Sorry...Another China rant...

[bull]

I don't believe we did this to ourselves, corporate greed did it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/plutocracy-ge-doesnt-pay_b_840936.html

Perfect example is G.E. The company made record profits, is one of the largest companies in the world, got government incentives worth $3.2 Billion, has closed US plants over & over to move operations overseas, is forcing it's employees to fund their own health benefits fully, & did not pay a penny in taxes.

But don't they bring good things to life?

[Old Moparz]

I don't believe we did this to ourselves, corporate greed did it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/plutocracy-ge-doesnt-pay_b_840936.html

Perfect example is G.E. The company made record profits, is one of the largest companies in the world, got government incentives worth $3.2 Billion, has closed US plants over & over to move operations overseas, is forcing it's employees to fund their own health benefits fully, & did not pay a penny in taxes.

But don't they bring good things to life?

Not in my house. 

[Patronus]

The real question is what are we going to do about it?

[Old Moparz]

The real question is what are we going to do about it?

It'll probably take a rebellion.

Maybe the Chinese will give us air support as a big favor for buying all their stuff.   

[Ghoste]

We didn't do anything after handing the steel and auto industries away to foreign companies, why would this be any different?  We much prefer to be a society based on the service industry and so far, China and Japan haven't come up with a cheaper burger chain, but I'm sure they're working on it. (and we'll line up like sheep to save ten cents on those yummy Big Lin Chow burgers when the time comes)

[Old Moparz]

I know what you mean using the word "we" as in handing it over, or what should be done, but realistically it's just a small number of mega wealthy corporations that have done it for their own benefit. It isn't limited to blaming one political party over the other, they are ALL guilty of bending over to corporations.

http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/stop_corporate_tax_dodging_talking_points_and_background_information

Most of us pay more in taxes than many U.S. corporations, and corporate tax avoidance has increased dramatically in the last 50 years.

Nearly 19,000 global corporations have a mail drop at Ugland House, a single building in the Cayman Islands. Ugland House is the legal address of these overseas corporate subsidiaries, many set up for the purposes of avoiding taxes.

You Pay More Money In Taxes Than Many Well-Known U.S. Corporations. The 10 bucks in your pocket is more than many of the largest U.S. corporations paid in U.S. taxes including: Bank of America, Verizon, General Electric, Boeing, and Citigroup. Other companies like Federal Express and ExxonMobil pay effective rates of less than 10 percent (even though the official corporate tax rate is 35%). These same companies pay their CEOs and top managers millions in salary and perks – and spend millions lobbying the U.S. Congress for preferential tax and regulatory treatment.

Corporate Tax Dodging Takes Money Out of the Pockets of the Middle Class and Hurts America. Corporations use tax havens and loopholes to siphon money and jobs offshore – while not paying their fair share of taxes for infrastructure, public services and the investments that have historically built the US middle class, including K-12 and higher education.

We Are Not Broke: Governments Are Cutting Budgets and Jobs When They Should Be Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes. Irresponsible politicians have drained state and federal budgets by giving corporations huge tax breaks and allowing them to dodge taxes through overseas tax havens. Our elected leaders should plug up these corporate tax loopholes before they cry "broke."

Making Corporate Tax Dodgers Pay Their Fair Share Would Make Cuts to State Budgets Unnecessary. States are facing the worst budget gaps in living memory. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that the combined budget gaps in all U.S. states is over $102 billion. Meanwhile, closing overseas tax havens would generate an estimated $100 billion! You do the math.

Corporate Tax Dodgers Hurt Domestic U.S. Businesses. Tax havens punish responsible businesses that have to compete unfairly against tax dodgers. A domestic U.S. business that pays its taxes is at an unfair disadvantage with multi-corporations that game the system and shift profits to low or no tax havens. A new coalition has formed called "Business and Investors Against Tax Haven Abuse."

Tax Havens Cost Us All. When you combine tax avoidance by both wealthy individuals and multinational corporations, tax havens cost the Treasury as much as $123 billion a year. Responsible businesses and individual taxpayers like us pick up the slack to pay for the services all of us use.

Corporate Tax Avoidance Has Dramatically Increased Over The Last Several Decades. In the 1950s, almost a third of federal revenue came from corporate income taxes. By 2009, it had declined to 10 percent.2 Corporations are paying less and middle class individuals are paying more.

The Largest Global Corporations are among the Worst Culprits. Tax avoidance is a global problem. Corporations exploit gaps and loopholes in domestic and international tax law that allow them to shift profits from country to country, often to or via tax havens, with the intention of reducing their taxes. Lack of transparency and reporting allows this tax avoidance to occur on a huge scale.

Secrecy is a Problem! Tax havens are not only ways to reduce or eliminate taxes, but also a means for criminals and lawless corporations to circumvent the law, using secrecy as their primary tool. This is why the Tax Justice Network prefers to refer to tax havens as "secrecy jurisdictions."

