Corporate Moochers - how to spot them

[Canard DuJour]

It seems, if your company is _unable_ to make a satisfactory profit without the government assisting your employees in staying alive through food, medicaid and welfare, then you are kind of a "taker," right? A moocher? A Welfare Queen? If you can't make a profit without government help, then your business is not a "job creator."

So if you pay employees so little that they cannot afford basic food and housing and medical care, then your business is expecting the government to keep your workers alive. THE CORPORATION is on welfare. If the corporation complains that paying a living wage will put them out of business, then you are already out of business, you're just on government life support mooching right now.

Exactly.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I have a really really large problem with a company making profits - huge profits - while requiring aid from welfare to keep their employees alive.

You are starting with the assumption that the company is responsible for the living expenses and general welfare of the employees, as if they were the company's responsibility to support, as if they were the company's children.

The companies don't see it that way. They see a contract of employment as a contract for services. They negotiate the lowest price they can for the best service they can get for that money. When you contract with your cell phone company for a cheaper rate, you don't feel responsible if the company doesn't make enough off of you and has to go bankrupt or restructure. They see their employees similarly.

They may increase wages if it gets them better employees, and often this is the case (you want a workforce that is happy and healthy because they are more productive) but they see themselves as having no inherent responsibility to pay any more than they are required to by contract or by law (that's where minimum wage comes in). On the flipside, they should have no right to force their employees to work just for them and have no other income.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I have a really really large problem with a company making profits - huge profits - while requiring aid from welfare to keep their employees alive.

You are starting with the assumption that the company is responsible for the living expenses and general welfare of the employees, as if they were the company's responsibility to support, as if they were the company's children.

The companies don't see it that way. They see a contract of employment as a contract for services. They negotiate the lowest price they can for the best service they can get for that money. When you contract with your cell phone company for a cheaper rate, you don't feel responsible if the company doesn't make enough off of you and has to go bankrupt or restructure. They see their employees similarly.

They may increase wages if it gets them better employees, and often this is the case (you want a workforce that is happy and healthy because they are more productive) but they see themselves as having no inherent responsibility to pay any more than they are required to by contract or by law (that's where minimum wage comes in). On the flipside, they should have no right to force their employees to work just for them and have no other income.

Exactly. This is the fundamental issue--whether business is responsible for welfare or not. As far as I'm concerned welfare is the government's job, attempts to push it onto business are simply attempts to get it off the books.

 

[Bomb#20]

Yes. How does that undercut my argument? Did I claim somebody was being underpaid or overpaid?

Try to focus, if the return to any input is subjective, you really have no objective basis to criticize someone else's views on the matter. Hence your objections to Rhea's views reflect your views and do not reflect objective criticism.

That's rather like claiming that since I don't have an argument for compulsory Lutheranism, it follows that I can have no objective criticism of compulsory Catholicism and my objection to it therefore merely reflects my subjective preference for Lutheranism. Rhea didn't say she'd prefer companies to pay higher wages. She gave an argument for why companies that don't are doing something wrong. But her argument assumed a false premise. So I pointed it out. Pointing out an argument is based on a false premise is an objective criticism.

Well, I haven't seen a lot of good arguments for why when A and B swap stuff with each other their exchange rate should be dictated by C's preference orderings. The subjectivity of value has been standard economic theory for over a hundred years. If you disagree with it, can you produce a falsifiable prediction derived from a theory of objective value?

The point of this string of non-sequiturs is...?

Non-sequitur actually means something; if you're going to use the term you kind of need a reason. I'm explaining my perspective and inviting you to explain why "I suppose the subjectivity of this topic is the source of your persistent free market memes" is an issue to you.

Wal-Mart is (in)famous for successfully avoiding paying taxes and for playing localities off one another for tax breaks - a clear indication of corporate moochery.

What, has Wal-mart been threatening to ship weapons to localities' enemy localities unless they get tax breaks? Localities are offering tax breaks in order to avoid Wal-Mart not setting up shop in them -- a clear indication that the localities think even at the reduced tax rate Wal-Mart will still be paying more to local government than the net cost to it of having Wal-Mart around. "Mooch" does not mean "pay less than monopoly pricing".

