What is known as Corporate Theft to the Working Class, is called
Deserved Reward, to the Members of the American Corporate Empire(ACE).
This special privilege has always been the Elephant in the Room, from
the inception of our nation. At various times in our history, workers
have awakened and organized for their own protection. But in recent
times, especially from 1980 and Ronald Reagan, the American Working
Class has succumbed to the increasing pressure of the Mass Brain
Washing bankrolled by Corporate America...using the dollars stolen
from those very Working Class Americans.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/4/20, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://socialistaction.org/2020/05/03/corporations-and-the-pandemic-bandits-at-the-till/
Corporations and the Pandemic: Bandits at the Till
May 3, 2020
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on email
By JAMES FORTIN
“The thieves did not even have to show their guns. The door was
unlocked, and the till was left wide open. The robbers just scooped up
the cash and left. Surely, the thieves had help. It was an inside job.”
This not-so-imaginary account of a heist perfectly describes what
corporations and the well-connected rich have just done in the U.S.
during the present economic meltdown. With assistance from their
Democratic and Republican co-conspirators the corporate bandits have
stuck up the nation.
At the same time this corporate thievery unfolds, upwards of 30 million
working people have been laid off from their jobs, losing their
employer-sponsored health insurance – if they had it in the first place.
Many of these souls, living paycheck to paycheck, line up early at the
food banks in hopes of being fortunate enough to bring home a box of
food to help feed their families. Millions have been unable to get
through phone queues and collapsed websites to even make a claim for
unemployment benefits, weeks after losing their jobs. Most are
desperate, not knowing how they will pay their rent, and fear they could
become homeless. Still others are denied relief because they are
immigrants, married to an immigrant, or are undocumented.
While suffering workers are waiting for their minuscule relief, hundreds
of corporations and banks are having a head-over-heels feeding frenzy at
the cash watering holes set up for them by the U.S. Treasury. Casting
aside any moral qualms about using up federal monies approved by
Congress which could help struggling, genuinely-small enterprises to
keep their operations running and employees on staff, corporations
instead have sniffed the truffle in the pig pen and plucked it to the
tune of an initial $349 billion. Examples abound.
AutoWeb’s chief executive received nearly $5 million over the past 2
years in compensation. This year, however, his company applied for and
obtained a $1.4 million forgivable loan under the Paycheck Protection
Program (PPP); it then paid him $1.7 million a week later. Legacy
Housing, a Texas modular home builder, received $6.5 million two weeks
after publicly disclosing it had a $25 million cash reserve. MidMedx, a
biopharmaceutical firm in Georgia, settled wrongdoing cases for $1.5
million in 2019 and another for $6.5 million just this year, before
securing $10 million under the program a few weeks later. The sad list
of corporate greed goes on and on.
In these and all other applications under the PPP, “small” companies of
up to 500 employees merely had to certify that “current economic
uncertainty makes this loan request necessary.” Using high-priced
lawyers and well-connected top-shelf banks, these “small” companies
easily slid through the daunting paperwork to the front of the line. The
monies were quickly transferred to these applicants by the Small
Business Administration, and, of course, banks like JPMorgan Chase, Well
Fargo and Bank of America made huge commissions for handling the deals –
totaling $2 billion to date, according to the New York Times.
Just as workers are seeing little result from the corporate bailouts,
the really small mom-and-pop businesses never had a chance for help the
first time around either, and are waiting to see how they will fare in
the next $310 billion round of monies which Congress just approved.
Some of the recipients, such as the Los Angeles Lakers, large restaurant
chains, and a significant number of well-endowed colleges and
universities, have been publicly shamed for applying for the millions
and have said they will return the funds. However, as of late April,
more than 100 companies have received in excess of $2 million apiece
under the PPP – many of them got significantly more. Most of them – 80%
plus – said they would keep the money, thank you, which they obtained
fair and square according to the rules. After all, you know, they did
fill out their certifications.
In addition to the Paycheck Protection Program another
Christmas-in-April giveaway to the rich was made available in the $2
trillion bailout, this one for “large” companies. A tidy sum of $500
billion will be administered by the Federal Reserve Bank and the
Treasury Department. In this program, the government will purchase bonds
issued by the corporations, thereby transferring cash to the companies
as “emergency aid” for “liquidity purposes.” In plain language, this is
an acquisition of large corporate debt by the government with absolutely
no requirement for the recipients to limit executive compensation,
dividends or stock buybacks – or for that matter to save a single job.
