Social Issues vs. Economics

Well, I didn't think I was calling you a corporation. You said that, since corporations pay taxes, they should therefore have an equal voice in the decision on who should be president.

My point was the needs of the people, and the needs of the corporation are two different things. That's what I meant when I said that people are for people, and corporations are for profit. They don't necessarily mix well. Bought and paid for presidents might just as well be a corporation sitting in a chair. And they are!

 

Like corporations, I too expect to profit from my efforts. I see no reason why corporations,large or small should NOT have a voice on who they support for President, after all they have no vote.

I don't quite see a point being made, while I do agree that both people and corporations have needs, I don't see that those needs are mutually exclusive. Corporations do need people, and people, even if they refuse to recognize the fact, often find corporations fill their needs either in the form of employment, or providing needed goods and/or services in adequate quantity at an affordable price.

I don't find bought and paid for politicians any more or less desirable than bought and paid for voters.

 

Yeah, you make a good point, if everyone plays fair. Here is an article explaining how things work in theory, and then how they work in reality:

In terms of policy, we trust corporations more than people. But maybe we shouldn’t, and maybe we should reconsider at the very least the basic utility, not to mention morality, of corporate welfare.

That’s because, according to a December study, states are getting a raw deal from their treasured job-generators. That study, from Good Jobs First, a nonprofit that advocates for more responsible corporate subsidies, says state governments spend more on corporate subsidies than they get in return from corporations. The study looked at 238 economic development programs in 50 states. Some highlights:

• Less than half impose wage requirements on the companies that receive tax breaks; minimum wage jobs are equal to high-wage jobs.
• Just over half require companies to provide health insurance, but only 31 development programs demand employers contribute to the cost of healthcare premiums.
• Many states subsidize companies that would have created jobs anyway or that are job-shuffling — not creating new jobs but repurposing old ones.

The report’s researcher, Philip Mattera, wrote: “If subsidies do not result in real public benefits, they are no better than corporate giveaways.”

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/02/03/subsidizing-people-instead-of-corporations/

 

Here are the results of the sudy:

http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/moneyforsomethingexecsum.pdf

 

You left out the part about what exactly is equal.

Where in The Constitution does it say that money is a form of speech?

Again, my feelings (or yours) are not the issue we’re discussing, which is original intent. Where in The Constitution does it say that corporations are entitled to the rights of people?

 

1. The point was that very little in life is truly equal.

2. The Constitution makes no such comparison, and 'the freedom of speech' is simply the freedom for a living, thinking being to have and express their opinions, views, and various thoughts with some limitations. Money only allows access to a wider audience, and says nothing by itself.

3. The rights belong to the people who own, operate, invest in, employed by, or benefit in some way by the corporation. They, the living, thinking persons, are the ones who are expressing their views. Corporations are inanimate objects.

 

storch:

Most studies start with a view they wish to promote and look for what they can present as facts in support of that view. Therefore, as I've said previously, I take them with a grain of salt.

In my opinion, society prospers only when all members are gainfully employed in some way which they are producing something of value, not simply by redistributing the earnings of those who do. Then and only then are the means made available to care for those who are truly incapable and need assistance, which should be made available by the individuals who comprise the society they live within, not through government.

 

Q. You left out the part about what exactly is equal.

A. The point was that very little in life is truly equal.

Comment: We’re not musing about life but The Constitution and its use of the word ‘equal.’



Q: Where in The Constitution does it say that money is a form of speech?

A: The Constitution makes no such comparison…

Comment: Then don’t stand on the FOX News talking point of the need to get back to “the original intent of The Constitution.”



Q. Again, my feelings (or yours) are not the issue we’re discussing, which is original intent. Where in The Constitution does it say that corporations are entitled to the rights of people?

A: Corporations are inanimate objects.

Comment: You said it yourself, “corporations are inanimate objects,” they’re not people. Therefore they are not entitled to the rights of The Constitution. Those rights are for people.



Ok, now repeat after me:
I pledge allegiance to the logo of the Corporate States of America, and to the plutocracy for which it stands, one nation under surveillance, incorporated, with literal injustice for oil.

 

Generally it implies "the same" or "similar". Is there a particular sentence in which you wish to dissect its' usage?

I have no idea what the FOX News talking point is that you refer to, although I do respect the original intent of the Constitution, along with most of the amendments.

