Corporate Welfare

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Corporate Welfare:

NOTE REGARDING SUBSIDIZATION OF CORPORATE WELFARE THROUGH “FREE” SACRIFICE OF BIODIVERSITY:

E.O. WILSON:

From http://www.actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/wilson.html :
“In your new book Future of Life you deflate the myth that environmental policy is hostile to economic growth. Can you elaborate?"

E.O. Wilson:

"The living resources of the world — ecosystems and its species — are still largely unexplored, much less studied for the benefits they might hold for humans, for example, new pharmaceuticals or water purification. Some ecologists and economists have estimated that the total value of these natural ecosystems, that’s the total amount of services they provide to humanity, is in the vicinity of 30 trillion dollars a year. That’s more than the total of the gross national products of all nations combined. And it’s free!

To save and make fuller use of them in a non-obtrusive way is economically valuable to us. To destroy them is to force humanity into an artificial world in which we have to personally manage our water systems, our food supply, and our atmosphere by prosthetic devices day by day instead of relying on powerful organisms to do the work for us. Do we want to turn Earth literally into a spaceship that requires constant tinkering?”

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COMMENTS:

Those who risk capital, resources, and time in business enterprises tend, not surprisingly, to argue that because they have “earned” whatever they are thereby able to extract from the marketplace, they should not be singled out for proportionately higher taxes.

In taxing corporations, such attitudes tend to make a little more sense, because, after all, corporations tend to pass taxes along to consumers in the form of higher prices. Mainly, however, this seems to be an argument for switching from reliance on an income tax, primarily, to reliance on a consumption tax.

Regardless, such attitudes, in themselves, hardly bring us nearer a complete or fair accounting. Rather, in consideration of various additional factors, even a country founded in respect of individual enterprise should reasonably consider taxing higher earners or consumers at progressively higher rates.

SUCH FACTORS INCLUDE:

1) Common respect for human freedom and dignity entails protection against financial oligarchs and aristocrats who otherwise would arise in respect of ever increasing access to special advantages and connections (such as: for paying legislators, directly or indirectly, to provide special favors; or for “team games” among businesses with self perceived common financial interests).

2) Each business that short-sightedly harms our common environment, without effecting repair or recompense, is extracting part of its short-term profit at the long-term expense of all of us, including our progeny and posterity.

3) Much of modern risk has been reduced, in respect that increased specialization (and start up costs and regulations) has reduced arms-length market competition.

4) Those who suddenly find themselves in environmental or market niches that avail obvious and huge financial opportunities often arrive at such opportunities not by great skill, insight, innovation, or “merit,” but by birth, position, chance ... or willingness to engage in "special" dealing.

5) Stability of the physical, moral, financial, and political health of a social or state environment will often depend upon skilled respect for preserving a vibrant middle class of motivated and innovative workers and consumers, rather than merely reducing them to debt slaves.

6) Progressive (consumption) taxes can be structured and adjusted to respond to changing business cycles.

Many folks are intuitively aware of such factors, regardless of whether they specifically articulate them. Likely, one must work hard to become “dis-educated by bullsh*t” to such a point as to become obtuse to such factors. Red Ass Moderates must call bullsh*t to account!

LINE ITEM VETO:
A representative whose electors are local ought not be judge of his own local fundings (“earmarks”) when they are to be authorized from the national treasury. While locals may be grateful for “bridges to nowhere,” no nation can long finance a culture of back-scratching extravagances.

WORLD BANK:
Indeed, insofar as America works closely with “first world” nations to help fund and direct the World Bank, our irresponsible funding decisions weave a tangled web that enslaves debtors and snares credit and solvency worldwide.

CLEAR RESPONSIBILITY:
We have critical (no-brainer) need and moral responsibility to authorize our President with power to line-item veto each extravagant earmark that mars otherwise satisfactory legislation.

TROGLODYTE ALTERNATIVE:
Otherwise, we abet troglodytes and traitors along a nefarious course, loading our posterity with unforgivable debt and detriment.