Cornell University economist Eswar Prasad commented, “I am struck that
the Administration is relying on the goodwill of the companies receiving
this assistance.” Gregg Gelzinis of the Center for American Progress
was more forthright in his analysis: “…if we are going to provide
taxpayer funding to private industry, we need conditions to make sure it
is in the public interest. This violates that principle.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin provided his explanation of why no
restrictions were placed on the corporate money-takers: they could avoid
the rules, so they did. “This was highly discussed on a bi-partisan
basis. This was thought through carefully. What we agreed upon was
direct loans would carry the restrictions, and the capital markets
transactions [bond buying] would not carry the restrictions.” Have that
read: Another sweet deal for the 1% jointly endorsed by Democrats and
Republicans alike. If past history offers any guidance, these disguised
loans will likely be forgiven by Congress in any event, just as they
were in the 2008 financial crisis bailout.
One might think the contrast between the economic state of workers and
that of corporations could not be greater. Unfortunately, it gets even
worse.
It is estimated that a third of renters in the country are no longer
able to make their monthly rent payments. Others place the number at 40
to 50%. Although a number of state governments and municipalities have
enacted assorted measures to keep renters from being evicted,
temporarily, for failure to pay rent, working people mostly get advice
instead of real assistance. They are told to talk to their landlords to
find some relief. Not much help is offered, just words of wisdom.
On the other hand, what has been termed by the mainstream media a
“bonanza for rich real estate investors” is a provision slipped into the
recent $2 trillion bailout bill passed by Congress. The fine print of
the bill, found on just a single page of the 880-page document, is a
small change in tax policy regarding real estate depreciation. It will
hand wealthy real estate tycoons and their corporations a gift of $170
billion in additional tax savings over 10 years. While the Democrats and
Republicans approved the bailout including this provision, it is
virtually assured that the same magnitude of largesse will not be
provided to tenants.
Socialists always are frank in describing the attributes of capitalism,
so let us do just that. The financial windfalls going to corporations
and the ruling rich during this Depression are really grand theft on a
national scale. The bandits have been unmasked, and it is the usual
inside job performed by Democrats and Republicans together who have left
the till unlocked and wide open.
As socialists we cannot be shocked by the plunder of the ruling rich,
enabled by their twin parties of capital. It is part and parcel of a
system loaded up front to serve the interests of the 1% at the expense
of everyone else. We are, however, committed to ending capitalism and
replacing it with the new socialist society that will abolish, once and
for all time, the devastating diseases, cycles of economic ruin, human
tragedies and oppression of humankind in all its forms. Let us include
the basic unfairness of outright corporate thievery, too.
When racketeer Al Capone was finally sent to prison, it was on the
grounds of tax evasion – not bootlegging, his primary business. Unlike
today’s corporations, Capone apparently did not have political stooges
in Congress to make his crimes legal – like the bandit corporations do
today – thereby sending him to the clinker. And while the ill-gained
monies received by likes of JPMorgan Chase and the rest of the
capitalist cabal will serve no useful social function, at least Capone
provided bootleg liquor during Prohibition to the working and unemployed
poor of Chicago, making their experiences during their Great Depression
just a bit more tolerable.
Layoffs skyrocket, Virus deaths soar, Opposition grows
April 11, 2020
By JAMES FORTIN At a news conference on April 9, Federal Reserve
Chairman Jerome Powell said the economy was deteriorating “with alarming
speed” – not particularly newsworthy to the already-informed ranks of
the recently unemployed, now numbering over 17 million. The same words
also tragically apply to the ongoing spread of COVID-19 through the U.S.
and the rest of the world.
Death Toll Worse Than Reported in the U.S.
April 8, 2020
By BARRY SHEPPARD
One week ago, the official death toll from COVID-19 in the United States
was 3,700. Today, April 7, the number has risen to well over 12,000. But
this underestimates the real figure.
Workers Say “No” to Virus, Defy U.S. Navy
April 4, 2020
By JAMES FORTIN Shipyard workers at Bath Iron Works (BIW) called-out
from their shifts March 24 in response to company demands they work
during the
--
___
Steven Pinker
“It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a
designer. But it was also natural to think that the sun went around the
earth. Overcoming naive impressions to figure out how things really work is
one of humanity's highest callings.
[Can You Believe in God and Evolution? Time Magazine, August 7, 2005]”
― Steven Pinker