[RECHRGD]

Well, I didn't buy these appliances because they were cheap, because they weren't.  Whirlpool is a name that I grew up with and trusted to put out a good product.  Come to find out that they managed to buy out most of their competition (Maytag, Amana, etc.) so now the only difference in the product is whatever nametag is put on it.  So if you have no competition, there is no need to build a better product than the next guy.  You'll make a ton more profit by putting out junk that has to be replaced every few years and getting people to buy extended warranty's.  Gotta just love it.

[Old Moparz]

EXAMPLES OF CORPORATE TAX DODGERS

BANK OF AMERICA: In 2009 and 2010, Bank of America didn't pay a single penny in federal income taxes, exploiting the tax code so as to avoid paying its fair share. They argue this is because they lost money. But we really don't know, thanks to over 115 subsidiaries in tax secrecy jurisdictions. There are 59 BoA subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, 15 in Luxembourg, and 14 in Ireland. Bank of America received $336 billion in government bailout funds (second only to Citigroup). When it comes to paying their top managers and influencing elections and government, they don't hold back. Between 2007 and 2010, during the economic meltdown triggered in part by their reckless actions, Bank of America's PAC and employees donated $5.184 million to federal campaigns. During these same years, they spent $17.3 million lobbying the federal government. Bank of America paid their CEO Thomas Montag $29 million in 2009.

BOEING CORPORATION: Over the three year period from 2008 to 2010 had total pre-tax profits of $9.7 billion but did not pay a dime of its profits in federal taxes. Boeing Corporation has 38 subsidiaries in foreign tax haven jurisdictions. At the end of February 2011, the U.S. government granted Boeing a contract worth $35 billion to build airplanes.

VERIZON: Take out your Verizon phone bill. See the part of the bill where you paid taxes? $2 dollars? Guess what? You paid more taxes on your phone bill than Verizon paid in 2009 and 2010 in federal U.S. corporate taxes. They reported $24.2 billion in pre-tax U.S. income, and yet claimed a federal corporate refund of $1.3 billion. The company has $1.2 billion in unrepatriated foreign assets, money it is keeping offshore in order not to take tax reserves against it.

FEDERAL EXPRESS: Federal Express reported over $1.9 billion in U.S. profits, but paid only $1 million in federal corporate income taxes over the last 2 years, for an effective tax rate of .05 percent. While FedEx only paid $1 million in taxes over 2 years, they spent nearly $42 million lobbying Congress. They have 21 subsidiaries in tax havens including 3 in the Cayman Islands and 3 in Ireland.

GENERAL ELECTRIC: In General Electric, they consider their Accounting Department to be a "profit center," working to avoid taxes. Between 2006 and 2010, General Electric told their shareholders they had $26.3 billion in profits, but paid no U.S. taxes. In fact, they got $4.2 billion in rebates, so their effective U.S. tax rate was negative 15.8 percent. In 2009, General Electric — the world's largest corporation — filed more than 7,000 tax returns and still paid nothing to U.S. government. In 2010, they reported $5.07 billion in domestic pre-tax profits and paid just $4 million in taxes. Their unpatriated taxes grew to $94 billon. They managed to do this by a tax code that essentially subsidizes companies for losing profits and allows them to set up tax havens overseas. GE has subsidiaries in tax havens including 3 each in Bermuda and Singapore and 1 in Luxembourg. In 2009, GE CEO Jeffery Immelt earned total compensation of $9.89 million. GE spent $39 million lobbying the federal government in 2010 alone, and $83 million since 2008.

OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM: In 2009, this oil giant paid their CEO Ray Irani $31.4 million, about twice what they paid in federal corporate income taxes, which was $16 million!

CITIGROUP: Citigroup has paid no taxes for the last four years. They were the largest recipient of federal bank bailout funds, receiving $476 billion. Citigroup has a whopping 427 subsidiaries in tax havens including 90 in Cayman Islands, 91 in Luxemburg, 35 in British Virgin Islands, and 40 in Hong Kong. Citigroup has continued to pay its staff lavishly. "John Havens, the head of Citigroup's investment bank, will probably be the bank's highest paid executive for the second year in a row, with a compensation package worth $9.5 million."

EXXON-MOBIL: The oil giant uses offshore subsidiaries and other loopholes to avoid paying taxes in the United States. They have 32 subsidiaries in tax haven countries including 18 in the Bahamas and 3 in the Cayman Islands. Although Exxon-Mobil paid $15 billion in taxes to other governments in 2009, not a penny of those taxes went to the U.S. Treasury. So maybe those other countries should defend ExxonMobil's assets around the world, instead of the men and women of the U.S. armed forces. Next time the pirates take over your oil tanker, call the Bahamas! ExxonMobil did come up with $68 million to lobby Congress between 2008 and 2010.

WELLS FARGO: Despite being the fourth largest bank in the country, Wells Fargo was able to escape paying federal taxes by writing all of its losses off after its acquisition of Wachovia. Yet in 2009 the chief executive of Wells Fargo also saw his compensation "more than double" as he earned "a salary of $5.6 million paid in cash and stock and stock awards of more than $13 million."

NEWS CORPORATION:The media giant that owns Fox News avoids taxes through its 152 subsidiaries in tax havens, including 62 in British Virgin Islands, 33 in Cayman Islands, 21 in Hong Kong, and 15 in Mauritius.

