Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Puts The Lie To The Lie


As Mitt "Lies-Come-Natural" Romney has told us repeatedly, President Obama's polices are about as anti-business as it gets. Horrible stuff, just horrible. Made the recession worse; squeezing business left and left. Why, just read the Wall Street Journal, as it reveals the awful truth:
U.S. companies are booking higher profits than ever. But the number crunchers in Washington are puzzling over a phenomenon that has just come into view: Corporate tax receipts as a share of profits are at their lowest level in at least 40 years.

Total corporate federal taxes paid fell to 12.1% of profits earned from activities within the U.S. in fiscal 2011, which ended Sept. 30, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That's the lowest level since at least 1972. And well below the 25.6% companies paid on average from 1987 to 2008.

That socialist freak Obama, destroying businesses like Rush Limbaugh attacking boogers.

Wait, what??? Did they just say taxes are lower than they were under George "Hey-Remember-Me?" Bush? Profits are up???

It's not as if Mitt isn't in good company. Right after the latest employment numbers, this guy claimed it's not because of Obama, but because of Republican governors. That, despite the fact that for months Rs have been claiming it's time Obama took responsibility for the economy. Not to mention the fact that employment has improved more in states with Democratic governors.* But, gods forbid, let's not let facts get in the way of effective propaganda.

Once again, we're left to wonder if Romney will ever get around to running against the real Barack Obama, and using what actual verifiable facts he'd like to fling around to do it. And, failing that, we must wonder if and when anyone whose mind isn't pre made up (based presumably, on the lies of talk radio and Fox "news") will demand it.

I ain't holding my breath, that's fer damsure.
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*Okay, well, I read that somewhere recently and now I can't find the link. I'm leaving it in, because unlike Mitt Romney, I didn't make it up. But take it FWIW.


4 comments:

  1. Lets make a deal...
    You dont talk about Mitt's Mormon Underwear and I won't talk about our Muslim President's "Muslim Faith"
    Hey, HE said it, not me.
    and with all the stupid thangs I've said in my almost 50 years, somehow I've never mentioned My Muslim Faith.
    and even though the only economics class I took was in 11th grade, aren't "Corporate" taxes paid by the consumer?
    OK, I know you've never run your own company, but I do, and we pass EVERYTHANG on to the Sucker, I mean Customer. I even used to charge for the air in our tire pump, until someone stole it.
    And it started a trend, now all the upscale ATL pawnshops have tire pumps, easy moneymaker.
    its like when somebody takes a Penny from the "Leave-a-Penny-Take-Penny" jar
    there just stealing from themselves, I DID-INT put any pennys in the jar to start with.
    OK, I put some Canadian ones just for the fun of threatening to call the Po-Po when some Smart Tyrone tries to pay his nut with one...

    Frank

    ReplyDelete
  2. Frank,

    I've run companies, as well - both as an entrepreneur and as an employee. In the former case, I sold it off and profited sufficiently to support myself in the meantime; in the latter, I rose from a line SA to CIO.

    And I'm here to call bullshit on your assertion that the company passes on everything to the customer, so regulating companies is a Big Bad Idea That Will Hurt Customers. Maybe jerks do that, and adhere to preset profit targets rather than understanding that 21% EBITDA isn't the holy grail, but I made 8-12% and lived with it. We could have made more but it would have been on the backs of the staff.....and all things being equal, a happy staff was key to success.

    And my staff, whether I've been an entrepreneur or a senior staffer, has been happy.

    I get why wages need to be reasonable. None of my staff needed to apply for state benefits (for example, health or food aid) as do employees of WalMart and the like.

    I treated the staff with respect as well. I hired managers carefully, with an eye towards both productivity and the corporate culture goal - and managers who I caught bullying staff (versus managing respectfully but straightforwardly) were disciplined. The first disciplining was behind closed doors; the second one was public; the third meant dismissal.

    Line staff were generally pretty happy because they often came in the door (from a state jobs program with whom I had an affiliation) with basically no skills and were promoted or left with an understanding of basic CNC (and sometimes, Linux). Many former staff stay in contact, and more than a few have said that they wouldn't have been able to get skills any other way. The public sector gets a win on that; they were instrumental in identifying a workforce in a way that allowed me to train people from ground up, which I couldn't have done on my own - there just aren't that many hours in the day.

    Where health insurance etc were concerned, I found out what the staff needed and we got plans which worked for the team.....the deductible went up a bit but we managed to include vision and dental coverage. It was a struggle and it cost the company more, but we did it because the staff did their best for the company. And while they contributed to the plan, their share was not the ridiculous percentage which most large-corporate entities require of their staff.

    So I didn't make holy grail EBITDA numbers. But I did build a small company which stayed afloat in bad times. And perhaps I'll earn your derision, because despite the opportunity, I didn't get filthy rich. I put money into the business and built it into something which worked. It wasn't perfect, but most people didn't have to drag themselves into work each day.

    And in the end, I did make sufficient from the sale of the company to pay for four years of graduate school at a fine university.

    I voted for progressive causes before graduate school, as well - as have, I suspect, a rising number of younger people not fettered to thoroughly disproven three-thousand-year-old cosmological schemes.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your view of economics as zero-sum is disturbingly cynical - it suggests, as China Mieville so mockingly states, that

    "Libertarianism, by contrast, is a theory of those who find it hard to avoid their taxes, who are too small, incompetent or insufficiently connected to win Iraq-reconstruction contracts, or otherwise chow at the state trough. In its maundering about a mythical ideal-type capitalism, libertarianism betrays its fear of actually existing capitalism, at which it cannot quite succeed. It is a philosophy of capitalist inadequacy."

    You, sir, are an idiot, and a selfish one. You give the truth to John Kenneth Galbraith's assertion that

    "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

    By deliberately distorting and ridiculing the role of the state in the welfare of its most vulnerable citizens, you show your true colors, and I'm sad to say, those of the political philosophy you claim to espouse.

    It's shameful. And I'm glad that a person as thoughtful and well-spoken as Dr. Schwab has taken the time to engage with you despite the apparent futility of the task.

    -hacka

    ReplyDelete
  4. 8-12% Profit Margin?
    Heck Fire Son, I make better than that stealing Atlanta-Urinal-Constipations from the increasingly rare Newspaper Machines and sellin em for 10 cents apiece....
    "Happy Staff"? Were the builders of the Pyramids "Happy"? Ceasar's Legionaires? And I've hired my share of Parole-lees, Sex Offenders, and most disgusting, Defrocked Priests, it's a Pawn Shop, not a Daycare.
    And the only benny they get is maybe a nice word to there parole officer, when they check up on em, which has happened like, Never, in my shop's 9 years.
    And its not all Gravy, occasionally I get taken, buy stolen property, and have to go all Spike Lee, and Do the Right Thang...
    Turn it over to my Fence-man, I mean the Authorities.
    And there's No Health Plan, Employee Assistance Program, and if you want TP, better brang it yo-self, you wipe your ass on your own time..
    Seriously, do I go to my employee's homes and take a dump?
    But they are allowed to thumb through the back issues of "Screw" on there break, provided they've clocked out
    And the keg of Milwaukee's Beast every payday if we hit goal...

    Frank

    ReplyDelete

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