Lots of intelligent people see the nonsense.... ..................................................................................... From comments on ZH.... In case one has overlooked it, our "quiet" government essentially controls, or is about to control these 7 areas: Housing, Banking/Finance, Auto industry, Energy, Health Care, Media, and now even large parts of Compensation. Combined, these areas alone probably constitutes 50-70% of all U.S. commerce. Here's the problem...what do we do, and, where do we go?
I was actually refering to Scataphagos' post. You posted before I finished typing mine. I'm not referring to state government either, (although there is a wealth of corruption on that level as well involving the revolving door between business and government and the conflict of interest that creates). Who gets the big tax breaks, who gets the bailouts? Big business. It works off the slavery of the lower and middle classes through the machinery of government and media.
I hear ya, been there and done it twice myself. No doubt, you are in the woods by yourself. Businessmen make decisions based on future projections. When liberals think they're being smart by doing things like raising min. wage, businessmen take counteractive measures. For instance, one time I recall being required to raise my wage on certain employees, so to even the money out on my bottom line, I decreased the wages of other employees and raised my prices to the customers. Just at a time when small businesses should be given some kind of good news or incentives to hire, we have a group of anti-capitalists running the show.
morganist, if I'm not mistaken, you're based in the UK, right? Why not set up a "trading operation"/ "personal hedge fund" in some place like the Bahamas, Cayman, Cyprus? No need to report that income to HMRC/IR, right?
Yup, it's a crime that you should have to pay people a living wage (which of course the minimum wage is still far from). When those at the top want more money it is good old fashioned capitalism, when those at the bottom want more money it's greed or socialism... When was a true capitalist in power? We've had nothing but fascists for decades. They sell capitalism for the small business man because it sounds good but the bulk of the tax breaks go to big business. And then people are dumb enough to point fingers at the government or even worse individual people or parties. Good job, looks like the ruse is working. Politicians will have no problem being the whipping boy as long as a cushy corporate job awaits them upon retirement.
Our so-called leaders speak With words they try to jail you They subjugate the meek But it's the rhetoric of failure Police
I'll agree with you that's there's plenty of corruption to around. But the fact remains that California is a welfare state and businesses and wealthy people are leaving in droves. When I was born, California state income taxes were 6% and sales taxes were 5%. When my oldest daughter was born, income taxes were 9% and sales taxes were 8%. The next generation of Californians will be facing 12% income taxes and 15% sales taxes. People are leaving California faster than they're coming in. And the people coming into the state, on average, have 20% less annual income than the people leaving. California has 10% of the nation's population and 32% of all the welfare recicients. Public service workers not only get wages far above the above the average worker, after 20 years they can retire with huge pension and health benefits. The taxpayers are supporting hundreds of thousands of people who do nothing but collect benefits from the state. That's why California is on the verge of collapse. Big business did not creat this mess. Politicians did.
About the living wage thing (a liberal idea), lets use some good ole common sense here. The jobs are owned by the business owner, not the employee and not the goverrnment. If the owner is not making money, he has no jobs to give. Is it so difficult to see, as I demonstrated above, that if the gov't puts additional costs, such as wage increases, on the business owner, he has to find a way to distribute those costs? Two ways I described above, and a third is laying people off. Wage increases & decreases should only be dictated by supply and demand.
I think you're missing my point slightly. I agree that small business owners get the shaft. And being part of the middle class they take their share of the tax burden. Again, if we fix the corporate welfare problems maybe the small business owner wouldn't be so burdened and could compete more with the large business'. As to your second point, people are not commodities and should not be treated as such. Aside from my ethical problems with that comment you get a host of other social problems by creating a large base of poor and poorly employed people (crime, lack of proper education, religious and political fanaticism, etc.) that will eventually come back to bite those "in demand" in the ass when the stabbed for their blackberry or their plane gets highjacked.