President Obama spent much of Wednesday huddled with a group of business executives, an effort The New York Times said afterward "went a long way to reset the tone of the relationship between Mr. Obama and corporate America" in the eyes of the corporate chieftains who attended.
That's all well and good, if the problems with today's economy were rooted in a lack of warmth and fuzziness between President Obama and corporate CEOs. But they aren't. For decades, the interests of corporate lobbyists—the people acting on behalf of many of the executives at the White House meeting—have been at odds with the interests of working people. The White House "making peace" with corporate CEOs, to use The Washington Post's description of the meeting, is one thing. But Wall Street needs to make peace with those of us who have been forced, as a result of the conservative policies they promoted, to live through a decade of stagnant wages, unemployment and underemployment. Wall Street needs a reset with working America.
Unfortunately, it's not at all clear that this meeting delivered much for working-class people. The Post reported that "after the meeting, several chief executives said their conversation with the president was constructive and open as they discussed education, trade, taxes and jobs. But the executives and Obama remained vague about specific outcomes they expected from the meeting."
And one of the few specifics reported from the meeting is highly disturbing. Bloomberg reported that the CEOs had their hands out for yet another tax cut:
While Obama has called on the CEOs to spend the $2 trillion in cash their companies have accumulated on job creation, the executives said much of that is earnings from overseas sales that are retained abroad to avoid paying U.S. corporate income tax. U.S.-based multinational corporations pay corporate income tax on earnings when they are brought back to the U.S. If the revenue remains abroad, either in cash or investment in overseas facilities, the money isn’t taxed.
Obama said he would consider the issue and asked what the executives would be willing to give up in other corporate tax rates to make sure it remains revenue neutral.
Actually, in many cases the earnings involved are not necessarily from "overseas sales." Many multinational corporations have created elaborate schemes to ensure that domestic sales are credited as foreign ones in order to avoid paying corporate income tax. It's how Google avoids paying billions in corporate income taxes to the United States and the United Kingdom.
President Obama has rightly pledged to go after this tax dodge and sent some proposals to Congress last year that Citizens for Tax Justice said were "steps in the right direction." Businesses have countered with demands for a "tax holiday," The Financial Times reported in October. Again, at least until now, the Obama administration has resisted. One reason, as the FT notes, is that there is no guarantee that the money coaxed back into the U.S. will actually be used for investment and job creation.
We've been here before. In 2004 the Bush administration and the Republican Congress gave corporations a tax amnesty on profits sheltered overseas. The benefits for workers were negligible. Gannett News Service reported earlier this year in a story about Sen. Barbara Boxer's support for an offshore tax break:
A Congressional Research Service analysis published in January 2009 found that 10 of the top dozen companies that took advantage of the 2004 break cut jobs. Hewlett-Packard repatriated $14.5 billion and laid off 14,500. Pfizer repatriated $37 billion and cut 9,000 jobs in 2005.California-based Oracle and Intel also repatriated foreign earnings. The money helped Oracle acquire two U.S. companies and helped Intel build a new factory
.
The Business Roundtable, a champion of the tax amnesty idea, says of the money that came back to the U.S. as a result of 2004 holiday, 25 percent went to capital investments and 23 percent to hiring and training new workers. Even that positive spin suggests the country doesn't get very much for coaxing businesses to do less than what they should be dong as corporate citizens.
Corporations succeed in the United States not simply because of what they do on their own. Their success depends on the quality of public schools that prepare their workers, transportation networks that move goods and people, agencies that help keep people healthy and safe, and efforts to ensure that each American is able to maintain at least a minimal standard of living. All of these are government functions that corporations undercut when they engage in schemes to avoid paying taxes, leaving the rest of us to struggle with the consequences.
The businesses that profit as a result of the public commons that We the People provide should not have to be given special inducements to pay their fair share toward supporting that commons. (As it stands now, contrary to conservative claims to the contrary, the truth is U.S. corporations pay some of the lowest tax rates of major industrial powers.) That is the starting point from which President Obama should begin in building a new tax framework in which businesses and Main Street can profit together in a new economy.
