Which way do the top MegaCompanies lean?

[wiretap]

They all lean Globalist.

This.

 

[dwell]

According to that chart I work for one of the most Democratic-leaning companies. Explains why we almost shut down on Obama inauguration day.

 

[Darwin333]

I don't see how changing the method of collection of taxes helps limit the influence people can have on the government. Politicians still need money to run for office, the more the better. And although your system might prohibit TAX related favors, it doesn't help with anything else (favorable zoning laws, environmental regulations, no-bid contracts, etc, etc).

I kind of like the "Fair Tax" idea, although I get the feeling that in actual implementation it would turn out to be brutally regressive, but I don't think it solves the corruption problem. Dramatically capping campaign donations (and/or campaign spending) would be more helpful, I think, as it limits the mechanism for buying politicians, and not just the motivation.

Come on guys, the political corruption problem is probably the easiest one to solve if we actually wanted to. The biggest problem I see, is once again, us. We hate political corruption and I mean absolutely HATE it... as long as its the other party getting caught. When our team gets caught, with the exception of insanely over the top corruption like Dollar Bill Jefferson, we make excuses (but but but the OTHER guys did it first so they are worse!). We refuse to take out the trash in our own parties while demanding the other side do so. The same thing goes for supporters of those parties both private people and businesses (blackwater and Acorn are perfect examples).

The solution is simple. STOP TOLERATING BULLSHIT FROM YOUR OWN PARTY. This goes for both of the groups of assholes that run this country. Secondly, increase the criminal penalties 10 fold for any politician convicted and no holiday inn jail for them either, they go somewhere they are going to have a really really bad time. If Dollar Bill was getting his ass sold for a pack of smokes right now I guarantee a bunch of politicians would be thinking twice about how they currently conduct business.

 

[n yusef]

Come on guys, the political corruption problem is probably the easiest one to solve if we actually wanted to. The biggest problem I see, is once again, us. We hate political corruption and I mean absolutely HATE it... as long as its the other party getting caught. When our team gets caught, with the exception of insanely over the top corruption like Dollar Bill Jefferson, we make excuses (but but but the OTHER guys did it first so they are worse!). We refuse to take out the trash in our own parties while demanding the other side do so. The same thing goes for supporters of those parties both private people and businesses (blackwater and Acorn are perfect examples).

The solution is simple. STOP TOLERATING BULLSHIT FROM YOUR OWN PARTY. This goes for both of the groups of assholes that run this country. Secondly, increase the criminal penalties 10 fold for any politician convicted and no holiday inn jail for them either, they go somewhere they are going to have a really really bad time. If Dollar Bill was getting his ass sold for a pack of smokes right now I guarantee a bunch of politicians would be thinking twice about how they currently conduct business.

I think that you and Rainsford have different conceptions of "corruption." As I understood him, Rainsford referenced the government's enactment of pro-business policies in, e.g., zoning, environmental regulations, and government contracting, tacitly contingent on campaign donations. Without any recorded agreements, and there needn't be any (the contingency is tacit, after all), this activity is completely lawful; therefore, no amount of prosecutorial rigor or punishment can deter it. To prevent this type of corruption, we must overhaul our political system; public campaign financing would be a good start.

 

[Zebo]

I think we all know which way our politicians lean: towards big money. Banks got trillions. Banker bonuses Billions in back room deals. HC got no bid prescription drugs from Bush and is getting no bid forced insurance from Obama. Bankruptcy laws ratcheted up on the little guy and unchanged on Corps. Prison and insane fines for DL a DVD. Perpetual copyright. CC can charge fees and interest which used to be considered loan sharking. Govt' blesses mergers which make monopolies in many industries and too big to fail of course. And so on.

I look at very little left and right, it's irrelevant these days. It's all about money and their is little difference betweens parties save branded "loons" by MSM like Kucinich or Paul who are not bought. The rest are.

I wish Obama luck being truly a democrat - unfortunately. so far. I still call him Black Bush.

