How Apple's Tax Games Make Globalization Look Like a Big Scam
by Stephan Richter at Fortune
http://fortune.com/2016/09/02/apple-tax-game-ireland/
"SNIP................
First, U.S. corporations do engage in business policies that have anti-competitive effects. Callously gaming the tax system adds to a corporation’s bottom line and strengthens its competitive position, to the point of depressing the business fortunes of other, non-U.S. firms in the field. Note as well that the European Commission unquestionably also goes after European corporations engaging in similar activities and imposes hefty fines on them. Witness, for example, the EU probe related to illegal subsidies provided to electricity suppliers.
Second, the U.S. political process has been effectively captured by U.S. corporations at all levels. This manifests itself both via the cancer of campaign finance as well as troublesome hiring trends. For example, former officials of the Obama Administration have already taken quite a number of senior management positions with Silicon Valley firms. More are to follow.
Given those two realities, the question is whether anybody in political power in the United States will stand up to these corporations or let them have free rein. Unfortunately, that is largely a purely rhetorical question. Since the latter option is usually the one that is chosen, this may be good for these corporations’ future profit prospects.
In the absence of government actions against abusive and unfair business practices, there also is significant collateral damage: Ordinary citizens, who cannot escape fair taxation with “nifty” moves, will find themselves at the short end of the stick. They feel increasingly disempowered and doubtful about continuing on the globalization path. Declining support in opinion polls provides ample evidence of that.
................SNIP"
= new reply since forum marked as read
Since at least Woodrow Wilson, Democrats and liberals have tended to be more on the 'open, integrated world' side and republicans and conservatives more on the 'America First, nationalism' side. That was certainly true from the 1912 through the 1952, Wilson through Truman.
For years polls have shown a larger percentage of republicans who don't like the WTO and trade agreements than of Democrats.
Trump is really just a throwback to the pre-FDR version of republican presidents and is quite consistent with the attitude that the republican base has had for a long time. And I would like to through him back. 
