Donald Trump has boasted about saving 1,000 jobs that Carrier planned to send to Mexico.
But Senator Bernie Sanders says the deal is a sham because Trump gave Carrier tax breaks instead of insisting it pay its taxes. Carrier is owned by United Rechnolgies, a major defense contractor.
“In exchange for allowing United Technologies to continue to offshore more than 1,000 jobs, Trump will reportedly give the company tax and regulatory favors that the corporation has sought. Just a short few months ago, Trump was pledging to force United Technologies to “pay a damn tax.” He was insisting on very steep tariffs for companies like Carrier that left the United States and wanted to sell their foreign-made products back in the United States. Instead of a damn tax, the company will be rewarded with a damn tax cut. Wow! How’s that for standing up to corporate greed? How’s that for punishing corporations that shut down in the United States and move abroad?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
States and cities have been giving tax abatements and other forms of ransom payments to corporations who threaten to reclocate since the 60s at least, just since I started paying attention. Corporations do not believe they should pay taxes because they think they are the government, and certainly plan on becoming so.
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And it came to pass…corporations are now the government…and democracy is now called facism.
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and there will simply be no public money for frivolous things like SCHOOLS, hospitals, parks, libraries, roads, bridges — the voters on the right apparently believe that these “amenities” come from Santa Claus.
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Corporations have been the government for quite some time and the fascism has been coming as well . Trump just put boots on that pig.
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I think you misspelled Reichnologies …
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Some data on Pence’s Indiana —
☞ Pence : King of Corporate Tax Subsidies
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As Jon has pointed out this form of extortion has been going on for years. The big corporations threaten to move unless they get tax breaks and force the states into bidding wars. Not to mention lobbying and campaign donations. The NJ GOP is always screaming that NJ has to lower taxes on the corporations, repeal all those pesky regulations that protect consumers and the environment because NJ is not business friendly, a total lie. NJ is constantly supplying subsidies, tax cuts, tax holidays, tax abatements and sweetheart deals to these corporations. This all represents lost revenue which has to be made up by the general public or by cuts in public services or the commons. In truth, NJ is one of the richest states with one the highest percentages of wealthy inhabitants. Trump is a very effective con man and he is fooling a lot of people with this Carrier bait and switch.
In related news, I almost vomited when I heard Trump address a mass of people about his choice for secretary of defense, Mad Dog, Mad Dog, Mad DOG, MAD DOG!!! “We are going to appoint Mad Dog Mattis as our secretary of defense,” Trump told a rally in Cincinnati, the first stop on a post-election “thank-you tour.” The mob of people was roaring with approval. Phew!
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Joe,
Trump lives in a billionaire bubble and he has a passionate following of people who think he is working in their interest. They are in for a rude awakening. He will throw them some bread and circus while he and his billionaire buddies pad their bank accounts. The flag. Carrier. He will always find some symbolic gesture to please his followers.
But let’s pray that his national security team doesn’t get us into a world war.
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Thanks for your sensible comment, Diane. Trump does indeed live ina billionaire bubble. And yes, he will use a SYMBOLIC jesture and throw some crumbs. That’s Trump and what he does. He care only about himself and how he can get even more attention. Trump is an ENERGY SUCKER for he has no positive energy of his own.
SAD, SAD, SAD and very BAD, too.
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Allen,
There is no political party good enough for you. Have you ever considered moving to Canada?
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Allen: There is no end to the double-standard or to to raising the ugly head of false equivalences. What is it that you fail to understand about the deep roots of what one talking head called “rampant sexism” and the entrance of a new moral depravity into the White House (pun intended)?
Now respond by saying: But Clinton did this, and Clinton did that. Give it up–like the Trump people gave up their claim to moral legitimacy (if they ever had it) when, as Kelly Ann Conway said responding to a comment from the Clinton team that they wouldn’t want to win if they had to do what the Trump people did: well, he’s your president now, isn’t he?
Anything to win–and that’s the death knell to American integrity.
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Catherine,
People who sigh and say “both parties stink” have no will to fight for the future. They drain people of hope if all viable alternatives are bad. Without hope, we will passively give in to Trumpism.
That’s not my way. I look to the civil rights movement for inspiration. Fight on. Never give up, never, never, never (to paraphrase Churchill).
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Diane: It’s a “long arch,” indeed; but yes, what it’s made of is up to us.
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Regarding Joe’s point, talk about being hoist on your own petard: I’m old enough to remember New Jersey being the destination of runaway shops and corporate headquarters in the 70’s, when its leaders advertised their eagerness to poach companies from New York, and offered them all sorts of inducements.
