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| Yes, corporations are people (939525) | |
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| (939525) | |
Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:12:24 2012 http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/07/yes-corporations-are-people/“I don’t care how many ways you try to explain it: Corporations aren’t people. People are people.” So said President Barack Obama in a campaign kickoff speech in Ohio this past weekend. He’s referring, of course, to Gov. Mitt Romney’s August 2011 response to a heckler at an Iowa campaign stop that “corporations are people” — rejecting the idea that taxing corporations to reduce the national debt wouldn’t require taxing “people.” The tone of the coverage at the time suggested that Romney’s statement was a gaffe that he should retract, pronto. President Obama clearly plans to dwell on it throughout the course of his campaign. But if Romney’s statement was a gaffe, it was only one in the classic Washington sense: a statement that’s undeniably true, but politically inconvenient to acknowledge. Corporations are composed of people. So are unions. So are universities. So are families. The belief that we can somehow “tax corporations” without “taxing people” is the fallacy at the heart of Romney’s exchange. It’s the same with any collective: If we take away union rights, we take away the rights of individual union members. If we strip a university’s accreditation, we also strip credibility from its students and its graduates. Romney made this point later in the exchange, asking his heckler where corporate earnings go if not to people. The response he received — “into their pockets” — perfectly made Romney’s case. “Whose pockets?” he asked. “People’s pockets!” Consider: When we raise taxes on corporations, we raise their cost of doing business. They must recover those costs from elsewhere. Firms can do so by cutting wages and benefits or by raising the prices of their products. One study by Harvard economists estimated that 45 to 75 percent of the burden of a corporate tax increase is borne by workers and another from the University of Michigan found that a 10 percentage point increase in the corporate income tax reduces mean annual gross wages by seven percent. Some corporations may respond to corporate tax increases by reducing their profit margins, which means fewer dividends and lower share prices for stockholders. All of these options have negative effects on real human beings. If corporations respond to tax hikes by reducing compensation or firing workers, the impact of the tax hike hits the employees. If they raise prices, the impact falls on the consumers who buy the product. And if they take a reduction in profits, the falling stock value lowers the value of various investment funds on which millions of Americans depend for retirement and other income. In other words, there is no such thing as a corporation separate from the people who comprise it, whether as employees, customers or investors. When you raise taxes on a corporation, you are not raising taxes on some abstract entity that has no connection to real people; the burden of the higher tax on the corporation is borne by individuals in all of those groups, and possibly more. Romney’s point has provided an effective campaign sound bite for the president, but that just demonstrates the economic illiteracy of our political discourse. The belief that one can somehow tax a corporation without the costs being shouldered by individual Americans is the worst sort of wishful thinking. Until we face the reality of Romney’s statement that corporations really are people, we will continue to run the risk of cannibalizing our economy by increasing what is already the world’s highest corporate tax rate. |
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| (939527) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by SelkirkTMO on Mon May 7 23:17:38 2012, in response to Yes, corporations are people, posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:12:24 2012. Here's hoping that they get their way. That means that bingbong and I will be able to vote twice! Once as "citizens" and again as "Inc." Love it! :) |
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| (939530) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:21:27 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by SelkirkTMO on Mon May 7 23:17:38 2012. no one is in favor of that. |
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| (939532) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by JohnL on Mon May 7 23:25:01 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:21:27 2012. But, (warning: strawman), isn’t that the argument that “Corporations are people” taken to its conclusion? |
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| (939535) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:28:41 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by JohnL on Mon May 7 23:25:01 2012. no |
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| (939536) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by JohnL on Mon May 7 23:29:57 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:28:41 2012. How so? |
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| (939537) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:32:23 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by JohnL on Mon May 7 23:29:57 2012. because the right to vote unlike other rights can only exercised by individuals. the corporations are people argument comes from the fact that corporations are made up of people. |
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| (939540) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by SelkirkTMO on Mon May 7 23:44:24 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by JohnL on Mon May 7 23:25:01 2012. PRECISELY. Right now, all we can do is BUY candidates. Why shouldn't we get to vote for our expenditures too just like a good proxy fight? :) |
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| (939541) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by SelkirkTMO on Mon May 7 23:45:57 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:32:23 2012. "We the people" of this corporation therefore deserve to vote as well then. After all, that's exactly the argument that would make us win that one. :) |
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| (939547) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by JohnL on Tue May 8 00:45:49 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:32:23 2012. …because the right to vote unlike other rights can only exercised by individuals.Agreed. But the US Supreme Court has determined that other entities have the rights of persons. So far this has only been elaborated in the case of political action committees and their right to advertise. You see that I personally believe in a minimalist interpretation of person: a human being. When it comes to commerce/financing, I can see that there needs to be a statuary definition of corporation. But I fail to understand why such entity needs to have the same protection/rights as a real human. |
