Crony Capitalism
Teabagger and maybe Trump nominee for something (hopefully other than the Sec. of the VA), Sarah Palin slams Trump and Pence in a Randian manner on bailing out Carrier and Carrier workers calling it as an intrusion on free enterprise. Afterwards she gushes; “I am ecstatic for Carrier employees! Their bosses just decided to keep shop onshore. What a relief for hundreds of workers. Merry Christmas Indiana!”
“ Foundational to our exceptional nation’s sacred private property rights, a business must have freedom to locate where it wishes. In a free market, if a business makes a mistake (including a marketing mistake that perhaps Carrier executives made), threatening to move elsewhere claiming efficiency’s sake, then the market’s invisible hand punishes. Thankfully, that same hand rewards, based on good business decisions.
But this time-tested truth assumes we’re operating on a level playing field.
When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent. Meanwhile, the invisible hand that best orchestrates a free people’s free enterprise system gets amputated. Then, special interests creep in and manipulate markets. Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail.
Sarah is correct, incentives to business interests to not leave the country and layoff Labor only leaves the country hostage to corporate interests in the future. Trump’s actions and promises leave the door open for other companies to come through asking for a similar deal to save Labor. If he does not keep the company in the US, Labor will also see his promises to change the country as political rhetoric (if they haven’t already) to get elected and not worth much in the end. It will be interesting to follow his actions.
Come to Michigan which has a tough time fixing roads and infrastructure and yet can spend $billions in subsidies to business. Indiana had RTW laws, had multiple subsidies to business including Carrier, and had tax abatement of which none of it stopped companies from leaving Indiana. Under Pence, Indiana gave $Millions to companies that offshored jobs Companies come and go to states or other countries for other reasons which states can not prevent. Poorly spent money bribing companies to stay can also be hard to get back from the companies who had a change of heart. Indiana has had difficulty in getting the incentives back when companies still leave and the incentives are so poorly written they also do little or nothing to stop the company from closing an unspecified nearby plant.
Sarah Palin: But… Wait… The Good Guys Won’t Win With More Crony Capitalism YC Young Conservatives, December 2, 2016
Not exactly bringing jobs “back” is it?
Jack:
Nope and neither are the state and local subsidies. Just bleeding them dry in hope of something happening.
You bring back jobs with higher top marginal taxes and capital controls. No surprise it was the end of BW and capital controls, when the first “real” non-automative flight from the US began.
Trump uses Tariffs because of the stupid people that get hyped up by trade. Nor will he put them out there either.
One could charge the difference lost from relocation to entry of product
Get rid of corporate income taxes. Tax the money when it goes to the individuals, whether in interest, dividends, capital gains, or pay.
And yet, on 60 minutes we are learning about the “Golden Triangle” All these wonderful new companies. Breezed over quickly: the 1/2 billion dollars in tax subsidies. Just mentioned, not expounded on.
Oh, and the local junior college is doing all the training. So, free money and no need to put out to get industry specific workers.
Yeah, I can see this work with 49 other states doing it…not! Yet, it’s promoted by 60 minutes as if it’s a solution.
As I recall from my 40+ yr old econ education, corporations were initially chartered, by state, to do specific things. But that was back when the US motto was E Pluribus Unum instead of In God We Trust.
To me Crony Capitalism is just a step along the path of letting our society be directed by the global plutocrats that own private finance, most everything else and have no allegiance to any countries in particular…as we are about to see as America is being thrown under the bus as we enter a multi-polar world.
Countries, like states within the US are racing each other to the bottom in providing corporation with cheap labor and incentives not to abandon their “home”. How do folks expect to “incrementally” fix this sort of mess?
To me the answer is to change the base incentives we currently live by according to the God of Mammon instantiated by private finance. Don’t attack the people, eliminate the institutions of private finance and move to totally sovereign finance tools.
Psycohistorian to me so far your opinion is the closest to correct and what is really happening. . I think that the many politically correcters are stuck inside the box of political correctness and cannot seem to understand what is really happening with the bigger picture of thinks because they have lived in denial so long. I know where they get their one sided news propaganda from. I just choose to get my news, opinion and “facts” from alt news sources that have just been black listed because they tell the truth, the real story. They even passed a bill last week in Washington to prevent the truth from being told. The propaganda war is just getting started as they will do and say almost anything to discredit Trump…