What goes around, comes around, and painfully so…
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“The Judas Economy” Wolman 1997!!!!!!!!!!!!
The book nailed it not just the decline and off shoring in manufacturing but the evisceration of our educated work force as well, in age when data moves at the speed of light.
He details how it took 30 years to relocate textile to the nonunion south. Five years to abandon the country altogether. He goes on to detail the lightning speed at which knowledge based jobs will be lost.
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Trump’s not going to give 200 million low or middle class Americans a tax break. He’s going to get 1,000 jobs. Proportionally, that is 1/200,000 of the people he needs to help economically. It’s going to take bigger policy moves, not puny deals.
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It is called NEGOTIATION. Obama could have picked up the phone at ANY TIME and done the same thing … If he wanted to preserve jobs for US. citizens. Why didn’t Obama do that?
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You’re either kidding, have LTM loss, or 6 years old.
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No, I majored in Business Management and Accounting before I started teaching.
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It’s NOT negotiation. It’s film flam, phony baloney bait and switch. Trump pretended that he FORCED Carrier, by dint of his will, to remain in the US. He bribed Carrier to keep less than half of their jobs in the US. He just did what most states have been doing for decades. Cave in to the extortion of the corporations. Obama has been “NEGOTIATING” throughout his 2 terms, in other words, caving into corporations, just like Trump. It’s called corporate welfare. Both parties do it.
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Joe, the fact that any part of the Carrier business is staying in this country has to do with negotiations with cities, states and the Fed that have always gone on. THEY ARE NOT NEW TACTICS! The one new thing in the mix is Trump sincerely intends to reduce the number of unnecessary regulations on businesses. Over regulating a business costs taxpayers AND the company more money. Why regulate a company beyond it’s production and safety?
Don’t you negotiate when you buy a house? A car? Do you get a quote before you have plumbing, electrical, automotive, remodeling, etc done? That is a starting point for negotiations. Prior administrations have not negotiated contracts very well. That is why we pay $600/hammer that could be purchased for $6 at Home Depot. Monetary waste in government must stop and negotiation is just one method to accomplish that.
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Linda Giffin: Medicare is specifically forbidden from negotiating for lower drug prices, thanks to Bush and the GOP. We have the most expensive medications in the world. Getting rid of banking and financial regulations lead to the Savings and Loan debacle of the 1980s and the great meltdown of 2008.
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Linda Griffin, the regulations you resist are about safety.
I doubt you would be so sanguine if it is your family member who dies because of our new anti-regulation pro-business government.
Or if it is your drinking water that is polluted and your beloved family is drinking poisonous water. You can reassure them that their cancers helped 1,000 workers keep their job another few months or a year and helped more billionaires get even richer.
I know your great grandchildren will thank you for the polluted world you give them.
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According to Lawrence O’Donnell, it is only 800 jobs not moving to Mexico for the time being. And they are paid for by Indiana taxpayers who will shell out $7M in extortion. It is called Corporate Socialism.
And as Guv, Pence helped tRump with this flim flam. Probably could not have happened in any state but Pence’s…and the collusion is too obvious.
You have to have ZERO critical thinking skills not to see through these two Elmer Gantry characters.
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To Ellen Lubic: Apparently (according to Rachel Maddow), the Indiana payoff was in the works awhile back, just after the election, when Pence decided NOT to give up his governorship right away–until the fix was in?
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All true . But we better acknowledge as Linda Giffin stated that the Democrats left these people behind . As Baker states “Obama waved a red Flag with TPP on it in front of a raging bull” . We not he will pay for it.
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The Republicans left those people behind and it didn’t hurt them one bit.
If you want to use that logic, why not just say that the Democrats should completely abandon them just like the Republicans did?
After all, Russ Feingold lost to Ron Johnson, who long ago abandoned any notion of doing anything except help billionaires. So by your logic, we should blame Feingold for not being more like Johnson.
The way to fight this is to try to get the truth out there to people who are inclined to believe whatever right wing trope is handed out by Fox and others instead of believing their “lying” eyes.
The way to fight this is for the Democrats to stop doing the Republican’s dirty work by finding corruption among Dems who have more pro-business agendas than the left would like. Quit making it about corruption and lies all the time because all you are doing is convincing people that all Dems are corrupt and all Republicans aren’t. So Johnson isn’t corrupt and Feingold is. And Johnson wins because republicans “tell it like it is”.
