Aug 18, 2022·edited Aug 18, 2022Liked by Robert Reich
Ironically, these tax credits, bribes, and subsidies could be called "socialism".
That's certainly what it would be called if it were suggested that the money be provided for American families.
This needs to be pointed out to CEOs and shareholder who complain about government "intruding on their blessed free market".Theyfeel entitled to these subsidies, because by now they feel that they have in some way earned it.
Yet they criticize the average person who wants help, as feeling entitled, and call any program that might help them as being "socialist". It's the money that we've earned that is going to them!
Fascinating. In one article Robert explains the current political dysfunction (nothing gets done in DC unless it benefits corporations) to inequality (corporations pay less tax as a share of GDP, and consume more subsidies that could have been public spending).
There’s no question that corporations currently have more impact on how we live our lives than any of the other fundamental influences like education, income & even the rule of law. Over the last few decades we have incrementally given away our power to control our own lives to the soulless influence of wealth for its own sake.
The first step in taking back control of our lives is to remove the power of corporate money over Congress. In other words, campaign donations are nothing more than bribes from soulless industries and the wealthy for the purpose of manipulating Congress to oppose anything that might interfere with corporate profits.
We are on the brink, or more precisely actually teetering over the edge of democracy into the abyss of Fascism. The only way we can pull ourselves back from the brink of Fascism/ autocracy is to remove the influence of money over Congress, and that starts with making ALL campaign donations illegal, and allowing only public money to be used for campaigning—the same amount of money to each candidate. And the only way to do that is to elect many more democrats to Congress than republicans.
So essentially a government subsidy to corporations is a bribe. That's because we've lost the political will to do the right thing--regulate. As I'm currently vacationing in the EU, it seems that they do quite well with regulation. The tap water in Amsterdam was far superior to any water I've had in my own country. And most people don't need to spend money on cars as public transportation serves so well. Hmmm....
Restrict the election cycle to 3 months prior to election, and limit campaign expenditures to $100,000 for EVERY candidate (see Canada)
2) Regulate Lobbying:
Prohibit “gift” exchanges between politicians and lobbyists. Restrict lobbyist to solely using public presentations to persuade the lawmakers with the invitation of opposing groups to present their counter arguments.
3) Regulate Corruption. Our representatives in Congress spend 40% of their workday fundraising for their next campaign which decreases their productivity while increasing their corruptability. Eliminate the need for campaign finances and strengthen and enforce bribery laws with a substantial monetary penalty and immediate removal from office, and permanent ban from running for public office.
I remember JFK, when dealing with the shenanigans of U.S. Steel, saying that his daddy told him that "all businessmen are sons-of-bitches."
Not all are, of course, but enough of them are, especially the big dogs, to understand why they are often seen as bad guys. Of course, the Chamber of Commerce blanches when it sees the many TV shows and movies depicting businesspeople as crooks, often indistinguishable from the mafia. We're trying to tell them something, but they see no harm, no foul, just aggressive, hard-charging businesspeople trying to succeed and sharing the profits with workers. (Try to sell that to people in the service industry, where most jobs are dead-ends, where you can't survive without government help or a strong union.)
Granted, it is difficult to succeed in business -- I've tried and failed several times to start my own business, but that just shows that capitalism is not the magic solution to all our economic problems. Our government is always coming to their rescue, yet they hate their benefactor nonetheless.
Plato said that businesspeople were a class of their own, where profit and success were guiding lights and the fulfillment of one's stay on Earth. We need them, but because of their almost necessarily selfish behavior, they must be watched and regulated; give them an inch, and they'll take a mile, like that guy who astronomically increased the price of his company's insulin simply because he could. (I think he's in prison now; that's how much he wanted cash flow, i.e., he'd risk his freedom to enrich himself. Now he regrets, I imagine, only that he got caught out; but that's human nature for many people; others, for reasons unknown, don't seek vast wealth, although a lot of us play the lottery.)
Once again, thanks, Professor Reich, for this economic history. I learned a lot, which is why I subscribe and visit this site daily. Too bad we don't have a couple hundred of guys like you in the trenches.