Even as corporations are seeking a tax holiday, these same corporations spent hundreds of millions of dollars electing congressional candidates opposed to government initiatives that would stimulate the economy and stoke the demand that would coax their hoarded cash off the sidelines. Instead of egging on, tacitly or otherwise, the anti-spending crowd, these CEOs could still choose to back a real economic stimulus—not just cross-your-fingers-and-hope-they-trickle-down tax cuts, but real investment in the economy's future.
Lew Prince, a small business owner in St. Louis, recently penned an op-ed that offered a more Main Street perspective on what businesses need to prosper:
We shouldn’t borrow billions more dollars from China and Saudi Arabia to give to the wealthy. Instead the wealthy should pay their fair share. We need adequate tax revenue to invest in our economy. More tax cuts at the top won’t create jobs. But we will create jobs and strengthen our economy by rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, public transit, levees and water and gas pipelines. We will save and create jobs by investing in education and clean energy research and manufacturing now growing much more rapidly in other countries.
Now that Obama has met with business executives, his next step should be a summit meeting with the unemployed. And then let's have a real debate in which business executives and their conservative benefactors are called to account on whether they are really interested in the fates of American workers or just in their own balance sheets.
As important is the quality of the current crop of quarterbacks. If a quarterback is able to continue to score after the other team, defenses are less important. And to continue to score, the offensive schemes need to be better than average if not outstanding.
Left to the draft, there is a real opportunity but little guarantee that money will be well-spent. While this is also speculation, it is apparent that Bradford is no panacea for the dearth of talent on the Rams. And there is substantial question despite Sam Bradford's fairly successful campaign in the NFL's weakest division that his talent is sufficient to take the Rams to the top.
While the offensive schemes may be insufficient, the most likely coaching change in the Rams' immediate future, the most likely acquisition is another quarterback. The view here is that Bradford will not last. Instead, a seasoned quarterback is more likely to start next year.
The NFL may also develop an international system like soccer's World Cup. While the talent stream is far different, making this a very difficult proposition indeed, the NFL has far too many teams in the current environment to make real sense on the world stage. The numbers watching terrible games are too low to sustain these teams over the long-term, and an international move would give owners a chance to work with a new and different system for a while.
A move to L.A. for Kroenke makes sense from this perspective. Kroenke had to have gotten something more in the international arena when he gave up his MBA and NFL teams. This could have been some right of first refusal in any new international expansion league. And these are likely to be paired with other NFL franchises. L.A.'s international profile is relevant here, and a move to L.A. in the short term (probably by 2014) is likely.
robert shumake detroit
Nike Air Max LeBron Soldier V – Upcoming Colorways | SneakerNews.com
Continue reading for a complete look at the upcoming colorways of the Air Max LeBron Soldier V and stick with Sneaker News for more updated information on all Nike LeBron shoes. via CK. Nike Air Max LeBron Soldier V – Upcoming Colorways ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: Starting Your New Business In A New Year
Whether your starting a new business or rethinking an existing one, 2011 offers fresh possibilities and a new start. If you're launching a new business, there.
Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Bigfoot to get the 'Avatar' Treatment <b>...</b>
A leaked costume test from MGM's completed-but-shelved remake of 1984's 'Red Dawn' has found its way online. It's not much, but thanks to MGM's.
robert shumake detroit
Nike Air Max LeBron Soldier V – Upcoming Colorways | SneakerNews.com
Continue reading for a complete look at the upcoming colorways of the Air Max LeBron Soldier V and stick with Sneaker News for more updated information on all Nike LeBron shoes. via CK. Nike Air Max LeBron Soldier V – Upcoming Colorways ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: Starting Your New Business In A New Year
Whether your starting a new business or rethinking an existing one, 2011 offers fresh possibilities and a new start. If you're launching a new business, there.
Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Bigfoot to get the 'Avatar' Treatment <b>...</b>
A leaked costume test from MGM's completed-but-shelved remake of 1984's 'Red Dawn' has found its way online. It's not much, but thanks to MGM's.
robert shumake
President Obama spent much of Wednesday huddled with a group of business executives, an effort The New York Times said afterward "went a long way to reset the tone of the relationship between Mr. Obama and corporate America" in the eyes of the corporate chieftains who attended.