Hillary believed in a more neoconservative foreign policy than some people may like. So did Obama. So did Kerry. So did every Republican. But only Hillary did it because she was corrupt and bought by money. And that’s why she lost.
Hillary believed in more free trade than Bernie did although she never entirely adopted the right wing Republican (and Obama) belief in free trade uber alles. But she was more corrupt than all the Republicans and Bernie because her belief in free trade was due to her being bought by Goldman Sachs or foreign governments or whatever meme you want to use.
Voters vote against candidates they do not trust. They trusted Trump more than Hillary. And that is exactly how the right wing planned it. Hit your opponent so that your own candidate’s flaws are acceptable. and all this anti-Hillary stuff has just normalized Trump.
He is only as corrupt as the Clintons, and their Presidency wasn’t so bad. So just like Trump be Trump because after all, he is only as corrupt as Hillary. And when it comes to Bernie and any other left candidate painted as just as corrupt, you may finally come to realize that Russ Feingold will lose until you stop allowing that to happen.
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So let me guess … Trump University?
Seriously, for the benefit of amnesia sufferer, there are these things called Google, or Bing, or Duck Duck Go where you can refresh your memories about how hard Obama fought against GOP opposition to save the auto industry, with loans that got paid back, not by diverting the People’s tax dollars to corporate blackmail payments.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Obama+%22Auto+Industry+Loans%22+%22GOP+Opposition%22&ia=web
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Seriously a big part of the bail out was the two tiered wage system which will only exacerbate the problems these workers face every year it goes on. 28 / 17 at this point over 50% of the employees are on the second tier.
Now we can argue that 17 is better than 0 or even better than 7.45 or what ever the minimum wage is . But had the minimum wage kept up with the cost of living . These would now be sub minimum wage workers. There were commensurate drops in the benefits as well ,both to working and retired members . By no means am I arguing against the bailout but it is not hard to see why it has not been met with overwhelming” joy in Mudville” A major portion of that bailout went to a bank GMAC.
Now my least favorite President was Bonzo. When faced with increased Japanese imports in the eighties he forced the Japanese to assemble their autos here. This was probably not a hard sell from a cost benefit analyses,It is a lot more economical to ship 30,000 engine blocks and doors than it is 500 cars (what ever the real numbers are!}. Which spurned i believe 23 all non union ASSEMBLY plants through out the South or Right to Work states.
Of course both the Japanese and German auto workers have higher unionization rates . German auto workers earn more than first tier American UAW members and produce more cars!!!!! We here about the terrible GDP in Japan. Punish us with a 3% unemployment rate, 5.5 % at the height of the recession. God we call that full employment. Just saying perhaps bold vision has been missing.
This was the article referred to by Krugman about Kentucky. I think he missed this point . Just change Kentucky to Ohio and coal to manufacturing . That 100,000 figure probably include a lot of overtime ,But!!!!!
“At the Huddle House on Route 119, Kayla Burger, 32, a waitress, has worked three jobs since her husband lost his; they take home less than a quarter of the roughly $100,000 he used to earn. She took an offer for miners’ wives to train as phlebotomists, but with so many miners out of work, the phlebotomy market was flooded. She also substitute teaches and cooks at the school.
They have given up cellphones and sold their boat; one car has been repossessed; the only reason they still have their house, she said, is that they saw layoffs coming and saved money. Her husband, who cares for the children, has experienced depression. “He doesn’t feel like a man,” Ms. Burger said. Her father was a miner, too; he and her mother drive tractor-trailers now.”
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hear not here .
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The whole thing that happened yesterday was chilling to me. Half the country has gone nuts:
The obvious lies Trump told yesterday (like his “we had a landslide” comment), and they cheered; the Carrier Con–both the state of mind of the corporation involved, AND the people who cheered–it wasn’t a “thank-you” tour. It was an in-your-face that Trump did to over half the voting nation; and, again the people cheered. Then there was the hateful confrontation between the staff of Trump and Clinton. I was embarrassed for Kelly Ann Conway–poor thing seems not to understand how obvious and misplaced is her contempt, now-unveiled for all to see. The contrast in her comportment between pre-and-post election is telling of not only her own character, but that of all whom she represents.
All of the barely-hidden conning and the constant expression of leering hate–and the people continue their orgiastic cheering. Who are these people? And what will it take to break the spell, to get through their moral and spiritual fog, to re-connect with their own reality? I think this is bigger and older than most recognize.
