I wrote recently about how many multinationals have moved their work and business overseas to take advantage of not only tax law, but also subsistence labor costs.
Many of the replies were less about anger with the businesses that fled the country, but with the U.S. government for having built an uncompetitive environment over the years, with too much taxes and regulations.
So, just to be clear, in my opinion, Wall Street runs Washington. If these multinationals were interested in better tax policy in the U.S., they would simply lobby Congress or elect who they need to get it done.
No, this isn’t that these companies are victims.
Don’t get me wrong. There are scores of small- and medium-sized businesses that languish under an antiquated and arcane U.S. tax code and overzealous regulation. But remember, it’s the big businesses that win when the little guy fails. Local hardware stores were displaced by Walmart and cheap goods from China, not by the government.
I also got to thinking about President Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address to the country in 1961 and his warning about the military industrial complex. He warned of manufactured wars that help boost the coffers of defense firms and also mean that the U.S. is in a state of perpetual war, simply for profits.
This kind of marriage between business and government is fascism, plain and simple. And Eisenhower was in a very good position to recognize it, having been the Supreme Allied Commander in WWII.
But what I also realized was, since the birth of the military industrial complex in the 1960s, government and industry (and their financiers) have also built a healthcare industrial complex and a financial industrial complex. You can’t indict big government for its failure without also seeing the necessary collusion of big business in the grand scheme of things.
As a long-time inside-the-Beltway guy, I was always amused by the fact that many people seem to be able to hold two completely opposite opinions of the government in their heads simultaneously: It’s an insidious Orwellian Big Brother or it’s a lame and stumbling Kafkaesque bureaucratic mess. Granted, neither is an attractive option, but it’s one or the other. The FBI and the SEC have made the case to me that it’s the latter, but you can decide for yourself.
The same duality applies to the politicians and the laws they make. They are either in the pockets of big business or they are not. If they are, you have to ask yourself, what is the advantage of having such unfair tax policy in the U.S.?
I submit that it’s precisely to use politicians as the whipping boys for American mulitnationals. By using the politicians as the scapegoats for offshoring jobs and assets, many Americans see these multinationals as simply good businessmen doing what’s right for shareholders.
These people are being used, however. Underneath that simple narrative is the reality – multinationals want to be able to get out of the U.S. and need someone else to take the blame.
I’ve talked to dozens of WWII, Korea and Vietnam vets who would tell me that they didn’t buy foreign companies’ stock. They bought American. They fought against “those” folks, and they supported Americans. In an increasingly global marketplace that may seem like a quaint idea, but its core is strong.
Yet it’s getting harder and harder to find American firms, because the definition of what an American firm is (speaking of big publicly traded firms) has changed dramatically. We have built a multinational industrial complex without warning, and generally without a clue on our parts.
Remember, the U.S. is the only country in the world where corporations have the same rights as real, live individuals. And until 1978, corporations were not allowed to participate in federal election campaigns.
Then, the Supreme Court started to put cracks in that wall. And now, our republic has been ground under the boot of the 1 percent who run Wall Street and congress.
I’m still optimistic we can beat back this terrible trend. But we have to see the lies for what they are and remember that the industrialist and professional politicians see this in much longer terms that we do.
A corporation is technically “a number of people unified into one body for a purpose.” It means the corporation can live on beyond the lifespan of one person. And so this rigged system is built to survive our outrage, unless we begin to make changes to it.
Buy local, and if you can’t buy local, buy American. It may cost more, but the money stays here and strengthens other Americans’ businesses.
Invest in U.S.-focused companies. This makes sense on a couple levels.
First, the U.S. has the strongest economy in the world right now. This is where the growth is.
Second, because the U.S. dollar is so strong right now, major multinationals are having a tough time because foreign earnings are lower when their revenues are converted back to the dollar.
Also, my policy is to vote for outsiders. The only way to change the establishment politics at the state and federal level is to find people who aren’t just looking for an easy ride with the status quo. Pick rabble rousers. They don’t rely on the entrenched group of civil servants who can continue bad policy for decades no matter who is in office. The rabble rousers won’t get much praise from fellow politicians or the media but their message needs to be heard.
–– GS Early
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