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Cities, Counties Take Back Corporate Tax Breaks
CHICAGO - Cash-strapped communities have a message for corporations that promised jobs in return for tax breaks: A deal's a deal.
As the recession drags on, municipalities struggling to fix roads, fund schools and pay bills increasingly are rescinding tax abatements to companies that don't hire enough workers, lay them off or close up shop. At the same time, they're sharpening new incentive deals, leaving no doubt what is expected of companies and what will happen if they don't deliver.
"We will roll out the red carpet as much as we can (but) they are going to honor the contract," said Brendon Gallagher, an alderman in DeKalb, Ill., where Target Corp. got abatements from the city, county, school district and other taxing bodies after promising at least 500 jobs at a local distribution center.
So when the company came up 66 workers short in 2009, Target got word its next tax bill would be jumping almost $600,000 - more than half of which go to the local school district, where teachers and programs have been cut as coffers dried up.
The newfound boldness comes from communities and states that have long bent over backward to lure companies and jobs by offering abatements and other incentives - to the tune of an estimated $60 billion a year in the United States, according to the Washington-based economic development watchdog group Good Jobs First.
The willingness to write - and enforce - so-called "clawback" provisions comes even as companies across the country struggle and against a broader backdrop of governments getting tough on business practices.
What's more, the recession has communities thinking about how the tax breaks they dole out will play with residents who have grown increasingly angry at the thought of anything that hints of corporate welfare.
"The public is a lot more aware of tax abatements and there's a climate of skepticism about what can be perceived as corporate handouts," said Geoff McKimm, a member of the Monroe County Council in Indiana.
With that in mind, county officials drew up an agreement with Printpack, a packaging company, that includes a provision requiring the company to refund either $197,000 or that year's abatement, whichever is more, if the number of employees at a new factory falls below 140.
Another provision requires Printpack refund the entire abatement if it employs fewer than 75 people - a guarantee meant to prevent companies from leaving a "skeleton crew" at a location to avoid paying up.
"With so many businesses going to Mexico, communities are desperately trying to hold onto jobs," said Amy Gerstman, the county's auditor. "This was a carefully put-together abatement."
And companies increasingly are being forced to hold up their end of the bargain.
In Texas, where companies can get money from the Texas Enterprise Fund if they promise to create a specific number of jobs, the number of clawbacks rose to nine in 2008, compared to a total of seven for the previous three years combined, the governor's office said.
In Illinois, the number of companies from which the state sought to "recapture" incentive money has steadily climbed, from 6 in 2005 to a total of 37 by 2008.
Meanwhile, more communities are contemplating similar action.
In St. Louis County, officials have told Pfizer that if it cuts 600 jobs, as planned, they'll rethink the $7 million in tax breaks they promised to give the company for the next 10 years.
And in Detroit, while the state was approving expanded tax credits in exchange for General Motors Co.'s promise not to move its headquarters, the city council was talking about cracking down on tax breaks for GM and other major employers.
"We know that there are more clawbacks getting triggered because more deals are falling short," said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, who has written extensively on clawbacks.
It's unclear exactly how much is being recovered because nobody collects comprehensive statistics on clawbacks, LeRoy and others say. States that keep do statistics only track their own deals, not those initiated by local governments. Communities also may revoke the entire abatement or only a portion of it, while others sometimes simply rule out future abatements, LeRoy said.
Finally, some communities crack down on companies quietly, out of concern that they could scare off other potential employers, LeRoy said. He said that fear persists even thought there is no evidence that having or enforcing clawbacks poisons the business climate.
"We were told that we were going to ruin Topeka's ability to attract businesses; we'd give Topeka a black eye," said James Crowl, assistant county counselor in Shawnee County, where last year officials approved a settlement that calls for Target to pay $200,000 a year for 10 years after failing to create as many jobs as it had agreed to.
So what happened?
"Last year we opened a Home Depot distribution center right next door," said County Counselor Rich Eckert.
In DeKalb, some officials were concerned about sending a bad message to other businesses considering locating there, said Gallagher, the alderman. But he didn't buy it.
"We are 65 miles from Chicago (and) if someone wants to locate 120 miles from Chicago, I can't stop them," he said.
Besides, he said, $600,000 means less to Target than a struggling community where he said the city alone is facing a $2 million revenue shortfall.
Target was disappointed, but understood the decision, spokeswoman Jill Hornbacher said.
"We are very committed to DeKalb and that distribution center and proud to be there," she said.
And don't expect communities to back down soon, officials said.
"There is much more (language) tied to jobs now because of economy," said Lee Garrity, city manager in Winston-Salem, N.C., which along with the surrounding county is sharing more than $26 million that computer giant Dell Inc. paid after announcing it will close its assembly plant next year.
Garrity said officials are even thinking about provisions that are even more specific.
"We are discussing whether we need to require the jobs of the company go to people who live in the city," he said.
60 Comments so far
Show AllIt's great that communities are fighting back against these big-box retailers. Unfortunately, it's just a matter of time before the corporations start giving local politicians the legalized bribes called "campaign contributions." Thus taking the courage of the whores to do the right thing and make the corporate parasites own up to their agreements.
And don't expect future tax-abatement agreements to have these "claw back" provisions as the corporations start buying off the local politicians.
