The Free Market Economy Myth-American Workers Subsidize Corporate Shareholders and Here's Why-
Our economy
is referred to as a Free Market Economy and you certainly are not alone. I believe that this description of our
economy is just not true!
Welfare for the Wealthy
I
want to discuss two aspects of our Welfare for the Wealthy system in our
country: Direct payments to huge
corporations and indirect subsidies
to huge corporations of their employees through welfare costs such as health
care, food, shelter and clothing and reverse tax payments through the unearned
income tax credit which are provided by America’s taxpayers.
Corporate welfare
is a term that analogizes corporate subsidies to welfare payments for the poor.
The term is often used to describe a government's bestowal of money grants, tax
breaks, or other special favorable treatment on corporations or selected
corporations.
The final totals
are $59 billion, 3 percent of the total federal budget, for regular welfare and
$92 billion, 5 percent of the total federal budget, for corporations. So, the
government spends roughly 50% more on corporate welfare than it does on these
particular public assistance programs.
But it also means that
families (households) making over $72,000 are paying more than $6,000 to the
corporations. The Cato Institute estimates that the U.S. federal government
spends $100 billion a year on corporate welfare. That's an average of $870 for
each one of America's 115 million families.
About $59
billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs. $92
billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent nearly 50%
more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in
2006.
Companies on
Government Subsidies
·
Nike
— $2.03 Billion. ...
·
Royal
Dutch Shell — $2.04 Billion. ...
·
Fiat
Chrysler Automobiles — $2.06 Billion. ...
·
Ford
— $2.52 Billion. ...
·
General
Motors — $3.58 Billion. ...
·
Intel
— $3.87 Billion. ...
·
Alcoa
— $5.64 Billion. ...
·
Boeing
— $13.18 Billion.
- Boeing: $13,174,075,797. ...
- General Motors: $3,494,237,703. ...
- Royal Dutch Shell: $2,038,202,298. ...
- Dow Chemical: $1,408,228,374. ...
- Goldman Sachs: $661,979,222. ...
- Google: $632,044,922. ...
- Walt Disney: $381,525,727. ...
- Wal-Mart Stores: $149,942,595.
Welfare for Low Paid Workers
The US
Department of Labor has reported that a full 33% of all Americans, that’s 33
out of every hundred people, are on welfare!
They also reported that welfare benefits in many cases are better and
even higher than the minimum wage!
The question
is: Why should businesses pay decent
wages when you, the taxpayer, are doing it for them? Every one of us is subsidizing the owners
and stockholders of businesses that keep pouring legal bribe money into the
House and Senate and into every state legislature in our country in order to
hold down the minimum wage and thus keep the gravy train on track. Are we as bunch of suckers or what?
For many
years I have told you that large and profitable businesses have “Privatized
Their Profits and Socialized Their Labor Costs”. I have called this the
WalMarting of America. Here is more
proof that I am right:
These are
the results of a report written by economists at UC Berkeley and the University
of Illinois:
More than
half of the families of fast food workers alone, receive some sort of welfare,
costing you, the taxpayers, over $7 billion a year, including about $4 billion
a year in health care costs. The numbers
are staggering: 44% of all restaurant
workers, 35% of workers in agriculture, forestry and fisheries and 35% of
retail workers families receive welfare of one kind or another.
McDonald’s
workers and thus McDonald’s received $1.2 billion in welfare from taxpayers
last year. McDonald’s earned $5.5
Billion. This means that $1.2 billion, a
full 22%, of its profits came from you, the taxpayers, in welfare subsidies.
Its president earned $14 Million. Its
stock price has doubled in the last five years from $50 to $100! Yum Brands through its employees received $648
Million from taxpayers in welfare payments to its employees. They earned $1.6
billion last year. They own Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC. Taxpayers subsidized 41% of Yum’s profits
with welfare costs!
Taxpayer
subsidized companies like these and WalMart, all say that they could not
survive on higher minimum wages and benefits for their employees. This is
nothing but a big lie! Costco is an
exception. Their employees receive both
excellent pay and benefits and their employees are taken care of by them
Remember: Every American Worker Subsidizes Corporate
The next
time you eat at a fast food restaurant or shop at WalMart or Target or even
Macy’s, remember that you are supporting these stores with your tax dollars
Their owner/stockholders thank you, especially the Walton family. They own half
of Walmart, so you give them $600 Million a year in welfare subsidies that they
should be paying! Taxpayers gave
Walmart’s other stockholders another $600 million! I ask you again: Are American’s suckers or
what?