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I wouldn’t be embarrassed for Kellyanne Conway. She signed on to work as Trump’s spokesperson, and she seems willing to toe Trump’s line.
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Conway is, in large part, responsible for Trump’s win.
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Don’t worry about Kellyanne. She is shameless
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Diane: Shameless–indeed. Perhaps my embarrassment is misplaced–I felt it though; but perhaps it was because we are both women and American (group identity?); and Kelly Ann seems eager and proud to display her utter depravity, and so shameless about it. Like someone else here who said he wanted to vomit about the cabinet selections–I feel I have the flue every day, and wince every time I turn on the Trump spectacle that is constant on television. Someone should come up with bags that are expressly made to put on our heads as Americans.
Here’s something I’m shameless about: the differences between classes can be understood in capitalist terms and then, by inference, the Mob is High Class. But that difference can also be understood in intellectual-creative, moral, and spiritual terms; and some of us have great contempt for those who at least aspire to a higher level of thinking (the cheering Trump mob). It’s a set of great truths (yes: Truths) that goes back at least to Plato and Aristotle, not to mention Jesus and a great many others. So the “post-truth era” can be understood too in those terms. The question is, then, are we to be post-integrity? I have a lot of contempt too–for Trump and his followers–and will remain shameless about it.
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Kellyanne’s husband was on the right wing legal team that tried to destroy Bill Clinton’s presidency in the early 1990s. Revenge is best served cold.
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Yep. And they used tactics as underhanded and illegal as anything we saw in this election by the FBI.
And like the FBI’s actions, they got away with it without anyone investigating. We had 10 Benghazi investigations and will get not even one about the illegal contacts the FBI made with the Trump campaign over the course of the campaign and the intentional release of information to smear her right before the election.
We had Ken Starr investigating Watergate for 6 years and not one investigation of why after having contacts with Conway and his federalist society pals, Linda Tripp started her non-stop campaign to get Monica Lewinsky to commit a crime and ask President Clinton for a job. Egging her on endlessly and telling her she DESERVED a job from the President – that he owed her one.
Supposedly, Tripp started taping to protect herself because she didn’t want to have to lie under oath about Monica’s sexual affair.
But after Conway and his pals got involved, Tripp started encouraging Monica to commit a crime by demanding a job from Clinton in exchange for silence. In the tapes, Monica resists this, but Linda Tripp keeps telling her she is entitled to a job and should ask for one – egging her on non-stop. And the laughable Starr investigation that spent 5 years looking for corruption in Arkansas suddenly became a sexual investigation and showed a deplorable lack of curiosity about all their lawyer pals like Conway whose clients were actively encouraging Monica to commit a crime.
Sound familiar? Starr practically committed perjury when he was asked under oath when he first heard about the illegal taping of a woman who had an affair with the President and he couldn’t even answer it in a straightforward way! Why couldn’t he just say “I didn’t know about it until she came to our office?”. Because Conway and his little elves were feeding his office information all along but he wanted to mislead the American people about it.
Just like the FBI has conspired with the Trump campaign all along through Giuliani and others and they will flat get away with it. And it will continue to happen again if we allow it to go uninvestigated.
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Great comments Catherine…indeed, Plato would have defined it as Moral Relativism.
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Build the air conditioner, build the air conditioner! And make Indiana pay for it.
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According to NPR, the tax incentives were offered and turned down prior to the election. Since the deal was not transparent, what is not known is whether the parent company felt that its defense contracts were now at risk from the known to be vindictive DT. By giving him a positive photo op, they may have saved that part of their business.
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United Technologies is a multi billion dollar defense contractor. Carrier is small potatoes compared to their government contracts
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Exactly…with Mattis as head of Defense, United Technologies can now count on huge govt. contracts. This quid pro quo was surely hidden in the Carrier closet.
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Don’t worry. Any cost savings lost with this deal will be made up somewhere else. I forget which corporation (drug or technology?) it was, but I remember reading about Illinois giving them tax incentives to save jobs at one site. The company simply cut them at another location in another division. I don’t think they expected to get caught by the media, but I don’t think anything happened either.
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If we believed Trump represented Americans in the Carrier deal, it would be a negotiation. As it is, Trump is just giving away other people’s money. Trump, likely, doesn’t even have minimal skin in the game, since there’s no proof he pays taxes, like the rest of us do.
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Trump is not even the president. Obama is! Where has he been the last 8 years? To be clear, Pence, not Trump, gave $7 million in state tax breaks to Carrier, which is not very much to save 1,100 jobs. 700 employees will be offered job transfers.