This is what I've been saying all along. The watch word for today's society is not "change", as in "change we can believe in", it's "adapt", as in "adapt or die". Cities grappling with the corporate monster are not trying to change the beast, they're merely exercising their sovereign right to tax it (adaption). A society that tries to abolish corporate personhood might as well be trying to shoot down the moon. Corporate personhood is here to stay. It is the underpinnings of our entire global economic system, and no amount of rebellion is going to chase it away. Better (and more realistic) for us to adapt to it. Perfect example: when corporations throw families out of their jobs or out of their homes, then adaption becomes the only means of survival: buy a used RV to put a roof over your head(s); forage through dumpsters at local restaurants to put food in your mouth(es). When your healthcare insurance company cancels your policy right after you submit a claim because you've been diagnosed with cancer, find a relative or friend willing to take you in and care for you because the medical establishment won't. They can't. They've been bankrupted themselves by the escalating costs of healthcare. Adaptability is the cornerstone of evolution and, believe me, as a society and civilization we are evolving. Though not for the better, I can assure you.
The Corporations hold all the cards here. They will play one "Tax strapped community" off against another. "Raise our taxes and we will move to the next county and hello there next county...hey give us a tax break and we will bring in 60 jobs".
This race to the bottom started with the Auto Industry moving into the South. All of these communites wanted to "Compete" for those jobs by lowering taxes, lowering enviromental protections and giving breaks like freeways, infrastructure and sports stadiums all built at the Taxpayer expense.
They let in the Wal Marts via zoning changes and tax breaks and those Wal Marts put everyone else out of business. Now they reap the rewards.
The glory of Capitalism!
GwNorth
Ah, but its better than any other economic system tried so far! Don't count us out so early in the fight. People learn and grow, even local governments.
THe Auto industry in the South is doing well compared to the auto industry in the North and they labor under the same enviornmental rules. They do not have the burden of the UAW, which in cahoots with auto management were able to destroy the companies, except Ford. And thats an unfinished story.
Lets see how Walmart does going forward when China gets differnt trade agreements from us. Give us a chance to plug the leaks.
Capitalism?
Where? How? In what sense?
Who's "us"?
What constitutes a "leak" in this case?
If we're calling the export of jobs a "leak," one man's leak is another man's loophole. And if we're calling "we" American government or industry, the people closest to the export of jobs are trying to facilitate the leaks, not stop them.
Or do I misread your metaphors here?
Sioux Rose
CIVIS: While not a doctor, I think you suffer from "Broken record syndrome." Although voices far more astute than mine on the successes of socialistic reforms in other nations have read you the A-B-C's of this numerous times, you revert back to the same tired redundant lines as if no new material has entered that organic font known as the/your brain. Or have you suffered from a head wound in the past 30 years?
Civis what world have you been living in.
>>Ah, but its better than any other economic system tried so far! Don't count us out so early in the fight. People learn and grow, even local governments
There are no PURELY Capitalist models on this Earth and the only ones that show even a semblance of working have to use Socialism to do so.
The United States economy was not built via "Capitalism" as it is described. From founding to about 1880 US wealth creation was based upon the seizing of land from other peoples coupled with the forced slavery of millions of Africans.
Contrary to what Capitalists suggest the farmlands, forests, rivers and streams, the gold and silver mines and deposits of Coal were not the creation of capitalism.
access and control of these riches was not based upon the principles of a free market.
This is what US wealth was built upon.
How did Georhge Washington become rich? It was not via the principles of the free market as outlined in Capitalist theory. It was via land grants by the British Crown inititaly and then by seizing lands from native tribes later.
How did Thomas Jefferson become rich? It was not Via the "Marketplace" where a fair exchange for labor was made in return for a wage. It was via Slavery where people were forced to work against their will.
GIVING 160 acres of land to people is wealth redistribution. The wealth of all nations is built first upon the exploitation of resources and farming. These lands and resources were not acquired via "market principles".
The only period coming close to real Capitalism in the USA was from around 1880 through to the 1930's when there was no more "Free land" to seize from another people and no more "Instant Capitalist Class" to be created because they were granted said land or "found Gold" on lands that once belonged to the Natives.
If I am given 40,000 acres of land in Missouri tomorrow and am allowed to work that land using SLAVES , this making me a millionaire many times over on paper, is it YOUR Contention that this is Capitalism as YOU would define it?
If such a grant happened did *I* in fact "create" any wealth ?
I think the answer is a clear NO and I think it should be more then a little obvious that this notion of "Free marketplaces" and "Capitalism" as a means to creating REAL wealth are just myths.
Compare US finances to that of Norway.
I really don't think creating wealth for the state is important. Personal Liberty is worth far more.
George Washington was the richest man in America in the late 1760's and yet he later risked it all including whizzing bullets for his countrymen. He married into wealth before the war according to all my history books. To suggest he built his wealth on slavery is untrue. The same is true of Thomas Jefferson. His plantation was a loser. It eventually bankrupted him. They did, as all southern ag did in Virginia, employ the use of slaves in on their plantations. Washington's "Land Grabs" were according to deeds I have seen, actually purchases from sitting chiefs who were disowned by the tribes later for selling their people down the river. Some sold land rights for whiskey; some for rifles. Apparently, betrayal of one's citizens for personal gain is not confined to the USA.
This Sacred Native American Society you speak of is the biggest myth of all. Ditto for African Tribes. Tribes routinely had slaves themselves, raped and owned women, masacuerd whole families. This routine behavior went on for hundreds of years before Europeans showed up founding colonies on the North American continent. The colonial and archeological record makes this indisputable.
It instead is part of Homo sapien makeup, the very flower of "civilization" who lies, cheats and rewrites history to suit his private disposition.
Your point about Missouri and the later Dread Scott abomination by the supreme court is accepted. Slavery spreading first to Missouri and then to the Nebraska Territory is what caused the Civil War. At least half the country had a conscience. At least half the country knew Jefferson was correct in leading the first early Abolition efforts in the Colonies. Unfortunately he died in poverty before slavery could be abolished.
Now it has returned in the stealth form of economic slavery.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Your worship of the founders of your country is duly noted.
It is as wrong as ever. It is myth upon myth. There was no Cherry tree. The History books you read are the ones you were intended to read.
