DIYbanter - GE pays no income tax

On Mar 30, 1:13*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
"RicodJour" wrote in message

...

There is no more sense in wishing for something akin to a free market
than wishing to be able to fly. *As soon as international trade and
foreign customs (both cultural and financial) are added into the mix,
there's no way in hell a free market can exist. *Not even close. *No
matter what any economist, living or dead, might try to tell you. *So
it's a given - taxes, government, tariffs, VAT, etc. - the whole nine
yards.

Yes, indeed. *The banks were awfully happy that big government was there to
save them, but they balk at paying the taxes that enabled the Feds to keep
the banking system from collapsing. *Free market is just another meaningless
slogan bandied about by people who haven't studied history and don't know
what unrestrained businesses do to workers and the environment.

The first and foremost thing that needs to be adjusted is all of this red
state
vs blue state, liberal vs conservative crap. *It's counterproductive.
It plays into the hands of those most vested in keeping big government
and big spending. *It's a ploy, and a very effective one.

It's why I would never call the Republican politicians dumb. *They're
incredibly smart to use social issues and partisanship to get Americans to
vote against their own interests. *Their slash and burn "cut spending to the
bone" mode is just going to throw more Americans out of work and worsen the
economy - just in time for 2012. *Maybe that's the way things are supposed
to work, but it seems awfully wasteful to me.

We have a huge honking hole in our system, and it's staring everyone
in the face, but no one seems to want to address it. *They'd rather
point fingers and attempt to assign blame, when everyone is complicit
for letting this stuff go on.

It always takes two to tango, and the problem is that our elected officials
aren't beholden to those who voted for them - they are owned by those who
paid their ever-increasing campaign bills. *We're heading down a very dark,
narrow chute, made much darker by the Roberts court decided that money
equals free speech and corporations have the same political rights as
people.

First and foremost, in any lifeboat situation - stop pointing fingers
and start bailing. *There will be plenty of time for assigning blame
once we get to the island.

With the press abdicating their role as a fair reporter of the facts there's
little hope. *They're the ones that think Donald Trump's throwing his hat in
the ring is anything more than a publicity stunt for his TV show. *Big
Business has systematically bought up and looted the assets of many national
newspapers in schemes that remind me of Tony Soprano's bust out scheme for
the athletic store. *Borrow like crazy on the name of a company with good
credit, funnel the money to your cronies, leave the company in bankruptcy..

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/busines....

At Simmons, Bought, Drained and Sold, Then Sent to Bankruptcy ...

"Every step along the way, the buyers put Simmons deeper into debt. The
financiers borrowed more and more money to pay ever higher prices for the
company, enabling each previous owner to cash out profitably. But the load
weighed down an otherwise healthy company. Today, Simmons owes $1.3 billion,
compared with just $164 million in 1991, when it began to become a Wall
Street version of “Flip This House.” In many ways, what private equity firms
did at Simmons, and scores of other companies like it, mimicked the subprime
mortgage boom."

The story above sickens me and is clear evidence that arbitragers are
destroying the country, trade by trade, while politicians look the other
way. *Mobsters go to jail for what Wall Streeters get lavish bonuses for.