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So Sanders realizes that Trump, now backed by the wackadoodle
hard Right, is governing like a Right wing wackadoodle. Surprise surprise. Now does he see a difference between Clinton and Trump?
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Sanders saw the difference, which is why he was a tireless campaigner for Clinton, after her primary win. There should have been competition in the Democratic primary. The Republicans, with their umpteen candidates, sucked up all of the media attention- one of many mistakes by team Clinton
The reasons for Clinton’s loss, those not discussed, were strategy failures from within. Salon reported that her campaign manager unwittingly gave his password to hackers. Bloomberg spoke at the DNC, while the speaking time of Black Ohioan, Nina Turner, was cancelled. A Clinton senior advisor met with DFER during the DNC. Clinton’s team knew about Common Core’s unpopularity but, weren’t willing to renounce it. Her team knew it was wrong to privatize the most important common good, for the benefit of hedge funds and the tech industry, but, they still won’t admit it. The CEO, of Clinton’s campaign manager’s D.C. PR firm, is the former deputy campaign manager for Jeb Bush. Why couldn’t Podesto craft a message to beat Clinton’s opponent? My God, Trump is a man who called people stupid for paying taxes, who mocked the disabled, who spoke in foul terms about women and Hispanics and who used race baiting. He had multiple bankruptcies and a cheating philanthropy and university named after him.
One person who has NO BLAME, is Sanders.
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Linda
Well stated add this:
Sanders saw the difference which is part of the reason he never took the gloves off. He would constantly say that him and Clinton may have their disagreements but there is a world of difference between Clinton and any Republican.
The only time he came close to an angry demeanor, was when the Daily News did a hatchet job . After an interview that staff writer Juan Cole described as a perfectly acceptable performance. Nothing to raise eye brows, till the transcripts were handed to Clinton aids who collaborated on a devastating editorial.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election/king-unpacking-bernie-sanders-daily-news-interview-article-1.2591889
I have no doubt you probably believe Shaun King is just a sell out to NY Daily News corporate interests just like Hillary is.
And I have no doubt that you have no understanding about the NY Daily News fight for REAL gun control and how Bernie Sanders’ blithe dismissal of trying to sue gun manufacturers for assault weapon deaths is something they don’t like. How dare he be up for criticism! It’s all the corrupt Hillary’s fault .
Look, a “senior adviser” met with DFER at the DNC! That’s the kind of innuendo the alt right was so delighted you made! Every meeting is evidence of corruption when it is a Democrat! Keep trying to normalize it because your acting as if that is a crime is exactly why Trump can easily meet with any foreign leaders to promote his businesses! It’s all part of the same politics as usual that we always have. You just normalized it all. Meetings! it doesn’t matter what was said, it was a meeting! “Lock her up”.
I almost wish you could see what happens when we start doing it about Bernie or Warren or whatever acceptable Democrat is set forth. All innuendo all negative all corrupt. You’ve successfully made so many Americans believe the Republicans are no more corrupt than Hillary. You have NORMALIZED it all. Maybe you can un-normalize it with the next “bernie approved candidate” or maybe that candidate will be the target of the same “Bernie is corrupt” memes that so many on the left are so certain Hillary deserved. Even when they voted for her after making sure everyone knew they were doing it knowing how utterly corrupt she was.
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From Matt Gardner at Tax Justice via econospeak: And Carrier’s parent corporation, United Technologies (UTC), certainly fits the description of a tax-avoiding firm. The company routinely pays effective federal tax rates of 10 percent or lower, far below the 35 percent statutory tax rate its executives have complained about. UTC also has aggressively shifted its profits offshore, holding $29 billion in undisclosed foreign countries at the end of 2015. If doling out tax incentives is a shopworn strategy, giving these tax breaks to bad actors such as United Technologies should be seen as an outright capitulation by the Trump administration, rather than as a savvy deal.
http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-carrier-deal-and-peso.html
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Eugene Robinson: “Trump will helm a government of, by and for corporate America”, short quip from the Washington Post:
‘…So imagine you’re a CEO who wants to send, say, 5,000 manufacturing jobs overseas. Having learned from the Carrier example, you might begin by announcing that unfortunately you are forced to eliminate 10,000 jobs because of the crushing tax burden.
Even if you really want to move the jobs to Vietnam or Kenya, just say you’re looking at possible sites for a new plant in Mexico. That’s sure to get Trump’s attention.
