Sun.... Your radical ideas are always interesting. You make an interesting case for Corporations not being treated as human beings.
I used the term "naive" (bad choice of words) in the sense that if Corporations were not taxed at all that lower consumer prices would result.I would call that concept naive. ( not the proponent of the concept).
I don't know if you were an investor in the middle 70's. But at that time Corporations were paying little or no taxes because of losses carried forward, (G.E., GM, F. IBM). Here you had companies making billions in profits and through clever accounting paid nothing in taxes. At the same time the executives were spending corporate money to enhance their lifestyles (condos in Vail, Europe, and the Far East.) Individual tax rates were much higher then. There were numerous article about Joe six pack making 25K a year and paying 22% in taxes and there was Ford with a few billion in profits , no taxes and the Ford Family conning Pontiac, Mich. to build them the Silverdome when William Clay Ford could have built it with his lunch money. Enough is enough... Tax the corporation....actually the alternative minimum income tax for Corporations approaches the problem in a reasonable way.
Greed at the Corporate level is something we have to live with. All corporations tell us about corporate responsibility and how much they like it, as long as it does not cost them any money.
I think that the idea that corporations have responsibilities, is something that has come along in the last 30 years. If you read Upton Sinclair's book "The Jungle" (about the meat packing industry in the 1890 to 1910 era) and you mentioned corporate responsibility to some of the plant managers you would have been tossed into the sausage machine, head first, within the hour.
You state..."the price of any commodity is set by supply and demand" ..... there are a few kinks in this theory, and I feel that some corporations are overplaying their hand, Lets take four basic commodities, Corn, Wheat, Oil and Power. In all four cases the cost of the production of the base product is at the lowest level in about 20 years. Wheat and Corn prices are ar their lowest level in 20 years. Yet beef and pork prices at the consumer level are at their highest in 20 years. If Shell and Amoco are producing oil from the same wells that they were 10 years ago, then why are they charging us twice as much for it.? If a nuclear power plant has produced electricity for 15 years at a cost of x times per kilowat, then why should it be worth 3x today. Supply and demand you say..... corporate greed is what I say.
Sorry about the use of the word Naive... best check my thesaurus for alternatives.
Amat and the market... how do you see things playing out this earnings season?..
Regards, Jerome |
