Corporate Greed

Corporations pursuing maximum benefit for stockholders is exactly the right thing.

The problem is that the corporations lobby for the rules to that they have to play by. Citizens should set the rules and corporations should have very little to say about it.

But that's not what we have. We have corporations (and really just the big execs) lobbying for exceptions and special benefits. These policies inevitably benefit a very few at the expense of the many.

Example. I worked for a bank, I as a citizen value Glass/Stiegel and the limits it imposes. The bank execs do not. They want to be able to play the market and generate more profit and more pay for themselves. They lobby (with corporate money) to change the rules.

They have too much power to influence rules/laws/policy. And that was made all the worse by CitUnited.
 
www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html

This link talks it pretty well. When most americans think of 1% they are really thinking of the top .5%. The bankers that provide little added value but have the access to slice .0001% off of a billion dollars as it moves through the system.

"Since I knew she held a critical view of investment banking, I asked if her colleagues talked about or understood how much damage was created in the broader economy from their activities. Her answer was that no one talks about it in public but almost all understood and were unbelievably cynical, hoping to exit the system when they became rich enough."

This is the 'greed' that is spoken about. They know that someone will pay for their malfeasance, their plan is typically to get theirs and get out before it hits the fan.

I don't think most people begrudge business owners and professionals that got to where they are via actually starting a business, taking initiative and risk. I think a lot of people begrudge the financial types that churn to take a cut of the flow.
 
no company, sports team, etc should be using tax payer money to build stadiums or relocate. It's like Austin and Texas paying F1 to get a race here or paying Apple to move some employees here.

Where is my handout for starting a company and creating a few jobs?? Where is my tax break??

I'm just sick
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of every level of gvt in this country right now. They are all corrupt on both sides and there is not much difference between any of them. One side talks a great game about fiscal responsibility, but doesn't follow through. The other side just wants to give everything away and make the people who really work hard pay for everything. They all make me
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""" There are only about 200 of those people in the US. The number probably isn't so much different than the number of lottery winners. To attack an ruin an entire system because of 200 schmucks is foolhardy.

There is a lot wrong in this world and unfortunately addressing many of the wrongs cause more harm than good. Going after those 200 people keep the upper middle class and upper classes from advancing. Higher taxes, changes in stock option accounting, etc. don't hurt the 0.5%, they hurt everyone else trying to become the top 0.5%.
 
Uninformed,
I think you are right it is a small population in that top .05%, but they control so much that targeting them for tax changes would have a substantial impact.

And when most people think scam/fraud/fatcat they aren't thinking of their doctor, lawyer, franchise owner down the street. Even the very successful doctor, lawyer and business owners are held in high regard by most.

What angers me and many others is that top .05%. Maybe the problem is that our conversations aren't specific enough. Maybe the conversation directed at the 1% should be directed at the .05%. Maybe that $250 cap that POTUS posited should be $500K.

When I support a higher effective tax rate for 'the rich', I'm not thinking about my regional restaurant chain owner, family farm or real estate developer. I'm thinking people like that chic that recently gave up her citizenship to save on taxes.

I don't even begrudge the folks that got to the .05% on their own. Even if I think athletes, entertainers are way overcompensated, at least they got their by virtue of some talent, effort, skill or initiative of their own.

I do begrudge the top 10% that were handed their wealth, power and influence via the lucky sperm club. That's why I favor a substantial inheritance tax for individual distributions over $5Mil. A tax like this would effect less than 1% of americans and would take the money from the slice of america that controls 40% of the wealth in the country.
The majority of which are living off the laurels of productive people well before them.
"According to a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, only 1.6% of Americans receive $100,000 or more in inheritance. Another 1.1% receive $50,000 to $100,000."

The debate is never really about whether or not there should be taxes but the shades of grey involved in setting policy. Where does it go from being tolerable as a cost of being a citizen to being 'Socialist'?

Is it socialism when the money goes to infrastructure, or just the part that goes to welfare/foodstamps?
 
I call absolute BS on this claim.
"The bankers who are working for me and my company on our bond offering work 100+ hour weeks. I know this for a fact because I use to be one myself. " Not that it is critical for this debate but you're suggesting that these people consistently put in 14 hrs of work day in and day out. That might be the case for a stretch of a few weeks but there is no way they do that consistently.

Again the debate is really about definitions. You see 'financial types' and include my local BoA branch manager, or the guy at Edward Jones,or the staff analyst. That's not who I mean when I use 'financial types' as a pejorative.

I am talking about the investment banking crowd, and the brokers, money managers moving the billions around.

And I would suggest most of the financial types don't take the risk. The financial types have built the system so that the take a cut of the up and the down and the administration of these moves.

The market was liquid well before the advent of derivatives.

But after all that, you're right in that demonizing/punishing a group because there are aspects and factions of that group that are slimy is not good policy either.
 
Corporate profits just hit an all-time high:


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Meanwhile, fewer Americans are working than in the past three decades:


employment-population-ratio.png




But wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low:


wages-to-gdp.png





How long can these trends be sustained?
 
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