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Why they pay corporate welfare to large corporations.
SoreShoulder
Member Posts: 3,148 ✭✭✭
They are paying companies to locate where they can provide jobs to people the companies might not otherwise invest in.
Comments
Good questions. The answer probably is because the Government in no way shape or form does any work for the money they get paid!!! (Congress and Senate)
So the majority of the clients work for the auto companies?
70,000 people work for the auto industry in Michigan. Obviously fewer than that in Detroit. A big assumption, I would think, considering well paid people need the services of a Pawn Broker less frequently than those less well off.
Brad Steele
Just to clarify,
Many companies receive some form of corporate welfare but with GM as a random example,
GM's gross revenue in 2018 was around $147 billion. Their profit was 8.1 billion.
johnwallisonline said GM got a total of $3.58 billion in various subsidies in 2014.
No one is suggesting corporate welfare recipients don't really conduct real business.
I was born in 1955 and grew up in a town that had more GM folks per capita than Detroit by far. I saw the abuse of the system by union members everyday. There were many more lazy unproductive workers supported by GM then and there was no government support. Things have changed and the percentage of unproductive workers has decreased drastically. So for your idea of the govt propping up the automakers to keep people off welfare makes no sense. It would be a lot cheaper to give those few the welfare payments and save billions. Perhaps there are still a few in govt that understand that countries cannot survive without industries to call on in time of need and helped all the automakers get through their hard times. By now the automobile industry has paid back through payroll and all of the other taxes more than they were given. Sounds like a pretty good investment to me. Bob
And yet GM bond holders are still left with nothing. The Obama administration changed the rules of bankruptcy, ignoring decades of precedent and law that paid bond holders first. Corporate Welfare through liquidation of liability.
Corrupt practices can never be viewed as an investment.
Brad Steele
I agree that the bond holders and the folks with common stock got screwed badly. My comment was in reference to the govt eventually getting more back than what they paid in bailouts. Of course when you can either make or ignore the rules, making a profit can be easy. Bob
How do you know it would be cheaper?
Maybe despite the fact that our society has not brought everybody up to par, they still often do some useful work and the corporate welfare only makes up the shortfall or covers the cost of engineering production lines simpler.
Plus, unlike welfare, it keeps them busy all day and trying not to lose their job, so there's less crime.
Plus, they don't wind up lazy and corrupt. Maybe society and the education system are improving and their kids will wind up employable.
Society will never be able to, as you put it, "bring everyone up to par". Based upon ones physical and mental abilities there will always be the successful and the, by comparison, unsuccessful. No matter what we do as a society there will always be the lazy and corrupt faction taking advantage. Anyone who saw some of the UAW workers of the 60s and 70s can attest to that. Just as in any segment of society most of the workers were giving an honest days work but perhaps 10% were just playing the game and were enabled by the union. I could introduce you to someone who went across the road to the bar for lunch, got drunk, fell off his barstool, broke his arm and collected disability from G.M. Nowadays, that problem 10% has been whittled down to where it is almost non-existent. Both the companies and the union have figured out how precarious their existance is and don't put up with the inept and lazy like they used to. So no, I don't think the auto makers are being paid to be societies babysitters any longer. Bob
If you have to hire the unsuccessful, it's an unfunded mandate. It's not fair that a corporation have to pick up the cost. Society may be picking up the cost of the less competitive candidates whom companies have to hire.
Big corporations are often given substantial tax breaks for locating in various places usually by states wanting to generate incomes (to be taxed) for the area's population.
This is pretty much the deciding factor regarding the bulk of gov't revenue. It comes from we the people and not from those corporations themselves.
IMHO, our government doesn't even consider or care if a worker is productive or lazy. Just as long as they are drawing a paycheck and are paying their taxes.
But why do those places need help locating companies? What is it about the place?
Not true Bob,.A.I. with a cashless society can certainly bring up responsible citizens under par. The Red Chinese are already practicing it with social engineering with common folks.Now when they go for the upper middle class and The uber rich then you will see big results of the new paradigm in society.
Only a small few will really will be independent of this.You will need a quantum computer with the right information for the crest of the wave function however. Believe it or not.
serf
What does a cashless society have to do with someones intelligence, abilities, morality and drive? There will always be some on the disadvantaged side due to differences in our individual make up. No matter what you do, there will always be winners and losers. Bob
Th
The odds are changing for the poor,they will be guarantee certain conditions regardless of their circumstances.A large Example is currency trading bets to gain windfalls like Soros has done for himself with manipulations of playing by rules on and with unorganized speculators with lesser foresight.. (Derivatives)
Money after all is just a casino gambling with the mob and a hit squad with the military now. Soon to change shortly if my crystal ball is working right. Of course then there is always biological weapons for wild cards in the game also. So out of chaos comes order.
Population parameters is the keystone however. All is numbers ? “Geometry existed before the creation.”
“No state can find happiness unless the artist drawing it uses a divine pattern.”
Plato
serf