Power to the Consumer

Power to the Consumer

9-22-11

An argument that I keep getting into with some of my more corporate friendly friends and family is that if you raise taxes on the corporations, what’s to stop them from passing those increased tax rates onto the consumers? Well, we the consumers have a choice in whether or not to buy from companies who raise their prices to cover their increased taxes on their (quite obscene in this economic downturn, let’s be honest) profits.
I don’t truly begrudge them their money, but to call them job producers and say that they are helping the economy while they are sending all their jobs and money overseas is asinine. They hide as corporations from having to pay any taxes via shell corporations, so that they, as corporations, can have more money to do whatever they like with the planet and their resources (read people, because, after all, we aren’t individuals, we are *resources*). They hide as individuals with offshore banking accounts and creative accounting to avoid having to pay any taxes as well.
Sure, the small people do some similar things but for very different reasons. It’s because as our tax burden increases, we simply lack the money to pay. It isn’t even because we, as a class, don’t want to pay our government, though I am sure many of us would rather we didn’t have to. It’s largely because, well, a lot of us pour all our money into our bills, or simply do not have jobs. Jobs. You know, that thing that the small person has to go to in order to make money? See, most of us don’t have a lot of stocks and bonds. We don’t own a lot of property. The old rich guys will point out that we own a television, a computer, or a cell phone. I would like to point out that at least one of those things is mandatory (cell phone) for existence today (sorry to burst your bubble, but land lines are well on their way to becoming nice and obsolete). A computer comes in a close second as mandatory, since most jobs now won’t look at you unless you submit your resume online. There are other options, too, and a lot of people do use them.
The jobless, by and large, are not lazy. The people protesting on Wall Street right now are not lazy hippies (okay, well, some of them might be, but hey, it’s a protest!). They want to work. They have looked hard for work. There is no work there for them. If there is work, they aren’t hired because they are, “over qualified.” Yes. People get rejected from jobs all the time because they are over-qualified for it. So, a lot of people tailor their resumes to edit out their schooling or their previous job experience to hide the fact that they actually have skills, just so that they might have income. Maybe then, McDonald’s will take a second look at them.
Many of those who are of the 99% are struggling because there are no jobs that they can fill for what they trained to become. Their markets dried up as they went to school for it. The forecasts when they went into school were good for their fields. These people weren’t stupid or lazy.
So, these jobless people come and protest the greed they see on Wall Street, bred by these corporations that claim to be people. They come to protest against the fact that these corporations can buy the vote of the people who are supposed to be serving their constituents. They come to protest the banks taking public money and refusing to change their practices while more and more people lose their homes. They come to protest the pseudo people sending more and more jobs away from this country to cut costs, boost profits, and refuse to pay any taxes on any of it.
I go back to my original question...
What’s to stop these corporations from passing the costs of tax increases onto the consumer?
The consumer.