The personal wealth of these peoples was not built upon the Principles of Free Markets.
Jefferson had slaves. It is fact. George Washington had slaves it is fact. George Washington was known as the "destroyer of towns" this is fact. He gave instructions to completely destroy native Vilages and to make the lands uninhabitable for them. This is not conjecture. One of his first investments after the French and Indian wars was in slaves wherein he bought some 100 more to work "His" lands. As his own records show the lands he acquired via his marriage were in poor condition. He sold slaves when they were disruly, he wrote them down as a loss when they died.
100 slaves was "worth" a lot more then 6000 acres of land because without the slaves to work it the land was worthless. The Conclusion that his wealth was not made off slavery is not logical.
He also acquired a lot of his land through the Ohio Land Company. This Compnay acquired its lands first from a grant from the crown in disputed territories.
George Washington also used indentured servants. That is people who owed debts to the State or who had been convicted of crimes and thus could be forced to work their debts and crimes off. Early America had next to no labor pool. There were not a lot of "Free Americans" looking for jobs. The use of Slaves and indentured servants was widespread. This does not suggest he had a concern for their "Liberties and rights". This was economic slavery. He owned some 300 slaves when he died.
I never suggested that the Native Americans were some utopian society free of slavery and Violence. I stated that the wealth of early Of America was built upon the resources of that country being granted to select individuals through methods having nothing to do with the principles of a free market.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
The truth is somewhere between what Thomas Jefferson and GW both say with a few additional observations necessary.
But it is unctuously self-serving revisionism to tar the founding fathers and their Constitution and Bill of Rights as somehow regressive simply because some of the founding fathers owned slaves. The system of government they conceived must be understood in context as compared and contrasted to all previous forms of government, including previous attempts at democracy (always a very experimental form of government), and then compared and contrasted with the governments that came into being afterwards. The United States of America as originally conceived was a tremendous improvement in government compared to pre-existing forms of government and there have been, even with all its faults, only a tiny handful of nations with both the economic & foreign policy conditions and smarts to improve upon our system with some counterbalancing socialist reforms.
One of the heaviest stones the U.S. has been carrying since 1945 is the cost of the Cold War defense of Europe, the British Commonwealth, Japan and parts of Southeast Asia--long after the end of the Cold War. That long Cold War burden helped addict America to economic and cultural militarism to a crippling degree. Our leaders now dance on the strings of the military/oil/pipeline oligarchs and are only allowed to view the world through an obscenely distorted and fiscally unaffordable military/petrol/pipeline lens. What we might accomplish were we free of even 4/5ths of this burden.
The 2010 Pentagon budget is for $683 Billion dollars. That is $383 Billion dollars more than the peak Cold War Pentagon budget under Reagan & Bush Sr--back when we faced a legitimate national security threat in the form of a nuclear superpower who could obliterate every living thing on this planet 40 times over--not gaggles of religious fanatics wandering around deserts and mountains with AK 47s, RPGs, IEDs and shoulder fired rockets and suicide bombers strapped with explosives. We created our REAL terrorist problems when we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. We should have dealt with 9/11 the same way Clinton successfully dealt with the first WTC attack--as a federal and international police problem. Iraq alone will cost us upwards of $5 Trillion dollars at this rate according to Joseph Stiglitz. No telling what iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen altogether will cost us.
Half of the ruination of the American economy is our outrageously over-extended military empire that has so thoroughly and toxically militarized our entire culture that the American people can imagine nothing better and our "leaders" are not allowed to describe anything better even if they are still capable of imagining it--evidence of which I have not seen since Reagan, ironically, who was more visionary in this respect than any administration or Congressional leader to follow him.
Your problem is again one of being Eurocentric and not recognizing the ebb and flow of the rights and liberties of people WORLDWIDE through several thousand years of history.
When compared to the then current state of "Freedom and Liberty" of peoples in Fuedal and Imperialist Europe, the 13 colonies may have been an expansion of said Liberties but not so to the liberties that might have been enjoyed by the peoples in The Iroquois Confederacy as example. The Cherokee did not gain any liberties in 1776. Indeed they lost most of those they had taken for granted and within decades were rounded up and shipped off the lands they had lived in.
China saw a tremendous expansion of Liberties and freedoms through various dynasties and then the loss of the same as did various Islamic states under various rulers and dynasties.
Women of Ancient Crete and Greece had far more rights and liberties then did women virtually anywhere in the world including the USA after its declaration of Independence. It was not until around 1920 some 3000 years later that Women started to see some of these freedoms return.
The point here is that it was not CAPITALISM that gave birth to these liberties and it was not the United States of America where they were first to coalesce. Even after 1776 the USA hardly led the world in such liberties. Slavery was ended and made illegal in most countries of Europe before the USA repealed the same. Women gained the right to vote in other countries before they gained the same rights in the US. Blacks who escaped slavery in the US and came to Canada were able to buy property, run for office and vote in elections.
Some favored women, some men. Some extended rights to slaves and some took them away.
Just as an example when the first African Americans were shipped to the 13 colonies as workers in the 1600s they had MORE RIGHTS then they did after the declaration of Independence in 1776. In 1612 Virginia considered Blacks as indentured servants who had to be paid a wage and who could in fact BUY their freedom if they managed to lived long enough. These rights eroded entirely over time to the point where they became considered property and could be bought and sold at will.
The moment in History where the US led the world in such was a brief blip in time and like other nations in history that went through the same cycles, those same liberties ebb and wane and today are waning.
The USA is NOT exceptional. That the people will not recognize that and that they continue to subscribe to this myth of being exceptional or unique or the source from which the concepts of freedom, human rights and liberty springs from is at the heart of the reason they are losing the same as other countries expand on their own.