And those rights would then be extended to the animate 'people' who represent the corporations, would they not? After all, I've yet to hear any form of speech originate from a building or structure which represents a corporation.

 

Individual,

I'm going to have to take what you say with a grain of salt. Like yourself, I prefer to be shown something to substantiate one's claim that something else is bullshit.

Here is something from the Cato Institute that appears to back the study I provided: http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb108/hb108-33.pdf

Here is another: http://www.progress.org/banneker/cw.html

And another: Corporate welfare, they write, is "a game in which governments large and small subsidize corporations large and small, usually at the expense of another state or town and almost always at the expense of individuals and other corporate taxpayers."

Barlett and Steele report that "the federal government alone shells out $125 billion a year in corporate welfare." Meanwhile, "a different kind of feeding frenzy is taking place" at the state and local level -- where "politicians stumble over one another in the rush to arrange special deals for select corporations."

In theory, the giveaways create jobs. In practice, the theory is hogwash: "Time's investigation has established that almost without exception, local and state politicians have doled out tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to businesses that are in fact eliminating rather than creating jobs."

http://www.progress.org/archive/welfare01.htm

And there are others. I'm not saying that I'm right and you're wrong. I just need more in the way of rebuttal.

 

As a general response to all the posts about corporate contributions buying elections, I have to say that I don't like the Supreme Court ruling either, but I know it isn't the end of the world. Money only goes so far. It can distribute your message to the ends of the earth, but it can't make people like what you have to say. They can totally reject the message, and the candidate or party associated with it.

Think back to the election of 2008. Who was by far the most overexposed candidate in the final two months of the campaign? Sarah Palin. The media obsessed on every word that came out of her mouth. You couldn't escape from her on television. And the more the voters heard from her, the less they liked her. She gave John McCain a lead in the polls, and then she took it away. Big money allowed the McCain ticket to finish in second place, but they were nowhere close to winning.

If the new campaign finance rules are going to destroy democracy in America, the first sure sign will be the Republicans winning every race in every state this November. Big business strongly prefers the Republican Party, and so does the majority of small business owners.

Not convinced of this bias? Check the official platform of the US Chamber of Commerce (http://www.uschamber.com/issues). Most items on their agenda almost perfectly match the positions of the GOP on the same issues. The only significant exception is their position on transportation spending. Local CoC chapters are supposed to support and provide rescources for all local businesses and facilitate networking within the local business community, but I would be run out of my local chapter if they knew I was a Democrat. Everybody I know there expresses absolute hatred for the Democratic Party, and questions the intelligence and moral character of Democrats. From what I hear, this is pretty much what you find throughout the organization, nationwide.

There is no liberal counterpart to the national CoC.

The goverment (in every country) has the power to regulate commerce, and part of that function is the power to define what a corporation is. By defining them as similar to people in most ways, that makes it easier to hold them legally responsible for their actions, such as allowing people to sue them in court.

Don't forget, corporations can be very small. In fact, the majority of incorporated companies are owned by only one person. The existing rules work pretty well at that level.

My only real problem with corporations is that some have become too large. There should be limits on their size. Various anti-trust acts were once used to limit corporate size and power, and the ICC used to reject mergers for that same reason. But I don't see us ever going back to that.

Probably the only way to limit the size of campaign contributions is with a constitutional ammendment.

 

storch:

Like I said studies are generally presented in a way to promote a view, and as far as subsidies go, tax loopholes, cash handouts, or other forms of government redistribution of wealth, be it directed to corporations or individuals, I am a non-supporter.

Do you expect me to waste valuable time looking for an opposing study to present and argue over?

Until debt is brought under control by reducing it with intent to eliminate it our economic issues will only grow more difficult to solve. As a result the social problems are only going to become more numerous and costly.

 

No, I did not expect that an opposing study would be produced.

 

It is ironic that your name is individual isn't it?

I thought this video was appropriate for our discussion: (I'm not sure how to do video so any suggestions or comments would be appreciated

I'll try posting as a link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alr-OginH48&feature=endscreen&NR=1"]Mitt Romney: Man of the Corporations - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROpHcwq6vXo"]Crash Course: We the People, Not We the Corporations - YouTube

I've often thought about that. How is it that they always seem to agree? I wonder about that too... A lack of diversity of opinion...