Tesla runs on taxpayer subsidies. They lose
between $16,000 and $20,000 per car, have received about $700 million in clean
air credits from the rest of us, which they sold to other carmakers and still
have lost billions. The kind people of Nevada just paid them $1.3 billion with
tax credits! A about $100,000 a pop, Tesla's not quite ready for the road yet
cars are only affordable by the wealthy, yet you give each of these buyers
$4,000! Tesla would not be able to sell their cars for under $150,000
each without your tax dollars. Are American suckers or what?
Starbucks, McDonalds,
Wal-Mart, Target, and every other large barge business are essentially
parasites. They pay their workers
poverty level swages and the rest of us make up the difference in food stamps,
Medicaid, rent assistance and unearned income tax credits, etc. Are American
suckers or what?
Democratic
Party liberals are no less guilty than the Republicans who keep holding down
wages. The Democrats have pushed for
ever more costly and broader encompassing welfare legislation that has been an
enabler in this sorry story.
The
Democrat’s pitch is: No matter if you work or not, don’t worry, we have a
welfare plan for you!
Seventy-five
years ago on Sept. 2, 1939, my mother, father, sister and I landed in NYC,
escaping from Hitler Germany. We came to
San Francisco and dad borrowed $300 from the Eureka, a Jewish relief agency and
then went to work selling Watkins and Fuller brush products door to door. He didn’t speak a word of English! There was
no welfare! He paid the entire $300
back. I still have the receipt!
The Public Employee Pension Funding Disaster
The increasing costs of pension programs for public
employees are the black hole that no politician wants to talk about, especially
in an election year. You and every other
person running for political office want the endorsement of the police,
sheriff’s and firefighters unions and the Service Employees International
Union.
The facts are that many public employees can retire at age 50
on a pension of 90% of their highest working year’s income, including overtime.
Many pensions amount to more money per year than a police officer, sheriff or
fireman averaged during his 20 working years.
A pension can be $100,000 a year while the average pay over the 20 years
of work for the pensioner was only $80,000 or $90,000 a year. This is on top of healthcare benefits for the
retiree’s entire family. Why stay on the
job past 20 years when you can earn as much or more doing nothing? These pensions are eating up money that
should be used for everything from funding
law enforcement to our crumbling infrastructure. No wonder we are having
the scandal of the Sheriff’s Council. Governments are going broke. No private business pays these kinds of
pension benefits to workers.
The State of
California pays out more money in pensions than it pays to the entire Active
workforce. Santa Barbara County and
the City of Santa Barbary face some critical money problems for the foreseeable
future. Much of this problem comes from
pension obligations. Budgets are going
to see large cuts.
State Pensions
Just a few years ago, the state pension program alone,
without cities and counties was in the hole $150 billion. The teacher’s union alone was in the hole $21
billion! Health care alone for a retired
worker population and their dependents is over $1 billion a year. The number of older retired workers and
dependents will double by 2020!
Our former sheriff retired with a pension of $187,000 plus
3% or more increases per year, life time free medical care for he and his wife
and his wife will get 50% of his pension when he dies. His pension alone is worth about $6.5 million
if he lives to be 83 and this does not include his wife’s benefits after that
time. It is worth about 4-5 times what
he earned while working. Other personnel
in the sheriff’s departments, police, fire and other state retirees get large
pensions as well. You will receive
pensions as well for each public office you hold. The
costs of public employee pensions are breaking cities, counties and
states. The federal government can print
money. The others cannot. This entire pension problem is one of the
major root causes of the financial mess that cities, counties and states are in.
The people in office now don’t really care and the keep passing on the problem
to their successors. It is a political
third rail! There is not a private
business in the entire United
States that finances the huge retirement
packages that public employees get. Most
private company’s retirement packages are going up in smoke as I speak,
especially free healthcare. California
spends more on pensions that we do on active worker’s salaries.
Illegal immigrants and illegal
immigrant felons
The
number one social and economic issue of our time is illegal immigration. The rhetoric on both
sides has done nothing but confuse most Americans and certainly most illegal
immigrants. President Trump has issued
orders for the ICE arrest and deportation of all illegal immigrant felons,
something that 80% of Americans are in favor of. Illegal immigration advocates would have us
believe that law abiding illegal immigrant mothers are being ripped from their
breast feeding babies by ICE agents and deported. This all about illegal immigrant felons,
period!
For farmers,
illegal immigrants have historically provided their field labor force. In
California, 90% of field workers are Mexican and almost 60% of those are
illegal immigrants. About 10% of all field
workers are US born. The average farm
worker makes about $30,000 and in the grape growing areas of Napa County, they
make about $42,000 a year. Some farmers
are so hard up for labor, they are offering health insurance, 401k’s, paid
vacations, paid holidays and bonuses.
Americans
still are not applying to work in the fields.
Why? Wages are
low, the jobs are seasonal, 60 hour work weeks working in extreme heat or cold,
bending over or climbing up and down ladders all day.