If they can not learn the lesson from other nations that went through the same cycles then the USA will simply become another nation studied years from now as an example as how it can all go wrong.
>>The USA is NOT exceptional.<< Yet the EXAMPLE of the somewhat mythical American democracy inspired many people in many nations which your examples of liberty in other times and places did inspire folks in the same way. (Greek women were not quite as free as all that, their ownership largely restricted to households and under the supervision of husbands.)
The IDEA of human freedom as SEEN in America was a beacon to the world, if not the first example of real liberty as it is still taught in our schools.
Gary
It was the first taught in YOUR schools. It was not the first taught in other schools. It was a "beacon" and a false one at that for the BRIEFEST of times in World History.
When I speak of Greek Women I go back to the times before the Achaen Invasions when the same peoples who ruled in Crete were ruling in Greece.
If you will read the Bill of Rights, many of those were already part of English Common law and of the Magna Carta.
There was an old Saxon law that forbid the entry of the Kings troops or representatives into a mans home from which the saying a Mans Home is his castle comes.
Spartacus inspired the "Idea" of freedom as did revolutionaries in Hungary like Ziska. China had leaders who helped through of the yoke of opression and were venerated a longer period of time then the United States of America has been a country.
The ONLY real difference is that the revolution in the USA Happened just as literacy was expanding in the world and when technologies like BOOKS via the printing press could be read by the common man. The US Revolution happened shortly before the onset of mass communication and a little over a century before the onset of Hollywood films used to broadcast these Myths the world over. (A Century is a short period of time Considering the thousands of years Egypt was a power or the 500 years of Roman predominance)
Had there been the same in Akbar the greats time or had Filmakers been making films of the rights and freedoms the women of Crete took for granted to the women of medeival Europe, or had the Religous tolerance of Suleiman been broadcast into homes or wrote of into books which were read by the peoples of Spain during the inquisition, I suggest that those examples would have been a great a "Beacon" of rights and liberties as that of the framers of the Constitution.
The reformation in Europe had already happened and people WERE beginning only then to learn these things for themselves. The rise of mass literacy in Europe did not arise until the 19th century.
There is a myopia, a tunnel vision that is extant in the USA. One that will not allow them to see outside their borders and one that will not allow them to recognize any history but their own. If you continue the fixation on the self and the myth, progress itslef will become a myth.
Where did I reference a Cherry Tree? ;-) You see, this is what I mean by "revisionist history". In your case, you elect to revise my post to include some simpleton history about chopping down a cherry tree. You presume I am defending the honor of the founding fathers, when all I am interested in is the truth unearthed by naked historical documents largely unknown before this century.
My sources do not, as you assert, include any religious or government tainted fictions designed to keep me goose-stepping off a cliff. My sources are recent noted award-winning historians Ellis, McCullough, Brands and Axlerod. Their recent works access, embarrassing, never before widely-known documents housed by historical societies and the library of congress.
Things we never knew. Such as Thomas Paine was a drunk, Ben Franklin had a bastard son who he disowned during the conflict, Thomas Jefferson procreated with his young slaves, Washington feared the war was lost straight away, and bitterly regretted ever leading the cause etc, etc, etc.
But rather than diminishing these men in my eyes, the reverse has happened. Even as fallible self-centered men, it is apparent they still included every citizen in their concerns and their deliberations. It is a pity they did not consider Blacks or Indians as citizens. ( Lincoln would straighten that out later.) They admitted these two were the unforgivable failures of their generation. Blacks were property, and Indians per the treaty forced on the colonies by the federal government of 1789, were foreign nationals. Jefferson and Former Indian fighters' Knox and Washington demanded and got passed protection for only the Indians. However, even that failed, as a title wave of European immigrants swamped the lands West of Appalachia. Just like the Israeli settlers in Gaza and the West Bank. Most of this was because of religious fanatics, Christians, who claimed God was on their side etc, etc. Once you pretend you're talking to God, and that he's talking back to you, there's no crime you cannot commit and blame it on the moon or the devil. The founding fathers fought tooth and nail to keep Christians out of the government. The first treaty with Tripoli makes that abundantly clear that the US is not founded on Christianity.
I bring this up, because much of the funding for covert ops today, which bloom into full-fledged wars later, come from the offering plate and morph into "faith-based-initiatives". If we, however, reverse this trend, tax churches and audit their money trails, imho, we can expect to see fewer and fewer holy wars (which are really just pretext for empire under the guise of saving souls for the great "Skygod" or Sweet-Jumping-Jesus.)
Why is it we need to find one boogieman for all the problems in the world?
The truth is more intricate, and more interesting. To declare a single boogieman (e.g.. The American Founding Fathers) has nothing to do with truth or history. Fact: America abolished open slavery with the blood of it's sons in the Civil War. (Unlike the fictitious "Blood of the Lamb" story that only starts holy wars.)
Your Ball Reverand, :-)
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
They did not consider women as Citizens either :).
In Celtic society prior to Roman contact women could become Chieftans, Priestesses, own properrty and lands.
I think you miss my point entirely. I am not turning the founding fathers into demons and the source of all the worlds problems. I am merely stating that they were far less then the could have been even for their times. I am also stating that their wealth WAS built on slavery/indentured servants and land grants and not upon principles of the Free market .
Just as example. George Washington freed his slaves in his will. Why would he not do this in his lifetime?
Akbar the Great , Mughal Emperor for some 60 years outlawed slavery entirely in India some 200 years earlier. It was hardly a "new concept" which no others had conceived of. The examples were out there...just as they were for making women equal members of society.
As to my referencing the Cherry tree. You know as well as I do that no such incident occurred. I referenced it to point out how it became part of the MYTH of the founding fathers and peoples to this day focus far to much on the MYTH of those "founding fathers".