 

I fail to see the irony you are trying to convey. Essentially, at birth, we are all dependents, and at some point in life many of us accept personal responsibility and begin to exercise our independence as individuals partaking in the productive area of society.

Is there something in the videos you mention you would like to point out? If so just write it in your own words. I am not a Romney supporter, so it's not likely I would care to argue for him, but more so with him.

Who is it you are referring to as 'they'? It would appear that a primary agenda of government, and a good number of people from both the Left and the Right is to eliminate the diversity of opinion in order to produce a society which choices are reduced to being between obedience or non-obedience. The fact that we appear to disagree with each other seems to support the existence of some diversity of opinion, does it not?

 

Karen

I’d hope that was true but my fear is that that history has shown that propaganda often works, especially if ideas have been drummed into people over many years to the point that they’re seen by many as just ‘common sense’.

In the US a lot of money (public and private) has been spent on attacking left wing ideas to the point were many there see anything left wing as being basically Stalinist in nature and totally un-American.

So many Americans seem to see destructive neo-liberal ideas as just ‘common sense’ and with many seeming to associate such things as ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ with tax cuts and an unregulated free market.

I often come up against people that are clearly indoctrinated in that they cannot defend their ideas in any rational or reasonable way they ‘believe’ these things because to them they are obviously right even if they are totally unable to defend them.

Just as in other generations (and something that still lingers) white people thought it was just ‘obvious’ that white people were superior to other races and acted toward them accordingly (slavery, imperialism, genocide etc).

I agree all markets need to be managed to make sure that they work in the interests of the majority and society as a whole, one of those things is to limit the problem of ‘too big to fail’ or the equal problem of patronage to gain influence.

This can be done through breaking up large companies and limits on media control.

The question is why do political groups need money? It’s said the great expense is media advertising –

Here are a few ideas I’ve mentioned before –

Only limited but free advertising slots allowed for political groups or issues (in papers and on TV) for any party receiving 5% of vote (to begin with X number of signatures), and only for one month before a election no electioneering allowed at any other times. Campaign donations wouldn’t go directly to the candidates but to the party and then have to be distributed equally. Limits on the actions of lobbyists and think tanks. Have an independent media paid for by a licence fee levied on existing media. Bring back the Fairness Doctrine especially in news reporting and have an independent board be able to fine transgressors

But you are probably right many of the solutions would be seen as attacks on the first amendment.

 

Balbus, I pretty much agree with your entire post, but I do have some points to add.

Yes, that is a plastic term. Like 'good taste', common sense is often very much in the eye of the beholder. Repetition does often make people more receptive to an idea. Anybody with common sense knows that. But seriously, a lot of my opinions changed after I got away from my childhood situation of hearing mostly the same point of view all the time, from people with similar backgrounds. Exposure to a variety of viewpoints made me less susceptible to propaganda, as I developed a growing realization that no one group was ever going to be right about everything; especially groups that promote extreme positions.

I think one of the most important roles of education is to teach people how to think for themselves. Nobody does it perfectly, but it needs to be a high priority in a democratic society.

I think it is very scary that a people as intelligent, logical, and education-oriented as the Germans could have ever been misled to the point where the Nazi Party could come to power. If it could happen there, it could happen anywhere. I worry that we may be headed in a similar direction, in the long term.

Yes, and there is a religious angle to this also. Church attendance in America is still much higher than in most parts of Europe, and a lot of these churches preach political conservatism as a cornerstone of true faith. They teach that liberal ideas (political and theological) are sinful. Members are paying for this indoctrination with their own donations. We have liberal churches too, but they are smaller, less influential, and continuously shrinking. They emphasize the compassion, generosity, and selflessness of Christ, and the importance of following his example.

Even among Americans who don't go to church often, most have not rejected what they were taught in church as children, so they respond to familiar hooks embedded in the rhetoric of the political right.

As the most religious of all Western nations, I think it's impossible to fully understand America without taking a close look at the way Christian conservatism influences everything that goes on here. Sometimes the influences are below the surface, but they are never missing from the equation.

I don't know why it isn't more obvious to the masses that a shift to the extreme right carries as much of a potential loss of personal freedom as a move to the extreme left. Maybe it is our ignorance of world history.