 

[Canard DuJour]

It's a basic equation of the supply and demand for labour. If Walmart employees had the skills to make more money somewhere else, they would, but they don't have those skills so they stay. If they're not really contributing much, and thousands of others can do what they do, why should their wages be high?

They probably shouldn't be high, just adequate to cover labour costs. The same burger flipped by Warren Buffet or a neurosurgeon wouldn't fetch a penny more. If that's not enough to keep an employee without the taxpayer having to chip in, the problem is the employer's business plan, not the employee.

 

[Canard DuJour]

You are starting with the assumption that the company is responsible for the living expenses and general welfare of the employees, as if they were the company's responsibility to support, as if they were the company's children.

The companies don't see it that way. They see a contract of employment as a contract for services. They negotiate the lowest price they can for the best service they can get for that money. When you contract with your cell phone company for a cheaper rate, you don't feel responsible if the company doesn't make enough off of you and has to go bankrupt or restructure. They see their employees similarly.

They may increase wages if it gets them better employees, and often this is the case (you want a workforce that is happy and healthy because they are more productive) but they see themselves as having no inherent responsibility to pay any more than they are required to by contract or by law (that's where minimum wage comes in). On the flipside, they should have no right to force their employees to work just for them and have no other income.

Exactly. This is the fundamental issue--whether business is responsible for welfare or not.

Nowt to do with it. Without gov't -i.e. taxpayer- assistance, they couldn't afford their own labour costs. Were it any other factor of production, the "free-market" crowd would be screaming about subsidy and distortion.

 

[J842P]

It's a basic equation of the supply and demand for labour. If Walmart employees had the skills to make more money somewhere else, they would, but they don't have those skills so they stay. If they're not really contributing much, and thousands of others can do what they do, why should their wages be high?

They probably shouldn't be high, just adequate to cover labour costs. The same burger flipped by Warren Buffet or a neurosurgeon wouldn't fetch a penny more. If that's not enough to keep an employee without the taxpayer having to chip in, the problem is the employer's business plan, not the employee.

This is based on the false premise that the employee wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the state. That's NONSENSE. They would be poor and even more desperate, and they might be willing to work for even less!

 

[Canard DuJour]

This is based on the false premise that the employee wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the state. That's NONSENSE. They would be poor and even more desperate, and they might be willing to work for even less!

Nah it's based on the premise that there'd soon be too few of them in a fit state to do the work for the market clearing wage to stay that low.

 

[ZiprHead]

Wal-Mart is (in)famous for successfully avoiding paying taxes and for playing localities off one another for tax breaks - a clear indication of corporate moochery.

So let me get this straight, you are claiming that Walmart did not pay an effective rate of around 30 percent on it's income in 2013, contrary to what they claim on their financial statements?

It's fairly obvious he meant avoiding other types of taxes not simply what they pay in income tax. Only a small percentage of cities and municipalities in America have a local income tax.

I've heard many Walmarts get sales tax exemptions. Of course they still collect the tax at the check-out lines.

 

[laughing dog]

Yes. How does that undercut my argument? Did I claim somebody was being underpaid or overpaid?

Try to focus, if the return to any input is subjective, you really have no objective basis to criticize someone else's views on the matter. Hence your objections to Rhea's views reflect your views and do not reflect objective criticism.

That's rather like claiming that since I don't have an argument for compulsory Lutheranism, it follows that I can have no objective criticism of compulsory Catholicism and my objection to it therefore merely reflects my subjective preference for Lutheranism. Rhea didn't say she'd prefer companies to pay higher wages. She gave an argument for why companies that don't are doing something wrong. But her argument assumed a false premise. So I pointed it out. Pointing out an argument is based on a false premise is an objective criticism.

If that is what you belief you are doing, you are mistaken. But then again, since your argument is based on a false premise about subjectivity, you should agree it is wrong.

Non-sequitur actually means something; if you're going to use the term you kind of need a reason.

I am well aware of the meaning and it seems you are not.

I'm explaining my perspective and inviting you to explain why "I suppose the subjectivity of this topic is the source of your persistent free market memes" is an issue to you.

It is not an "issue" for me.

What, has Wal-mart been threatening to ship weapons to localities' enemy localities unless they get tax breaks? Localities are offering tax breaks in order to avoid Wal-Mart not setting up shop in them -- a clear indication that the localities think even at the reduced tax rate Wal-Mart will still be paying more to local government than the net cost to it of having Wal-Mart around.

