We say we want jobs to be in the US, yet we don't want Mexicans to come and work for the wages that let the jobs stay here. What's up with that?
More like our greedy companies don't want to pay their workers anything to make products. Less overhead=more profit and fewer environmental/labor restrictions means less of a headache for big business. I mean they have to finance their summer home in Fiji after all.
On a different note, this whole "buy American" thing won't be an issue once the Chinese decide that they actually don't like usand just have played along the whole time so that we could help them industrialize and become a viable world power again. But you know by that time Iran probably will have gotten so pissed off that we'll all be obliterated by a nuke anyways.... so we should probably just buy what's cheapest right now and build a good bomb shelter stocked with lots of canned green beans.
More like our greedy companies don't want to pay their workers anything to make products.
More like...the cheap consumers don't want to pay more for their products.
I mean they have to finance their summer home in Fiji after all.
How DARE successful entrepreneurs make money for spurring economic growth! Those bastards!
On a different note, this whole "buy American" thing won't be an issue once the Chinese decide that they actually don't like usand just have played along the whole time so that we could help them industrialize and become a viable world power again.
Uh...huh...
we should probably just buy what's cheapest right now and build a good bomb shelter stocked with lots of canned green beans.
Because one nuke is totally going to obliterate the whole US. And Iran will manage to detonate it. Way to go, champ.
But honestly, she didn't say anything the mass-media, with no time for context or details for anything of actual importance, doesn't imply all day, every day.
What I don't get, however, is the attitude that bigshots should take paycuts just BECAUSE they're fabulously wealthy. As much as I don't like Microsoft, I can't deny that entrepreneurs like Gates have had a serious net positive effect on the US GDP.
Hell...just plug it into Excel and do the log function of the growth and...
even if we payed our workers more we wouldnt have tor aise prices at the register. If profits werent number one corporations could take a short term hit in profit for the long term boost of added liquidity in the local economy and increased demand for their products.
Capital Gains and sheer corporate greed, thats what keeps the middle american manufacturer down. And THAT force is what is putting so much pressure on the largely black and hispanic inner city lower to middle class.
More like...the cheap consumers don't want to pay more for their products
Or maybe a little from column A, a little from column B? I do believe corporate greed does play a role, along with consumer greed.
How DARE successful entrepreneurs make money for spurring economic growth! Those bastards!
And their workers don't deserve to profit from the fruits of their labour? Their work spurs economic growth just as much as the entrepreneur's, why should one guy take all the credit and the money?
My point was just to provide a counterexample...not to really get into the so-called horrific corporate greed that plagues society.
But let's talk about it for a sec.
I do believe that at times execs at corps can be greedy. Hell, look at Enron and Worldcom. However, these sorts of cases are the minority. A small minority. Even so, people often look at gross earnings and say stupid shit like, "ZOMG! Exxon's ripping us off!" Gross earnings don't mean shit. Earnings on the margin are what matter, and in most cases even the most awful corporations (think Microsoft, Exxon, etc.) don't really have absurd margins. They just have HUGE gross incomes.
And their workers don't deserve to profit from the fruits of their labour? Their work spurs economic growth just as much as the entrepreneur's, why should one guy take all the credit and the money?
Keep in mind that no matter how much we want things to be like that, a real economy doesn't work that way. A real economy works more like this:
-- I start a business. Let's call it, "Widget Wonderland." -- I look to hire people to manufacture said widgets. I need 10 skilled employees and 100 unskilled employees. I put ads in craigslist. -- 15 people with degrees come for the 10 skilled spots. I hire a mix of quality and high bidders. -- 300 people come for the 100 unskilled spots. I hire the lowest bidders because a monkey could do it. -- I use the money I'd otherwise pay in wages to innovate and make newer, better products
This is the typical sort of outline as to what happens. It's rarely simply that CEO McEvil just wants more and more and more money. It's oftentimes that there are economically sound reasons for hiring the lowest bidders.
when the price of oil goes up, we expect the price of gas to go up to make up for the difference in cost. that should not cause record profits.
And the fact that the oil exxon uses to produce the gas they sell to make that profit didnt go up hear as much as the rest of the oil did, and the simple fact that the oil the price would have affect would not have even come to the refineries for a good 6 months makes it more than a little questionable.
it doesnt even have to be unfair practices or criminal negligence or conspiracy, it can be sheer greedy operations. If the question is just of percentage of profit, as opposed to the difference between red and black, then you have a problem. If a small corporation has to do certain things to prevent bankruptcy thats one thing. But if a company ships jobs off to china and cuts all semblance of loyalty and quality to simply go from 10 billion to 10.5 billion in PROFIT, thats a big problem. No one doesn;t want corps to make money, even lots of it, but no one should ever put a slightly better bottom line over the well being of its loyal employees.
they have been making record profits, this much is true, however with their normal level of profits, their margin isnt substantially different from other heavy industries. Even with their current profits, they're still within the general range of the margins of other industries.
Some people make the argument that Oil companies pay a lot more in taxes, this is also true, however it implies something misleading. As far as corporate taxes go, Oil companies pay the same as any other company of their size, some pay less because they engage in offshore incorporation and such.
There are also direct gas taxes, however, those dont touch the bottom line of the oil companies because they're taxes at the pump and are entirely paid by the consumer.
However, it's also true that the Oil industry recieves tens of billions in government subsidies every year, more if you count indirect activities.
Are those government subsidies included in your figure for their profit margins?
I really think an industry that recieves tens of billions of taxpayers dollars needs to be held accountable to the taxpayers. That's the way business usually works. You invest a lot of money, you get a say.