I can cut and paste quotes made by Barack Obama and they might seem very very wise indeed. 200 years from now someone can see those quotes and say "This was a brialliant and visionary man". Imagine they quoted his statement on not helping fat cat bankers and concluded "this guy was trying to end the power of fat cat bankers"
What would YOu tell them if you lived that long?
Great arguments Mr GwNorth,
I must concede the debate to you sir.
George Washington and Jefferson (only attempted in Jefferson's case) to free their slaves upon their death, historian Ellis argues, because they knew very well, YOU would be judging them later for dubious actions they decided upon in a colonial era.
I'd not only say that their foresight of the opinion of succeeding generations of their personal matters is impressive in that regard, I'd also say their foresight in the potential betrayal of government in our age was epic. Most of their quotes and actions where not designed to enrich themselves or their supporters; they were designed to cement themselves as worthy forefathers in your eyes.
Clearly they have failed.
But you're a Canadian right? How could you possibly understand the betrayal of my government, the protector of free speech and liberty against it's own citizens? How can you possibly understand this the way I do? Both sides of my family hail from 1610 Jamestown, which is possibly why all my relatives suffer from inbred disabilities.
Compared to what we have now, the American Forefathers and their smuggling merchants were benevolent dictators who at least has the decency to give us a fair vote. Now we have torture and tyranny, oppression and misery. And despotic Monopoly. And NO VOTE. I maintain the founding fathers were better than you could possibly imagine.
You have wounded me with your unfair attacks greater than you can possibly imagine. I strive not to take it personally, but I realize that you have a great mind and that your position merits consideration.
Best Regards,
Your progressive pal,
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
>>American Forefathers and their smuggling merchants were benevolent dictators who at least has the decency to give us a fair vote.<<
If you were white and a male. And in some instances a land-owner...
Gary
dup deleted
"It is a pity they did not consider Blacks or Indians as citizens. ( Lincoln would straighten that out later.)"
A PITY?!!!! More like an atrocity! It was an economic decison based on exclusion, bigotry and profit!
And Lincoln did nothing of the kind. You say you are up to date on the latest historical data. Listen closely. It is a historical fact that the North would have lost the civil war if the African Americans had not been promised emancipation. Sure there were some black northen regiments but the main thing was the desertion en masse of the southern workforce. Freeing the slaves was strategy. Just look at what happened a decade later. Don't tell me if Lincoln would have lived it would have been different. They USED the blacks the same way they USED them in the revolutionary war. They did it AGAIN in WWI and WWII. Blacks didn't begin to live a somewhat free existence here until the NINETEEN 60s, not the EIGHTEEN 60s. You need to remove your blinders about the greed that started and continues to run this country. Google "The Unsteady March". Read up on the free blacks that were NOT allowed to attend the constitutional convention but were gathered only a few blocks away in Philadelifia with petions. You didn't know that, did you? Time to break the brainwwashing, my friend.
AGG,
Sure, I agree with your post. But You seem only to posses a piece of the puzzle.
Have you read "Team of Rivals"?
Far Before war strategy......
It seems you are unaware of the demise of the Whig Party and that Lincoln was the rising Republican star only because of his championship of Jefferson and outspoken condemnation of slavery. In other words, years before he was even elected, and with no funds or supporters, he vocally demanded the abolition of slavery and the country agreed. He came out of nowhere like a bolt from the blue.
This was before the war my friend. It seems you don't know about the politics in the 1850's with Seward, Chase, Bates, McClean, Cameron, John Bell, Clay, Freemont and Banks. Seward in a house rocking speech argued there was a higher authority than the constitution that required abolition. Lincoln rejected this and claimed there was no higher authority than the Declaration of Indepenence nor the Constitution.
Seward was the abolition heir apparent, with Chase frothing behind. But his handler Weed insisted he avoid this brand-new untested party and wait for the next round. Bucannan won with the decaying democrats and Lincoln realized that after the horrible canning in the senate that the time was ripe to assault slavery once and for all.
"Gone with the Wind" started way before the first shots were fired, AGG. Lincoln hitched his wagon to the abolition star before the first votes were cast for him.
Then he followed through. To his death.
This is why even before then he was known as: Honest Abe.
A finer man of the planet, I should hope to ever meet.
your obedient servant,
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson: "Where did I reference a Cherry Tree? ;-)"
You see, the history books are guilty of a case of mistaken identity. It was actually Thomas Jefferson who cut down the cherry tree. You have to understand, Thomas Jefferson was a surveyor. The reason he cut down the cherry tree is actually very reasonable. It was on line. Since it is impossible to gain line of sight through a tree, he simply had no alternative.
Well said. There is no way to justify the founders of the U.S.A. The HUGE elephant in the revolutionary room is that England was abolishing slavery and our founding fathers were sweating bullets about having to lose all that cheap labor. The MAIN cause of the American revolution was to keep slavery legal.
A handle that is named for Thomas Jefferson poses and "endowment problem" for the owner. He/she didn't read the rabid letters Jefferson wrote about the inferiority of blacks. Jefferson went nuts in denial when a free black man computed the ephemeris (exact time of the rise of Jupiter's moons at different longitudes for use by seamen to determine position) with a telescope and a lot of math. This same fellow built a working clock with wood parts. Jefferson REFUSED to accept this as valid proof that blacks were equally human. This Jefferson dude was banging the female slaves at the same time he was spouting all his fine rhetoric about the constitution. He wrote many inspiring words but we know now that he, as all racists, was speaking about white Europeans, period. Jefferson was intelligent but not noble. His actions on Haiti speak much louder than any words he may have uttered about freedom and equality.
