The theft of society’s wealth may be due to ignorance as well as to greed. Why are we wrongly being advised that the best way to defuse the situation is to teach tolerance for inequality?
On December 29, 2014, Paul Buchheit writes on Nation Of Change:
The Merriam-Webster definition of ‘steal’ is to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice. Much of our country’s new wealth has been regularly taken by individuals or corporations in a wrongful manner, either through nonpayment of taxes or failure to compensate other contributors to their successes.
1. The Corporations
As schools and local governments are going broke around the country, companies who built their businesses with American research and education and technology and infrastructure are paying less in taxes than ever before. Incredibly,over half of U.S. corporate foreign profits are now being held in tax havens, double the share of just twenty years ago. Corporations are stealing from the nation that made them rich.
There are many examples of greed among individual firms. Based largely on 2014 SEC documents submitted by the companies themselves:
—Exxon has almost 80% of its productive oil and gas wells in the U.S. but declared only 17% of its income here. The company used a theoretical taxto account for 83% of last year’s income tax bill, and paid less than 2% of its total income in current U.S. taxes.
—Chevron has about 75% of its oil and gas wells and almost 90% of its pipeline mileage in the United States, yet the company claimed only 13% of last year’s income in the U.S., and paid almost nothing (less than 1/10 of 1%) in current U.S. taxes.
—Pfizer had 40% of last year’s sales in the U.S., but claimed losses in the U.S. and $17 billion in profits overseas.
—Bank of America, despite making 84% of its 2011-2013 revenue in the U.S., declared just 31% of its profits in the United States.
—Citigroup had 43% of its 2011-2013 revenue in North America but declared less than 3% of its profits in the United States.
—Apple still does most of its product and research development in the United States. Yet the company moved $30 billion in profits to an Irish subsidiary with no employees, with loopholes in place to avoid establishing residency in any country. The subsidiary files no returns and pays no taxes. Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “We pay all the taxes we owe.”
—Google’s business is based on the Internet, the Digital Library Initiative, and the geographical database of the U.S. Census Bureau. Yet the company has gained recognition as one of the world’s biggest tax avoiders.
2. The Forbes 40
Defenders of inequality argue that fortunes are deserved because of innovation and hard work. But many of the 40 Americans who own as much as the poorest half of the country have relied on less deserving means of accumulating great fortunes (details here).
—Warren Buffett’s company (Berkshire Hathaway) made a $28 billion profit last year, yet claimed a $395 million refund.
—The Koch brothers have taken clean air and water from us.
—The Walton siblings take our tax money to subsidize their employees.
—Larry Ellison was #1 on Sam Pizzigati’s Greediest of 2014 list.
The rest of the Top 40 List (details here) is speckled with instances of fraud, tax avoidance, and billionaire subsidies. The worst is probably hedge fund manager John Paulson, who has built a $13 billion fortune after conspiring with Goldman Sachs in 2007 to bundle and bet against sure-to-fail subprime mortgages that took the homes from millions of Americans.
Speaking of hedge fund managers, the carried interest loophole allowed just 25 individuals to take almost $5 billion from society last year by claiming that their income is different from the rest of ours.
3. The Deniers
After 35 years of wealth theft there are still inequality deniers — notably theAmerican Enterprise Institute, which claims that income inequality has been shrinking since 1989, and that we should be asking whether or not the bottom 60% are paying their fair share.
Another insult from The Federalist: Income Inequality Is Good For The Poor.
The Reason Foundation tops it off, advising us that the best way to defuse the situation is to teach tolerance for inequality.
All of which suggests that the theft of society’s wealth may be due to ignorance as well as to greed.
http://www.nationofchange.org/2014/12/29/greed-kings-2014-stole-us/
Paul Buchheit presents an excellent MUST READ article on greed hoggism and the continued accumulation of concentrated wealth-creating, income-producing capital assets. The vast bulk of productive capital assets are owned by corporations, which are owned by individuals as stock share holders. It is this extremely small group of people who elect and control the corporation’s Board of Directors, who intern retain the CEO and upper level managers to oversee and direct the operation of the corporation. The salaries and benefits, which also include significant stock options, put these managers’ incomes shamelessly and substantially greater than even the highest paid non-management workers, which results in resentful income inequality among the work force.
Also, there are the small stock holders (which number in the millions among all the corporate stock held) with comparatively little in stock ownership who are denied the payout of the full earnings of the company, which they share ownership in. Thus, corporations continue to expand and operate more efficiency through technological invention and innovation with less and less workers while simultaneously concentrating more ownership in the hands of those who already own the corporation, using retained earnings and/or debt financing, while NEVER creating any new capital owners. This is the scenario that persists and that results in enormous income and wealth (capital ownership) inequality.
In the meantime, while all the ownership concentration is occurring, the stock market exchanges provide a gambling service for those betting the up and down prices of stock trading. This is nothing short of risky business and one should be prepared to lose their “past savings” pledge in the betting game.
Why is this happening and what can be done to abate the situation and put our nation on the path to prosperity, opportunity, and economic justice?
The problem is in the design and operation of the SYSTEM. The system of investment finance fundamentality requires one to have substantial savings to participate and grow richer and richer. (The saying is essentially true in todays financial sector that “it’s takes money to make money.”) Thus, in a nutshell, investment finance is based on the requirement of “past savings” invested or pledge as security in the event than a capital loan does not produce the return expected to pay off the bank or lender. As one should realize, this results in the reality that ONLY those with substantial income, property holdings, or capital assets, can participate in the system to accumulate wealth-creating, income-producing capital asset ownership.
One may think, well that is how it has always been, and I would have to agree. But is this what we should want and expect for our future and for our children and grandchildren? There is a more just way. We can reform the system so that the capital ownership concentration mechanism is disabled and replaced with a new system whereby new capital asset formation is created using financial mechanisms that provide asset-backed new money extended to EVERY citizen to acquire personal ownership shares in the FUTURE growth capital assets of the economy. This would take the form of extending insured, interest-free capital credit to EVERY child, woman and man to acquire newly issued shares of full-dividend paying stock by the viable corporations growing the economy. The capital credit loans would be paid back with the earnings produced by the investments. There would be no requirement for “past savings” or equity pledges or reductions in current income and benefits. Either private capital credit insurance and/or government reinsurance would substitute for the “past savings” security requirement.
If you would like to learn more about the proposals for such a system reform and dive deeper into the specifics and the supporting economic policies to completely eliminate the concentration of capital ownership wealth, see the proposed Capital Homestead Act and the agenda of the Just Third Way. These are the nucleus ideas supported in the platform of the Unite America Party.
Support the Capital Homestead Act at http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-a-plan-for-getting-ownership-income-and-power-to-every-citizen/ and http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-summary/.
Support the Agenda of The Just Third Way Movement at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797, http://www.cesj.org/resources/articles-index/the-just-third-way-basic-principles-of-economic-and-social-justice-by-norman-g-kurland/, http://www.cesj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/jtw-graphicoverview-2013.pdf and http://www.cesj.org/resources/articles-index/the-just-third-way-a-new-vision-for-providing-hope-justice-and-economic-empowerment/.
Support the Unite America Party Platform, published by The Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-reber/platform-of-the-unite-ame_b_5474077.html as well as Nation Of Change at http://www.nationofchange.org/platform-unite-america-party-1402409962 and OpEd News at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Platform-of-the-Unite-Amer-by-Gary-Reber-Party-Leadership_Party-Platforms-DNC_Party-Platforms-GOP-RNC_Party-Politics-Democratic-140630-60.html.