Again, I see a religious component at work. Millions of Americans would rather trust and depend on God rather than the government. If God is always going to take care of you in every situation, then why would you want or need a tax-funded societal safety net? If God is in absolute control of everything that happens in the world, then why are we paying for USDA beef inspectors? God isn't going to let that unethical meat packing company poison you! And if you do die from eating contaminated food, then it was God's will, and nothing could have (or should have) prevented it.

As crazy as this logic may sound to you, trust me, I have known many people who thought this way. It is not an uncommon philosophy here in the South, and many others subscribe to a similar but watered-down version. To them, liberals simply need to have more faith, and give up on this godless idea that humans can solve their own problems. (Their wording, not mine.)

History makes it clear to me that government always matters. This idealistic notion of getting government out of the way so that we can build Utopia has never worked anywhere. Why would the outcome be different here?

But Reagan told us in 1980 that God made us special. We are not special. We are just flawed human beings, and we need to be constantly working on improving our flawed human government, just like everybody else in the world needs to be doing.

That was a pet peeve of my all-time favorite professor. Whenever he encountered that kind of thinking, he would play devil's advocate with that person until they crumbled. He had no trouble crushing clueless freshmen with his superior intellect. Halfway through the semester, I realized that I didn't have any idea what his views were on anything. He just wanted us to have sound, logical reasons for our own positions, whatever they might be. He told us that it was a key distinguishing characteristic of a educated person. And he said that if we couldn't learn to think critically, "...I hope this university won't give you a diploma, because you will be an embarrassment to the school, and to everyone who calls himself a college graduate."

Smart dude. Wise words.

I suppose this forum section makes me think about college a lot because that was the last time I did any serious writing on political topics. In general, HF reminds me of my college days for a lot of reasons, good and bad.

Unfortunately, they were reacting only to symptoms of a larger problem, not the root causes. When one group of people has no opportunity to get an education but another group does, the first group is going to appear inferior to the second. If the second group is half as smart as they think they are, they will be able to figure this out.

Not bad ideas, but too radical to get past the Supreme Court in the form of ordinary laws. And we don't have enough of a national consensus yet to be ready for a constitutional amendment on this.

Our highly polarized parties create another big problem in this area. How do you draw the line separating a campaign speech from a lecture on political philosophy in general? Any comment that leans the slightest bit left or right can be seen as support for one of the two big parties, and its major candidates. If limits were placed on that kind of discussion on the air, it would be a HUGE step away from the concept of free speech. Not going to happen here.

Churches use polarization as a loophole to get around the federal law against tax-exempt charities endorsing political candidates. Preachers simply talk about issues in a way that makes it clear who they want you to vote for. No need to mention a party or candidate by name.

I don't know what the solution is to this mess.

[sigh] You gave me a lot to chew on today!

 

If corporations are persons and money equals speech, real, living, breathing, individual persons will end up having no speech.
The reason for this is that most of us “individuals” do not have dispensable cash lying around to “influence” elections.

I was wondering what you think… do corporations exist for the people or do people exist for the corporations?

I believe this subject is relevant to the thread topic because… if corporations are persons and money equals speech… which speech gets heard? The speech with the most money silly… even a child can understand that.

 

People keep working for the corporations and paying the corporations for their products, so to a particular degree it is their fate to be ruled by them.

 

1. Corporations are NOT persons, but are treated like a person for tax purposes, and are subject to many of the same laws as are real persons.
2. Money does NOT equal speech. If you need proof of that, assemble a pile of money in a room, and sit quietly while listening. It wouldn't matter how much money you put in the room, it will never utter a single word.
3. If real, living, breathing, individual persons ever end up having no speech, it will be a result of government action.

Corporations exist as a result of the demand people provide for products and/or services. A growing or large population provides the demand which corporations form as the means of providing the supply most cost effectively. Each benefits the other, providing goods and services for consumption and jobs in which to earn the means of buying them.

Yes, and for many decades I've been hearing the view from the Left constantly, and anything from the Right denigrated by MSM, Hollywood, etc. So hearing doesn't equate to believing. Perhaps the fact that I was educated more than 60 years ago, when local school systems were run more by parents than government has something to do with that? Having gone to college in the early 70's the changes to our education system were quite obvious. Not only had new math been introduced, giving me quite an edge over recent high school graduates, but a new history of the United States and it's founding also was being taught.