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.