NOTES:

I believe in “Free-Will” and free enterprise, but my belief is not free of an intuitive appreciation of limits of freedom (Biophilia?) --- which we should try to apply responsibly and decently.

I also believe in “God-Will,” but I do not believe that any literal presentation in any religious book should be accepted, apart from a big dose of figurative appreciation.

Democrat rulers say they wish to protect our environment, but seem mainly hell bent to follow the ACLU into making every imaginable physical pleasure or deviance a matter of governmentally conferred "right," the dignity of children (and partially born children) be damned.

Republican rulers say they wish to protect individual enterprise, but seem mainly hell bent to sell, subsume, and diffuse America into a global marketplace, the environment be damned.

By my lights, a “Red Ass Moderate” should try to stand for Enlightened Empathy. A passable test of enlightened empathy may ask: “How should we behave in order to help civilization remain civilizing?” For that, one may intuit that enlightenment can guide us, but not prove us.

Regardless, by my reckoning, most of those who run our mainstream political parties and media show little to admire in moral backbone and are not sustaining or improving civilization; rather, they slouch far too much, morally, and have much to be called to account for.

Mainly, I do not trust that many among our ruling class have principles for which they will put themselves at personal risk, beyond whatever seems most advantageous to short term hedonistic pleasures or golden parachute interests.

Man the firehoses!

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ABOUT OBAMA:

Obama gives a good speech about the economy. He gets it that the gulf between haves and have nots is too wide; he gets it that price and taxes have roles for encouraging transition where possible to alternative fuels; he gets it that we need a decent system of health care.

I wish I could vote for him, but I expect I will not.
I distrust turning over the Presidency to a Democrat at a time when Pelosi runs the House and Reid runs the Senate (and the ACLU runs the Supreme Court).
Fundamentally, I doubt Obama has had enough seasoning to grow past adolescent attachment to his adolescent hippie mentors, with whom he has far too many connections. For growing spine enough to be counted on to actually resist his mentors' excesses of deviation and dereliction, Obama, lacking serious experiences and mentors, is far too green to be a serious candidate at this point in his career.
For appointing a serious cabinet, I do not trust his judgment or experience.
And, on too many issues, I distrust Obama, such as regarding: inadequate appreciation of the threat of Islamofascism; national defense; tinkering with military; border defense; appointment of Supreme Court justices; affirmative action; and political correctness.
Obama's philosophical underpinnings and supporters are simply far too adolescent!
While McCain may also fall on some such concerns, I expect he will rise on the most important ones.
We shall see.

REGARDING CONGRESS:
The key litmus test relates to the border.
Anyone not solid on the border, whose opponent is, needs to be firehosed out of office!

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OF MARAUDERS, MARGINALS, MASTICATORS, AND MODERATES:

Marauders (ravening wolves, blueblood Republicans) become addicted to adolescent challenges for exercising or enhancing skills for stringing and snaring Masticators (sheep, middle Democrats), as with financial shenanigans. Inextricably connected to their competition is their mutual support for their addictive game. Each ravening wolf appreciates the other’s helping to hold prey for cooperative, grisly shredding. Marauders find their territorial training grounds in banks and businesses (where some even learn to be double and triple agents).

Marginals (dreaming sheepdogs, leftist Libertarians and Libertines) become addicted to adolescent challenging of Marauders by spoiling shenanigans. Such addiction is often spoliation for its own sake, as justification for anti-Americanism, Marxism, and Anarchy. Marginals find their territorial training grounds in drugs and colleges.

Being slaves to their mutually supported games of adolescent addictions, neither Marauders nor Marginals pursue civil philosophy for its own sake, but merely reinforce an unholy masquerade.

Moderates (rams , black sheep, Independents) pursue practical philosophies for preserving and civilizing their environment as a whole. Extreme Moderates actually engage such philosophies, affirmatively, as well as against patterns of conditioning and addiction that counteract civilizing decency. They do not accept spoon-fed philosophies, either from corporations or from colleges, but pursue their world views independently, under their own continuous audits.