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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jun 14, 2018 - 08:26am PT
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https://qz.com/1304713/tax-havens-explain-why-donald-trumps-corporate-tax-cut-wont-boost-paychecks/
It would be nice to see these data along with percentage of labor force working for multi-national corps, and overall unemployment rates.
It seems in these days with easy transportation of raw materials and easier transport of information, companies are modularized to pick the most favorable environment in the world for each of their activities. Old assumptions of what a company is just don't work any more.
Where to recognize profit? In countries with lowest taxes.
Where to hire people? In countries with cheapest labor rates.
Where to manufacture or extract natural resources? In countries with least environmental regulations.
Where to sell products/services? In countries with highest prices.
This is the fundamental problem of why "going it alone" national policies will fail in the face of growing corporate power. I think it is also why we see the growing power of "populist movements" in different countries- because the ultra rich recognize that weakened individual countries are better for their profit growth. Notice how the people leading these "populist movements" are themselves incredibly wealthy and surrounded by others who are incredibly wealthy. They invest to manipulate as many people as possible into supporting myopic policies that seem good to people with junior high equivalent education.
Multi-national trade agreements that span the countries where companies can conduct the different parts of their business is the only way to reign in the power of corporations. Some people are afraid of a "one world" government and consolidation of power... that is what corporations and a few private citizens are leading us toward right now- but not in the hands of an organization that is responsive to voter influence, but rather one that is responsive to shareholder influence. We need the governments of the world, supporting policies that represent the needs of the people, working together to fight this trend.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Jun 14, 2018 - 08:39am PT
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Sanders is/was a populist candidate
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 14, 2018 - 09:02am PT
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Good point Munge, and this is where we need to have more nuanced discussions and get more clarity of ideas regarding what are the problems, what are the potential solutions, and what are the core values of different categories of candidates/parties that would align them with different approaches.
On the surface, both Sanders and Trump had policies that looked "protectionist" from a jobs/ national employment perspective. Bernie was against Trans-Pacific Partnership, as was Trump. And Trump was also against NAFTA.
But if you look deeper at core values of each person, you see how different motivations and end visions are, and how much it affects the outcome. Bernie was trying to fight the trend I highlighted here, of companies shifting their roles around the world to optimize for cheapest labor, least regulation, least taxes, etc. Perhaps Bernie was fighting Trans-Pacific Partnership because it was codifying the conditions that enable corporations to legally modularize and exploit the conditions in different countries. It had some good stuff for improving standards of workers, but it also screwed the environment in some places. I bet Bernie would be in favor of international trade agreements that focused on workers rights and environmental regulations without giving corporate loopholes to plunder the world. In any case, Bernie is not god, and his support of a position does not inherently make it right or wrong. Now take Trump on the other hand- he is against consolidation of government power because that is the chief mechanism of people pushing back against the power of corporations. Like Bernie, he focuses on some of the same problems that voters experience, to motivate voters. But the solutions are not grounded in reality- it is a bait and switch policy program that identifies a real pain people experience and then offers a solution that makes the problem worse. I can already imagine the factions lining up to use this quote for either side dem or repub, green, or libertarian.
Apart from candidates and parties, I'm trying to highlight a specific problem (corporations being more powerful and distributed to exploit the best of what each country has to offer to the detriment of humans and the environment we must inhabit), and coax out a shared recognition that it is a problem and what it looks like, and then it will be easier to discuss potential solutions and approaches to the problem.
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monolith
climber
state of being
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Jun 14, 2018 - 09:38am PT
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A candidate becomes a 'populist' when he appeals to a large number of people and you don't agree with him. Popularity should be avoided at all costs in a democracy.
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Jorroh
climber
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Jun 14, 2018 - 09:41am PT
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Picketty had some interesting and not very re-assuring things to say about this (as it relates to concentration of wealth) in the conclusion of "Capital in the 21st century".
The sort of international cooperation that a solution would require seems pretty far-fetched in the age of Trump.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jun 14, 2018 - 11:24am PT
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Methinks yer graph was made by a high schooler. Nuanced it ain’t. And, given the state of Ireland, especially compared to 25 years ago, I don’t think you can find too many malcontents bemoaning being taken advantage of.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Jun 14, 2018 - 02:53pm PT
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Graphically speaking
What you see is what you don't get
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jun 14, 2018 - 10:10pm PT
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What would you have corporations do? Serve someone else's interests? Don't be naive.
Finding a way to provide a the right set of incentives across the board (quantitative and qualitative) that most encourage organizations to lite and grow there, and you've solved the problem.
Next, where is that Holy Grail?
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