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NeedToUseYou -> RE: Question about conservatism (5/31/2006 1:24:50 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Chaingang
Two Links:
"Corporation"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation
"How Corporations Became 'Persons'"
http://www.uuworld.org/2003/03/feature1a.html
BTW, the phrase "a subsidy of a kind" was meant to show that while money does not specifically change hands, favors having everything to do with money are granted continually in relation to corporations starting with limited liability for debt and ranging into all kinds of areas. For example, a big box department store location getting tax breaks from a city that wants a big box department store to build within their city. A tax break is a kind of subsidy isn't it? Disagree if you like, but excluding the idea of a money based favor seems ridiculous to me. Likewise, "limited liability for debt" is another monetary break. "Limited liability" for what? For monies owed as debt.
Money, money, money...
Here's a link showing the strong relationship between these ideas and the modern usage of the term "subsidy":
"The Mansion Subsidy"
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2005/10/18/the_mansion_subsidy.php
Example from the article: "While the tax code provides $48 billion in homeowner subsidies for families with incomes above $100,000,..."
How would the tax code provide a subsidy? By way of a tax break, of course.
I guess I'm not getting your point. True corporations get benefits, that individuals don't get directly, unless you are talking of the poor who get the corporate equivalent of a subsidy, in the the form welfare check, or free medical care, or I guess families that get a tax credit for kids. But the only way to compete with corporations is to be a corporation. So, even if a person disagrees with corporations in principle, one doesn't really have a choice. If you didn't compete in the same manner as your competitors you'd be at a severe handicap. In other words you will be less successful monetarily than corporations doing the exact same thing. So, you will eventually lose. No one has the option of not participating with government. So, you can't go I just won't take subsidies, and you don't collect a crazy tax rate that the government then gives to other entities or individuals that have nothing to do with you. No one has the option, if you want to be in business large scale. I don't see individuals not taking subsidies when the government offers them, for other reasons(kids, being poor, buying a environmentally sound vehicle, etc). So, it's part of the national mentality, not just a corporate thing. People and corporations take unfair advantages when presented.
If your point is changing the the corporate structure of the US. It's not that everyone loves it, but it just comprises every business of signifigance. No one is going to concede a competitive advantage to another business. So, it will not change. I guess what I'm wondering if you are actually thinking that it will change? It would take a complete collapse to restructure something so entrenched. So, when/if the really big problems like fiat money another poster talked about finally collapsed in value equivalent to the paper it is printed on, then change might occur. Or when some financial scare causes a run on the banks and people realize that banks only have a fraction of the money they "hold" for people and realize it's really not there if everyone wants it. Basicly collapse scenarios causing massive currency devaluation and collapse, are the only way ideas and structures engrained into the fabric of a economic system will change.
Besides that why will it change? The people will rise up? LOL, people don't rise up as often as we would like to think. People bitch, but as long as they are fed, clothed, and sheltered. They do little else. Sure a few thousand college age students with a smattering of older fellows will demonstrate a WTO conference, or some other economic body. But, they are completely ineffective, when you'd need millions protesting and working long term to change what is inarguably the basis of all major businesses for the past 100 or so years. For that matter it's highly unlikely you'd get very many invested in the stock market to work to change it, as they are benefiting indirectly as well. So, you are left with very few who aren't involved at one level or another in the unfair corporate benefits. If you have a 401k, IRA, or any stock, you are participating in supporting the corporate structure, and benefiting from the structure, and system. Sorta kills incentive for change, once you have any net worth. Seeing a change would destroy those stock market returns for awhile. People don't like that as a rule.
Would it be the right thing to do. Sure. But since when, have humans been concerned with wrong when it was benefiting them? I believe over half the US households have some sort of stock investment. Most aspire to have a large portfolio, very few care to much how that occurs.
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