 

[werepossum]

I think that you and Rainsford have different conceptions of "corruption." As I understood him, Rainsford referenced the government's enactment of pro-business policies in, e.g., zoning, environmental regulations, and government contracting, tacitly contingent on campaign donations. Without any recorded agreements, and there needn't be any (the contingency is tacit, after all), this activity is completely lawful; therefore, no amount of prosecutorial rigor or punishment can deter it. To prevent this type of corruption, we must overhaul our political system; public campaign financing would be a good start.

I think public financing of campaigns would be the absolute worst thing we could ever do. In any powerful position that are literally dozens if not hundreds of people who would run if they thought they could get the support. Obviously we can fund campaigns for a hundred people for mayor, so someone has to decide who is qualified and who is not. The most likely decider would be the two major parties. Thus the two parties that we are all accusing of corruption would have sole control of the candidates we even know about, since no PAC, corporation, or groups of individuals would be allowed to fund alternate candidates. This basically the establishment of a Mandarin or Brahman class, a self-selecting political class with sole power of determination for who is allowed to rise into its ranks.

Other likely forms of qualifications are equally problematic. Signature qualifications would have to be set quite high to reduce things down to an affordable numbers of candidates, which means that the same special interests - unions, big corporations, ACORN, and advocacy groups - would have enormous power, but with the taxpayers funding their candidates' campaigns. Business success qualifications would fail if only for the wealth envy and hatred in our society. Previous office requirements would only entrench the current political system into permanent power. None of this would necessarily make the politicians any more trustworthy.

But the biggest problem is that these huge corporations would still have the same needs for aid and/or protection, the same potential savings or profits. When government is this big, powerful, and intrusive, you simply cannot stop corporations (or any other interest group) from attempting to influence politicians. There are myriad ways of rewarding a politician - jobs for relatives, friends and mistresses, funding a pet cause, or opening a plant or other operation in a key area are just a few. All these are being used today; they would simply become a bigger part of corporate and other interests' portfolio of favor-buying.

 

[Zebo]

There is no good solution werepossum. I'm not sure we can survive much longer with things that have taken place last 30 years in debt department and disenfranchisement of about half our population. There will be revolution once cash runs dry whether through foreigners stop financing our largeese and welfare system or we print to fund it making money worthless - we are on road to catastrophe either way. Nothing new either. Governments usually don't even last as long as ours has - what will come out of it is anyones guess.

 

[werepossum]

There is no good solution werepossum. I'm not sure we can survive much longer with things that have taken place last 30 years in debt department and disenfranchisement of about half our population. There will be revolution once cash runs dry whether through foreigners stop financing our largeese and welfare system or we print to fund it making money worthless - we are on road to catastrophe either way. Nothing new either. Governments usually don't even last as long as ours has - what will come out of it is anyones guess.

Quite possibly. I'm reminded of the fall of the Challenger Wrecker Corporation a couple decades ago. I forget the guy's name, but he started with nothing but a small loan. He took that loan and bought a micro business (like a hot dog standard or something, I forget what.) Then he immediately used that business (with greatly inflated value) as collateral for a loan to buy another, larger business. He repeated the process many times, buying larger (and multiple) businesses. He had built an empire worth billions (I think $65 billion, but that number may come from a dying brain cell's last gasp) on paper and was living a billionaire's life. Problem was it was all on paper. Since every business he owned was mortgaged for much more than it was worth, none of them could generate the money to service the loans. Instead, that money had to come from even more, even bigger loans.

It was all brought down by one very small loan, quite early in the cycle. He had been dating a loan officer, who made him a loan. (After that loan he graduated to bigger and more important loan officers; she made him just the one.) Preparing for a regular audit, the bank executives found that not only had they greatly exceeded the amount they were allowed to lend (as a percentage of assets held), they were also greatly over the limit there were allowed to lend to one particular person or corporation, because so many different corporations went back to this one guy as sole owner. The executives called in the loan officer and told her she had not done due diligence and was being fired. In desperation (or perhaps it was even the truth) she claimed she had never authorized the loan, that he had forged her signature. Now he had a few million in liquid assets and could have easily paid that one loan, but the bank used it as leverage to force him to pay off enough loans to place the bank back into compliance with total amount and amount to one borrower. That he could not do, not in the time frame the bank needed. This credit glitch was enough to keep him from getting the next, even bigger loan that would make all his payments plus fund his lavish lifestyle. And that brought his whole empire down. Thus dozens of perfectly sound, profitable small companies like Challenger Wrecker were forced into receivership and sold for assets to meet the debts of the parent shell corporation, incidentally casting thousands of people out of work with no warning. (In the case of Challenger they literally left a profitable company one evening and returned next morning to find it padlocked and closed for good.)

