You don't 'believe' most businesses are unethical? It's in the news all the time how unethical they are. How they cut corners and cause mass death, how they cut corners and cause massive oil spills, how they cut corners and cause economic collapse, how they cut corners and offer food that's unsanitary, how they give jobs to illegal residents... what is your belief based on? How do you think the tax code got to be so big? Who is big Tobacco? Again, what is your belief based on? Those friendly little product guarantees they give you? Their cute little commercials? What?
I don't really believe most of what I see on the news. I know that there are many unethical business practices and those are the ones that make great news stories. But, for all the bad you see on the news, there are just as many good people and good stories out there that you do not hear about. Yes, more regulation and enforcement is needed because power and greed do corrupt.
I really don't understand the person who equates wealth exclusively with hard work.
I did not mean that I equated wealth exclusively with hard work. I equate hard work with improving the situation you find yourself in, and I was referring to what I had observed in my life, which does not involve slavery or abject poverty where there is little chance that hard work get you very much.
No, I don't mean all out socialism or communism or any other conservative buzz word you've been taught to irrationally fear. No I don't mean income equality. I'm for a lower income disparity and more popular democracy. Look at this....
I think we've seen very well the communism does not work, though as an ideal it has appeal to many. I do believe in socialism to a degree, but finding a stable balance between between pure capitilism and socialism is impossible. Leaning more one way will solve many problems in the short term, but then the problems with that particular system will multiply and grow until the pendulum must swing or the system will fail.
I can see by the Gini Index that Canada and the United States are going different directions here, with Canada moving towards more equality and US less, but Canada's bar line stops in early 1990. I wonder what the current level is for Canada?
Note the fact that, during the Bush era (G.W., that is), taxes were lowered on the rich and corporations, and by the end of his administration we were losing jobs at a rate between 750,000 and 800,000 a month. If you give corporations a tax break, they basically say “Thanks a lot,” then add the amount they save to their profit line.
Lowering the tax on corporations is not the same as lowering the tax on the rich. I only believe that the corporate tax rate in any country should stay competitive world-wide for the good of a country. I don't thing you can assume that because the tax rate was lowered those jobs were lost as there are many factors to consider. The rich should pay a fair share of taxes, but I really don't know what is fair.
When you say that a corporation says, Thanks a lot and adds it to their profit line, I am not sure exactly what you mean. Yes, they have more profit which they will use for something. Profit it not a bad thing. If they decide to pay dividends, it may benefit thousands of shareholders who then might be those consumers who do the spending. If the corporation decides to expand operations because of increased profits that would mean more jobs.
That the government double dips into the pockets of many Americans this way is not the harsh treatment you think it is. Corporations still manage to pay a pittance in taxes, from one of the twelve million loopholes in the tax code.
I don't think this harsh treament at all. I think it can be a good system. Of course, the loopholes are always going to be a problem, but I hope that many of them are incentives to use corporate profit in ways that benefit the economy.
We clearly need some government oversight. How much oversight is the question of the day. Arguably there's too little oversight in recent years. Conservatives tend to belittle environmental regulations, but I think we need them because businesses will stop at nothing to make a buck. I'm not passing judgment. It's a fact.
There obviously is a need for change in the US, but the current economic system cannot be blamed only on big business. The problems stem from a whole system, a system of living off borrowed money, at a personal level, a corporate level, and a government one. A belief that you can have everything now and worrying about paying for it later.