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G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by YankeeFan, Mar 24, 2011.

  1. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Re: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

    You don't have to tax companies at all.

    You can raise the same amount of money by taxing personal income or commerce.

    And, you'd have more economic activity and 975 fewer lawyers at GE and less corruption in politics.
     
  2. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    Re: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

    It's always a global economy when it comes to the worker, and their salaries, etc.

    But the CEOs want to be paid the going rate for a U.S. CEO, not his counterpart in China or India or wherever they ship the jobs and hide the money.
     
  3. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Re: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

    Yeah, because Indian billionaires don't make real money:

    [​IMG]

     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  4. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Re: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

    Well, that's only because their default "win" situation is to have the richest middle class in the history of the world. We had that for decades, and now everything else feels like a loss.
     
  5. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Re: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

    It's been 40 years of declining real incomes for the middle class, Rick. That's a working lifetime of a generation. The fact is, our country is completely ruled by organized wealth, and in my opinion, if I live 20 more years, the trappings of democracy will be pretty well abolished in the interests of organized wealth by the time I die. We will very closely resemble China if we're lucky and pick your Central American hellhole if we're not.
     
  6. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Re: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

    Technically, yes, "real income" has declined for 40 years in the median. But that's a misleading statistic for many reasons, and it makes things sound much worse than they are.

    Well, first, they haven't really declined for 40 straight years. They may have peaked 40 years ago, but there have been long periods of gains as well as a few busts, and in the whole I think "stagnated" is a much better description of what's happened than "declined."

    [​IMG]

    But more importantly, non-income compensation has skyrocketed, mostly health benefits. When you add those in, then that same median group has seen steady gains.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Then you have to consider that the cost of necessities has plummeted during that same period. That same middle-class household can afford to spend a much higher percentage of its income on things besides food, clothing and shelter:

    [​IMG]

    In the meantime, hysteria like "We will very closely resemble China in 20 years" is so ridiculous that it takes away from any real discussions that we should be having in this country. America's middle-class would have to lose about 80% of their current income to reach the average salary in China. We've lost a few percent in 40 years by some measures, so now 80% in the next 20 years is on the table? Hysteria.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  7. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Re: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

    Rick -- I know you are wedded to the idea that the middle class is basically where it was 40 years ago. But you are not using powers of logic and plain observation here.

    Health benefit compensation has increased, you say? OK, let's go like this:

    --Health insurance for a family of four has gone from maybe $3,000 to $15,000 in that time.

    --Companies have gone from covering 100 percent to covering 70 percent.

    --By one measure, the company is paying $7,500 more an it used to. Compensation for the worker.

    --By another measure, the worker is paying $4,500 out of pocket, where out-of-pocket costs used to be zero.

    You clearly come down on the side of measure a, more the company is "giving" us. Do you believe that is the way this change is affecting American families?
     
  8. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Re: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

    I'm wedded to that idea because it's correct, and provably so.

    In your scenario, that family is $7,500 better compensated. The better health care they are getting now is part of the reason they are at least as well off as they would have been 40 years ago.

    The $4,500 they are paying out of pocket certainly stings, but prices have gone up and down all over the board, that's not the only factor at work.
     
  9. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Re: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

    As it relates to the middle class, which is the point of the whole argument, that family has far less money in its pocket than it would have had 40 years ago as a result of health care.

    You should really re-examine inflation, the CPI and its influence on this opinion you hold that things remain hunky-dory. I've pointed this out before, but the government factors health care as 6.1 percent of the CPI. There are flaws like that all over the formula (education and energy costs being two other under-counted factors).

    You also in the past have dismissed outsourcing's impact because jobs haven't "moved" offshore, ignoring the fact that they haven't been moving there because they're being CREATED there and never appear here. (IBM has 130,000 employees in India and 120,000 in the United States.) Meanwhile, the official unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent, and the un- or under-employment rate is something in the range of 15-20 percent, and in your mind it's technological innovation and not the international job market that are keeping those rates at those levels.

    You can find a number to make your point. That hardly makes it "provably correct."
     
  10. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Re: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

    I'm saying that those increased health-care costs aren't coming without compensation. The compensation is that you have better health. So while you may have less money in your pocket, it's because you chose to spend it on something that made your life better. I have a hard time calling that "worse off."

    As far as jobs being created over there, okay. If you want to look at it from that angle, America lost jobs due to technological innovation creating productivity gains (mostly) and outsourcing (to a degree, but not as much as most people believe). That's normal and natural. The problem has been that we, as a country, aren't creating replacements for those jobs fast enough to keep up. If you want to argue that the international economic growth is slowing down our ability to create jobs, I can buy that.

    I'm not sure what you want to do about it. There's no birthright to a nice job just because one is American and the person who might otherwise get it is something else.
     
  11. Care Bear

    Care Bear Guest

    Re: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

    We need an economics board.
     
  12. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Re: G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether

    "Chose to spend." You're seeing health insurance as an optional buy, then. OK, I guess there's the underpinning of our philosophical disagreement here, but I can't for the life of me see how having health insurance would be considered optional. In any case, as a comparison to the middle class of yesteryear -- which, again, is the point -- it's an enormous difference in the checkbook.

    Also, not sure where you're getting the idea that America is in better health or receiving better health care than it was. But service standards have declined in every hospital in the country, and there are some forecasts that this generation of kids will be the first in America to see the average lifespan decline. (I know, that isn't all related to the cost of health care, it's just a comment on the general idea that health is better.)
     
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