I can't help but worry that something like that will happen to the USA on a massive scale. If our credit is gradually cut off, we may be able to slide into gentile third-world poverty over decades, perhaps even figure out (and agree on) solutions to reforming a profitable and prosperous nation. But if something shuts down our credit down abruptly, I have no confidence that our nation can survive in anything near its current configuration. 1 in 8 Americans are on food stamps; almost 50% of American households receive some kind of monthly check from the federal government. Imagine if all those checks suddenly cease, tens of thousands of government workers (at all levels) are suddenly unemployed. No way could we continue. So the government would have to print money, until the dollar is nearly worthless outside the USA. Which means that cheap $20 Chinese toaster is suddenly $400 or more, just as has happened in other countries. Yeah, I can see a possible revolution and a slide into totalitarianism.

 

[Zebo]

Quite possibly. I'm reminded of the fall of the Challenger Wrecker Corporation a couple decades ago. I forget the guy's name, but he started with nothing but a small loan. He took that loan and bought a micro business (like a hot dog standard or something, I forget what.) Then he immediately used that business (with greatly inflated value) as collateral for a loan to buy another, larger business. He repeated the process many times, buying larger (and multiple) businesses. He had built an empire worth billions (I think $65 billion, but that number may come from a dying brain cell's last gasp) on paper and was living a billionaire's life. Problem was it was all on paper. Since every business he owned was mortgaged for much more than it was worth, none of them could generate the money to service the loans. Instead, that money had to come from even more, even bigger loans.

It was all brought down by one very small loan, quite early in the cycle. He had been dating a loan officer, who made him a loan. (After that loan he graduated to bigger and more important loan officers; she made him just the one.) Preparing for a regular audit, the bank executives found that not only had they greatly exceeded the amount they were allowed to lend (as a percentage of assets held), they were also greatly over the limit there were allowed to lend to one particular person or corporation, because so many different corporations went back to this one guy as sole owner. The executives called in the loan officer and told her she had not done due diligence and was being fired. In desperation (or perhaps it was even the truth) she claimed she had never authorized the loan, that he had forged her signature. Now he had a few million in liquid assets and could have easily paid that one loan, but the bank used it as leverage to force him to pay off enough loans to place the bank back into compliance with total amount and amount to one borrower. That he could not do, not in the time frame the bank needed. This credit glitch was enough to keep him from getting the next, even bigger loan that would make all his payments plus fund his lavish lifestyle. And that brought his whole empire down. Thus dozens of perfectly sound, profitable small companies like Challenger Wrecker were forced into receivership and sold for assets to meet the debts of the parent shell corporation, incidentally casting thousands of people out of work with no warning. (In the case of Challenger they literally left a profitable company one evening and returned next morning to find it padlocked and closed for good.)

I can't help but worry that something like that will happen to the USA on a massive scale. If our credit is gradually cut off, we may be able to slide into gentile third-world poverty over decades, perhaps even figure out (and agree on) solutions to reforming a profitable and prosperous nation. But if something shuts down our credit down abruptly, I have no confidence that our nation can survive in anything near its current configuration. 1 in 8 Americans are on food stamps; almost 50% of American households receive some kind of monthly check from the federal government. Imagine if all those checks suddenly cease, tens of thousands of government workers (at all levels) are suddenly unemployed. No way could we continue. So the government would have to print money, until the dollar is nearly worthless outside the USA. Which means that cheap $20 Chinese toaster is suddenly $400 or more, just as has happened in other countries. Yeah, I can see a possible revolution and a slide into totalitarianism.

You don't have to tell me. That's why I run 5 miles a day and have 40,000 rounds of 5.56. Even if I'm wrong healthly is good and ammo isnt going down anytime soon.

Incidentally your story was exactly the scenario bankers played up to congress when they lobbied/threatend the 2.5T they got and 12 T in guarantees. It worked but we are not out of the woods yet and that money can't be paid back either.