You may have heard about the New York Times report (3/25/11) explaining that General Electric made $14 billion in worldwide profits in 2010–and paid the federal government exactly nothing in taxes. The Times explained this is”based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.”
Despite the Comcast purchase, GE is still apart owner of NBC and MSNBC–the latter conventionally thought to be a liberal-leaning outlet. So did they say much about a giant corporation keeping profits offshore in order to avoid paying taxes? Not really; Paul Abramspointedoutat the Huffington Post (3/26/11), host Lawrence O’Donnell deserves credit forgoing after the company.
What about NBC? Checking Nexis doesn’t turn up much, though I did come across this conversation between Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb on the Today show, which is apparently aboutvariousPrince William-Kate Middleton royal wedding memorabilia(3/24/11):
KOTB: That’s the top of the cake, so if you cut it….
GIFFORD: Oh my gosh. They’ve never looked so unattractive. That’s terrible.
KOTB: Well, anyway, the baker, Michelle Wibowo, she did it, spent eight hours on it.
GIFFORD: Oh, sorry, baker.
KOTB: All right.
GIFFORD: Sorry. It’s lovely. Gosh.
KOTB: And if you need a place to put your cake, just–how about the Will and Kate refrigerator by GE? Who’s part owner of this company.
GIFFORD: Yes.
KOTB: Yes.
For the record, there really is a GErefrigerator honoringWill and Kate.
Outside the GE media world, ABC‘s Jake Tapper turned in a good report on ABC World News.
UPDATE: Over at ThinkProgress Zaid Jilani notes that one outlet has expressed a keen interest in GE’s tax avoidance: the Fox News Channel.
Must be nice to get a rebate in the billions for no taxes paid.
We all kicked in ABOUT A HUNDRED BUCKS a head TO PAY THEIR STINKIN’ REBATE!!!
If that doesn’t make your blood boil, you’re drinkin’ antifreeze.
Hey, be nice to Immelt. He’s our “jobs czar”. It would be funny if it weren’t so awful
Primary the hell out of obama. Time to get a Democrat in the WH.
Grayson?
Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow both had good segments on this topic. Rachel Maddow also had amazing critiques of the Deep Water Horizon Disaster despite MSNBC being sponsored extensively by BP at the time. So, at least Maddow and O’Donnell are unrestrained by their corporate funders.
Meanwhile, at ABC Jake Tapper is still lying about the Raymond Davis incident. FAIR has done great work debunking the US lies about the incident. Come to my blog to see the latest developments in the story http://jasonbeets.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-of-raymond-davis-us-media-lies.html
GE amy avoid talking about GE not paying any federal taxes but Obama hires GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. PEW!
Jon Stewart (NBC) took on GE’s federal corporate tax dodging, hypocrisy and the lack of news coverage on this issue here http://bit.ly/ejLR9K
Wondering what percentage of people get their news through Jon Stewart these days, for better or worse
No, no …. not Grayson. Bernie! Gotta luv Bernie all the way!
Obama and the Democratic party tells Immelt of General Electric to attack all Republicans and Conservative.Immelt then tells M.S.N.B.C. O’Donnel,Matthews,Maddow,Schultz,Mitchell,etc.are so dishonest no body believes them.Thats why Fox will always beat them in the ratings.M.S.N.B.C. is a disgraceful.
Corporate Crime
Russel Mokhiber, editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter, estimates that white collar crime costs the nation’s businesses and individuals at least $100 billion EACH YEAR. (A sum incidentally that is more than 10 times greater then the combined total from larcenies, robberies, burglaries, and auto thefts committed by individuals.) If you count other corporate underhandedness, such as monopolistic price fixing and the sale of faulty goods, the price tag jumps about $200 billion more. And the Justice Department estimates that â┚¬Ã…“taxpayers lose $10 to $20 billion when corporations violate federal regulations.â┚¬Ã‚ Corporate Crime is so commonplace according to Mokhiber, that roughly two thirds of the country’s 500 largest companies were involved in some form of illegal behavior over a 10-year period. Despite such lawlessness, the white-collar detectives at the FBI do not track corporate crime regularly. â┚¬Ã…“The government can tell the public whether burglary is up or down in Los Angeles for any given month, but it cannot say the same about insider trading, midnight dumping, consumer defrauding, or illegal polluting.â┚¬Ã‚ (Dollars & Sense – Nov. 1989)
Externalized Corporate Costs Borne by Society
Ralph Estes is a professor of business administration at American University. He holds a doctorate in business administration from Indiana University. He wrote a book not too long ago called the Tyranny of the Bottom Line in which he estimates that the amount of annual costs that corporations and other businesses externalize and that must be borne by customers, employees, and society is $2,618 billion (TWO TRILLION SIX HUNDRED and EIGHTEEN BILLION DOLLARS – in 1991dollars and then adjusted to 1994 dollars.) This figure does NOT include special tax breaks corporations get or the direct subsidies that they receive. Compared to total corporate profits in the order of Five Hundred and Fifteen Billion Dollars, the estimated societal COSTS of corporations are five and one half times the amount of their benefits.
How obscene has concentration of wealth become in this country? The top 1% of U.S. citizens now owns more wealth than the bottom 95%.
In our world money = power. Enough said. No wonder things are so bad!