And somehow you think this is important to point out that WalMart uses its market power to pit localities against one another in order to reduce its local tax liabilities rebuts my claim? Or is this apologia for Wal-Mart shifting its local tax liabilities onto other local taxpayers?

"Mooch" does not mean "pay less than monopoly pricing".

We agree that is true, but, I suspect we do not agree that is yet another non-sequitur of yours.

 

[J842P]

This is based on the false premise that the employee wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the state. That's NONSENSE. They would be poor and even more desperate, and they might be willing to work for even less!

Nah it's based on the premise that there'd soon be too few of them in a fit state to do the work for the market clearing wage to stay that low.

I'm not exactly sure what you are claiming. Can you spell it out for me, please?

 

[Rhea]

Ok, I just wanted to address one thing before getting into the meat of your argument.
"Supply and demand" does not say that employees must look for work to receive benefits. That isn't something decided by a market - that's a government action. It would have to be government action for it to be corporate welfare.

Here's the connection: *this* demand, the one where you want enough food to stay alive, requires that in applying for public assistance you must look for a job. And if you can't find a real job, you are forced to work for a place like Walmart.

So here are your choices.
- land a job with a living wage
- try to get public assistance, which requires you to take any job, even one that will not pay a living wage.


That's the "supply" and "demand" that is actually going on, not some capitalistic utopia supply and demand. It's the one that lets Walmart run their business paying people less than a living wage because the need to get assistance to requires the workers to be indentured like that.

It's a pretty sick system.

 

[Bomb#20]

But her argument assumed a false premise. So I pointed it out. Pointing out an argument is based on a false premise is an objective criticism.

If that is what you belief you are doing, you are mistaken.

So you're simply telling me I'm wrong without bothering to offer a reason. I had a T.A. who did that. I doubt he ever became a professor.

But then again, since your argument is based on a false premise about subjectivity, you should agree it is wrong.

And you should agree to be arrested and convicted of "crime". You haven't told me what false premise about subjectivity you think my argument is based on, that we may check your claim for correctness.

Localities are offering tax breaks in order to avoid Wal-Mart not setting up shop in them -- a clear indication that the localities think even at the reduced tax rate Wal-Mart will still be paying more to local government than the net cost to it of having Wal-Mart around.

And somehow you think this is important to point out that WalMart uses its market power to pit localities against one another in order to reduce its local tax liabilities rebuts my claim?

Yes, it obviously rebuts your claim. Shopping around is not mooching. Mooching would be paying less than what it actually costs the locality to have them there. Your claim of mooching was based on Wal-Mart paying less than what the localities would charge if they had no competition and therefore could jack up the price far above what it costs them to have a Wal-Mart.

Or is this apologia for Wal-Mart shifting its local tax liabilities onto other local taxpayers?

Wal-Mart can't shift its local tax liabilities onto other local taxpayers. Wal-Mart is not a government. And there is no Law of the Conservation of Tax Revenue that automatically makes other taxpayers kick in whatever you wish Wal-Mart would kick in. Their tax liability is determined by the government's choice of tax law, not by what Wal-Mart pays. And you are arguing as though tax liability were a natural phenomenon rather than whatever the government chooses. If, but for shopping around, Wal-mart would have to pay two million, but instead it negotiates a 50% lower rate, then you have zero basis for calling two million "its local tax liabilities". Its local tax liability is one million. The fact that you'd prefer they pay two million so as to pay for some government service to a third party you want doesn't make their failure to do so mooching, any more than the fact that even if they didn't shop around and paid the two million straight up, but you'd prefer they pay three million and pay for some government service to a fourth party you want would make paying only two million "mooching". Mooching is not determined by how many third and fourth parties they are paying for government services for. It's determined by whether they're paying for government services to themselves; and the fact that localities are willing to bid down the price in order to get them is proof that the local governments think they are.

"Mooch" does not mean "pay less than monopoly pricing".

We agree that is true, but, I suspect we do not agree that is yet another non-sequitur of yours.

But the tax rate you were judging moocherhood by comparing Wal-Mart's tax rate with was the rate paid when one doesn't pit suppliers against one other, a.k.a., the monopoly rate.