The field I know first-hand, healthcare, remains profoundly dysfunctional, the "Affordable Care Act," notwithstanding. Healthcare will never function well when the profit motive drives decisions. Yes, Obama's plan provided something for a portion of people who for years had had nothing, which had been beyond horrendous. But the shape-shifting "plans" with their ever-changing co-pays, deductibles, surprise bills from "providers" who turn out not to be on the "plan," etc., still make health care a bad joke in this country. Competent healthcare can't be provided by organizations whose goal is to make profit for investors/owners and/or provide multi-millions in payments to executives. It's a contradiction in terms.
Medicare works remarkably well for many and should be have been and still should be extended to all. Straight Medicare, not Medicare (dis)-Advantage plans. This wasn't even considered by the Clintons or by Obama. But it would work.
Thanks Robert Reich! It is nice to know that for all the corporate giveaways by both Democrats and Republicans, at least the democrats try to get something for American people in the deal,, sometimes.
It always seems an impenetrable problem every time Robert brings things like this up. Foremost how do you even go about regulating a corporation that is multinational? What is a multinational corporation anyway? How are they even possible? Why are they even allowed? Do multinational corporations that also operate in autocracies as well democracies operate primarily for our benefit or theirs? I’m thinking particularly of Russia and China.
Very good article about corporate subsidy and a reminder of Eisenhower’s fear of corporate america . What wasn’t in this article was the forming of Citizens United .
Excellent piece spelling out that neither political party is working in our interests, one being more outwardly "evil" than the other. And when neoliberals try to justify that corporations "need" subsidies because of foreign competition, they forget its the policies they pushed for and implemented that outsourced these industries in the first place. That and why should the taxpayer be subsidizing industries with tens of billions (or hundreds of billions) in profits? The government should be subsidizing and supporting us. There is a spiritual and moral sickness when you have the homeless dying of heat exposure in the streets, 20% of Americans in COLLECTIONS for medical debt, and half the country living paycheck to paycheck with no savings and "liberals" are still justifying this wholly corrupted system.
This is a double sided sword. Yes we subsidize too much but I see a difference in the government subsiding fiddle fuel and the government subsiding research for the COVID injections. There are things the government should help fund. But I agree it is getting out of hand and there are legitimate cost business should fund. I see it in the utilities where they don’t harden wires then raise rates so I pay for repair. This is me subsiding them.
Ironically, these tax credits, bribes, and subsidies could be called "socialism".
That's certainly what it would be called if it were suggested that the money be provided for American families.
This needs to be pointed out to CEOs and shareholder who complain about government "intruding on their blessed free market".Theyfeel entitled to these subsidies, because by now they feel that they have in some way earned it.
Yet they criticize the average person who wants help, as feeling entitled, and call any program that might help them as being "socialist". It's the money that we've earned that is going to them!
That's a double standard.
Fascinating. In one article Robert explains the current political dysfunction (nothing gets done in DC unless it benefits corporations) to inequality (corporations pay less tax as a share of GDP, and consume more subsidies that could have been public spending).
There’s no question that corporations currently have more impact on how we live our lives than any of the other fundamental influences like education, income & even the rule of law. Over the last few decades we have incrementally given away our power to control our own lives to the soulless influence of wealth for its own sake.
The first step in taking back control of our lives is to remove the power of corporate money over Congress. In other words, campaign donations are nothing more than bribes from soulless industries and the wealthy for the purpose of manipulating Congress to oppose anything that might interfere with corporate profits.
We are on the brink, or more precisely actually teetering over the edge of democracy into the abyss of Fascism. The only way we can pull ourselves back from the brink of Fascism/ autocracy is to remove the influence of money over Congress, and that starts with making ALL campaign donations illegal, and allowing only public money to be used for campaigning—the same amount of money to each candidate. And the only way to do that is to elect many more democrats to Congress than republicans.
So essentially a government subsidy to corporations is a bribe. That's because we've lost the political will to do the right thing--regulate. As I'm currently vacationing in the EU, it seems that they do quite well with regulation. The tap water in Amsterdam was far superior to any water I've had in my own country. And most people don't need to spend money on cars as public transportation serves so well. Hmmm....
Eeeeek!
Here are some first steps:
1) Regulate Elections:
Restrict the election cycle to 3 months prior to election, and limit campaign expenditures to $100,000 for EVERY candidate (see Canada)
2) Regulate Lobbying:
Prohibit “gift” exchanges between politicians and lobbyists. Restrict lobbyist to solely using public presentations to persuade the lawmakers with the invitation of opposing groups to present their counter arguments.