When Trump calls offering tax breaks or enterprise zone incentives or free rounds of golf in Scotland, whatever goodies he tosses in, hold out for a while — then reluctantly, in the spirit of patriotism and Making America Great Again, announce you’ve agreed to cancel half of the 10,000 job cuts. You’d still be meeting your original goal of eliminating 5,000 jobs, only now you’d also have a lower corporate tax bill and a tee time at Turnberry….’
………
What a deal. I can imagine corporate CEO’s salivating at the thought of more tax breaks. Who suffers? All the tax payers who want good schools, clean water, pure air, libraries, decent roads, etc.
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Allen: I thought Diane’s comment was more in jest. But what’s all that (true or not) have to do with Trump’s depravity en total? You’ve changed horses again. Are you channeling Kelly Ann Conway who is Queen of the Land of Logical Fallacies? I’ll look forward, however, to Diane’s response, should she give one.
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Frankly what is all the crying about . I thought Trump’s move was brilliant. it was a breath of fresh air . F…face von Clownstick ( I stole that from a blogger on Dean Baker’s site this morning) did in -50 days what Obama did not do in 8 years. He stood up for the American worker forcefully. Stood up to corporate America and gave them a piece of what little mind he has. Aided by Pence giving a piece of the Treasury of Indiana .
Now for those of you who say it is all a show . I agree, For those who say those jobs will probably be reliant on further incentives. I agree. For those who say it was a small
fraction of the jobs UTX. is moving . I also agree . I will even stipulate that a few years from now they are gone anyway.
But there are several things to consider. .
First we have to contrast that to the Obama response to the announced Carrier move.
Press secretary Josh Earnest gets in front of the Podium last March and explains how the President understands the concerns of those workers and that’s why he is working hard to pass the TPP. If I would have made that statement i would be expecting to be struck by lightning before the last syllable left my lips. Nice Legacy you left the World O.
But more importantly Bernie would be the first one to tell you that there is nothing ordained in our trade policy or any economic policy . These trade agreements were designed to facilitate the offshoring of American jobs, so as to protect the investments of multinational corporations in countries with the lowest labor costs and standards in the world. They had little or nothing to do with tariffs.
He would also tell you that there are plenty of ways to incentivize on-shore production without resorting to bribery. You could use Government procurement to ensure American production , You could have a policy of lower dollar value through deficit spending which would increase the cost of foreign goods, making US goods cheaper to buy, at home and abroad. At the same time as it put Americans to work on needed infrastructure. Watch how quickly the Republican deficit hawks forget where their beaks are. . But again one can argue that Obama wanted a big stimulus . Yeah after he appointed a DEBT COMMISSION. So is Trump brilliant? Only when standing next to the people “who thought they were the smartest people in the room”.
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I believe it was Jon Stewart who coined the sobriquet “[blank] face von Clownstick.”
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Joe you are correct . I just got a Disqus post from him telling me that
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Joel: here’s the video of Jon Stewart coining the name BLANKface von clownstick. Actually he coined the name in 2013 but the video is from 2016. Drop dead funny. You will be laughing out loud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEEgplXwNWk
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Waiting for Pres. Obama and other Democratic politicians to defend the peaceful protestors at the Dakota Access Pipeline, who have been shot at, with rubber bullets, sprayed with water and, told that they’ll be forced to “transition to a safer place”, by the Army Corps of Engineers. If the reports are true, that the original pipeline routing was rejected so that it could follow a path where the poor live, it’s an inexcusable disgrace.
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I’m waiting for Trump and the GOP to defend the peaceful protesters at the DAP. Oh wait……
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Ball’s in Trump’s court in January. Ball’s in Obama’s court, now.
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Linda, I agree with you about Obama. All he would have to do is utter a few words of support and that would have a huge impact. But so far, zero from Obama. Some Dems have spoken up besides Bernie: Franken, Udall, maybe some others? Not sure
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Joe.
Oh wait……
But Obama’s actions and lack of actions will make it easier for us to be driven to a Fascist state by Trump. The assault on civil liberties will have opened the door. I fear what Trump will bring magnitudes worse than Obama . Because he has a good jumping off point . Obama with Democratic mayors brutally crushed the Occupy movement . Part of which I got to witness at a Move On demo in conjunction with Occupy . When I asked a Cameraman at the demo how he could allow this, his response was “welcome to the corporately owned press:”.
That Republican billionaire mayor addressed the DNC
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“transition to a safer place”
How’s that for PC crap?
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“Transitioning to a safer place”, is how the Trail of Tears would have been described, if PR had been created earlier.