 

[laughing dog]

So you're simply telling me I'm wrong without bothering to offer a reason. I had a T.A. who did that. I doubt he ever became a professor.

No, he probably is a professor. I can see no instance of you claiming the OP analysis is based on a false premise.

And you should agree to be arrested and convicted of "crime". You haven't told me what false premise about subjectivity you think my argument is based on, that we may check your claim for correctness.

Actually, I did, but I'll repeat it. If you believe the return to inputs is determined subjectively, then there is no basis for an objective criticism of whether the return to an input is appropriate or not (which is part of the OP).

I did not address your claim that the returns to inputs cannot be determined objectively. Certainly, economists make estimates of such returns using a variety of models. But I do not wish to get into a possible derail about the objectivity of economic modelling,

Yes, it obviously rebuts your claim. Shopping around is not mooching. Mooching would be paying less than what it actually costs the locality to have them there. Your claim of mooching was based on Wal-Mart paying less than what the localities would charge if they had no competition and therefore could jack up the price far above what it costs them to have a Wal-Mart. [/quote] Charitably put, the italicized sentence, is a disputable claim on which that argument rests. The italicized phrase is an unsubstantiated assumption about local gov't behavior that is also highly disputable.

Wal-Mart can't shift its local tax liabilities onto other local taxpayers. Wal-Mart is not a government. And there is no Law of the Conservation of Tax Revenue that automatically makes other taxpayers kick in whatever you wish Wal-Mart would kick in. Their tax liability is determined by the government's choice of tax law, not by what Wal-Mart pays. And you are arguing as though tax liability were a natural phenomenon rather than whatever the government chooses. If, but for shopping around, Wal-mart would have to pay two million, but instead it negotiates a 50% lower rate, then you have zero basis for calling two million "its local tax liabilities". Its local tax liability is one million. The fact that you'd prefer they pay two million so as to pay for some government service to a third party you want doesn't make their failure to do so mooching, any more than the fact that even if they didn't shop around and paid the two million straight up, but you'd prefer they pay three million and pay for some government service to a fourth party you want would make paying only two million "mooching". Mooching is not determined by how many third and fourth parties they are paying for government services for. It's determined by whether they're paying for government services to themselves; and the fact that localities are willing to bid down the price in order to get them is proof that the local governments think they are.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to discuss the intricacies of the tax incidence even assuming I had the slightest expectation you are intellectually open to such exercises.

QUOTE=Bomb#20;8159]
But the tax rate you were judging moocherhood by comparing Wal-Mart's tax rate with was the rate paid when one doesn't pit suppliers against one other, a.k.a., the monopoly rate.

Even using the unique definition, Wal-Mart does pit "suppliers" against one another via getting localities in tax wars.

 

[Bomb#20]

I can see no instance of you claiming the OP analysis is based on a false premise.

That's immaterial since what we've been debating is my reply to post #7, not my reply to post #1; the problem with the OP analysis as I said is that its premises don't imply its conclusions. I pointed out the false premise underlying the post #7 analysis in this exchange:

Yet they aren't just getting a low-wage job that is only worth low wages. The Walmart Corp makes MASSIVE profits. The system is forcing these people to take any old job - I'd be okay with that except when someone is making a monstrous unreasonable profit off their labor.

Do you have any basis, apart from faith in the metaphysical Labor Theory of Value, to believe that how much a job is worth is determined by an employer's profits and that the profits are made "off their labor"? A business is a synergistic operation -- the income is generated by the complicated interaction of many different inputs. There's no objective way to compute the contribution to total production in dollars of each input and add them up to get the total income.

She offered the massive profits as evidence for the job being worth higher wages, and claimed the profits were made off that labor. That inference takes for granted that there's such a thing as how much the job is objectively worth and there's a fact of the matter as to which inputs the profits were made off of.

(Looking again, I see another false premise in there. Nobody's forced to take any old job. The system requires aid recipients to look for work; but nobody's compelling unemployed people to come off as desirable in their interviews.)

And you should agree to be arrested and convicted of "crime". You haven't told me what false premise about subjectivity you think my argument is based on, that we may check your claim for correctness.

Actually, I did, but I'll repeat it. If you believe the return to inputs is determined subjectively, then there is no basis for an objective criticism of whether the return to an input is appropriate or not (which is part of the OP).

