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To: Prodigal Son
Why is American labor not competitive? It's certainly not because the coroporation isn't loyal to the nation. If anything, when workers organize into labor unions and force corporations to "hand over the loot" the workers themselves are being unAmerican.

There are others to blame besides labor unions. This just a cliché. I like well run and honest unions. I have no respect for unions for government workers. Union membership is way down compared to a few decades ago. The only union growth is with government workers.

Get Congress to lower corporate taxes. That's a good start. 

Corporations pay a lower percentage of the total Federal take these days. Lower than in the 1950's which were prosperous. Your taxes are making up the difference. And don't peddle me the baloney that corporations *just* pass on taxes to consumers.
I would raise tariffs on select foreign goods if corporate taxes for industry are increased. I love tariffs.... Gotta run now.

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Who foots the bill for taxes corporations pay, avoid?
| Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Did you know that tax breaks for corporations exceed the amount of taxes they pay to Uncle Sam?

Corporations will pay about $136 billion in federal taxes this fiscal year. But, according to a study by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), a Washington research group, tax loopholes will save them $171 billion.

To liberals, that fact illustrates the power of corporate lobbyists to win what CTJ calls "corporate welfare." And, to the delight of Wall Street, the stimulus package passed by Congress this winter will enlarge those loopholes further.

The effective corporate tax rate – what companies actually pay as a proportion of their earnings – will drop 2.5 percentage points, reckons Bruce Steinberg, chief economist of Merrill Lynch & Co. (The rate last year was 22.1 percent.)

What is happening instead is that corporate taxes are fading gradually in their importance. In the 1960s, corporate tax revenues came to 4 to 5 percent of gross domestic product, the nation's total output of goods and services. By 1995-97, they had fallen to about 2.5 percent. This year and next, corporate tax revenues will amount to only 1.3 percent of GDP, figures CTJ.

Who ultimately bears the burden for the billions of tax dollars corporations pay each year is difficult to determine. The subject has been debated by economists for decades. The tax bill might be paid by consumers through higher prices. Employees can have their salaries or benefits cut. Or shareholders may take the hit via reduced earnings and dividends.


28 posted on 06/28/2002 6:27:33 AM PDT by dennisw
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To: dennisw
There are others to blame besides labor unions.

Sure, I admitted that the whole thing is more complex, but they are a big culprit.

I like well run and honest unions.

Why?

I want to trade my labor to a company or individual who will reward it accordingly. In the South, where I was raised, when I was looking for a job I would make the claim to my prospective employer that he could try me out for two weeks and if he didn't like my services he could have his money back. I never had anybody take me up on that offer because of labor laws which is a bunch of BS in my book. I also used to make the claim that if I couldn't outwork his best empoyee in six months time he could cut my salary. I never had my salary cut.

If I can walk in the door and outwork anybody in the joint, I should get the top pay of all the workers. If I show the most potential for promotion, I should get promoted regardless of seniority. This type of thing isn't exactly smiled upon by the unions. Nobody has a right to a job. You only have a right to seek one and to try to make your labor more attractive than the other guy's in the labor market. I wished that it was possible to really have workers compete viciously for their jobs- we'd have a nation full of workers that companies were willing to pay top dollar for.

I've always looked on my labor as a commodity and have striven to make mine as valuable as possible. I was just a welder/assembler by trade but I used my head, worked smart and always strove to outdo my competition ie the other workers. Work is a deadly serious business to me. I don't like it when I am working alongside a lazy worker and I will let him know this quick. He's costing me by lowering the company's efficiency. I am a firm believer in "Job security depends on you" and when I was in a supervisory role I never felt bad about giving a slack worker the boot or verbal incentive because I led by example. To me, that's what America is all about. Not a bunch of thugs standing outside a company's gate with picket signs made out of two by fours for beating scabs.

Also, in your article, it says that the cost gets passed on to consumers right down there at the bottom. Who else pays? The gov't has no money on its own- where does the money come from if not from me and you?

35 posted on 06/28/2002 6:59:28 AM PDT by Prodigal Son
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