A Corporate Ménage à Trois

Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon
Sonny: "Kiss me."
Detective Sergeant Eugene Moretti: "What?"
Sonny: " Kiss me. When I'm being fucked, I like to get kissed a lot."

The Republican, Tea Party, and CEO's idea of Free Market Enterprise:

Huge campaign contributions are used to influence the elections of selected politicians (who were previously groomed). Then these politicians create a tax code favorable to those who contributed the most to their campaign elections. Then the bought-and-paid-for politicians pass laws that allow them to force the unwilling taxpayers to finance a private corporation. Whenever necessary, judges are appointed to the Supreme Court to make all this legal ("Constitutional").

In return for this bribes gifts "campaign contributions", the corporations are rewarded with multi-billion-dollar "government contacts". These contracts are usually added to other spending bills needed to run the government and are sometimes known as "earmarks". This is taxpayer money going to corporations. But this money doesn't go to buy food stamps for people who need to eat, it goes to buy things such as corporate jets and yachts.

If the taxpayers protest this, the politicians can use their authority to have the local law enforcement and National Guard squash the taxpayer's unhappiness about having their hard-earned money stolen from them to enrich a few. Sometimes these abused taxpayers may be beaten, jailed, and/or fined...or shot to death as happened at Kent State in Ohio.

The politician's corporate masters then hires people in China to do most of the work. If there isn't enough qualified labor (or natural resources such as oil), the Republicans start a war to "democratize" a country, making it more favorable to corporate America (hence, "emerging markets"). This way, a corporation can create an inexpensive labor force while at the same time, create a new class of consumers to buy their goods and/or services. The CEO (who's usually a shareholder) justifies using cheap foreign labor because he's beholden to other company shareholders.

Also, in these conquered liberated foreign countries ("new emerging markets") the environmental, safety, tax, and labor laws are what America's diplomatic and military influence wishes them to be - - - American corporations can use child labor, pay no taxes, subject their workers to inhumane conditions, and pollute the ground, air, and water as much as they want to - - - and without ever worrying about paying any fines or going to jail for crimes against humanity or the globe.

In the rare event these corporations use domestic labor, the politicians work very hard for their corporate masters to keep the federally mandated minimum wage extremely low (about 50% of the official "poverty threshold"), and these same bought-and-paid-for politicians do all they can to bust labor unions, whose workers only strive for fairer wages to keep up with the cost of living.

These bought-and-paid-for political hacks (corporate shills) also passes legislation and appoints judges to make it almost impossible for a regular ordinary citizen to sue a corporation for damages of any kind...even for fatalities. The corporations by definition are "limited liability partnerships", so no individual like a rich CEO never be concerned with any type of punishment for wrong-doing such as being fined, sued, or going to prison for breaking laws that other people would have to take personal responsibility for.

These "other" shareholders (CEOs) are also stock holders and are usually paid with stock-options as an incentive to cut costs (outsource) and "be more competitive in the marketplace". The CEO's stock-options in his "employee compensation package" are taxed at a much lesser rate than his impoverished workers. Collectively, CEOs and other corporate officers also enjoy very lavish expense accounts and perks like private jets, penthouse office suites, and chauffeur-driven limousines.

If the company makes a profit, the corporation doesn't have to pay taxes to the U.S. Treasury to pay their fair share for financing the government (which ironically, finances their subsidies). If the company doesn't make a profit, the CEO gets paid a huge salary and bonus anyway, but the taxpayers have to pay for the company's losses, such as they did for the big banks. Because this reckless and greedy corporate behavior puts a HUGE burden on America's state and federal budgets, the politicians only cut services for the poor and middle-class, while at the same time, cutting taxes for the rich and corporate CEOs...telling the ignorant voters this will create a whole bunch of well-paying jobs for Americans.

Then in the next election cycle the CEO gives huge bribes gifts "campaign contributions" to re-elect the same politicians who financed his company and didn't make him or his company pay any taxes - - - and who had also gave the CEO's company taxpayer-paid subsidies and generous tax rebates. Many times the CEOs and their wives go on vacation to a private island in a company jet (or yacht) with the bought-and-paid-for politicians and their wives (but they have to be very careful not to be seen together because of the "appearance of impropriety", even though an ethics violation only gets them a slap on the wrist).

The taxpayers can't do a damn thing about any of this because, besides being too busy busting their asses off at work with "increased worker productivity", they're also raising the kids and paying taxes - - - and because the politician's campaign promises weren't legally binding contracts anyway. They'll tell the voters whatever they want to hear, and once they're elected, they do what their corporate masters "campaign contributors" tell them to do.

When the CEOs say, "Jump!" the politicians are quickly seduced, and immediately lay on their backs and spread their legs while crooning, overcome with lust and romance for their corporate lovers. But it's the taxpayers that always get screwed like a throw-away mistress in the tawdry three-way affair...and they don't even get a lousy kiss.

And that's how capitalism works in America...from sea to shining sea.

* In 2010 alone, CEO pay went up an average of 27% - and 1% of the richest have 33.8% of all the wealth.

READ: Secret Fears of the Super-Rich "Money has contributed to deep anxieties involving love, work, and family. Indeed, they are frequently dissatisfied even with their sizable fortunes." So then, wouldn't taxing them more actually help them?