That's not "Actually, I did". That's "Actually, I didn't". You're not identifying any premise of my argument, false or otherwise; you're simply accusing me of inconsistency. And your accusation is mistaken, since I'm not criticizing whether the return is appropriate or not. If Rhea wants to claim a higher return would be appropriate because she feels sympathy for low wage workers, people are entitled to feel any way they like about what's appropriate. I was criticizing her argument, not her opinion.

I did not address your claim that the returns to inputs cannot be determined objectively. Certainly, economists make estimates of such returns using a variety of models. But I do not wish to get into a possible derail about the objectivity of economic modelling,

Not sure how that would be a derail, seeing as it appears popular folk-notions about the objectivity of economic modeling underlie the original poster's thinking on the topic of how to spot moochers. But regardless, we need to make a distinction here. Certainly it's possible in principle to objectively determine the marginal return to an input. But that no more implies an objective absolute return to that input than the fact that a photon has an objective velocity dX/dT implies that it also has to have an absolute position X. Relative quantities can have absolute derivatives.

The existence of an objective marginal return to the jobs in question offers no support to Rhea's argument, since a calculation of their marginal return will almost certainly come out a lot closer to their actual wage than to the higher wage of Rhea's dreams, since otherwise Wal-Mart would be on a massive hiring spree. Her argument depends on the existence of an objective absolute return to an input. So when you say certainly economists make estimates of returns to inputs using a variety of models, do you mean they estimate absolute returns, or do you just mean they estimate marginal returns?

Yes, it obviously rebuts your claim. Shopping around is not mooching. Mooching would be paying less than what it actually costs the locality to have them there. Your claim of mooching was based on Wal-Mart paying less than what the localities would charge if they had no competition and therefore could jack up the price far above what it costs them to have a Wal-Mart.

Charitably put, the italicized sentence, is a disputable claim on which that argument rests. The italicized phrase is an unsubstantiated assumption about local gov't behavior that is also highly disputable.

Wal-Mart getting local gov't to agree to its terms by handing envelopes of bills through councilmen's car windows would give you a good case for mooching; but that wouldn't be playing different localities off each other, would it? So if my assumption about local gov't behavior is so disputable, present an alternate theory of the behavior of local government that better explains why North Podunk, Flyoverstate agrees to a special tax break for Wal-Mart when they think South Podunk is going to offer one.

Mooching is not determined by how many third and fourth parties they are paying for government services for. It's determined by whether they're paying for government services to themselves; and the fact that localities are willing to bid down the price in order to get them is proof that the local governments think they are.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to discuss the intricacies of the tax incidence even assuming I had the slightest expectation you are intellectually open to such exercises.

Good argument.

But the tax rate you were judging moocherhood by comparing Wal-Mart's tax rate with was the rate paid when one doesn't pit suppliers against one other, a.k.a., the monopoly rate.

Even using the unique definition, Wal-Mart does pit "suppliers" against one another via getting localities in tax wars.

That was never a point in dispute. What pitting suppliers against one another does is drive the price down from the monopoly price to the competitive price. So my comment about monopoly prices was not a non sequitur; and unless you can produce a reason to believe people have to pay monopoly prices in order not to be moochers, your comment about playing localities off one another was not evidence that Wal-Mart mooches.

 

[laughing dog]

]That's not "Actually, I did". That's "Actually, I didn't". You're not identifying any premise of my argument, false or otherwise; you're simply accusing me of inconsistency. And your accusation is mistaken, since I'm not criticizing whether the return is appropriate or not. If Rhea wants to claim a higher return would be appropriate because she feels sympathy for low wage workers, people are entitled to feel any way they like about what's appropriate. I was criticizing her argument, not her opinion.

Quibble and evade all you wish. But it doesn't change the fact that your criticism has no objective using your own standard.

 

[Bomb#20]

Here's the connection: *this* demand, the one where you want enough food to stay alive, requires that in applying for public assistance you must look for a job. And if you can't find a real job, you are forced to work for a place like Walmart.

So here are your choices.
- land a job with a living wage
- try to get public assistance, which requires you to take any job, even one that will not pay a living wage.

For the sake of argument let's pretend that's true. If so...