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Joel: Watch out. You are giving Trump his “reason” not to deliver on the infrastructure thing: a resistant Congress. And while I have you, Obama choked in his “you didn’t make that” speech. He forgot to mention the infrastructure that every business depends on to move their stuff around–they didn’t actually make that. But it came off as: ‘You didn’t build your own business” to the idiots . . . uh, I mean, the deplorables . . . uh, . . no . . I mean those Americans who understand nothing about such things and, like someone else here said, who think things like libraries, the police, roads, etc.) come from Santa Claus.
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Catherine Blanche King
I am afraid of his infrastructure bill. Not only how the tax breaks will work to privatize public goods . I am afraid it will come with Union busting provision including eviscerating the Davis Bacon act. Killing off another whole sector of the Union workforce . I believe that “you didn’t make that ” speech came from my favorite Senator who should have been Bernie’s VP.
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Yes, I know. Damned if you do . . . There’s no substitute for having good people in government.
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Excellent comment Joel H.
You might be interested in Thomas Frank’s latest piece in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/29/how-the-democrats-could-win-again-if-they-wanted
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Read it the other day. In between my 2.5 finger typing skills. I get to go occasionally to sites that the Washington Post calls fake news .
Because they don’t serve the interests of the Plutocracy.Like Truth out or Truthdig.
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This is ridiculous.
You’d think there were no laborers or working class people in New York or California or Oregon or Washington. Nope, the only ones who matter are the ones in Wisconsin who turns out actually gave Mitt Rommey MORE votes than Trump. So this article is not even dealing with facts.
And the notion that the Democrats “triangulated” themselves? I could make just as much of an argument that Clinton ran on the most progressive platform any Democrat has offered and the Republicans wiped the floor against any progressive Dems in the midwest, including Russ Feingold.
It does not matter what the Democrats do or offer if we allow the right wing to define our candidates in whatever allows their candidates to win. Whether it is Feingold being portrayed as whatever kind of loser got people to re-elect the ultra right wing Johnson, or Hillaryt being portrayed as whatever kind of corrupt candidate that will get people to elect Trump. Two years will be no different unless we address the problem at its root.
Republicans have screwed the working class over and over again and they are STILL getting huge numbers of votes. Believe in Santa Clause Bernie getting that to stop is a nice fantasy but if it doesn’t come true because Santa Bernie or XXX progressive candidate gets smeared as the same corrupt candidate Hillary is, will you finally come to your senses? Or will we just read about how it’s all the fault of Tammy Duckworth or Tulsi Gabbard because who knew they would turn out to be just as corrupt as Hillary? After all, that’s what even Dems will be saying if their own favored candidate loses and they decide to buy into the alt right memes to destroy whoever wins.
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Fourth, presumably Canada is also reprehensible, imperialist nation with a corrupt political system controlled by multinational corporations, so moving there isn’t an option in the first place.
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“The point is that both US parties are big-business parties, responsive ONLY to the needs & desires of corporations.”
This must be why Koch Industries is always completely indifferent about whether a Democrat or Republican occupies the White House.
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Gates has better P.R. than the Koch’s.
If Charles and David want Medals of Freedom, they should pick a winning President. On the other hand, if they’ll settle for a Jeffersonian award, they’ll be in the company of Sean Parker and Arne Duncan.
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Obama did not appoint far right wingers to the SCOTUS. Neither did Bill Clinton. After 8 years of Obama, we still have Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA. After 8 years of Trump, lord knows what we will have left of the social safety net. Until the great deliverance comes with a true workers’ party, I will damn well vote for the lesser damaging party. There is NO equivalence between Trump and HRC.
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I don’t think Allen believes that SCOTUS is a legitimate institution. If you’re appointed to SCOTUS, you are by definition an instrument of capitalism.
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However in the 25 years since Clinton came in . It is hard to argue that . Policies initiated by Clinton /Obama have left us at the mercy of a Republican majority with sweeping dominance ,
Obama had an earth shattering moment. It was the end of capitalism as we know it., Had the derivatives markets unwound on their own . A moment that left him with enough political capital to have made dramatic change. A supper majority in congress waiting for an FDR or LBJ.
Not to beat a dead horse but his legacy could be the end of their legacy.
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LBJ and FDR would have never been elected. Can you just see the people who are bashing Hillary Clinton from the left on here bashing those guys! They would both have been demonized and easily lost to the right wing Republicans because they just were too much in bed with banks and were war mongers and who knows what else. LBJ and FDR? They’d be destroyed by the right wing propaganda if they had the Hillary-hating left repeating how corrupt they were.
