Everything Nac

Chris Herrington, Contributing Writer

     On 60 Minutes last night, we saw a report on how the tax rates in the United States had driven thousands of American businesses out of town, to literally denounce their citizenship, in order to avoid taxes. Last week we heard Mitt Romney say, “Corporations are people too.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2h8ujX6T0A In other words, American businesses, who are people, are renouncing their citizenship in favor of keeping their money from being taxed away by the Infernal Revenue Service. Can we really call ourselves Americans if we renounce our citizenship?

     What it really infers is that corporations can claim a gender and get married to other people. Who wants to marry a corporation? Would a corporation, which has never gone to jail, be able to say “I do?” Do we all have the same rights as a corporation? Now we are getting somewhere.

     If we look at the American stock market, focusing on the Dow Jones for a minute, we see an interesting phenomenon. http://www.nyse.tv/djia-chart-history.htm The business cycle has become so exaggerated that the amount of money we are talking about is literally sky high. The pressure to make astronomical amounts of money on a quarterly basis is not just simply to keep up with the Joneses but to keep up with the Dow Jones. Last quarter, EXXON posted and boasted a record increase in profits, a second quarter in a row, but, as they have explained, (http://seekingalpha.com/article/266369-exxon-mobil-management-discusses-q1-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript), taxes are killing business.

     The call to shrink the government to a size that fits all is a complex question: How do we stop strangling business with taxes that send it running to foreign countries and yet how do we take care of our general population to the degree that we can say that we are being true to our American Christian roots that support the value that we are indeed our brother’s keeper? The call for a legitimate discussion here is overwhelming, and yet the answers are not as user friendly as we might like. Exxon had an effective tax rate of 47% last quarter. If that is not an incentive to move off shore, I don’t know what is. And yet, when companies make the big move, they do lower their tax rates considerably, like GE, for example, with an effective rate of under 4%, as reported by 60 Minutes last night. What is a guy to do?

     In the same 60 Minute hour, we heard about Albert Pujols, who has come to America to play baseball and takes the time to do something extraordinary with the money he makes here. He does a bunch of charity work. He is an American, now.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2758836

     The question then becomes, if others come here to give money away, what can we say about those who leave to keep it? This is a perplexing question.

     The tax laws are messed up, but I don’t really see much on the horizon that says much about our citizen corporations that should give them any special rights within the framework of the country that qualifies them as patriotic if they are unable to meet their obligations within the country they claim patriotism for. Maybe this gets down to the shareholders. IF they desire ever higher profits, at a certain point can we blame them for driving our corporate citizens out the door also? High taxes and impossible profits to boot?

     I have mentioned this before, but it does not get old to remind folks that the discussion is not as unbiased as we might think since we have just about all come to believe that money rules the world, and that those who complain about this the most have a higher stake in the game. It is certainly a conflict of interest to propose lower taxes if you are the one getting them back; I mean, really? What we do not have is any response to the question, “What would you do with the money?” We are told that we would see more jobs, but the reality may also be far from that. You don’t stay rich by spending your money, but rather by wisely investing it. If we lower or abolish the capital gains tax, won’t the rich just invest their money other places in the world and not even bother with a now gutted America?

     It would have to be so low in cost to do business here that they would be stupid not to do business here. If you lowered the tax rate, reduced benefits, lowered the minimum wage, and got rid of the restrictions and regulations, America would bloom like a spring flower, right? IF that does not sound like a business model, I don’t know what does. We’ll need to get rid of collective bargaining, demonize the unions, lower expectations, reduce the population to humiliating poverty so they will be willing to do anything to get even the lowest paying mob job, and then we can get this party started. With college expenses going off the globe, and almost every job now needing a technical degree or some sort of certification, we can just about lock out most people, right?

     I don’t think this is completely off thinking. It forces people to think for themselves again, but it is a very bitter pill to swallow. If you are on the receiving end, and we know that you are more blessed if you are the giver because it is really humbling to be forced to be a receiver, there has never been a more open and clearly visible opportunity to see a very threatening moment ahead and still have a few minutes to get it together to brace yourself for the oncoming destruction that is sure to follow.

     I have recently retired, and with the money I got and the benefits I gathered, I bought a brand new layer of technology to launch my next career all over again. I am not waiting until I am 75 to find out that my retirement package is way too small. I began working in earnest on this 25 years ago. When I was in graduate school, in 1985, I did a study of the economy and our behavior as citizens. I was teaching in San Augustine and my first leap forward was to use audio and video to capture what was happening. I was interested in how people think and what they do about what they think. Michael Jackson’s Thriller came out, and all the kids were singing Billy Jean. I told them that it was the storyline that made Thriller the one to watch. Hmmmmm. I finished my degree, an MISD, with a paper on the Iconography of the human mind, the way that it visualized information. Using that platform, I started to build a concept that would allow me to communicate my insights visually and in active teaching methods. This has served me pretty well. Yesterday, I bought a digital camera, a camcorder for transmitting these thoughts through YouTube or whatever platform. I’ve talked with the SFA film students. I’ve interviewed literally hundreds of bloggers, website owners, and artists of every description. Here is what I think I know.

     The capitalism we have created is diametrically opposed to democracy. We have allowed the few to own everything, but it is our own fault. They are merely taking advantage of the advantage we have given them. And when that gravy train was over, and even as it was failing, they changed gears and merely moved tracks. I don’t blame them. It’s not that they did anything particularly wrong, although it may not have been done with much transparency. The reality is they did it right in front of us, and we did not even bother to look up. It’s our own fault. We did it to ourselves. If we cannot change capitalism, and they are fighting this with every fiber of their corporate being, think Jesus in a business suit with a Galaxy TAB 10.1, then we need to change democracy, think Jesus with a chisel and a hammer. I will remind you and myself of the old saw, “I hope we don’t get fooled again.” In the past, it was always an inside job that destroyed everything we all worked for. Instead of working against the present system, we simply need to update the internal operating system.

     This time the revolution needs to be on the inside; we got ourselves into this mess and we need to get ourselves out of it. Put down your velvet monkey wrench and pick up your camera. If the last few decades of democracy we have been sitting back and playing Frisbee, it’s time to stop drinking the bong water and start applying your mind to the problem at hand. How are you going to ever afford to retire? Try some http://langenburgwater.com/ I don’t mean you have to drink it; I mean you need to look at the building. If you are a small business, you can employ yourself and your family and friends, and then you can have a job and make your way in the world. Just don’t simply middleman junk you buy from overseas; that’s the model we are out to crush. If it’s going to be American made, then you are going to have to invent or design something worth buying and exporting. Make cool stuff and think great ideas. http://www.thegreatcourses.com/greatcourses.aspx I am going on-line to do just that. You are going to have to reinvent yourself, too; just don’t wait too long. The social net is about to disappear….we, the brand new people, 2.0.

runningturtle87