That's all well and good, if the problems with today's economy were rooted in a lack of warmth and fuzziness between President Obama and corporate CEOs. But they aren't. For decades, the interests of corporate lobbyists—the people acting on behalf of many of the executives at the White House meeting—have been at odds with the interests of working people. The White House "making peace" with corporate CEOs, to use The Washington Post's description of the meeting, is one thing. But Wall Street needs to make peace with those of us who have been forced, as a result of the conservative policies they promoted, to live through a decade of stagnant wages, unemployment and underemployment. Wall Street needs a reset with working America.
Unfortunately, it's not at all clear that this meeting delivered much for working-class people. The Post reported that "after the meeting, several chief executives said their conversation with the president was constructive and open as they discussed education, trade, taxes and jobs. But the executives and Obama remained vague about specific outcomes they expected from the meeting."
And one of the few specifics reported from the meeting is highly disturbing. Bloomberg reported that the CEOs had their hands out for yet another tax cut:
While Obama has called on the CEOs to spend the $2 trillion in cash their companies have accumulated on job creation, the executives said much of that is earnings from overseas sales that are retained abroad to avoid paying U.S. corporate income tax. U.S.-based multinational corporations pay corporate income tax on earnings when they are brought back to the U.S. If the revenue remains abroad, either in cash or investment in overseas facilities, the money isn’t taxed.
Obama said he would consider the issue and asked what the executives would be willing to give up in other corporate tax rates to make sure it remains revenue neutral.
Actually, in many cases the earnings involved are not necessarily from "overseas sales." Many multinational corporations have created elaborate schemes to ensure that domestic sales are credited as foreign ones in order to avoid paying corporate income tax. It's how Google avoids paying billions in corporate income taxes to the United States and the United Kingdom.
President Obama has rightly pledged to go after this tax dodge and sent some proposals to Congress last year that Citizens for Tax Justice said were "steps in the right direction." Businesses have countered with demands for a "tax holiday," The Financial Times reported in October. Again, at least until now, the Obama administration has resisted. One reason, as the FT notes, is that there is no guarantee that the money coaxed back into the U.S. will actually be used for investment and job creation.
We've been here before. In 2004 the Bush administration and the Republican Congress gave corporations a tax amnesty on profits sheltered overseas. The benefits for workers were negligible. Gannett News Service reported earlier this year in a story about Sen. Barbara Boxer's support for an offshore tax break:
A Congressional Research Service analysis published in January 2009 found that 10 of the top dozen companies that took advantage of the 2004 break cut jobs. Hewlett-Packard repatriated $14.5 billion and laid off 14,500. Pfizer repatriated $37 billion and cut 9,000 jobs in 2005.California-based Oracle and Intel also repatriated foreign earnings. The money helped Oracle acquire two U.S. companies and helped Intel build a new factory
.
The Business Roundtable, a champion of the tax amnesty idea, says of the money that came back to the U.S. as a result of 2004 holiday, 25 percent went to capital investments and 23 percent to hiring and training new workers. Even that positive spin suggests the country doesn't get very much for coaxing businesses to do less than what they should be dong as corporate citizens.
Corporations succeed in the United States not simply because of what they do on their own. Their success depends on the quality of public schools that prepare their workers, transportation networks that move goods and people, agencies that help keep people healthy and safe, and efforts to ensure that each American is able to maintain at least a minimal standard of living. All of these are government functions that corporations undercut when they engage in schemes to avoid paying taxes, leaving the rest of us to struggle with the consequences.
The businesses that profit as a result of the public commons that We the People provide should not have to be given special inducements to pay their fair share toward supporting that commons. (As it stands now, contrary to conservative claims to the contrary, the truth is U.S. corporations pay some of the lowest tax rates of major industrial powers.) That is the starting point from which President Obama should begin in building a new tax framework in which businesses and Main Street can profit together in a new economy.
Even as corporations are seeking a tax holiday, these same corporations spent hundreds of millions of dollars electing congressional candidates opposed to government initiatives that would stimulate the economy and stoke the demand that would coax their hoarded cash off the sidelines. Instead of egging on, tacitly or otherwise, the anti-spending crowd, these CEOs could still choose to back a real economic stimulus—not just cross-your-fingers-and-hope-they-trickle-down tax cuts, but real investment in the economy's future.