>>England was abolishing slavery and our founding fathers were sweating bullets about having to lose all that cheap labor. The MAIN cause of the American revolution was to keep slavery legal.
An excellent point. What people have to do is to take all the collected RIGHTS and Liberties that these "Founders of the Country" argued for and measure how many of said "Rights and Liberties" were for self interest. How many of them negatively impacted those that drew up the constitution and the bill of rights?
The average slave sold for 150$$ in 1760 dollars. Washington owned some 300 of them. The VALUE of his slaves was greater then the value of "the fortune in land and money" he acquired when he married his wife. (The daily wage for a skilled carpenter in that time was about 60 cents per day just for some perspective as to how huge an investment slaves were)
His "wealth" would have been cut in more then half had he Colonies remained part of the crown.
He was also Involved in the Ohio Land Company and other speculative ventures in the west. The Crown was going to close those lands off to settlement. The Ohio Land company was to make profit by dividing the land there into small farms and then selling it to immigrants.
Had the 13 Colonies remained part of the Empire these lands would have been frozen from expansion. The Investors would have lost substantial amounts of potental profit.
Yet we have this myth that Washington was "selfless" and had everything to lose by rising up in rebellion.
Boy, AGG
Is your history skewed. England never abolished slavery in the colonies until AFTER the Seven Years War which left it more broke than the USA after bush's wars. Then it tried to collect on the the never-before-enforced "Navigation Acts" which put a tax on everything imported to the USA (which was everything except hemp, tobacco and squaws.) Promising slaves money and freedom by King George III (a revolt tactic) didn't happen until 1775, well after the hostilities started.
And you're wrong. The American Revolutionary war was not about slavery , King George couldn't care less. It was about his costs of fighting the "French and Indian" seven years war, which mired England in hopeless debt to other European nations.
Wouldn't you agree with me?
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
>>access and control of these riches was not based upon the principles of a free market.<<
Exactly. America became rich due to abundant resources, from vast stores of ore, oil, and forests to the human elements of productivity and innovation; not due to corporate capitalistic neo-feudism but DESPITE it. Just as democracy rose because of liberal thought not the not-so-free market.
The Market does not require capitalism to function. Simple as that. Don't confuse the two.
Gary
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
"Ah, but its better than any other economic system tried so far!"
The poster's use of the vague pronoun "it" here is routine capitalist apologetic nonsense. If the poster is referring to American capitalism then his or her assertion here is laughably false. The socialist democracies of Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway are prime examples of the FAILURE of American style regressive, overly militarized, anti-regulatory laissez-faire capitalism.
The poster's claim that the auto industry in the South is doing well compared to the auto industry in the North is also a generalized attempt to deceive that does not distinguish between American car companies making American cars in America (most of whom procure parts from factories outside America) and foreign owned car companies making foreign cars in America for sale to Americans. All the American owned car company factories in my very large Southern city have already been closed for several years now. Honda, BMW and Toyota have comparatively smaller, more scattered factories in the South paying less with inferior worker benefits than the old American auto workers negotiated with American management.
No American worker, union or non-union, will ever be able to compete with foreign auto industry workers who will work for a dollar an hour or less--regardless of how many concessions American workers make to manufacturing firms in the U.S.
That "free trade" cheap foreign wage pressure to offshore manufacturing combined with the cost to car companies of providing their union workforces with health insurance (an additional cost not borne by Japanese or EU car makers whose countries provide UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE to their workers so the companies don't have to do so) has done far more damage to U.S. auto manufacturing--along with '70s era "planned obsolescence"--than the existence and bargaining tactics of the unions. The unions' biggest mistake was going along with management suggestions to help implement "planned obsolescence." The Japanese and EU car makers already started to eat our auto makers for lunch in the 1980s. The "free trade" regime's implementation in the 1990s was just barbecue sauce on a half-gnawed prize pig. Now GM has a third bailout to go along with its three (3) massive manufacturing plants in China--its new and most profitable market being financed at U.S. tax-payer expense.
Cash for clunkers was just another reward in a long train of rewards for continual poor management decisions on the part of American owned car makers--along with the long history of bailouts for GM and Chrysler. But both these tactics just reward bad management and buying decisions thereby reinforcing them. The 2010 GM Terrain SUV and similar new model Amurkan gas guzzilng dinosaurs show just how very little our obsolete old Big Three have learned. Ford is hanging on by its teeth.
"Lets see how Walmart does going forward when China gets differnt trade agreements from us. Give us a chance to plug the leaks."
Ha-ha-ha-ha-haw!! "Give 'us' a chance to plug the leaks." Is that before or after the good old capitalists ruining the U.S. renege on the nearly $1 Trillion dollars the U.S. officially owes China? Just exactly who in America is going to be in a position to dictate "free trade treaty" terms with the Chinese? Ron Paul? Sarah Palin? Rahm Emmanuel? John Boehner? Nancy Pelosi? Newt Gingrich? Dick Army? Oh, I know, Dick Cheney!
Obama ran for the presidency proclaiming he would rewrite labor and environmental protections in the free trade treaties and reversed himself within 3 months of taking office. NO Republican in the White House or Congress has ever even mentioned the "free trade" regime except when proffering support for it AS IS. Libertarian comments on this subject, like those of Civis Americanus, are absolute generalized visionless gibberish.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
"The public is a lot more aware of tax abatements and there's a climate of skepticism about what can be perceived as corporate handouts."
They ARE corporate handouts and it's long overdue for corporate America to be stripped of its bogus "legal personhood" that allows it even more protections and special privileges than human beings and was something for which 14th Amendment "equal protection" was NEVER INTENDED.
Contracts are honored only when it's cheaper than fighting in court. There is no right or wrong for corporate crooks. Everything is about cost. Nothing is about "externalisms" like community health and welfare.
