Corporate Welfare Eating Into Social WelfareMarch 6th, 2011 It looks like I am going to be facing a choice very soon, accept a radically reduced income living on social security or go back to work, as my state disability is going to run out soon. This put me into a panic. I remember that feeling, it had receded over the past few months of guaranteed income. I had gone back to school and was doing well. Having a certain income, although not much, gave me enough peace of mind so that I could concentrate on my studies and take care of my body. Peace of mind is about to go away. Question is am I healthy enough to rejoin the rat race? In America with poor health regulations and few unions, the working conditions are not favorable for a long healthy existence. With pensions and retirement plans disappearing, workers are more and more left on their own or dependent on the social security benefits that exist. The capitalists in their greed want to take Medicare and social security away from us so that they can keep more of the social wealth for themselves. They will take exactly as much as we give them, and will always have their lawyers hands out for more. Corporate welfare is a big business and growing.
Capitalism is a system that assumes the optimal healthy aggressive alpha male is in charge and spends the major part of his day aggressively seeking to better himself in the marketplace. It does not account for ancillary functions or non-economic interests, In fact capitalism has over the past couple of centuries added more and more of the public domain into the marketplace. Take water for instance, it has become a commodity and if we allow it the same will happen to our air. Much social labor has been commodified and there is little that does not involve an economic transaction in today's world. It is part of the logic of capital, maximize profits and to hell with the consequences. Add to that the new mantra of socializing the losses and privatizing the profits and you have the perfect system for capitalists, they have no downside, because it is socialized and the working people have to pick up the tab. If you cannot work any more, well in a capitalist system you have lost your value and are an absolute loss. If there are any social benefits to take care of discarded or disabled workers, they are increasingly being absorbed into the capitalist corporate welfare system. No money for you sorry retired workers, the system needs your retirement to keep the capitalist game going.
From Public Citizen
Public Citizen June 16, 2003 Report:
Each year, U.S. taxpayers subsidize U.S. businesses to the tune of almost $125 billion, the equivalent of all the income tax paid by 60 million individuals and families. These corporations receive a wide range of favors: special corporate tax breaks; direct government subsidies to pay for advertising, research and training costs; and incentives to pursue overseas production and sales.
This does not include the bail out of the banks, insurance companies and auto industry. Bailout costs below:
Total $11,563.65 allocated $3,025.27 spent as of 9/25/09 in billions of dollars according to Bloomberg
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/09/bailout-costs-to-date/
Bailout costs more than Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, moonshot, S&L bailout, Korean War, New Deal, Iraq war, Vietnam war, and NASA's lifetime budget — *combined*! Posted by Cory Doctorow, November 25, 2008 4:48 AM |permalink Barry Ritholtz sez, In doing the research for the "Bailout Nation" book, I needed a way to put the dollar amounts into proper historical perspective. If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.
People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let's give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.
Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:
• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion
TOTAL: $3.92 trillion
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/25/bailout-costs-more-t.html
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