Lew Prince, a small business owner in St. Louis, recently penned an op-ed that offered a more Main Street perspective on what businesses need to prosper:
We shouldn’t borrow billions more dollars from China and Saudi Arabia to give to the wealthy. Instead the wealthy should pay their fair share. We need adequate tax revenue to invest in our economy. More tax cuts at the top won’t create jobs. But we will create jobs and strengthen our economy by rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, public transit, levees and water and gas pipelines. We will save and create jobs by investing in education and clean energy research and manufacturing now growing much more rapidly in other countries.
Now that Obama has met with business executives, his next step should be a summit meeting with the unemployed. And then let's have a real debate in which business executives and their conservative benefactors are called to account on whether they are really interested in the fates of American workers or just in their own balance sheets.
As important is the quality of the current crop of quarterbacks. If a quarterback is able to continue to score after the other team, defenses are less important. And to continue to score, the offensive schemes need to be better than average if not outstanding.
Left to the draft, there is a real opportunity but little guarantee that money will be well-spent. While this is also speculation, it is apparent that Bradford is no panacea for the dearth of talent on the Rams. And there is substantial question despite Sam Bradford's fairly successful campaign in the NFL's weakest division that his talent is sufficient to take the Rams to the top.
While the offensive schemes may be insufficient, the most likely coaching change in the Rams' immediate future, the most likely acquisition is another quarterback. The view here is that Bradford will not last. Instead, a seasoned quarterback is more likely to start next year.
The NFL may also develop an international system like soccer's World Cup. While the talent stream is far different, making this a very difficult proposition indeed, the NFL has far too many teams in the current environment to make real sense on the world stage. The numbers watching terrible games are too low to sustain these teams over the long-term, and an international move would give owners a chance to work with a new and different system for a while.
A move to L.A. for Kroenke makes sense from this perspective. Kroenke had to have gotten something more in the international arena when he gave up his MBA and NFL teams. This could have been some right of first refusal in any new international expansion league. And these are likely to be paired with other NFL franchises. L.A.'s international profile is relevant here, and a move to L.A. in the short term (probably by 2014) is likely.
robert shumake
robert shumake
Nike Air Max LeBron Soldier V – Upcoming Colorways | SneakerNews.com
Continue reading for a complete look at the upcoming colorways of the Air Max LeBron Soldier V and stick with Sneaker News for more updated information on all Nike LeBron shoes. via CK. Nike Air Max LeBron Soldier V – Upcoming Colorways ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: Starting Your New Business In A New Year
Whether your starting a new business or rethinking an existing one, 2011 offers fresh possibilities and a new start. If you're launching a new business, there.
Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Bigfoot to get the 'Avatar' Treatment <b>...</b>
A leaked costume test from MGM's completed-but-shelved remake of 1984's 'Red Dawn' has found its way online. It's not much, but thanks to MGM's.
robert shumake
Nike Air Max LeBron Soldier V – Upcoming Colorways | SneakerNews.com
Continue reading for a complete look at the upcoming colorways of the Air Max LeBron Soldier V and stick with Sneaker News for more updated information on all Nike LeBron shoes. via CK. Nike Air Max LeBron Soldier V – Upcoming Colorways ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: Starting Your New Business In A New Year
Whether your starting a new business or rethinking an existing one, 2011 offers fresh possibilities and a new start. If you're launching a new business, there.
Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Bigfoot to get the 'Avatar' Treatment <b>...</b>
A leaked costume test from MGM's completed-but-shelved remake of 1984's 'Red Dawn' has found its way online. It's not much, but thanks to MGM's.
robert shumake
Making money is part of human nature. We are providentially gifted with body, mind, heart, and spirit so that we can think, learn, act, and relate in the conduct of work to make money. We will never run out of ideas on how to make money for as long as we live. How to do it and how much money we can make are a function of the limits we impose on our mind. As the saying goes, "what the mind can conceive, and believe, it can achieve."
And as life now goes on rough sailing due to a financially-devastating deep and long recession, what simple, creative, and practical money-making ideas can we conveniently do without costing us an arm and a leg? You might wish to be guided by the following tips:
1. Start a home-based online business.
What can you do in the peace and comfort of your home to earn money during your free time? There are several options, depending on your knowledge, skills, and experience. Ride on what the Internet and online businesses can offer, but know what is real and what is scam. Research on and choose the legitimate home-based program/s that can give appreciable extra income, without stressful work and conflict with your main job and home life. Never go into anything where you have to spend money to be qualified in the program. Beware, if anything is too good to be true, it may be so.