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Trump is shocked that Carrier took him literally. That doesn’t bode well for his many promises. By Aaron Blake in the Washington Post
http://wapo.st/2fQD95Y?tid=ss_mail
“…During his attempted victory lap in Indiana on Thursday celebrating the fact that Carrier opted to keep jobs in the state thanks to $7 million in incentives, Trump candidly admitted that he didn’t even remember having promised to keep Carrier’s jobs in the state and insisted that he hadn’t actually meant to make that promise.
He said his mention of keeping Carrier’s jobs was meant to signify other manufacturing companies that might be tempted to move jobs outside the country — as Carrier long planned to do — in the future, and that he didn’t even realize he had said it until he saw on the news that Carrier’s workers expected him to make it happen.
“About a week ago, I was watching the nightly news,” Trump said, adding an obligatory dig at the media. “But they were doing a story on Carrier. And I say, ‘Wow, that’s something. I want to see that.'”
Trump recalled a “handsome” employee who was interviewed for the piece who didn’t seem worried about the company’s plans to move production to Mexico.
“He said something to the effect, ‘No we’re not leaving, because Donald Trump promised us that we’re not leaving,'” Trump said. “And I never thought I made that promise — not with Carrier. I made it for everybody else. I didn’t make it really for Carrier. And I said, ‘What’s he saying?'”
Trump went on: “And they played my statement. I said, ‘Carrier will never leave.’ But that was a euphemism. I was talking about Carrier, like all other companies from here on in. Because they made the decision a year and a half ago. But he believed that that was — and I could understand it.”…
……..
How many promises did Trump make and forget? He was voted in because of people who believed in him. He was just working the crowd. How long before people realize what is happening?
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The true danger attached to Trump appears to be psychological: How many words come out of his mouth (or go into his Twitter account) without him actually connecting to their meaning?
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Trump’s “promises”? What are promises–or lies, for that matter–when there are no facts/truth/realty?
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TRUMP WARNS THAT COMPANIES SHIPPING JOBS OVERSEAS WILL BE SLAPPED WITH ENORMOUS BRIBES
By Andy Borowitz [Remember it’s a joke!!]
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—President-elect Donald J. Trump drew a line in the sand on Friday as he warned that U.S. companies planning to ship jobs overseas will be slapped with enormous bribes.
“If you think you’re going to get away with sending jobs out of the U.S., think again,” Trump said. “You are about to be bribed, big league.”
He raised the cautionary example of Carrier Corporation, which this week decided to keep a few hundred jobs in the U.S. in exchange for a seven-million-dollar government incentive. “I warned those boys at Carrier: we can do this the easy way, or the hard way, where you get seven million dollars,” he said. “They backed down so fast—it was terrific.”
The President-elect said that the Carrier story should strike fear into the hearts of all American businesses that might be contemplating shipping jobs overseas. “Do you really want to wind up like Carrier, with seven million dollars in your pockets?” he asked. “I don’t think so.”
In a parting shot, Trump warned companies that he was prepared to back up his tough rhetoric with even tougher action. “I will bribe you so hard, your grandchildren will get paid,” he threatened.
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Go away.
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I just read this in the NYT and thought it expressed very well what we are now dealing with. I don’t understand why this is not apparent.
I have a very compassionate close friend who sent me an email saying that Trump is the only person who can save the US. The reason is that he doesn’t depend upon Big Money from other sources. She is an avid listener to Fox. Makes me wonder what Fox ‘news’ is putting out.
The Trump Tweets I Want to Read (Opinion)
By AASIF MANDVI DEC. 3, 2016
“…Mr. Trump is not driven by any particular ideology; he is driven by the need to be praised and adored. He cannot repudiate any kind of praise, even if it comes from the most despicable people or places. His thin skin works both ways. He lashes out at the smallest perceived slight with ferocity, while praise of any kind is so intoxicating to him that he is blind to where that praise comes from. Whether it’s Vladimir V. Putin or the alt-right darling and future White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon, the way to get to Mr. Trump is clearly to flatter him and massage his fragile ego.
This should make us all incredibly nervous, because this is how dangerous people will enter the halls of power and use our president as their puppet. We will find ourselves living in a kakistocracy — a word that recently only spelling bee nerds knew, a word the rest of us will soon become very familiar with. It means a country that is run by the most unqualified and unprincipled among us…”
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