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I suppose it's natural that the average American believes that the Crash of 2008 was caused by greedy bankers and that the problem with health insurance is insurance company profits. After all, most Americans work for big companies, and they know that at any moment corporate security could appear at their cubicle to escort them to the exit. Employees know the power their bosses have over them; why shouldn't the bosses have the same power to work their will over politicians? Not only that, but politicians pose as the worker's friend. We'll protect you from the ravishings of your lascivious...

Sometimes even journalists get it right. My essay about companies incorporating overseas to dodge taxes, “Positively Un-American,” featured in our last issue, clearly struck a nerve. Since its publication, these corporate “inversions”—a euphemism for “desertions”—have taken on a life of their own. Barely a day seems to pass without a corporation announcing that it plans to leave the U.S. to save taxes but wants to continue having its business, its employees, its directors, and especially its top executives benefit from our rule of law, democratic system, and the other great things that make America America. It just doesn’t want to...

From our fields to our forks, huge corporations have an overwhelming amount of power over our food supply every step of the way. Right now there are more than 313 million people living in the United States, and the job of feeding all of those people is almost entirely in the hands of just a few dozen monolithic companies. If you do not like how our food is produced or you don't believe that it is healthy enough, it isn't very hard to figure out who is to blame. These mammoth corporations are not in business to look out for...

The team here has had plenty of great coverage since the Hobby Lobby decision came down, but there are still elements of not only the court case, but the highly vocal opposition to it which leave me puzzled. There has been plenty of analysis regarding the religious freedom aspect of the case, particularly from Ed, and that is certainly an important facet of the discussion. But I find myself even more perplexed by the arguments I’ve been seeing regarding the nature of personhood vis-à-vis corporations and how they shouldn’t be eligible for the various assurances found in the bill...

A little less than two years ago, Gregory D. Wasson, the chief executive of Walgreen, sought a series of tax breaks from Illinois, where his company is based. “We are proud of our Illinois heritage,” he said at the time. “Just as our stores and pharmacies are health and daily living anchors for the communities we serve, we as a company are now recommitted to serving as an economic anchor for northeastern Illinois.” The state gave Walgreen $46 million in corporate income tax credits over 10 years in exchange for a pledge to create 500 jobs and invest in upgrading...

Two major national anti-obesity campaigns supported by first lady Michelle Obama and former President Clinton treat overweight Americans as “idiots” too dumb to figure out what's good for them, according to a new academic study.Worse, said the study from a George Washington University professor, the Obama-backed Partnership for a Healthier America and Clinton supported Alliance for a Healthier Generation blame consumers and not the makers of unhealthy food for the obesity epidemic.“I found that these organizations might more appropriately be called the ‘Partnership for a Healthier Bottom Line,' ” said associate sociologist professor Ivy Ken in the influential academic journal...

Walgreen, America's venerable drug-store chain, is thinking the unthinkable: relocating to Europe. Not because it sees growth and opportunity there, but because of onerous taxes here in the U.S. It's an ominous trend. The Financial Times of London calls it "one of the largest tax inversions ever." That is, a company seeking to avoid punitive taxes in one market by moving to another. No doubt the FT is right. And after its recent $16 billion takeover of Swiss-based Alliance Boots, it would be easy for Walgreen to remake itself as a Swiss company. If it did, the Democratic Party's liberals...

OK it's not Walmart, but it's a serious issue nevertheless. America needs to keep, start, build and GROW global companies right here in America. Stop this nonsense.

New Jersey’s shakedown tactics have spread. California, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Nebraska, and Virginia have been among the states named in congressional testimony for trying to levy corporate taxes on firms whose only substantial connection is a visiting truck. In one typical case, when a small Milwaukee transportation firm, LTL Trucking, answered a Nebraska tax questionnaire by acknowledging that its trucks had driven through the state in recent years, it received a back-tax bill of $1,321, despite having no inventory, customers, or sales there. Manufacturers delivering products to customers in locations where the firms don’t otherwise operate have found...

Cash-hungry governments are shaking down nonresident businesses and workers.Revenue-hunting states have lately gone beyond raising their own taxes; now they’re trying to shake down firms and workers in other states. Stretching the limits of the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause to the breaking point, local revenue agents have seized out-of-state trucks simply passing through their jurisdiction, refusing to release them until the firms that dispatched them fork over corporate income taxes. Finance departments have slapped out-of-state businesses with bills for thousands of dollars in corporate back taxes, based on little more than a single worker visiting the state sometime during the...