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| (939552) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by SelkirkTMO on Tue May 8 01:05:57 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by JohnL on Tue May 8 00:45:49 2012. And legally, one precedent often leads to another. While I don't see being granted the right to vote twice because I'm a corporation, now that they've opened that door by declaring "personhood with the inherent rights of a person for political purposes" I'd like that second vote. :) |
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| (939555) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by Rockparkman on Tue May 8 01:10:10 2012, in response to Yes, corporations are people, posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:12:24 2012. Yes, Libertarians are NAZIS. |
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| (939556) | |
Re: Yes, libertarians are NAZIS |
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Posted by Rockparkman on Tue May 8 01:11:34 2012, in response to Yes, corporations are people, posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:12:24 2012. Ban them. We need a ConCon NOW!!! |
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| (939557) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by Rockparkman on Tue May 8 01:12:09 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:28:41 2012. Silence, NAZI SCUM!!! |
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| (939558) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by Rockparkman on Tue May 8 01:15:25 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:21:27 2012. I look forward to an America where guys like you are led off to trial in CHAINS!!! |
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| (939600) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by bingbong on Tue May 8 12:21:39 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:32:23 2012. No, it's a question of rights. Citizens gives corporations the right to political speech. So the right to exercise a corporation's political rights should extend to the voting booth, the conclusive political right. |
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| (939603) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by 3-9 on Tue May 8 12:32:25 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by SelkirkTMO on Mon May 7 23:17:38 2012. Why are you stopping at 2? You can be the head of as many corporations as your wallet (and time) can handle. |
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Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by gp38/r42 chris on Tue May 8 13:05:24 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by SelkirkTMO on Mon May 7 23:17:38 2012. Oh please |
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Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by gp38/r42 chris on Tue May 8 13:05:52 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by JohnL on Mon May 7 23:25:01 2012. No. |
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| (939620) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by gp38/r42 chris on Tue May 8 13:07:49 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by dand124 on Mon May 7 23:32:23 2012. Exactly....and corporations can even be one or rhree man iperations two. |
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Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by bingbong on Tue May 8 14:06:58 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by gp38/r42 chris on Tue May 8 13:07:49 2012. The board of the corporation is the corporate (meaning body) entity. So every corporate board should get a vote in addition to individuals...if corporations are people, as Willard said, that's how it works. |
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Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by gp38/r42 chris on Tue May 8 14:32:23 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by bingbong on Tue May 8 14:06:58 2012. Nopr not how it works. |
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| (939670) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by Rockparkman on Tue May 8 14:40:22 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by gp38/r42 chris on Tue May 8 14:32:23 2012. Nazi corporations cannot be imprisoned or executed, therefore they aren't persons. Furthermore, they shouldn't be taxed as an entity. |
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Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by bingbong on Tue May 8 15:30:50 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by gp38/r42 chris on Tue May 8 14:32:23 2012. You tell Willard. Go right ahead. Right now. Cc me the response. |
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Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by Spider-Pig on Tue May 8 16:27:48 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by JohnL on Tue May 8 00:45:49 2012. So if someone built a Lt. Cmdr. Data, you would not consider him a person? |
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| (939703) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by Spider-Pig on Tue May 8 16:42:32 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by Rockparkman on Tue May 8 14:40:22 2012. Corporations can be dissolved by government fiat. |
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| (939713) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by 3-9 on Tue May 8 17:42:16 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by Spider-Pig on Tue May 8 16:27:48 2012. Only if he was fully functional :-). |
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| (939754) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by SelkirkTMO on Tue May 8 18:51:24 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by 3-9 on Tue May 8 12:32:25 2012. Well yeah ... but since we actually produce a product instead of worthless paper, my hands are pretty full with just one. :) |
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| (939774) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by 3-9 on Tue May 8 20:13:27 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by SelkirkTMO on Tue May 8 18:51:24 2012. Oh, you actually want your corporation(s) to be productive! That's a different story altogether! :-) |
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| (939775) | |
Re: Yes, corporations are people |
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Posted by SelkirkTMO on Tue May 8 20:20:02 2012, in response to Re: Yes, corporations are people, posted by 3-9 on Tue May 8 20:13:27 2012. Sorry ... somebody's gotta do it. :) |
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