Posted on 12/03/2016 3:23:37 AM PST by JediJones
I am ecstatic for Carrier employees! Their bosses just decided to keep shop onshore. What a relief for hundreds of workers. Merry Christmas Indiana!
We don't yet know terms of the public/private deal that was cut to make the company stay, but let's hope every business is equally incentivized to keep Americans working in America.
Foundational to our exceptional nation's sacred private property rights, a business must have freedom to locate where it wishes. In a free market, if a business makes a mistake (including a marketing mistake that perhaps Carrier executives made), threatening to move elsewhere claiming efficiency's sake, then the market's invisible hand punishes. Thankfully, that same hand rewards, based on good business decisions.
But this time-tested truth assumes we're operating on a level playing field.
When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent. Meanwhile, the invisible hand that best orchestrates a free people's free enterprise system gets amputated. Then, special interests creep in and manipulate markets. Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail...
Reaganites learned it is POLICY change that changes economic trajectory...We need Reaganites in the new Administration.
However well meaning, burdensome federal government imposition is never the solution. Never. Not in our homes...schools...churches...businesses...
But know that fundamentally, political intrusion using a stick or carrot to bribe or force one individual business to do what politicians insist, versus establishing policy incentivizing our ENTIRE ethical economic engine to roar back to life, isn't the answer. Cajole only chosen ones on Main St or Wall St and watch lines stretch from Washington to Alaska full of businesses threatening to bail unless taxpayers pony up...
(Excerpt) Read more at youngcons.com ...
It's corrupt and it undermines everything.
The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government - consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting ‘A’ to satisfy ‘B’. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods.
H.L. Mencken
No, I am not. I did not accuse her of anything. Her words speak for themselves.
Trump was going after NAFTA, not pursuing crony capitalism, which is what her piece was about. She never even mentioned NAFTA. Trump has been decrying the UN-LEVEL playing field established by NAFTA and other trade agreements for thirty years.
Freepers! Read the article! She's not accusing anyone of anything, she's issuing a caution.
QUOTE THEM
Where does she accuse Trump of crony capitalism?
Whenever a company moves into an area, they look to see what kind of deal they can get out of the state. What Trump did is not any different than what goes on all the time. What Obama did to the car industry was completely illegal. Yet no one complained. He took it over, refused to pay the loans, decided what dealers got to stay in business and bailed the companies out with tax payers money and gave the companies to the union.
I don’t see Trump’s phone call as crony capitalism. He’s offering them a tax break that he plans to give to all companies.
Sarah Palin offered deals to the energy companies in Alaska. What’s the difference?
In management school, they took the time to show the movie “12 O'clock High”. It is a good allegory of where where we are today. Start with a firm hand and then loosen it to get the best out of those that follow you.
Sarah, get a cup of tea and watch the movie.
I have a client: I’d better go.
I guess you just got swept up by other FReeper’s rush to judgement. No harm done.
This is a win/win/win deal for America. The state gets some taxes, instead of nothing which is what they get if Carrier moves. The company gets enough tax break to not move. And of course the workers get to keep their jobs. Maybe Palin should go ‘splain to them and their families how horrible the deal is.
The only loser here is Mexico.
Exactly right. No special deals like Obama made. We don’t have the details of the Carrier deal but I am sure it will be available to every company. That crap about too big to fail, taxpayer bailouts has to go.
I looked at this as a stop-go measure until they could officially lower the corporate tax burden and deregulate once in office.
Exactly right. We don't know what this "deal" includes, if anything. For all anyone knows, Trump and Pence sat down with Carrier's executive leadership and explained the policy changes his administration would be executing and that was enough to keep those Carrier jobs onshore.
It is the LYING LIBERAL LAMESTREAM MEDIA that's calling this more crony capitalism. The same LYING LIBERAL LAMESTREAM MEDIA that was completely in the bag for Shrillary Rotten Clinton and manipulated opinion polls to make it appear she was winning.
Funny how some here on FR choose to believe the lying liberal media headlines now, when they (rightfully) knew the media was lying during the campaign.
Everyone needs to chill and let the facts come out before jumping to conclusions.
Again, slightly misunderstands American capitalism.
There WAS NO capitalism when the U.S. was founded, even with the Constitution in 1787, the ideas of capitalism had only begun to trickle around the world. ALL the Founders were “common sense” mercantilists.
