000 to file the papers, and you have to pay an annual fee of $750. Pretty good racket. Bermuda, which is inconvenienced to the amount of space needed to put a mail box, gets some income, while America, which has to deal with the emissions and pollutants, the demands for a docile labor force and security to keep them that way, gets shafted.
It's not enough that these cheap, greedy bastards get a far more profitable ride then they would get if they moved their factory anywhere else; they've decided that they are going to stiff America for the relative pittance expected from them.
Johnson went to Mark A. Weinberger, who is chief of tax policy in the Treasury Department, and asked him what his take on it was. He replied, "We may need to rethink some of our international tax rules that were written 30 years ago when our economy was very different and that now may be impeding the ability of U.S. companies to compete internationally."
Don't look surprised. Weinberger is a lackey in a whore administration that owes its very existence to a putsch staged against the United States by the corporations. It would be cruel to think that poor little lickspittle could do anything other than parrot the party line. Of course he's going to insist that corporations shouldn't have to pay taxes. As Leona Helmsley said, "Taxes are for the little people." The role of Americans, in the eyes of this administration, is to faithfully serve the corporations in any way possible, and make sure that their existence is as easy as can be. Just because we support them doesn't mean they should do anything for us!
Of course, it's a little hard to "compete internationally" when the "competition" is offshore tax havens who get several tens of thousands of dollars for nothing more than some paperwork saying that such-and-such a corporation is officially headquartered there.
Bermuda isn't alone in this racket, and companies have been doing this since the Reagan era. They set up their factories and offices in America, grow here, nurtured by America, protected and assisted. They depend on America's stable currency and stable culture, and a government willing to protect their interests and enact laws that keep the workforce as powerless as possible. In most cases, they get wealthy selling their goods and services primarily to Americans. American education provides them with a good work force, and American highways and roads make commerce easy and inexpensive. They can even thank the clean air and clean water laws, in the case of heavy industry, for forcing them to become more efficient than they might otherwise have been, because it's a fact that clean industry is efficient industry. (Industry likes to whine about pollution controls, but a 1997 joint DoE/industry study revealed that since its implementation, the Clean Air/Clean Water Act had SAVED industry some $5 trillion, directly in greater efficiency, and indirectly in less employee absence due to illness and injury, right down to how being "green" was a great marketing point.)
Companies in America already get incredible breaks. Enron paid no taxes at all in four of the five most criminal years of its benighted existence, and the Putsch "stimulus package" proposed to dump a cool quarter billion in tax "rebates" into their hot little hands. Just a little reward from a grateful President for taking the time and trouble to shaft the American people, is all. What's a quarter billion among oil buddies, especially when it's our money to begin with?
That's not enough for these over-privileged and pampered thieves, though. Not content with the greatest profits in history, they want a free ride, as well.
It's time this stopped, and I think I know just the way to do it.
The dirty little secret that corporations don't like to talk about is the plain and simple fact that for all their assurances that only they can provide jobs and goods, they need the people of the United States far more than the people of the United States need them.
Obviously, they need customers. If people don't buy their crap, all the tax breaks and politician-buying in the world won't help them. Start watching for lists of outfits that have set up mailboxes in places like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands for the express purpose of gouging the American people.
They also need the protection of our laws. The Supreme Court, in a truly idiotic decision back in the 1920s, said that for legal purposes, corporations were human beings and thus subject to the same constitutional guarantees as actual carbon-based life forms. As far as the American public was concerned, the fairness of the decision was about as fair as putting a rabbit in a cage with a Bengal tiger, and in order to ensure a fair fight, mandating that both were limited to using only their teeth and claws.
It wouldn't require a constitutional amendment to change that; just an act of Congress. And if we have fair and honest elections this fall, we might get the House back. Just simply pass a law stating that any foreign based corporation doing business here who isn't actually importing to America may not avail itself of our civil courts. If Stanley Tools wants legal redress, they'll have to go through the Bermuda courts.
Further, delete the liability limitations for the executives of such companies. The board of directors of Tyco want our good roads and schools and clean air, but they don't want to pay for it. Fine. Since Tyco couldn't be sued in civil court under my plan, the individuals on the board of directors would be, and have to appear as individuals and not under the cloak of LLC laws.
As mentioned, I would exempt companies that actually do something overseas besides evade taxes. Actual foreign companies that import goods, and American companies with legitimate, compelling reasons to be overseas, such as oil companies.
But companies using mailboxes to evade taxes would not be entitled to the protections and services that they refuse to pay for. Good luck collecting on those bounced checks in the Cayman Island courts, guys!
Of course, the custard-heads on the right will say that such a law, forcing companies to pay for the society that supports them, will force many to actually leave the country and set up shop elsewhere.
The ones that were going to already have. Nike needs sweatshops so they can make a profit on their overpriced sneakers, pay for those lush ads, and keep the stockholders happy at the same time. Eventually, they'll implode in their own way.
But big corporations are greedy, self-absorbed, unpatriotic bastards, and the ones threatening to leave basically know they can't because they would lose all the privileges of living here that they don't want to pay for. So they resort to bluster and empty threats, and hope, once again, that they can cow Congress into extending their free ride.
But they are bleeding the country dry. They are the reason we are supposedly the richest country on earth, but have inadequate health care for 15% of our population, hunger among our school kids, under-staffed and under-funded schools, decaying infrastructure, declining public transportation, and a horrendous national diet.
Give them a choice. Either they can pay their way like everyone else, or they can get the hell out for real. But one thing is certain: America cannot afford to continue to be sucked dry by these vicious parasites.
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