Corporate Taxes

The issue of corporate taxes comes down to a single straightforward principle for me:

Remove person status from corporations; then, and only then can you, and should you, remove corporate taxes.

If you do not remove corporate person status, then corporations can pay income tax like the rest of we persons.

Some people argue against corporate taxes on the basis that shareholders already pay income tax.

That argument misses the point. Corporations have been deemed in law to be entities separate from their shareholders. With such status come certain rights and obligations. You can't and shouldn't have it both ways.

I see this as a justice or equity issue. The continuation of person status to corporations together with the simultaneous reduction of their income taxes is a form of corporate welfare and bailout.

Remove person status from corporations. Then I'll wholeheartedly support outright elimination of corporate taxes.

Recommend this post

NFB Film: Marilyn Waring - Who's Counting?

Amazing film. Will stir you up, make you angry and strengthen your resolve to keep fighting for change.

Synopsis:

In this feature-length documentary, Marilyn Waring demystifies the language of economics by defining it as a value system in which all goods and activities are related only to their monetary value. As a result, unpaid work (usually performed by women) is unrecognized while activities that may be environmentally and socially detrimental are deemed productive. To remedy this, Waring maps out an alternative economic vision based on the idea of time as the new currency.

If you haven't already seen it, I strongly recommend you do so.

Recommend this post

Let's Pathologize our Children: for Profit

Big Pharma is onto a good thing when doctors, teachers, health care professionals, physiologists, psychiatrists and parents recommend, subscribe or outright order prescribed drugs for childrens' 'dis-orders'.

The path to child drugging in the US started with providing adolescents with stimulants for ADHD in the early 80s. That was followed by Prozac in the late 80s, and in the mid-90s drug companies started claiming that ADHD kids really had bipolar disorder, coinciding with the marketing of epilepsy drugs as "mood stablizers" and the arrival of the new atypical antipsychotics.

Robert Whitaker, author of "Mad in America," describs the dangers of psychiatric drugs:

"When you look at the research literature, you find a clear pattern of outcomes with all these drugs," he said, "you see it with the antipsychotics, the antidepressants, the anti-anxiety drugs and the stimulants like Ritalin used to treat ADHD."

"All these drugs may curb a target symptom slightly more effectively than a placebo does for a short period of time, say six weeks," Whitaker said. However, what "you find with every class of these psychiatric drugs is a worsening of the target symptom of depression or psychosis or anxiety, over the long term, compared to placebo-treated patients."

"So even on the target symptoms, there's greater chronicity and greater severity of symptoms," he reports, "And you see a fairly significant percentage of patients where new and more severe psychiatric symptoms are triggered by the drug itself."

So who benefits the most? BIG PHARMA, of course.

In 2008, psychiatric drug makers had overall sales in the US of $14.6 billion from antipsychotics, $9.6 billion off antidepressants, $11.3 billion from antiseizure drugs and $4.8 billion in sales of ADHD drugs, for a grand total of $40.3 billion.

What about teaching your child to choose alternatives when seeking attention? Hey! Maybe even give the child your undivided attention, prepare a home cooked meal then sit down to eat and let them tell you about their day.

Recommend this post

Big Box $tores

Front Page news this week in the local paper announcing the Grand Opening of yet another Big Box Store.

A few weeks ago it was the Grand Opening of a large chain drug store, with people sleeping overnight on the sidewalk to be the first fools - oops!, I mean 'shoppers' - to bustle inside the next morning for a chance at winning the door prize of an in-store spending coupon.

In late spring, the news covered the dubious 'celebration' of opening the largest American department store at the edge of this once sleepy little burg.

Sprinkled throughout the same paper are articles encouraging all of us to economize; to reduce, reuse and recycle; to choose to use public transit; to support local farmers; and to prompt voters and their children to challenge governments to 'save the environment'.

No wonder we are all confused about how to balance our conditioned desire to acquire all the stuff that big business wants us to buy - for their shareholder's profit only - and our collective need to find meaning and safety in the society we have helped create.

Recommend this post

FINALLY - Google AdSense Account Closed

...but, contrary to the message just received, it was closed with the company not having paid me the $14.58 I'd earned.

Today, I tried for the third time to complete the cancellation process to get my Google AdSense account closed. As before, I filled out their cancellation form. However, in the section explaining the reason why one is closing the account, in the Other category I entered something new, the URL of the post that describes the difficulty a) verifying a phone number one hasn't got - because one hasn't a phone - and, b) with that never being resolved, closing the account.

Unlike previously, within minutes I received the following generic response - I've the damn thing memorized I've seen it so many times.

We are unable to cancel your account because you currently have payment holds on your account.

This would be the PHONE VERIFICATION hold.

Until you remove the payment holds or indicate your desire not to receive your unpaid earnings, we will be unable to close your account. Please note that we only pay out earnings that are greater than the cancellation threshold.

The cancellation threshold is $10.

Please do one of the following:

1. If you wish to be paid for your remaining earnings (above the cancellation threshold): - Remove the holds from your account.

Sigh...

Once you have removed all holds from your account, you may submit a new request for us to cancel your account...

2. If you do not wish to be paid for your remaining earnings and would like to close your account now: Please complete this form. The form will require you to acknowledge that you prefer not to receive your earnings and wish to close your account.

As it happens, before I'd removed Google AdSense, this blog had earned $14.58 from the program. That amount exceeds the $10 cancellation threshold for payment. But because no phone = no phone verification = no payment, it doesn't matter how much I'd have earned. According to Google AdSense policy, I'd never get paid. There was no point, therefore, maintaining the account. Hence, my determination to get rid of the thing.

So I proceeded with option #2, as I'd done twice before. This time, the auto-response was different though:

Thank you for taking the time to write to us. As per your request, we have permanently closed your account.

Since your account balance totalled less than $10, your unpaid earnings will not be issued.

Don't you love the way the big guys shape reality to screw the little guys?

Recommend this post