How did American companies get tax breaks for moving jobs overseas?

[kentuck]

Wasn't that a royal screwing of the American people?

If we traced our present economic problems back to its roots, we will probably find that they began with the free trade treaties. We were led to believe that getting everything produced overseas would somehow help the workers of this country? Were we morons or what??

The most obvious consequence of these trade treaties was that it drove the price of labor down in this nation. It drove the profits up of those that chose to make their products in China and elsewhere. And the biggest problem we face at this time is not necessarily the debt we owe these nations because we do not have the tax base to pay for our programs anymore, but rather, the impact it has had on jobs and wages. Something has to change.

We have become a nation for the few, rather than the many. We all must now sacrifice for the good of the top 1%, the so-called "job creators". They are not job creators but capitalist profiteers. More than 60% of all jobs created in this country are by smaller businesses. The top 1-2% of income earners do not create jobs. Over 96% of them only create wealth for themselves. Something is wrong with this picture??

Under the guise of saving the SS system, FICA taxes were raised on workers wages during the "big fix" of Social Security by Ronald Reagan. The wealthy were content to let the workers pay for all the programs we needed, including a defense department with a voracious appetite. But, when companies were moving overseas and we were losing jobs here, the SS fund started to shrink. In kind, the deficits went up proportionally to the number of unemployed.

We have now come to a meeting of the minds. In less than a dozen years, we went from a balanced budget to over-whelming debt. There are so many loopholes nobody can count them. We have a useless, and mostly destructive Congress to block anything that might be proposed. We have really screwed the pooch with this Congress.

So the decision is ours. Do we want a country for the few or do we want a country for the many? The time is now to make that decision. We hope the Democratic Party will be up to the task? But many of us have our doubts. Nobody seems ready to tackle these problems?

I hate to sound too negative but that is the way I see it...

[Enthusiast]

1. kentuck, you have it nailed. I have huge doubts.

Corporations don't have the least sense of patriotism. They simply do not have our best interests at heart. We compete against socialized industries in both Japan and China.

While Japan was eating our lunch producing steel and dumping it on our market, their steel industry wasn't even profitable. They didn't really care so much about profit because their aim was to employ their people. In the meantime our steel industry was fatally damaged. The government and corporations have been our worst enemies. They have harmed the American worker by not looking out for our interests. They treated us as if we were the enemy. Corporations responded to lower effective tax rates by speeding up the rate of outsourcing.

Something must be done!

[formercia]

2. Union Busting

Close the unionized Plant and move the jobs overseas.
Pension and Disability Liabilities? No problem, sell the Company to Bain Capital or any number of Vulture Hatchet Men out there and they will do the dirty work for you, move the jobs overseas, bust the union, rob the Pension Plan and anything else that needs 'fixing.'
The plan was to make the US a Corporate Paradise. Big profits, High Management wages, shit wages for the workers. Big dividends for rich investors and buckets of Money for their Wall Street Cronies.

This was no accident. It was all planned long ago.

[No Elephants]

3. I don't put hope on politicians anymore. It may be up to us to buy American, even if costs more.

A guy who used to own a small factory, but now owns a diner (diners have no competition from overseas) told me this story, from the 70s or 80s Let's call this guy "Factory Owner."

His little factory made some metal parts for a Chinese man whith an unfortunate name for the U.S., Mr. An Wang.

I never set eyes on a Wang computer, but I know exactly what Mr. An Wang and his wife looked like at the height of his success because I've see their portrait up close many times. (Mr. Wang was a philanthropist and their portrait hangs in the elevator lobby of the Wang Building of the Massachusetts General Hospital, one of the most famous hospitFaals in the world.)

Anyway, Factory Owner also made parts for an auto company, but I can't remember which one. Let's say it was "American Auto."

Factory Guy had to visit his customers from time to time. He told me, "I'd go to Wang, where all I would hear was how badly they were doing because everyone was buying computers from Japan. Meanwhile, Wang's parking lot was filled with imported cars, many of them from Japan. Then, I'd go to American Auto, where all I would hear was how bad business was because everyone was buying cars from Japan. Meanwhile, on every desk at American Auto was a computer made overseas."

Factory Owner was a smart guy about business, and he really was an American job creator, but he still went out of business because his customers either went out of business due to imports or started having their metal parts made overseas, as he always knew they would.

BTW, he said that he could have competed with the prices of metal parts made overseas, except that he paid for health insurance for the employees of his little factory.

(I did not realize when I started posting this story that it would end up as another post about the benefits of "Medicare for All," but it has.)

Anyway, my story has come full circle: The best thing we can do for American businesses seems to be to buy American, even if it costs more.

[Enthusiast]

5. Medicare for all would solve many problems.

Although it would cause right wing heads to splode.:nuke: :rofl:

[No Elephants]

6. Not only right wing.

And therein lies the real problem, IMO.

For me, the one party system we now have is the real problem.

[No Elephants]

4. P.S. Thanks for another great thread. Hope you had a good holiday, Kentuck.