U.S. refining capacity increased since 2000 as capacity additions outpaced the loss of capacity from three major refinery closures. Yet the number of refineries and companies both declined over the same period, as the concentration of refining capacity among the top five companies increased from 38% in 2000 to 44% in 2013. Ownership of U.S. refinery capacity changed substantially in recent years, notwithstanding relatively slow changes in refinery capacity and the number of companies involved in the refining sector. An examination of company-level information and transactional data since 2000 shows both consolidation and dispersion. Almost 40% of large refiners (i.e.,...

Some of the world’s most famous people became such by challenging conventional wisdom. Who does not know the name Galileo? He was scorned as a heretic in his day. Or what American does not know of Jonas Salk, who developed a nonconventional process and saved the world from the dreaded polio disease. Now comes along a man challenging conventional wisdom. The subject is not as lofty as curing polio or defining the center of the universe, but it challenges an accepted orthodoxy that has been beaten into our brains for decades. Though campaign finance reform dates back to 1867 when...

When Motorola Mobility lined up a Silicon Valley candidate a few months ago for a VP-level role, the phone maker was hopeful he'd accept. After all, the company offered the chance to develop products at a subsidiary of Google Inc. The engineer declined. His reason: the prospect of relocating to Libertyville, Ill., about 35 miles from downtown Chicago, said Scott Sullivan, Motorola's head of human resources.

Life Decisions International (LDI) brings together many of North America's leading experts for its primary mission of challenging the radical agenda of Planned Parenthood worldwide. SNIP LIFE DECISIONS INTERNATIONAL HAS BEEN FAITHFULLY SERVING THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS (AND WE PRAY THERE WILL BE NO NEED FOR ANOTHER 20 YEARS). Corporate Funding Project (CPF) Join The Boycott!Help fight Planned Parenthood by refusing to do business with corporations that fund its deadly agenda. Did you know that the following corporations are boycott targets? Pernod Ricard (alcoholic beverages, including Absolute, Ballantine's, Beefeater, Bancott Estate, Campo Viejo, Chivas Regal, G.H....

POLITICS Obama courting CEOs on immigration widens conservative split, raises issue of corporate motives Published November 10, 2013 FoxNews.com President Obama's courting of top U.S. executives this week to help get the Republican-controlled House to pass immigration reform is furthering the divide among conservatives, with a top GOP senator and others suggesting corporate America is lending its support with hopes of getting more access to low-cost immigrant labor. The president said before the White House meeting Tuesday that he and others who support comprehensive immigration reform passed in the Senate know the “politics are challenging” in the House and that...

This is the Weekly Investment & Finance Thread (Oct 7 - Oct. 11 edition)----  Trying to focus on the markets for today and each day and the economic news This is where you can exchange some investment opinions and advice If you see another FR economic thread you like and want to link to it here, please doPost your favorite economic site links. Your favorite economic blogs and precious metals blogs and sitesPing list -- on or off let me know here or via freep-mail. If I missed you then Freep-mail me I might ping you to other interesting economic threads a...

“Corporate Profits Lose Steam.” That was the headline atop a recent Wall Street Journal article. For those that become indignant about highly successful and profitable corporations, this should be really great news – right? But nobody is celebrating. In fact, the sagging profits reports of the past several weeks are thought to be such a bad thing that some believe they have brought about the downward shifts on the stock market as of late (could it be that the business uncertainty caused by our U.S. government could be the problem on Wall Street instead?). Companies as diverse as Krispy...

More than a thousand conservative lawmakers and business executives are gathering this week for conference that could shape a new wave of Republican legislation in state capitols pushing for deeper tax cuts, limits on union powers and a private-sector makeover for government Medicaid programs. Attendees at the American Legislative Exchange Council were countered Thursday by a roughly equal number of protesters upset by the close ties between big businesses and lawmakers. … The conservative organization’s 40th annual meeting comes as it is experiencing increased influence due to a growth in Republican-led legislatures and enhanced opposition from liberal-leaning groups that have...

Hello Russia news Freepers. Tired of all this talk about companies hiding money offshore and not paying taxes? If there is one man who can make some noise about this, it won't be Obama. It'll be Putin. He already is taking over from British PM David Cameron who first made overtures to the fact that offshoring was unfair.

The rabbit hole just got deeper. A whole lot deeper. On Sunday we predicated that "there's one reason why the administration, James Clapper and the NSA should just keep their mouths shut as the PRISM-gate fallout escalates: with every incremental attempt to refute some previously unknown facet of the US Big Brother state, a new piece of previously unleaked information from the same intelligence organization now scrambling for damage control, emerges and exposes the brand new narrative as yet another lie, forcing even more lies, more retribution against sources, more journalist persecution and so on." And like a hole that...