PFIZER: Without intellectual property and patent protections, Pfizer's patents for products like Viagra would be easily replicated and produced for a fraction of the cost. They depend on the US court system to defend their property. Yet Pfizer shelters a lot of this intellectual property offshore, with 80 subsidiaries in tax havens, including 28 in Ireland, 16 in Luxembourg, 10 on the island of Jersey.

[Brock Samson]

 See? that's why i posted to the Joe Bagent stuff up above, he had a good handle on the root causes of what some folks like to blame China for.
There was a time in the '60s and '70s when Japan was blamed much the same way,.. Now they're mostly blamed for flooding the world with cars. Same thing though. The term "Off Shoring"  came to mean our jobs going overseas, there's plenty about that too. The service industry jobs that can are pretty much allready there, called to fix your computer anytime?..
In case you didn't know it a lot of what you read on the computer or, if you still read newspapers is now being written overseas, the paper I used to work for had a "Travel Section" staffed with a few folks that traveled extensively, well they got laid off a few years back and that part of the rapidly shrunken newspaper is now done in Malaysia. No Bylines anymore either (i wont even go there..) so your not tipped off as to who's actually writing this stuff. Those same articles appear in papers and on-line all over the place spreading the costs out further.
Meanwhile in China - lacking "Name Brands" is buying up every known brand they can, so beware what you buy it's no way to measure quality anymore.

[RECHRGD]

Well, this has turned political in a hurry.  Anyway....I agree that the big corps. have been getting away with murder for a long time and that they should start paying their fair share in taxes.  BUT.....It's been my experience that businesses in general will only pass on the added costs to the consumers (you and me).  So, it would be great for the government, but they sure wouldn't give the average taxpayer any breaks because of it.  Then if the corps. had to pay 30% in taxes, the cost of goods would, in turn, go up 30% to keep the shareholders happy and the CEO's making 50 million a year.  Can of worms.

[Brock Samson]

i don't see how blaming a flawed system that stacks the deck can be called political. 

[Old Moparz]

Well, this has turned political in a hurry.  Anyway....I agree that the big corps. have been getting away with murder for a long time and that they should start paying their fair share in taxes.  BUT.....It's been my experience that businesses in general will only pass on the added costs to the consumers (you and me).  So, it would be great for the government, but they sure wouldn't give the average taxpayer any breaks because of it.  Then if the corps. had to pay 30% in taxes, the cost of goods would, in turn, go up 30% to keep the shareholders happy and the CEO's making 50 million a year.  Can of worms.

Believe me, I wasn't trying to turn anything political with what I posted, but the problem is directly tied to what has changed & now allowed in this country. On that same note, I didn't mention one party as being responsible either. The differences between parties is so minimal & blurred they are almost the same.

[RECHRGD]

I don't care that it's gone political.  There's really no way to get into this subject without going there.  As long as the mods are OK with it. so am I!

[ACUDANUT]

I don't care that it's gone political.  There's really no way to get into this subject without going there.  As long as the mods are OK with it. so am I!

Ranting about the Chinese would never be political  
BTW never buy anything made by Rigid..AKA China Crap.  My grinder/sewage pump cost me 360.00 and had a lifetime warranty....It lasted 4 Months...What a Shitty mess I had to deal with ...Literally.

[bull]

The big corp tax evasion thing is a bit of a misnomer IMO. Not saying they don't avoid it because they do but if they did pay taxes they still wouldn't be paying the taxes; we would. The prices they charge would simply reflect the taxes they "pay" and although those who hate the corporations for avoiding taxes might feel better all of us would be paying more. What needs to happen is these corps need to be motivated by fines, tariffs, incentives, whatever, to keep the jobs at home. Even if they didn't pay taxes their employees would and our tax base would be more stable. I think that's the bigger issue.

[Dans 68]

What is a "fair" share of taxes for a corporation to pay ? Who is to say? To pay as little in taxes as possible, i.e., to maximize profits, should be the goal of every business. Otherwise, most likely than not, and eventually, you will have no business.

Dan

[tricky lugnuts]

You can't blame China without blaming America and a whole slew of multinational corporations - like GE - that are doing their best to bilk both countries.

For then, the world gave us Chimerica, an international sharing, some might argue, transfer, or even shell game, of wealth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emRbMur7eH0

I agree about Japan, a former Asian Tiger - but China's a different country, with natural resources, and these are different times. I don't think China's rise is certain, its far from it, but it's kind of starting to look like the ball is in their court to kick off the century. Hard to fathom that just 5 percent of the world's population could run the show forever.

With time we'll all know how the world turns out! As for dissatisfaction with your appliances, I'd first write the manufacturer.

If you WANT American-made goods, because you think they're of higher quality, MAKE an effort to look around for them. They seem to be out there, still, kind of. This looks like a neat website this lady put up, with links to manufacturers of all sorts of Made in USA stuff, all split into convenient categories with links - looks legit, and they all seem to work! They've even got links to clothes made in this country, and who knew that was possible:

http://www.stillmadeinusa.com/

[Patronus]

Interesting. I'm glad I asked.