That's the "supply" and "demand" that is actually going on, not some capitalistic utopia supply and demand. It's the one that lets Walmart run their business paying people less than a living wage because the need to get assistance to requires the workers to be indentured like that.

It's a pretty sick system.

... can you answer two questions?

(a) How much money do you think a "living wage" is?

(b) In the centuries before government tried to make sure everybody got enough to eat, did the companies that were able to stay in business pay all their employees that much (adjusted for inflation)?

 

[Underseer]

[...]

(a) How much money do you think a "living wage" is?

At the moment, we spend billions of taxpayer dollars in providing food and health care to people with full time jobs. Corporations are soaking the taxpayer to pad their profit margins to the tune of billions per year. So the answer to your question is whatever it has to be to stop corporations from using the taxpayer as a piggy bank.

(b) In the centuries before government tried to make sure everybody got enough to eat, did the companies that were able to stay in business pay all their employees that much (adjusted for inflation)?

Are you sure you want to use the past as a guide?

In the past, large companies were broken up into smaller companies, and this is a tradition that goes back to Britain long before America became a nation. The idea was to improve competition, thus keeping the market healthy, but you rightists have decided that competition is bad for capitalism and that anti-trust laws should never be enforced.

Furthermore, most places in the English-speaking world required corporate charters to include things like working for the good of the local municipality, working for the good of the state/province, working for the good of the nation, and these considerations were to be equal to or even superior to the profit margins. Corporations managed to manipulate governments in order to remove those requirements, but are you sure you want to bring those back?

If the past is our model for doing things, then we should bring back aggressive enforcement of antitrust laws and bring back the laws governing what could and could not be in a corporate charter.

Now, may I ask you a question?

Why do you think it's OK for corporations to just steal billions of taxpayer dollars every year just to pad the profits of companies that are already extremely profitable? If you want to just give lots of your own money to corporations while receiving nothing in return, you are more than welcome to do so, but because of the way this is happening, I am forced to give away large sums of money to highly profitable corporations with no return. Why do you think I as a taxpayer should be bilked like this?

And should we raise taxes so that we can give even more money to already-profitable corporations? I mean, if giving away money brings so much good to the nation, then surely we can bring even more good by giving away even more tax dollars, right? How much should we increase taxes in order to fund this corporate welfare?

 

[Bomb#20]

(a) How much money do you think a "living wage" is?

At the moment, we spend billions of taxpayer dollars in providing food and health care to people with full time jobs. Corporations are soaking the taxpayer to pad their profit margins to the tune of billions per year. So the answer to your question is whatever it has to be to stop corporations from using the taxpayer as a piggy bank.

So in other words, it's however much money your religion's believers have faith that it is. Your answer assumes your conclusion as a premise.

(b) In the centuries before government tried to make sure everybody got enough to eat, did the companies that were able to stay in business pay all their employees that much (adjusted for inflation)?

Are you sure you want to use the past as a guide?

Are you sure you want to make up a position out of whole cloth and attribute it to your opponent so you can score a rhetorical point against him in the eyes of the choir you're preaching to, instead of reading for content, assuming his words mean what they say, and engaging in a substantive discussion of the issue at hand?

I did not in any way suggest we should use the past as a guide. You have zero basis for attributing such a position to me. I asked a simple question. You have a choice of three reasonable responses. You can (a) not reply at all, since I asked Rhea, not you. You can (b) offer your opinion as to whether the answer to my question is "Yes." or "No.". Or you can (c), form a hypothesis of where I'm going with that question based on the context in which I asked it, subject your hypothesis to at least five seconds of critical thought, and then, if your hypothesis makes enough sense to be half-way plausible, ask me if that's what I'm getting at. Your option to (d), form a hypothesis of where I'm going with that question based on what sort of nasty ad hominem against me it would lead you to make, subject your hypothesis to no critical thought whatsoever, and then compose a "Have you stopped beating your wife?" question that takes your hypothesis for granted, is not a reasonable response.

In the past, large companies were broken up into smaller companies, and this is a tradition that goes back to Britain long before America became a nation. The idea was to improve competition, thus keeping the market healthy, but you rightists have decided that competition is bad for capitalism and that anti-trust laws should never be enforced.