3) Regulate Corruption. Our representatives in Congress spend 40% of their workday fundraising for their next campaign which decreases their productivity while increasing their corruptability. Eliminate the need for campaign finances and strengthen and enforce bribery laws with a substantial monetary penalty and immediate removal from office, and permanent ban from running for public office.
I remember JFK, when dealing with the shenanigans of U.S. Steel, saying that his daddy told him that "all businessmen are sons-of-bitches."
Not all are, of course, but enough of them are, especially the big dogs, to understand why they are often seen as bad guys. Of course, the Chamber of Commerce blanches when it sees the many TV shows and movies depicting businesspeople as crooks, often indistinguishable from the mafia. We're trying to tell them something, but they see no harm, no foul, just aggressive, hard-charging businesspeople trying to succeed and sharing the profits with workers. (Try to sell that to people in the service industry, where most jobs are dead-ends, where you can't survive without government help or a strong union.)
Granted, it is difficult to succeed in business -- I've tried and failed several times to start my own business, but that just shows that capitalism is not the magic solution to all our economic problems. Our government is always coming to their rescue, yet they hate their benefactor nonetheless.
Plato said that businesspeople were a class of their own, where profit and success were guiding lights and the fulfillment of one's stay on Earth. We need them, but because of their almost necessarily selfish behavior, they must be watched and regulated; give them an inch, and they'll take a mile, like that guy who astronomically increased the price of his company's insulin simply because he could. (I think he's in prison now; that's how much he wanted cash flow, i.e., he'd risk his freedom to enrich himself. Now he regrets, I imagine, only that he got caught out; but that's human nature for many people; others, for reasons unknown, don't seek vast wealth, although a lot of us play the lottery.)
Once again, thanks, Professor Reich, for this economic history. I learned a lot, which is why I subscribe and visit this site daily. Too bad we don't have a couple hundred of guys like you in the trenches.
Keep educating
The field I know first-hand, healthcare, remains profoundly dysfunctional, the "Affordable Care Act," notwithstanding. Healthcare will never function well when the profit motive drives decisions. Yes, Obama's plan provided something for a portion of people who for years had had nothing, which had been beyond horrendous. But the shape-shifting "plans" with their ever-changing co-pays, deductibles, surprise bills from "providers" who turn out not to be on the "plan," etc., still make health care a bad joke in this country. Competent healthcare can't be provided by organizations whose goal is to make profit for investors/owners and/or provide multi-millions in payments to executives. It's a contradiction in terms.
Medicare works remarkably well for many and should be have been and still should be extended to all. Straight Medicare, not Medicare (dis)-Advantage plans. This wasn't even considered by the Clintons or by Obama. But it would work.
Thanks Robert Reich! It is nice to know that for all the corporate giveaways by both Democrats and Republicans, at least the democrats try to get something for American people in the deal,, sometimes.
I needed to understand this kind of backstory !! Thank you!!
The system is broken…. and yet working as intended.
It always seems an impenetrable problem every time Robert brings things like this up. Foremost how do you even go about regulating a corporation that is multinational? What is a multinational corporation anyway? How are they even possible? Why are they even allowed? Do multinational corporations that also operate in autocracies as well democracies operate primarily for our benefit or theirs? I’m thinking particularly of Russia and China.
Very good article about corporate subsidy and a reminder of Eisenhower’s fear of corporate america . What wasn’t in this article was the forming of Citizens United .
Excellent piece spelling out that neither political party is working in our interests, one being more outwardly "evil" than the other. And when neoliberals try to justify that corporations "need" subsidies because of foreign competition, they forget its the policies they pushed for and implemented that outsourced these industries in the first place. That and why should the taxpayer be subsidizing industries with tens of billions (or hundreds of billions) in profits? The government should be subsidizing and supporting us. There is a spiritual and moral sickness when you have the homeless dying of heat exposure in the streets, 20% of Americans in COLLECTIONS for medical debt, and half the country living paycheck to paycheck with no savings and "liberals" are still justifying this wholly corrupted system.
This is a double sided sword. Yes we subsidize too much but I see a difference in the government subsiding fiddle fuel and the government subsiding research for the COVID injections. There are things the government should help fund. But I agree it is getting out of hand and there are legitimate cost business should fund. I see it in the utilities where they don’t harden wires then raise rates so I pay for repair. This is me subsiding them.
I think we should have stuck with regulations.