Hmmm . . . “The Times explained this is ‘based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.'” The “aggressive strategies” and “innovative accounting” techniques are simply a euphemistic way to describe wanton criminal activity–no different than if an organized-crime family was doing it. If I tried it, I’d wind up in a Federal penitentiary. GE? Their godfather eats lunch with the President, and enjoys the full faith and confidence of both parties.
This is the perfect place to mention National Hiring Day #1,#2,#3. Did GE hire on National Hiring Day? No, but neither did any of the approximately 100 media outlets that were told about it. Nor did any of those report on it. That bothers me, but thhis is the part that bothers me more, FAIR and all the other media watchdog groups I contacted, both refused to hire and refused to talk about the media that refused to talk about it. Sum up – no one in the media, including the watchdogs, would talk about National Hiring Day – a day that would call for some corporate responsibility from corporations such as GE. FAIR why not talk about National Hiring Day?
http://wp.me/p5S9X-jW
National Hiring Day #3 is suggested for May 19, 2011. This is a day that corporations are encouraged to hire new employees. Corporations are called on to put patriotism first and help their country in hard times. Those corporations that cannot hire, are asked to stop firing for that month. The day was suggested by the 18 year old Dallas art and media zine Musea.
There has never been a time In American History where hiring people would hurt corporations less, and help the country more.
TAX DODGERS fail to pay the taxes they legally owe, right? So, FAIR knows that GE has broken the law? I don’t think so.
THE REAL TRUTH:
Can we have the Washington wing of the Democratic symps come clean on this? The truth is that GE and all the other multi-nationals and other special interests lobby Congress for tax breaks – and Congress being a creature of special interests complies. Congress is the problem! Corporations should follow Congress, but instead we have a Congress being led by the Coporations. Shame! Bi-partisan shame!
They are in Obama’s pocket.He is in theirs .Cozy place to be theses days.
FRANCIS B asked, “Wondering what percentage of people get their news through Jon Stewart these days, for better or worse”
You can find out the answer to that question here http://jasonbeets.blogspot.com/2011/03/where-do-people-turn-for-news.html
If each “person” paid their fair share of taxes, would the country experience a tax surplus? Would a tax surplus encourage profligate government growth and spending? Could a surplus be used to pay down government debt and then saved in a “7 year” famine fund?
John God bless you but you are giving the government too much credit.Let me say that i believe if today Bewitch(ed) twitched her nose and gave us a surplus…..It would be spent before the “twitch”was done.Savings?ImpossibleThe budget argument is simple today.Will you(the government)stop your spending ways.The resounding answer from the left is NO.As Obama moves to attack business,success,and development of any and all natural resources,and has only one way to bring in money(taxation),and refuses to stop spending and printing money it all becomes impossible.Only through elections can we sweep this anchor around the neck of this country out.Take a moment and read Ron Pauls take on the economy(no I am not a Ron Paul follower).He is 100% correct.If he were ever allowed to debate Obama- it would take weeks to scrub BAMS guts off the walls.Because Obama is at his core a liar.A lot of your confusion is based on the fact that you are not yet sure of that.
John, observe the following:
With figures from an article in the Nation about Wealth Tax by Leon Friedman, I did some calculating.
Net income of US: 54.6 trillion dollars.
Top 1%(3 million people) has(revised from 35% in the article to 40% in a later article by someone else) 40% or 21.84 trillion dollars.
Top 5%(15.5 million people) has 62%, or 33.85 trillion dollars.
Leaving only 20.74 trillion dollars to the 95% 294,500,000 population of the rest of us.
If the top 1% paid just $550,000 it would pay off the 1.65 trillion dollar deficit.
If the top 5% were to pay a temporary tax for two years of $500,000 each year, it would pay off a deficit of 1.5 trillion dollars and pay off a 14 trillion dollar accumulated debt. And in doing so they would still be millionaires and billionaires and feel no pain in paying off the debt and the deficit.(Though they may complain, they would still be in great financial shape, better than the rest of us.)
Incidently, the Chamber of Congress,(they are no longer the Chamber of Commerce) executive leadership: Navistar CEO Daniel Ustian was given a total compensation increase of 25% to $8.43 million in 2010 while slashing US jobs and opening a Mexican factory.
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson made $20.3 million dollars in 2009 up 35% from 2008, in 2010 his company added $8.99 million dollars to his pension plan valued at $31 million dollars today.
John Deere & Company CEO Samuel Allen got $12.29 million dollars in 2010, 3 times his 2009 pay while slashing 367 jobs in East Moline, Illinois, 325 in Iowa, and 89 in South Dakota.
Wellpoint CEO Angela Broly was given a 51% compensation boost from $8.7 million dollars in 2008 to $13.1 million dollars, while the company laid off 1700 people and moved $86 million dollars to the Chamber of Commerce….uh… make that Chamber of Congress.
Some revised figures:
As of March 2011 the top 1% owns 43% of total financial wealth, next 4% owns 29% total wealth, next 5% owns 11% of total wealth, next 10% owns 10% of total wealth, while the rest of us, the lower 80% share a whopping 7% of total financial wealth.
Is there any good reason for this deficit hysteria except to push the notion that the poorest of us have to sacrifice and pay our share of the shared sacrifice? I say, with the info I just gave, we have a revenue problem, not a spending problem and if only the ones with most of the wealth just paid their fair share, we would have no debt and deficit problem. And the programs that help the poorest of us, children, the disabled, and the elderly, as well as low income women should not be cut, it is immoral for there to be an elite group with so much while most of us have zilch.