You can consider going into online writing, editing, research, word processing, blog post, or some pay to read, pay to click, and pay to auto surf proven schemes. Try some mystery shopping programs even if it will not make you rich, but it yields some recession-friendly added income while you enjoy a little mall walk. If you have distinct pictures and videos, then you can monetize these items by selling them online.
Another wise thing to do is to be an online arts dealer. Note that despite the hard times, many people need refreshing crafts in their homes, especially the upscale markets. You need not be rich to be an upscale vendor, just have an inventory of good still life, landscape, portrait, and other painting memorabilia. You can flex your network to get good artists (e.g. painters, photographers, sculptors, and graphic designers) and arrange also for some service brokering engagement with them.
What do you need to start a home-based business? Of course, it presupposes that you have a computer and Internet link. Otherwise, get them and build your own website to give yourself visible web presence. You can try cost-free site builder software in the Web if you still do not have the money to contract a professional site developer.
2. Sell household disposables.
One way to financially re-energize yourself today with new money is to cleanse and re-organize your home. Sort and choose what things inside and outside your home can disposed of with some resale value before making any decision to donate them. Your disposables can include idle appliances, kitchen equipment, barbecue grill, computer, printer, fax, furniture, fixtures, books, encyclopedia, and used clothes, including old shoes and bags. As you unload these items, you can give your home a refreshing look, free up and maximize spaces, and recoup a portion of their acquisition cost for new and added personal liquidity.
3. Make money from a "go green" discipline.
Going green? Abandon the habit of trashing your empty plastic and glass bottles, tin cans, old newspapers, and carton boxes, as you used to do when times were good. While these junks will be recycled in accordance with federal and state laws, get the first crack in making money out of these thrash items. If the homeless sector of society can make money from thrash, you can too. This is not to deprive the underprivileged of the opportunity to earn something out of their nomadic means of livelihood. Just remember that penny-pinching today is more of a virtue than a detestable and insensitive act of selfishness. Pay yourself first from something you can rightfully do to earn money.
You can likewise go into operating a nursery of ornamental plants and fruit bearing trees. You can sell the produce to niche markets. You need not be a rocket scientist to learn the rudiments of the trade. You can even transition to providing gardening or landscaping services. It is not an expensive part-time vocation to go into.
4. Put added value to your vehicle.
You can start treating your car as an extra source of income, a financially performing asset within your convenient disposition. If you have the time, while going and coming from your work in weekdays, you can pool passengers and have them pay you for bringing and picking them up in their places of work. Depending on the distance, you can charge a minimum of $30 per passenger for a two-way shuttle service. During weekends, you can do whole-day shuttle service to make more money. The key point: you are able to stretch the financial utility of your car with the extra cash flow that you never had when your car was exclusively for your personal ride .
5. Generate rental income from idle rooms.
If, for whatever reason, your home has an extra idle room, why not rent it out to month-to-month tenants or bed spacers. A small room that can accommodate two (2) bed spacers can easily give you an incremental monthly income of $500 - $600 at $250 - $300 per room occupant. Except for two single beds or even a bunk bed, you do not incur any new investment because the amenities are already there. Many homeowners have been doing this money-making scheme with predictable success, and the needs of the times will sustain it.
6. Cook for pay in multiple households.
Do you have cooking skills? If you do, then there is plenty of new money waiting for you by practicing the trade. Why not consider contracting part-time cooking with households that do not have the time to prepare and cook family meals. You can cook advance menu for 3-4 days for twice-a-week engagement. You can be paid either by the hour or by the day. Just ensure quality and economics in all your food preparation. Each satisfied household you serve will, by word of mouth, do the promotion for you with extended referrals. As a part-time job, you can accept cooking to at least 2-3 households in a week's time, with a minimum potential income of $300 per household per week.
7. Go into property / apartment rental brokering.
If you have the legal capacity or the means to acquire one, why not consider brokering for property or apartment rentals. With millions of people having lost their homes, there is a boom in the rental market. You do not need to invest hard equity in real estate to earn from it. Just get the legal capacity to do it and work on new networks to maintain an inventory of choice properties in good locations. Hundreds of brokering service companies thrive based on this business model; and many are even online home-based operations. Here, you earn sales commissions for tenant referrals to the property owner. The more properties you handle and broker for, the greater are your chances to make money.
