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The very premise of this article is offensive. It takes the viewpoint that people and their businesses are subservient to the government. You have it completely backward, except for the fact that the intrusiveness of the tax code/system has forced practices driving companies to these lengths in order to preserve profits. (Profits, contrary to liberal ideals, is not illegal...yet)
The same people grilling the Apple Execs on their ‘civic responsibilities' can't seem to attend to theirs; no budget in four years, and no balanced budget in decades.
The same clowns who are spending us into oblivion are complaining about people who actually have budgets and pay all their bills. I would love to see the tables turned.
Obama Law:
when a Predator does it, it's legal
Obama Justice:
great rewards of money and position for the worst people; persecution and prison for the best people; and remote control murders of possible suspects
Obama Change:
climate change MovingOn — FORWARD — into climate collapse
FORWARD:
where the corporate party's Democrats say they're leading the sheeple they're herding to slaughter
_____________________________
The APT: American Political Terms
www.chenangogreens.org
i just wonder who is gone bay even this chep shit made in china when middle clas be gonne ?
Off Topic:
'Obama Must be Taken Before ICC for the War on Terror' - Noam Chomsky By RT The US war on terror is in fact the most massive terror campaign ever, and the invasion of Iraq was the worst crime in recent history, prominent liberal thinker Noam Chomsky told RT, adding that he wants to see Bush, Blair and Obama tried at the ICC.http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35050.htm
Is Chomsky saying that there is no difference between the two? Doesn't he realise that Obama ia a Democrat!
chart: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/chart-shows-corp-taxes-grossly-unfair_n_3321737.html
Darn right, they'd be breaking the law if they were to not maximize their shareholder's value by taking advantage of every twist and turn of our crooked tax code...that their lobbyists (and others) probably wrote for "our" representatives to vote into law. Like Rand said in his kissApple'sass speech, it's really Congress that's to blame....or maybe us, since we elected 'em.
Agsin, I watched most of Tim Cook's testament yesterday. Apple is to USA, is what Vodafone is to UK.
Both have had to explain their relative tax positions to their host nations's Government. Both seem to say similar by insisting they have not broken any laws. Both agree that they would be prepared to pay more tax if it were necessary to bring overseas earnt profits "home". Problem is the governments concerned also both need more revenue.
Apple rightly says tax reform is necessary, and also that if a sensible change in tax law can be implemented, they will pay. So Thom, why attack a Corporation such as Apple for not paaying taxes? After all, they do pay US taxes on all products purchased/sold or manufactured in US.
Louise: " In 1950, corporations contributed over 30 percent to our nation's revenue, and individual income and payroll taxes made up about 45 percent. But today, corporations only contribute 17 percent, and individuals are paying for over 60 percent of federal revenue. "
This is because in 1950 the President of Pepsico became the President of Coca-Cola and no one noticed anything suspicious. Just like few thought it was suspicious that Nixon was lead counsel for Pepsico and left the Bottlers Convention in Dallas hours before The Assassination which motorcade would have taken another route were it not for the Convention.
#2 Makes an excellent comment "Unlike Google, Apple doesn't use Dutch subsidiaries to avoid paying taxes."
Not just Google, but Standard Federal Bank, Shell Oil, Bank of America, American Express, BNY, Bear Stearns, Mellon, Chase, Charles Schwab, oh I'm sick of wasting time listing them....
Companies like Apple that manufacturers are products overseas that have slave labor camps, unpatriotic, companies like Apple that bank overseas to avoid taxes, unpatriotic, members of Congress who support this, unpatriotic. Alexander Hamilton along with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and many more other framers of this country, would be a shame of these Americans in our time of history who supports the members of Congress, they would believe that these people are not patriots, as they and many of the early Americans with the members of Congress in their time in American history were.
Why are we letting these companies get away with it and putting the burden on the American taxpayer? Why are we letting Congress, the Republican Congress letting these companies take a free ride on the backs of working Americans. I do not know about you, but I want my country back, back before the time of Reaganomics, to return to pre-Reagan. I believe he will go down in history as Reagan the destroyer, the destroyer of the common American working family. Whatever happened to the proud tradition of made in America. Whatever happened of these companies taking pride of their country and what they make here. Is the power of making unbelievable profits for the company and the CEO of these company more important than American working family, what is more important, I asked what is more important.
TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS
I found this at
Will Rogers on Doctors, Taxes, Testimony, and Trickle-down Economics
It seems that every Republican President this century who left a trashed economy upon leaving office, starting with Herbert Hoover, believed in “trickle down" economics. Will Rogers explains why, despite its devastating effects on the poor, the GOP may forever be enamored of the concept.
“The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands.”
Will Rogers.
Even Thomas Jefferson knew of this.
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
You see we tried this before, that Reaganomics did not work in the past it is not work now, I want to return to pre-Reagan, I want my country back.
I'm surprised you didn't get in on yesterdays discussion that Global and I started. Check it out.
To answer DAnneMarc from yesterday re: Northern Route Approval Act. Look what ever they are trying to do, your president will have final say. Obama is in a bad spot here. All the states have approved the pipeline. It is the right thing to do. Moving energy through a pipeline is the safest way to go. But Obama can't approve it for political reasons. The truth is Canada exports 2.6 million barrels per day through pipelines to the US right now through the Express, Enbridge, Plains, Bow River, Trans mountain and othger pipelines. They have been for 60 years. So Keystone is nothing new. Newer better technology maybe. But the same old same old. So why not protest all the current pipelines why just this one. The answer is simple, I just have no nice way to say it so I won't.
Canada as a whole is responsible for about 1.8% of the worlds Green house gases. The oils sands projects for about .15% thats point 15 not 15% of the worlds green house gases it is the cleanest most dependable oil in the world and your president doesn't want it.
So here is the deal Canada is very close to approving a second line to the Transmountain line to the west coast and the Northern Gateway line to Northern west coast and we will just sell it to China instead then they can brag that they use clean enviromentally sound oil from Canada.
Just so you know most of the oil companies up here are American and American companies are all over the world messing up enviroments so please stop the I don't want foreign companies polluting my country crap. It goes both ways.
I watched Tim Cook's testimony yesterday, and I don't recall him, Peter Oppenheimer, or Phillip Bullock claiming they should be praised or were "ingenious" for their tax minimization practices.
If you watch the testimony, Apple's executives explained that their subsidiaries in Europe pay taxes on their sales in Europe, and then whatever is left over as profit is sent to one of three Apple subsidiaries in Ireland. That subsidiary is a holding company; the taxes on the profits it holds have already been paid.
Any further profits from investments by the holding company are taxed under U.S. tax law, and Apple Inc. in the United States pays the taxes.
Apple didn't break the law, and I'm not even sure that Apple management did anything unethical. They have a duty under the law to maximize profits, because those profits don't belong to Apple executives, they belong to the shareholders. Paying more tax than necessary abrogates that duty.
Apple funds domestic operations with domestic profits, and foreign operations with foreign profits. It doesn't mix them.
Unlike Google, Apple doesn't shift its intellectual property to Europe so they can avoid U.S. taxes. Unlike Google, Apple doesn't use Dutch subsidiaries to avoid paying taxes.
There is an easy fix to this: Congress can pass a law which makes keeping money offshore illegal, that all foreign profits from foreign operations must be repatriated to the United States in a reasonable (or fixed) time. But Congress hasn't done that. Why not? Cisco, Google, Apple, and many other companies would pay billions in additional taxes if this were done.
It's very difficult for me to understand how anyone who had actually bothered to watch the testimony, rather than getting information from sound bites, could come to the conclusion that Apple did something wrong here.
Let's hold a national teach in on negotiation. Not even slant it to what could or could not be done but just "Democrats Learning to Negotiate". There must be ten thousand self help programs on how to negotiate. We could get some political celebrity like Howard Dean to lead it just to add to the general democratic knowledge base (we won't talk about shaming incumbents).
3 WORDS Campaign Finance Reform
Sorry if I caught anyone off guard! I'm going to bed now where I will dream of Illegal Immigrants with tea bags full of oil; and sugar plum fairies full of bold promises and little sweetness. Good night all! Pleasant dreams!
I just received this email from Representative Alan Grayson. Seems like a much more worthy topic of discussion than Immigration Reform, don't you all think. What quote does Thom continuously repeat concerning the Keystone Pipeline? "If the Keystone Pipeline is completed, it is game over for humanity."
