Obama’s Building A Wall Around Corporate America

Investors Business Daily ^ | June 15, 2016 | REP. JIM RENACCI

[expat_panama]

During his first inaugural address, President Obama pledged to bridge the divide between Washington and Main Street America by making government accountable to the people.

Nearly eight years later, that chasm has only grown greater, exacerbated by the steady consolidation of executive power and unbridled growth of the federal regulatory machine.

Today it’s hard to think of any aspect of daily life not micromanaged by federal bureaucrats. From burdensome new regulations on irrigation waters for farmers to seemingly endless new red tape in our health care and community banking industries, Uncle Sam has a hand in nearly every pot.

In fact, since 2009 the Obama Administration has imposed 229 major regulations, which carry a collective price tag of more than $108 billion annually. The result is an environment of frustration and uncertainty, in which businesses that fuel our economy and provide critical services to our country struggle to keep pace with Washington’s next big ask.

Perhaps the most egregious example of this regulatory fervor is the proposed Section 385 regulations issued by the Obama Administration’s Treasury Department in April, under the guise of curbing corporate inversions, through which we’ve seen several American companies relocate overseas in search of a more competitive corporate tax system...

...will subject U.S.-based companies with international operations to double taxation...

...“Inversions are a symptom. The disease is America’s anomalous international tax code.”...

...growth and job creation essentially flat-lined...

...My colleagues and I on the House Ways and Means Committee... ...no greater champion in the U.S. Senate for international tax reform than my fellow Ohioan, Sen. Rob Portman.

If President Obama fails to abandon his wall-building efforts and to seize this opportunity for real reform, the next president should consider a bold tax-reform agenda. The strength of our country and our economy depends upon it.

[expat_panama]

imho a big part of the problem are Marxist/trolls who pervert America's freedom by saying we can't be free to use the wealth we create. They say we must only buy an approved list of products and hire an approve list of applicants. On top of that, any wealth we don't spend as instructed must be taxed to protect the union rank-and-file. All in the same insisting they're 'conservative'.

OK, so life is not a popularity contest and everyone loves to hate and tax the evil CEO's and their selfish corporations. Meanwhile with most U.S. employees getting their paychecks from these same large corporations, we find millions of Americans who still haven't found work since 2009.

[ClearCase_guy]

And Mexico is not paying for this one — we are.

[Tenacious 1]

Bookmark

[Alberta's Child]

These corporations reap what they sow.

For years, they have benefitted from a system of government-corporate partnership that would have been described as "fascist" in any other time and place.

[expat_panama]

 

It's a beautiful new day and yesterday's downside reversal in mixed volume is taking us to where futures traders see stock indexes off another -0.12% --even while metals are seen jumping +0.74$.  Something going on, gold's finally back above the $1,300 level (now at $1,304.75) and silver's a patriotic $17.76!  We get another econ report flood today:

8:30 AM CPI
8:30 AM Core CPI
8:30 AM Initial Claims
8:30 AM Continuing Claims
8:30 AM Philadelphia Fed
8:30 AM Current Account Balance
10:00 AM NAHB Housing Market Index
10:30 AM Natural Gas Inventories

Headlines:

Residents Of Blue States Seek Escape From Tax Man - Steven Malanga, CJ
New Evidence Trump Didn't Pay Taxes - David Cay Johnston, Daily Beast
Sugar Subsidies Destroying U.S. Manufacturing Jobs - John Downs, RCM
Why a Universal Basic Income Is Foolish Idea - Oren Cass, National Review
High-Frequency Trading Has Aided U.S. Investors - Bill Harts, USA Today
What Could Pull Markets Out of Doldrums - Matthew Lynn, MarketWatch
Fed Projects a Slow Path to Rate Hikes - Brian Wesbury & Robert Stein, FTA
Is Janet Yellen Turning Hawkish? - Anthony Mirhaydari, The Fiscal Times
Why the Federal Reserve Chickened Out Once Again - John Crudele, NYP

