I will proceed to illustrate why this position is absurd. First, let us begin by defining a corporation. According to wikipedia,"a corporation is an institution that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members." Pay special attention to the fact that corporations have their "own rights, privileges, and liabilities." That means unless you own stock in the company, it's none of your goddamn business how much bonuses it gives its executives. (Unless the government is bailing these corporations out, but no worries, not only did that money stabilize our financial institutions and prevent a depression, it is coming back, with interest. Try getting the stimulus money back. We wasted more on the stimulus than on the bailout.) Not only that, the reason these executives get such big bonuses is to encourage them to work competitively. The fate of the corporations does not depend on its ordinary employees (clerks, data entry people, etc) but on its executives. They are really the backbone of the company. They work hard. And companies want to keep it that way, and in order to do so, they pay them competitively. Can it be excessive? Yes, relative to what ordinary people make. But again, that is the RIGHT and PRIVILEGE of the corporation.
So, if you shouldn't be worried about corporations, what should you be worried about? The thing that all leftists and socialists embrace, the thing that is driving this country into ruin, that spends money like it's water, that is for the most part wholly unaccountable. That's right folks, our wonderful Federal Government.
Executives must perform well or else they will get ousted by their Board of Directors. That is what keeps corporations efficient. (Oh, and by the way, corporations aren't just banks. They are clothing companies, car companies, pharmaceutical companies, food companies, etc) The jobs of government bureaucrats and politicians, however, is the for the most part not based on performance. A politicians job is largely dependent of how his or her party is doing, and how good he or she is at winning elections. Not whether he or she is actually any good at running our monstrosity of a government. Why is the federal government so bad? Exhibit A, pork barrel projects the Bridge to Nowhere. This is only famous because it is an exception, in the sense that it was actually defeated by fiscal conservatism. "The Gravina Island Bridge, commonly referred to as the "Bridge to Nowhere", was a proposed bridge to replace the ferry that currently connects the town of Ketchikan, Alaska with Gravina Island, an island which contains the Ketchikan International Airport as well as 50 residents. The bridge was projected to cost $398 million. Members of the Alaskan congressional delegation, particularly Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens, were the bridge's biggest advocates in Congress, and helped push for federal funding." $400 million dollars. For a totally useless thing. And it almost got constructed. Liberals freak out when AIG spends $200 million in bonuses so it can keep the people who run the company, but $400 million in wasteful spending (that term has become a cliche, I know) almost got passed. And Sarah Palin did initially support it. So the problem isn't solely with the Democrat Party. It's with the government as a whole, although the Dems do tend to be more liberal with their spending than their GOP.
So, how much does the government spend annually? George Bush's budget for 2009 totals $3.1 trillion. Obama's budget for 2010 totals $3.55 trillion. Not a very dramatic difference, especially considering the extra spending the government had to do based on the recession. So does this mean Obama is okay with his spending? Absolutely not, because there is a reason why Bush was extraordinarily unpopular: he was an awful combination of ideologies. He was liberal in his spending, conservative in his social views, and a war hawk. Even liberals complain of inefficient government and wasteful spending during the Bush years. But when it comes to Obama, "for a man who campaigned on the promise of going through the budget page-by-page, the president has been remarkably silent on the new spending — and billions of dollars in parochial projects — included in annual appropriations bills approved this month.
In recent days, Obama has signed measures totaling more than $1 trillion with scarcely a comment." http://www.politico.com/ne
"The total deficit for fiscal year 2009 was $1.42 trillion." That means the government spent $1.4 trillion more than it has!! Remember the $200 million AIG spent everyone got furious about? Well, thats over 5,000 times smaller than the federal deficit. 5000. Go figure. And everyone gets mad at the banks for borrowing more than they have! What about the damn government? We have to get this money from somewhere (a lot of it from China), and when we do that, those countries have leverage over us. We're in way over our head with this sort of debt.
Here is what the Cato Institute, Libertarian think tank, had to say about the stimulus: "we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s... To improve the economy, policymakers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, savings, investment, and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth."
Corporations have their own rights and privileges. They are their own entities. The government, according to the Constitution, derives it's power from The People. Corporations do not. So you should be a lot more worried about the government than about corporations. The entity that people have to work two days out of a typical five day work week for. The entity that can pretty much do anything it wants. The entity that's supposed to be responsible to you, and is completely drunk on spending money it doesn't have. That entity.
I'm not an anarchist. I don't think the government should be overthrown. I think we need a president like Ronald Reagan, someone willing to really cut federal spending. Or like Bill Clinton, we actually had a budget surplus under him. But not like George Bush, and not like Barack Obama, who think they can spend money like it's water. Right now the Republican party is the opposition to all this spending in Congress. And I support that. Next year's elections are important. The Democrats will lose seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. That's a given, they have an extraordinary amount. How many seats they lose, however, is up to the electorate. I'm voting next year. And I'm pretty damn sure it's gonna be for the GOP.
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