So this is the triumph of relativism? There is no right or wrong and everyone is for sale.
When the only thing "wrong" with stealing is getting caught, property crime goes through the roof. No police force can stop it. They just don't have the numbers.
Our leaders have set the example of brazen, in your face theft along with a "what are you going to do about it?" smirk. Peaple are going to imitate the Geithners and Bernakes and Paulsons. These are the perceived winners in our jungle society.
The corporatist mindset has unleashed a monster. It will consume them. It will end in a dictatorship because people get tired of having to pay some crook for doing just about everything. Rather than pay a whole slew of crooks, it's easier, simpler and has a lower stress level to pay one top dictator that keeps the other crooks in line.
I'm sorry folks, but there is no short cut here. The people without morals must be rounded up and imprisoned WITHOUT COURTS OR LAWYERS. There is no integrity in our legal system.
Do not count the populist anger in our country out. These guys are not winners yet.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
What semi-mob "populist anger" we have seen thus far is mostly by a pack of right-wing semi-literate self-labeled "Libertarians" and bigots NONE OF WHOM ARE ANTI-CORPORATE. These "populists" want more tax breaks for THEMSELVES not fundamental reform of the legalistic powers and "rights" of corporations. In fact the corporations have won since there is no intelligent organized opposition to them.
I found this book a couple of months ago at a second hand store. "The Empty Tank" by Jeremy Legget. I was just into the second chapter today when I decided to type into the computer, "U.S. Policy on Peak Oil",just to see what I came up with. An article came up by Matt Savarin. I'm sure many of you have already read this. Now, I have come to understand our situation in relation to oil, climate etc.pretty well, but this article really says a lot, with stats etc. I'm printing it and passing out a bunch of them this week. It's cold, but I'm surprised at how many people put up with me stopping them to give them the articles.
So, after reading this, I pretty much can't see my future and my family's future to be anything at all close to what I had envisioned. I mean, over that last three years or so I had been thinking this way, but still feeling like a traitor for feeling like this. But it's not that I have given up. I have many ideas about how to make a good life for my family and I keep studying all the time to learn more all the time. It's complicated. I want to be ready. But many of the things I need to do have to be done within a partnership, with my husband and the kids. Purchases, and lifestyle changes and long term goals. YOu see, we are being lied to on a major scale. Some might say, well, yeah, duh! But, even with knowing this to a certain extent for a these last few years now, there are still times when I am floored by the reality of what's to come... I have started to do some of what's needed, but it's a drop in the bucket. Plus, it will only work if my house is paid off, which it won't be. So, I guess I may need a plan B, which I am actually in denial about.
Once you read it you'll see it won't really matter what localities do to keep business around and their jobs.
Small differences tend to matter more in catastrophes rather than less.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
theinitiate is too lacking in specifics about the nature of the threat she perceives after reading Savarin's article, too vague about what she plans to do about them and too secretive in tone--as if were she to share details of her observations or her response/survival tactics with progressives on this site they might ruin things for her home ownership or her family or something. Calm down and breathe now and then, theinitiate. Don't let your growing awareness and fear hamstring you. Find some community of family, church and/or friends to work out these issues.
Take a look at the progressive Institute for Policy Studies new groups called Common Security Clubs:
http://commonsecurityclub.org/
They have a free .pdf you can download about how to help knit your community together in the unfolding economic crisis.
APPARENTLY, when Corporate Pirates and Political Whores first teamed up for the great Citizen-Gang-Bang, adequate protection against socially transmitted diseases was nowhere to be found.
Now that corporate AIDS (Acquired Income & Desertion Syndrome) has been proven to have devastating effects on entire communities, the focus is to protect citizens against pirates' and politicians' pernicious diseases.
For citizen's interested in not being a "bottom" in the next great menage-a-trois, you must always remember this... while being romanced, never be remiss of the potential to be kissed then dissed.
Let's not forget that Corporation are licensed to do business by States. States need to reign them in, and Citizens in States need to see that that happens.
This is a great start. Glad they are finally seeing the light. One can hope...
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Some recommended books for everyone to read on this subject:
Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights by Thom Hartmann
Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do about It also by Thom Hartmann
As long as corporations have "equal protection rights" as "artificial persons" who are legally equivalent to flesh and blood human beings then States and localities will never be able to sufficiently rein in their abuses to do the country any good.
Only a broad and deep progressive citizen's movement that demands corporate accountability to the citizenry along with the overturning of the Supreme Court decision that granted this bogus status to corporations will be able to achieve the necessary changes to our legal system. Additional cases must be brought to trial that re-focus on early federal court rulings related to this subject as well. The Dimocratic and Rethuglican Parties are far too corrupt to count on for anything but impedance on these issues and that is why the Dimocratic Party must be replaced with a new umbrella Progressive Unity Party to unite all of America's authentic progressives and begin to systematically run candidates in direct primary opposition to the now extremist DLC and GOP candidates.
Sioux Rose
And from here, let's see them start to tax churches for their properties! There is so much prime real estate owned by churches (and other religious institutions), and since MANY of these directly influence the political choices of their constituents, it's HIGH time that these lands were levied with taxes, too! Religion's free ride has expired when too many go hungry or homeless.
Amen!!!
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
What Sioux Rose says is especially true for selective churches who have been receiving large government handouts since Bush II's church-related initiatives. There is documented evidence of the sectarianism and bigotry in the predominantly Protestant Christian churches' abuse of these funds. The churches receiving this government funding are legally vulnerable. The other churches who are not taking this government money have an abundance of "separation of church and State" legal precedents with which to protect themselves and would be a much harder nut to crack.
Well said. Most of those churches are cheap Amway imitations. They are about as Christian as the U.S. is democratic.