It's a beautiful new day and yesterday's downside reversal in mixed volume is taking us to where futures traders see stock indexes off another -0.12% --even while metals are seen jumping +0.74$.  Something going on, gold's finally back above the $1,300 level (now at $1,304.75) and silver's a patriotic $17.76!  We get another econ report flood today:

8:30 AM CPI
8:30 AM Core CPI
8:30 AM Initial Claims
8:30 AM Continuing Claims
8:30 AM Philadelphia Fed
8:30 AM Current Account Balance
10:00 AM NAHB Housing Market Index
10:30 AM Natural Gas Inventories

Headlines:

[expat_panama]

...corporations reap what they sow...

Somehow that sounds an awful lot like Jeremiah Wright saying 9/11 was fine because of Hiroshima --"America's chickens coming home to roost!"   What's really happening is there's so little employment is because employers are being attacked and fleeing for their lives.  imho calling CEO's a bunch of Nazis is the wrong answer.

We don't help employees by attacking the employers.

[Alberta's Child]

I never called anyone a Nazi. Look up the definition of "fascism" before you make a statement like that.

The relationship between government and corporations in America these days is no different than it was back in the post-WW2 decades. You have corporations currying favor with government to get huge government contracts and competitive advantages in the market, and government adding enormous costs to these companies that make them uncompetitive outside the U.S.

The only thing that's changed is that the uncompetitive position of the U.S. in a global economy actually matters now. This isn't the 1950s where General Motors would get enormous military contracts for unneeded trucks and jeeps in exchange for generous employment guarantees for the UAW members who supported the Congressional candidates who wrote those defense appropriations bills. The U.S. is not the only industrial power left standing after WW2 anymore, and with $20 trillion in debt the reality of global competition is only beginning to sink in.

[JonPreston]

What’s up with the gold and silver move? I’m loving it but I don’t understand the jump.

[IamConservative]

The emergence of negative treasury bond yields in many countries and thought soon to be in the US.

[JonPreston]

Thanks, I’m having a good morning.

[expat_panama]

What’s up with the gold and silver move?

Sure are a lot of folks getting rich on this, by talking about it--

• Will gold prices rebound from here?
• Gold prices are starting to rebound, but why?
• Is the Gold Price Set for an Explosive Rebound?

--but what we know for sure is that for a 1/2 year now gold's been trading in the range it got to back in mid 2013:

 

[expat_panama]

You have corporations currying favor with government to get huge government contracts and competitive advantages in the market...

Not sure what we're talking about here but I see that as a good thing.  Corporations are groups of Americans and the governments are the people that Americans (including corp owners) hire to keep order.  We want the U.S. gov't to contract out the lion's share of its work and they have to hire corporations because unions and garden clubs do a bad job of making ships and planes.

...and government adding enormous costs to these companies...

--and as the essay at the top of the page explains this burden is biz-bash regulations that're making corps flee the U.S.. 

...that make them uncompetitive outside the U.S.

At the moment, the U.S. has about a twentieth of the world's population and U.S. corps export about a tenth of the world's total.  That will change for the worse if this mindless class hatred is allowed to grow.

fwiw, Hitler grew to power as an ardent follower of Mussolini's fascism and sent out his brown shirts to match the Italian black shirts.  Their econ policies were both presented as a 'third-way', mid way between capitalism and communism --just like Obama's.   These are the folks we want to channel our anger toward.

[citizen]

...the uncompetitive position of the U.S. in a global economy ... This isn't the 1950s ... The U.S. is not the only industrial power left standing after WW2 anymore...

I've been thinking/saying that for a lot of years.

Couple that reality with the high expectations of an underachieving, ill-educated, easily manipulated populace and you have the mess we are in.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Any day above 1200 is a Good Day...just like any day above the grass is a Good Day! ;)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Well said. But don’t worry...0bama has WWIII planned for us on his way out the door. And if we win? We’ll all be rich, Rich, RICH - after another five decades of hard work and rebuilding and dragging the rest of the world along with us.

Just like last time...