2014/03/15/Extreme Capitalism Depends on Government Subsidies, Corporate Welfare and Worker Insecurity
- when: 2014/03/15
- author:
- source: Rational Opinions Blog
- topics: capitalism government subsidy corporate welfare worker insecurity economic disparity
- keywords
- link: http://rationalopinionsblog.com/2014/03/15/extreme-capitalism-depends-on-government-subsidies-corporate-welfare-and-worker-insecurity/
- title: Extreme Capitalism Depends on Government Subsidies, Corporate Welfare and Worker Insecurity
- summary: "Capitalism has gone extreme due to pure, unadulterated GREED. Those that "have" (the 1%) want more for themselves and less for the "have-nots" (the 99%). All in the name of money and power."
In a report titled "Subsidizing the Corporate One Percent," from the taxpayer watchdog group Good Jobs First, it shows that the world's largest companies aren't models of self-sufficiency and unbridled capitalism. To the contrary, they're propped up by billions of dollars in welfare payments from state and local governments. These subsidies might be a bit more defensible if they were being handed out in a way that promoted upstart entrepreneurialism. But as the study also shows, a full "three-quarters of all the economic development dollars awarded and disclosed by state and local governments have gone to just 965 large corporations" – not to the small businesses and start-ups that politicians so often pretend to care about.
In dollar figures, that's a whopping $110 billion going to big companies. Fortune 500 firms alone receive more than 16,000 subsidies at a total cost of $63 billion. Some notable recipients include Intel with $3.8 billion; IBM with $1 billion; Google with $632 million; and Yahoo with $260 million in subsidies. Large financial firms like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Citigroup receive tens of millions of dollars in subsidies, even though they received never-ending bailouts from taxpayers due to their illicit business practices. Yet we can't find a $1 billion to support our poor and needy!