What does our friend(s), Kend, think about that one?
Can anyone say, "Smoke Screen!"
my wife thought she did Her own. I had no idea she even read this. Trust me if she gets on here the liberals are not going to like it.
With all do respect there is way too much money in American politics. Just google how much they are all worth. Hillary Clinton is worth over 20 million. Her daughter is worth over 10 million. Hillary made it working for the government. Doesn't that scare you guys.
Here they don't leave wealthy but they do get a big fat pension.
Kend ~ If you wife wants to contribute you should let her have her own identity. Less confusing.
As far as your question about defending the Constitution is concerned it has nothing to do with immigration. That is my point. If we can't defend the Constitution with a Constitutional Scholar in the White House the Constitution is toilet paper. As such, all other matters are immaterial. Without the Constitution we are all serfs subject to the whims of whatever plutocracy holds the reigns of power and/or influence.
For the record my wife wrote #21. She is pretty smart I still don't know why she married me. I am sure most of you agree with that.
DAnnemarc. Sorry I stand corrected. But how can you defend the constitution with your borders invaded.
"Although I agree with kend..." What? Now this is what I call the Bizarro World. Something is seriously wrong with this blog if Kend is agreeing with Kend. Are you schizophrenic or are you someone else?
As always it isn't black and white ( no racial pun intended). Although I agree with kend that we can't let people who are here illegally in, especially at a time of high unemployment, nor can we ignore the fact that there are many children here and even adult children here that were born to illegal parents. As we talked a few weeks ago about school lunches, it isn't the fault of the child when the parent is irresponsible. I'm uncertain what the answer is but I do believe there needs to be a clause that addresses this issue.
Kend ~ Congress on the other hand is quite the Bizarro World. I don't understand what is going through their minds at all. They don't seem to even care about the vast unemployment problem facing this country. This should be their main focus. Illegal immigrants have done nothing but worsen the main problem facing this nation. There is absolutely no reason to shed sympathy for this group of people. They have broken the law and robbed legal citizens of their jobs. Now we want to help them? Why not offer welfare to Al Qaeda. Makes the same sense to me.
Not exactly Kend. Before taking office the President of the United States takes this oath:
Protection of the Constitution of The United States is his number one job. Of course President Obama, a "Constitutional Scholar" can't seem to manage this one simple task to save his life. It isn't hard to believe that he would fall short of every other inherent Presidential responsibility that befalls him if he can't manage the most important task at hand--to protect our inherited American traditions. However, I may be very premature. This bill has not yet passed Congress and been signed by the President. We don't even know what type of bill may be presented to him. I hesitate to comment on how I would feel about the President signing a bill that dooms the American Worker to a third world status until he actually signs it into law. Let's be open minded and fair.
Mblockhart is right on here. in Canada we offer short term work visas. you can only work for the person who sponsored you and then you go home. No different then my friends who go all over world to work in the oil business. That way we don't flood the work place with low wage employees. My son works on a paving crew and makes over $70,000 a year only working 6 or 7 months because there is no one else to do it any cheaper.
Dannemarc holy crap. I never thought I would see day. I am sorry but I have been in 27 different countries and none of them would even consider this madness. A presidents number one job is to secure the borders and protect the citizens inside them. Isn't it?
Democratic concession to Teapublican demands is just part of battered political party syndrome, symptomatic of learned helplessness. The billionaire backed Teapublicans have prostituted the corp. media into beating the holy crap out of the mild mannered Democrats. By the way, prostituted: one who sells one's abilities for an unworthy purpose.
Anyway, I still think the employers involved in this immigrant slave labor market, those cashing in on human desperation need to be prosecuted first. Without their immoral conduct, the problem would be much more controllable.
Speaking of mild mannered Democrats, they sure aren't exactly screaming about the Tea Party groups who have committed tax fraud by claiming they operate primarily for the pupose of bringing civic betterments and social improvements. This lie on their applications is why the IRS granted all of them the exempt status to begin with. I'm sorry but that's clearly tax fraud.
These Tea Party groups instead operate exclusively for the purpose of civic and social demolition in order to singularly further the enrichment of billionaires.