As a final word of advice: In all your money-making initiatives, regardless of its magnitude, stay on the side of wisdom. Be fully compliant with all applicable local, state, and federal laws; more particularly, the tax issues. It gives you complete peace of mind while earning from your money-making ideas.
robert shumake detroit
Nike Air Max LeBron Soldier V – Upcoming Colorways | SneakerNews.com
Continue reading for a complete look at the upcoming colorways of the Air Max LeBron Soldier V and stick with Sneaker News for more updated information on all Nike LeBron shoes. via CK. Nike Air Max LeBron Soldier V – Upcoming Colorways ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: Starting Your New Business In A New Year
Whether your starting a new business or rethinking an existing one, 2011 offers fresh possibilities and a new start. If you're launching a new business, there.
Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Bigfoot to get the 'Avatar' Treatment <b>...</b>
A leaked costume test from MGM's completed-but-shelved remake of 1984's 'Red Dawn' has found its way online. It's not much, but thanks to MGM's.
robert shumake detroit
robert shumake
President Obama spent much of Wednesday huddled with a group of business executives, an effort The New York Times said afterward "went a long way to reset the tone of the relationship between Mr. Obama and corporate America" in the eyes of the corporate chieftains who attended.
That's all well and good, if the problems with today's economy were rooted in a lack of warmth and fuzziness between President Obama and corporate CEOs. But they aren't. For decades, the interests of corporate lobbyists—the people acting on behalf of many of the executives at the White House meeting—have been at odds with the interests of working people. The White House "making peace" with corporate CEOs, to use The Washington Post's description of the meeting, is one thing. But Wall Street needs to make peace with those of us who have been forced, as a result of the conservative policies they promoted, to live through a decade of stagnant wages, unemployment and underemployment. Wall Street needs a reset with working America.
Unfortunately, it's not at all clear that this meeting delivered much for working-class people. The Post reported that "after the meeting, several chief executives said their conversation with the president was constructive and open as they discussed education, trade, taxes and jobs. But the executives and Obama remained vague about specific outcomes they expected from the meeting."
And one of the few specifics reported from the meeting is highly disturbing. Bloomberg reported that the CEOs had their hands out for yet another tax cut:
While Obama has called on the CEOs to spend the $2 trillion in cash their companies have accumulated on job creation, the executives said much of that is earnings from overseas sales that are retained abroad to avoid paying U.S. corporate income tax. U.S.-based multinational corporations pay corporate income tax on earnings when they are brought back to the U.S. If the revenue remains abroad, either in cash or investment in overseas facilities, the money isn’t taxed.
Obama said he would consider the issue and asked what the executives would be willing to give up in other corporate tax rates to make sure it remains revenue neutral.
Actually, in many cases the earnings involved are not necessarily from "overseas sales." Many multinational corporations have created elaborate schemes to ensure that domestic sales are credited as foreign ones in order to avoid paying corporate income tax. It's how Google avoids paying billions in corporate income taxes to the United States and the United Kingdom.
President Obama has rightly pledged to go after this tax dodge and sent some proposals to Congress last year that Citizens for Tax Justice said were "steps in the right direction." Businesses have countered with demands for a "tax holiday," The Financial Times reported in October. Again, at least until now, the Obama administration has resisted. One reason, as the FT notes, is that there is no guarantee that the money coaxed back into the U.S. will actually be used for investment and job creation.
We've been here before. In 2004 the Bush administration and the Republican Congress gave corporations a tax amnesty on profits sheltered overseas. The benefits for workers were negligible. Gannett News Service reported earlier this year in a story about Sen. Barbara Boxer's support for an offshore tax break:
A Congressional Research Service analysis published in January 2009 found that 10 of the top dozen companies that took advantage of the 2004 break cut jobs. Hewlett-Packard repatriated $14.5 billion and laid off 14,500. Pfizer repatriated $37 billion and cut 9,000 jobs in 2005.California-based Oracle and Intel also repatriated foreign earnings. The money helped Oracle acquire two U.S. companies and helped Intel build a new factory
.