Why do you behave this way? Do chimpanzees give you feces-throwing envy? That would explain a lot.

I am not a member of any "You X-ists" who have decided any such thing; I think competition is great for capitalism and anti-trust laws should be enforced. And even if your current feces-throwing had been on target, you're derailing -- whether large companies are broken up is an entirely separate topic from the topic of this thread.

Now, may I ask you a question?

Why do you think it's OK for corporations to just steal billions of taxpayer dollars every year just to pad the profits of companies that are already extremely profitable? If you want to just give lots of your own money to corporations while receiving nothing in return, you are more than welcome to do so, but because of the way this is happening, I am forced to give away large sums of money to highly profitable corporations with no return. Why do you think I as a taxpayer should be bilked like this?

Here's a question for you in turn. Do you care at all whether the things you write are true? Is this all just rhetoric-war to you, where you judge arguments not by whether they're logical but by whether their purported conclusions are favorable to your in-group, and where you judge your own performance not by whether you argued rationally and honorably but by whether, fair or foul, you've spread your memes?

On the off chance that you wrote that paragraph out of genuine cluelessness rather than deliberate misrepresentation, here, just for you, is a clue. I'm an atheist. That does not mean I deny your god because I'm mad at him or I'm just enjoying my own sinfulness too much. That means I really, genuinely do not believe he exists, because your religion is really, really stupid. I understand that that's a hard thing for true-believers to wrap their minds around. I understand that your religion, like other religions, teaches you to believe that you don't need to think about infidels' stated reasons for rejecting your faith because they really already all know perfectly well that yours is the One True God, and they're just being dicks about admitting it. Religions teach their believers to believe this about infidels because religions don't want believers to subject their own beliefs to critical thought, so they give their believers an excuse not to -- an excuse that appeals to their believers' worst impulses to see themselves as better than other people.

Do you understand what I'm saying to you? Do you understand that your above paragraph is indistinguishable from a Christian taking for granted that the atheist he's talking to really knows there's a God? Your above paragraph takes your conclusion as a premise. But, worse, it takes for granted not only that your conclusion is true but also that I agree that your conclusion is true. I don't agree. I don't think it's OK for corporations to just steal billions of taxpayer dollars; but I also don't think spending billions of taxpayer dollars in providing food and health care to people with full time jobs constitutes corporations stealing. I'm not just being a dick about this; I really sincerely don't. The reason I don't think so is not because I love corporations or hate workers or think we should use the past as a guide or any other explanation your religion makes up out of whole cloth and imputes to the infidel. The reason I don't think so is much simpler than that. The reason I don't think so is because the notion that that's stealing, or mooching, or using the taxpayer as a piggy bank, is just really, really stupid. It's stupid on a level with Christianity. It is mind-boggling to me that otherwise intelligent educated humans can credit such drivel; but then it's mind-boggling to me that otherwise intelligent educated humans can credit Christianity, and yet it happens. Such is the power of the human ability to reserve critical thought for ideas they already wish to refute.

So stop misrepresenting me, and either leave answering my questions to Rhea or else give a reasonable response.

 

[Canard DuJour]

This is based on the false premise that the employee wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the state. That's NONSENSE. They would be poor and even more desperate, and they might be willing to work for even less!

Nah it's based on the premise that there'd soon be too few of them in a fit state to do the work for the market clearing wage to stay that low.

I'm not exactly sure what you are claiming. Can you spell it out for me, please?

Hungry, homeless and sick people couldn't sustain the typical MW employer. Most MW employees, for example, prepare and serve food, which few consumers would want from anyone who eats and sleeps at the dumpster. Before anyone died, customers would stay away in droves and employee attendance would become erratic and unproductive. Accident, absenteeism, theft, sanitation and wastage costs would steadily climb. For them not to be forcibly closed on public health grounds would require repeal of laws which would be reinstated at the first sign of the diseases of poverty re-emerging. To reliably produce and sell enough, employers would have to find people who weren't so desperate, which genuinely marginal employers couldn't afford.

Now, say some could survive indefinitely employing starving destitutes - call centres perhaps? That's still roundabout admission that they couldn't without subsidised labour in conditions acceptable to the society in which they must operate. That in itself is no terrible thing IMO, but taxpayers are entitled to object to anyone skimming huge profits.