It is true that all American settlers adopted infant capitalism when they first arrived, even within the mercantilist system, but by the time the US government was created there were a couple of ideas that still remained. One was that the US government first and foremost existed to protect and defend the nation.
That means that iron and textiles (for guns, cannons, and uniforms) had to be national, not global. We had to have a national/local source for this, which meant protecting them against foreign competition.
This element has been missing in all our business deals, although Reagan employed some of the reasoning. Is Carrier necessary to national defense? No. Had we not given away so many other elements of security already, I’d say bad move. But it’s important Trump start making statements immediately.
SOME computers; steel; shipbuilding; and electronics are needed for defense. Trump must crack down ruthlessly on shipping patents to China for any reason. Yes, Apple can build where they want-—to some degree. But a core of computing technology and manufacturing needs to stay here for security purposes.
Once this precedent is reestablished, and taxes are reduced and capital offshore is brought in under a reduced penalty “amnesty,” you’ll see MOST companies staying in America.
If you ignore the great British and Dutch and French trading companies of the 18th century, there was no capitalism
‘I looked at this as a stop-go measure until they could officially lower the corporate tax burden and deregulate once in office.’
I hope that is the case, and wait for more definitive info.
Not all that familiar with the Dutch. But the Brits all operated under mercantilism. They had to obtain a charter from the king to even operate in certain waters (as did Columbus for his voyage). These mercantile companies were greeted by a tax collector on the docks right off the bat. Settlers at forts were always governed by a royal governor who was “rex in abstentia.” So, no, the British companies were not free market.
If Carrier received what is coming down the pike for all of corporate America, only a little earlier in order to save them leaving, this is not crony capitalism.
I thought crony capitalism was special privileges to politician’s favorites that nobody else gets. If the tax breaks/regulation relief is coming for everyone, then this is a special consideration given for special circumstances because of timing. It’s NOT crony capitalism.
” In a free market, if a business makes a mistake (including a marketing mistake that perhaps Carrier executives made), threatening to move elsewhere claiming efficiency’s sake, then the market’s invisible hand punishes,” said Sarah Palin.
I like Palin but this is absolutely 100% false. The market has not punished the thousands of companies now making their products in China. The market rewards it. Palin is completely missing the point that this is not about the “free market”. It is about now allowing a free market where it means offshoring millions of jobs. There is nothing wrong and absolutely everything right about setting government policies that interfere with the free market to retain millions of good paying American jobs. This is a boon to the economy.
I like Palin but she is dead wrong here.
People are acting like this deal was all carrot and no stick.
First, we don’t know the details. I assume the carrot included a promise of reduced business taxes and regulations for ALL companies. That is not a federal giveaway to a company. That is a benefit for all businesses uniformly.
Second, I assume President Trump brought out the stick with two promises — first that he will charge a 35% tariff on all goods American companies want to import for sale in the USA. That is a HUGE disincentive to moving operations out of America. I don’t know if this is good policy or not, but that is a big stick that Carrier could not have ignored. The other stick was the implication that maybe if United Technologies allows its subsidiaries to move operations out of America, it could result in fewer government contracts which make up 10% of UT’s revenue.
So you have 2 carrots and 2 sticks that Trump could apply universally to ALL businesses, which are lower taxes, fewer regulations, tariffs on imported US goods, and leverage where it exists.
Not a single one of these is crony capitalism or corporate welfare.
People bashing this deal don’t know a thing about the details and yet they assume the worst. I’ve’ outlined how they could all be dead wrong and still have shown Carrier their best interest lies in not moving those jobs to Mexico.
Now the state gave them $7 million in tax incentives. That has nothing to do with Trump.
Ah, so YOU want to regulate what states can or can’t do. OK, let’s level the playing field and do away with all taxes altogether. Then we don’t have to worry about corporate bribes. We also don’t have to worry about taxpayer supported education, taxpayer supported politicians, taxpayer supported infrastructure. Hey, you are right. Let’s get rid of all these opportunities for “bribes”
One may always have issues with how much an author leaves unsaid. So why didn't she mention NAFTA? Palin seems to like her readers to think for themselves. Maybe she thought her position on trade was well known. And truly her stand ought to be known, not least among Freepers:
"What do we have in common? Our love for this country, a desire to see our economy put back on the right track," Palin told reporters. "To have a balanced trade arrangement with other countries across this world so Americans can have our jobs, our industries, our manufacturing again. And exploiting responsibly our natural resources. We can do that again if we make good decisions."
Now, I advice people to go to this link and see when she said this and who "we" are.
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