Who remembers the novel Catch 22? Remember when M&M Enterprises bombed the base? It was OK because "everyone has a share". This is the situation we find ourselves in today.
You work for Behemoth Industry Inc, a Fortune 500 company, and you are also a shareholder. Every paycheck a small amount of money is deducted for the Employee Stock Purchase program. You also have automatic dividend reinvestment, so every quarter you are watching the number of shares you own grow, helping to build your retirement nest egg.
One Monday morning you come to work and find there is a chain on the front gate, the plant is closed. You are now unemployed. A company press release announces that the quarterly dividend will increase one half cent because of their cost saving measures of shipping much of their manufacturing offshore.
You are one of thousands out of work, and the ripple effect hits your town, your county, your state. Many of those who's lives have been damaged are stockholders also, as they own shares via their 401K's, in mutual funds, and direct investments in their IRA accounts. All these people get one half cent per share extra per quarter, in exchange for being thrown into poverty.
I am not saying I have an answer here, only that we are a shareholder society. Shouldn't we as shareholders be getting better treatment? Is that one half cent per share all that they owe us for our investment?
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Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Friday, August 5, 2011
If the mantra were true
Over and over you here the right saying you don't raise taxes during a recession. And on the surface, it even sounds like it might make sense. After all, the last thing you want to do in the middle of a recession is to take money out of circulation, have people spending less.
Most of your basic necessities, you know, food, clothing, utilities, gas, those are all spent locally. Even if most of the manufactured items were made elsewhere by slave labor, at least someone in the country is making a buck on it.
The people who's taxes they don't want to raise are the one's who are not going to spend it anyway. All of their basic needs are already covered, and most of their luxury desires are too. They already have the boat. And if they do spend it will not be on stuff that is going to have any impact on the US economy.
Because when you get beyond that stuff, well hiring another illegal alien to clean your toilets does not do all that much for our economy. Nor does investing in more slave labor factories in countries with no worker protections, no safety standards, no child labor laws do much to pull us out of this.
Now contrast with their other big passion, cutting government spending. What do you think happens when you cut government spending? You take money away from people who are going to spend essentially all of it here in this country. Every dollar you cut ripples through the economy many times. So that completely belies the argument that they are doing this for the economy.
Of course there are exceptions, we could stop paying mercenaries in Afghanistan, the gold-plated benefits our elected representatives grant themselves could be cut back to something comparable to what the rest of us have to live with. But that is not what they want to cut. They would cut meat inspectors and the FDA and other agencies whose responsibility is protecting you and your interests.
It really does come down to this. The Republican party, and many Blue Dog Democrats, work for their corporate masters and only their corporate masters. And they do not need the US economy to make money. They don't need you.
Most of your basic necessities, you know, food, clothing, utilities, gas, those are all spent locally. Even if most of the manufactured items were made elsewhere by slave labor, at least someone in the country is making a buck on it.
The people who's taxes they don't want to raise are the one's who are not going to spend it anyway. All of their basic needs are already covered, and most of their luxury desires are too. They already have the boat. And if they do spend it will not be on stuff that is going to have any impact on the US economy.
Because when you get beyond that stuff, well hiring another illegal alien to clean your toilets does not do all that much for our economy. Nor does investing in more slave labor factories in countries with no worker protections, no safety standards, no child labor laws do much to pull us out of this.
Now contrast with their other big passion, cutting government spending. What do you think happens when you cut government spending? You take money away from people who are going to spend essentially all of it here in this country. Every dollar you cut ripples through the economy many times. So that completely belies the argument that they are doing this for the economy.
Of course there are exceptions, we could stop paying mercenaries in Afghanistan, the gold-plated benefits our elected representatives grant themselves could be cut back to something comparable to what the rest of us have to live with. But that is not what they want to cut. They would cut meat inspectors and the FDA and other agencies whose responsibility is protecting you and your interests.
It really does come down to this. The Republican party, and many Blue Dog Democrats, work for their corporate masters and only their corporate masters. And they do not need the US economy to make money. They don't need you.
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