The Business Roundtable, a champion of the tax amnesty idea, says of the money that came back to the U.S. as a result of 2004 holiday, 25 percent went to capital investments and 23 percent to hiring and training new workers. Even that positive spin suggests the country doesn't get very much for coaxing businesses to do less than what they should be dong as corporate citizens.
Corporations succeed in the United States not simply because of what they do on their own. Their success depends on the quality of public schools that prepare their workers, transportation networks that move goods and people, agencies that help keep people healthy and safe, and efforts to ensure that each American is able to maintain at least a minimal standard of living. All of these are government functions that corporations undercut when they engage in schemes to avoid paying taxes, leaving the rest of us to struggle with the consequences.
The businesses that profit as a result of the public commons that We the People provide should not have to be given special inducements to pay their fair share toward supporting that commons. (As it stands now, contrary to conservative claims to the contrary, the truth is U.S. corporations pay some of the lowest tax rates of major industrial powers.) That is the starting point from which President Obama should begin in building a new tax framework in which businesses and Main Street can profit together in a new economy.
Even as corporations are seeking a tax holiday, these same corporations spent hundreds of millions of dollars electing congressional candidates opposed to government initiatives that would stimulate the economy and stoke the demand that would coax their hoarded cash off the sidelines. Instead of egging on, tacitly or otherwise, the anti-spending crowd, these CEOs could still choose to back a real economic stimulus—not just cross-your-fingers-and-hope-they-trickle-down tax cuts, but real investment in the economy's future.
Lew Prince, a small business owner in St. Louis, recently penned an op-ed that offered a more Main Street perspective on what businesses need to prosper:
We shouldn’t borrow billions more dollars from China and Saudi Arabia to give to the wealthy. Instead the wealthy should pay their fair share. We need adequate tax revenue to invest in our economy. More tax cuts at the top won’t create jobs. But we will create jobs and strengthen our economy by rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, public transit, levees and water and gas pipelines. We will save and create jobs by investing in education and clean energy research and manufacturing now growing much more rapidly in other countries.
Now that Obama has met with business executives, his next step should be a summit meeting with the unemployed. And then let's have a real debate in which business executives and their conservative benefactors are called to account on whether they are really interested in the fates of American workers or just in their own balance sheets.
As important is the quality of the current crop of quarterbacks. If a quarterback is able to continue to score after the other team, defenses are less important. And to continue to score, the offensive schemes need to be better than average if not outstanding.
Left to the draft, there is a real opportunity but little guarantee that money will be well-spent. While this is also speculation, it is apparent that Bradford is no panacea for the dearth of talent on the Rams. And there is substantial question despite Sam Bradford's fairly successful campaign in the NFL's weakest division that his talent is sufficient to take the Rams to the top.
While the offensive schemes may be insufficient, the most likely coaching change in the Rams' immediate future, the most likely acquisition is another quarterback. The view here is that Bradford will not last. Instead, a seasoned quarterback is more likely to start next year.
The NFL may also develop an international system like soccer's World Cup. While the talent stream is far different, making this a very difficult proposition indeed, the NFL has far too many teams in the current environment to make real sense on the world stage. The numbers watching terrible games are too low to sustain these teams over the long-term, and an international move would give owners a chance to work with a new and different system for a while.
A move to L.A. for Kroenke makes sense from this perspective. Kroenke had to have gotten something more in the international arena when he gave up his MBA and NFL teams. This could have been some right of first refusal in any new international expansion league. And these are likely to be paired with other NFL franchises. L.A.'s international profile is relevant here, and a move to L.A. in the short term (probably by 2014) is likely.
robert shumake
Nike Air Max LeBron Soldier V – Upcoming Colorways | SneakerNews.com
Continue reading for a complete look at the upcoming colorways of the Air Max LeBron Soldier V and stick with Sneaker News for more updated information on all Nike LeBron shoes. via CK. Nike Air Max LeBron Soldier V – Upcoming Colorways ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: Starting Your New Business In A New Year
Whether your starting a new business or rethinking an existing one, 2011 offers fresh possibilities and a new start. If you're launching a new business, there.
Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Bigfoot to get the 'Avatar' Treatment <b>...</b>
A leaked costume test from MGM's completed-but-shelved remake of 1984's 'Red Dawn' has found its way online. It's not much, but thanks to MGM's.
robert shumake detroit
robert shumake detroit
No comments:
Post a Comment