Sioux rose i completely agree The churches have had a free ride for far to long
"The willingness to write - and enforce - so-called "clawback" provisions comes even as companies across the country struggle and against a broader backdrop of governments getting tough on business practices." good, but it should also include yuppie managed, hypocritical non-profit corporations such as Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health that lay off workers ostensibly because of the "bad economy" but really to clean house of union supporters--why else have they been hiring under the radar part-time workers? The town of Stockbridge in Massachusetts really should slap a hefty fine on these shameless union busting spiritual elitists.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
What has a non-profit organization laying off union workers in order to hire part-time non-union workers got to do with States and cities clawing back tax incentives from for-profit corporations for not hiring enough workers (or laying off too many once they briefly meet a "trigger" quota) to begin with?
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Our Northern California community fought Wal-Mart's expansion
here for six years. Finally the City council told the company
in a similar way to "clawbacks", here are the problems in our
neighborhoods your expansion would cause. Implement solutions to these
problems and we will let you build.
Wal-Mart could not and so the council voted to deny their plans.
Many communities have defeated Wal-Mart in their quest to take over local economies. The clawback deals area great way to make that company pay for the havoc they have caused across America.
It is another tangling root in the swamp of laissez-faire capitalism, corporations pitting communities against each other in a race to the bottom for jobs in production controlled as far away as Tokyo.
We on the far-left have the solution that fixes this and all the rest of the failures of the "American Way", that the current thronesquatter recently proclaimed "non-negotiable".
The "American Way", long understood to be doomed by anyone who thinks, is giving way to the "people's way", that is, LOCALISM.
Local ownership of production. Nothing else works.
Why exactly would USan elites allow Japanese and European mega-corporations own a large chunk of local production in the USA? USan elites gave up local production in the USA to Japan/Europe to preserve the military arrangement providing for Japan's/Europe's security. USans stood by and let it happen.
Part of the elites' bogus rationale was that, in leading globalization, the USA would embrace a statist division of labor such that the USA would do agriculture and military while other states would do other things.
This is not surprisingly idiotic. We don't want global inter-dependence because it requires an excessive volume of hyper-expensive global freight/passenger transport, it makes the people dependent on elitevil, and it deprives the people of diversity in occupational opportunities.
Leave it to the elites and look what you get. Instead of that, go local, in all of your individual exchange/association.
Beautifully phrased. Another outstanding analysis rtdrury.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
This playing of one person/community against another has been modus operandi of corporations for a long long time, and continues to this day. Just recently, Jamie Dimon of MorganStanley gave the British government a "deal they can't refuse". He flat-out gave an order to that govenment to retract the new windfall-profits tax on bonuses for investment bankers or he would pull the European headquarters from London.
HE gave AN ORDER to the GOVERNMENT of England. Or HE will PUNISH THEM for disobeying. Why is he even talking to the government like this? Oh, that's right, he is used to dealing with the AMERICAN CONGRESS and the government 'of the people'!
But it should be that the elected government gives rules, and like any citizen he does the best he can to comply. But THREATEN the government with the loss of billions of pounds and thousands of jobs, to get a giant tax reduction for his cronies? Why isn't he arrested like any other extortionist? And the money he is using as the stick is American and British government bailout money to boot. Do these people have any shame? Do I even have to ask? Because these kinds of common borderline-criminal corporate actions is what the above article is all about.
This is why unions came into being in the nineteenth century. Because desperate people were being played against each other to drive wages down. Until they Will Work For Food. Which is essentially wage slavery. Which is what the Corporation will always seek. See the Yes Men documentaries, or the documentary THE CORPORATION.
Unions came into being to prevent this from happening by the communal effort of having no-one work until everyone was treated right, with decent wages and benefits at least. But with the rise of transnational corporations, a new playing field was created, that once again pitted the desperate people- but this time of the entire world- against each other to see Who Could Work For Food alone... and this they called by the friendly-sounding term, Globalization.
And corporations learned that they could spread this practice to play this on commuinties and governments that wanted to become 'business-friendly' also, as the government prostituted itself to big business who told them to "do what we want, or we will move over to X, and X is desperate enough to do what we want and more."
And they also learned they could even do this EVEN to the Congress of these United States. And so they have done. Just recently, there were the bank bailouts and the Wall Street bailouts (which really have cost somewhere around 22 TRILLION dollars handled with a magician's misdirection of merely 700 billion- look there and don't look at the Fed... and what did the ordinary citizen get? The Bill), the corporatized health care fiasco, and the MIC-mandated continuation of the absurd and immoral "war on horror... er, fear...er, bemusement... er, yeah, terror." All examples of this basic Extortion Racketeering.
For EXTORTION is the real name to give to these kinds of Corporate actions. And finally communities are beginning to wake up to the fact that the community will get the shitty end of the stick EVERY time... or the deal will not be made. Government should be mandated to be business-neutral, not business-friendly as in "hey big boy wanna party in my juris-diction?"
For an example: "We need a government-funded new staduim to be built on government-eminent-domain-taken land and big tax breaks/taxbase support or we will leave town", will demand the true owners of a city's ball team. And a big push is made to get this done, by hook and by crook and by deception. This real example is Dubya's smarmy Texas baseball stadium deal, and this totally corrupt deal earned tens of millions of embezzled dollars for Dubya Bush in the crooked outcome, a deal that also forced an existing community to have to move from the new stadium site. And this is just one small, egregious, openly-known example. So it goes.
Government entities and individuals must learn to band together for the common good and say No. That is unionism, and that and honest governemtn oversight is part of how corporations can be tamed... somewhat.
There is NO reason that cities, counties, states, or even national governments should give FOR PROFIT companies tax breaks. The corporations need to be paying their fair share of the cost of services necessary to maintain the quality of community life for their employees.