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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (256921)	5/19/2002 10:56:38 PM
From: nnillionaire	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Flapjack, from today's Hartford Courant: Stop Treating Stanley Like A Real Guy ctnow.com The unrelenting childishness of the reactions to The Stanley Works' proposed corporate "relocation" to Bermuda is more a symptom than a disease. The disease is anthropomorphism - attributing human characteristics to things that are less than human. U.S. Rep. Jim Maloney, digging for votes in his opponent's hometown of New Britain - home to Stanley Works as well - accuses the corporation of being Benedict Arnold, the infamous American traitor. Local politicians and various busybodies accuse the old tool manufacturer of being disloyal and unpatriotic and greedy to incorporate in warmer climates where its non-U.S. income would be free from income tax. But Stanley Works isn't Benedict Arnold and it isn't patriotic and it isn't disloyal and it isn't any of the things that one might attribute to a real, live human being. Stanley Works is a corporation, which has all the personality of the piece of paper it had to file with the Connecticut secretary of the state. American corporations have brought this kind of foolishness on themselves, with all their blather about employees being "our most important asset" and how important it is to be a "good corporate citizen" and how noble it is to "give back to the communities in which we live and work." The corporate contributions departments dole out bags of money to all manner of left-wing nuts and environmentalists who harass the very businesses that give them money. The corporations pony up for Little League uniforms and art shows and all manner of civic boosterism - all in a desperate effort to transform themselves into kindly grandmothers intent on spoiling the children. But that's not what corporations are about - especially publicly traded corporations. They are chartered to make money, to do it in a manner that doesn't offend the rule of law; and to make their shareowners wealthier tomorrow than they are today. They don't have to be nice, they don't have to be lovable - and they don't have to promise to incorporate in the United States in perpetuity. Corporations have fewer First Amendment rights than you and I. Why? Because they aren't real people. If corporations die, they don't have to pay estate taxes. Why? Because corporations don't have livers and kidneys and hearts and dandruff. They're just pieces of paper. The politicians, who know the difference between people (they vote) and corporations (they don't), have gotten all huffy about the relatively small number of corporations that have drifted to Bermuda as a corporate domicile while continuing to consume milk and apple pie and win American government contracts. Springfield's U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, arguably the most obscure member of the House of Representatives, has been roused from his slumber to produce legislation to tax the Bermuda babies as if they were still American companies. The U.S. Senate has similar stuff floating around. What is in short supply, of course, is any legislation that would reform the American tax system to reduce the incentive for escaping to warmer, happier shores. American taxation of corporate foreign earnings is an anti-competitive, expensive burden for businesses going up against global competitors in low-tax jurisdictions. Bermuda has no corporate income tax, even if you still have to eat British cooking. Of course, if one insists on viewing corporations as real people, then to give Mr. Stanley a "tax break" would be unfair to other people who can't find an affordable condo in Bermuda. And while we're on the subject, what's to be done about United Technologies being a Delaware corporation, home to business-friendly judges? If UTC wants to tell the world that its "corporate offices" are in Hartford; if UTC wants to luxuriate in the garden of delights that is downtown Hartford; if UTC wants us to accept its charity largesse; the least it could do is incorporate in Connecticut, instead of some foreign country off the coast of Pennsylvania. If UTC won't come home, let it move to Bermuda and drink warm beer with Mr. Stanley.