Working Life

This one slipped by me a couple of days ago. In case you thought that this problem was going away — but you are too smart to believe that — big corporations are still fleecing the country.

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   Welcome to another edition in the economic philosophy of the Republican Party, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Today, courtesy of the Citizens for Tax Justice, it’s the Herman Cain Robin Hood-in-reverse plan. Courtesy of CTJ: If presidential candidate Herman Cain’s proposed “9-9-9 tax plan” was in effect today, then [...]

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   Have you evah wondered whether companies are just plum out of cash? Well, you’d be wrong: The Federal Reserve said in a quarterly snapshot of financial flows Friday that U.S. companies continued to accumulate profits instead of spending them. Holdings of cash and other liquid assets at nonfinancial companies rose to $2.047 trillion in [...]

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   I’ve never been a fan of "bi-partisanship". When someone is out to kill you, or your nation and community, making a deal for the sake of "bi-partisanship" or "compromise" makes no sense when the end result is injustice and a worsening of our lives. But, that’s where we are today because of a completely [...]

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Got crabs? Cut corporate taxes. Can’t get your kid to eat spinach? Cut corporate taxes. Worried your skin it too dry? Cut corporate taxes. And, then, of course, want the economy to be more "competitive" and "grow"? Cut corporate taxes. None of the above will be helped by cutting corporate taxes–but the reasons given for [...]

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   Let’s face it. Companies don’t care about you anymore: Despite a surge this year in short-term hiring, many American businesses are still skittish about making those jobs permanent, raising concerns among workers and some labor experts that temporary employees will become a larger, more entrenched part of the work force. This is bad news [...]

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I have to confess to being entirely bored by the House leadership drama. The idea that somehow shaking up the leadership would send a message that the party "has heard" the people is good satire but not serious debate–particularly when not a murmur is heard when the DCCC decides to throw a party under the [...]

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   There is a lot of talking about the coming debt burden on companies: Maybe they should have, because 2012 also is the beginning of a three-year period in which more than $700 billion in risky, high-yield corporate debt begins to come due, an extraordinary surge that some analysts fear could overload the debt markets. [...]

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   Free speech rights…for corporations: Montana voters, fed up with the grip of out-of-state mining interests on local politicians, passed an initiative in 1912 banning corporate spending on candidates for state office. As soon as Tuesday, that law — and similar ones in nearly half the states — could be struck down by the U.S. [...]

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   You might remember that last week, I mused about the corporate visibility at the Democratic Convention in Denver. This isn’t a small thing–do we think that those folks are ponying up six- and seven-figure contributions just out of civic pride? This isn’t a new subject. But, it’s worth continually hammering home.    So, I’ve [...]

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   First, yours truly is supposed to be on CNBC today at 2:20 Eastern time debating the following: If Obama wins, unions will get a big boost.  Are unions bad or good for America?  You can come back here, if you see it, and keep the discussion going here (I emphasize "SUPPOSED TO BE" because [...]

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   Huh. Why worry about cutting corporate taxes when they don’t even bother to pay any?: Two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005, according to a report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The study, which is likely to [...]

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   To the long list of examples of how business rips off the average person–from paying CEOs huge salaries while workers get pay and benefits cuts, to making people work harder and more productive than ever before yet refusing to pass on the fruits of that labor to workers, to lobbying against raising the scandalously [...]

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    I know this won’t shock those of you who already know something is up. But, the details are important–from the folks at the Economic Policy Institute: Over the last 60 years, the U.S. tax code has dramatically shifted away from corporate taxes and toward taxes on individuals, especially through the payroll tax, the financing [...]

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   If you are among the enlightened group of many millions of people who have spoken up (either in elections or real organizing) for a world where people can expect a decent standard of living and trade takes place under conditions that values communities first, you can pat yourself on the back for sending the [...]

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