Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Pro-corporation quotation of the month
What winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and president of an Ivy League university said this?
The limited liability corporation is the greatest single discovery of modern times. Even steam and electricity are less important than the limited liability company.
Answer, and more along the same lines, here.
3 Comments:
By 
Robert Arvanitis, at
Thu Mar 24, 09:40:00 AM:
The corporation is a two-edged sword. Limited liability is fiction, not a natural right, a construct in return for the efficiency of capital accumulation. (Same as the exemption of unions from antitrust — a construct upon the rationalization of social justice.)
Beyond capital accumulation, the referenced article posits corporations as a civic counterweight, just like tripartite federal government, states’ rights, free press, religion, universities, unions, and private organizations like the Boy Scouts and Salvation Army.
But of all those players, the corporation is the most subject to co-opting. Witness the re-emergence of crony capitalism. For every John Galt, there are a hundred “CEOs for Obama.”
Honey-pots are an irresistible temptation. And like unions, corporations create big honey-pots. Far easier to get your campaign financing pre-bundled.
By , at
Fri Mar 25, 08:58:00 AM:
"People suck. Organizations of people can suck even more" -- Famous 21st Century Philosopher
There's an article in today's NYT that's was noted over on Zero Hedge about how GE has the world's best tax law firm filled with ex-US government honchos. What I learned is that over the last seven years GE's effective tax rate was 3.17% even though half its revenues are US domestic.
I'm not a fan of the corporate tax but I expect that many readers here work at company's that have had much higher effective tax rates than 3.17%. Fair should be fair, shouldn't it.
Jeff Immelt is a traitor to the economic interests of the average American. He's the ultimate chrony capitalist. He has company.
GE should have -- and would have -- gone broke in 2008 were it not for a USA bailout. That's because it's 50% a financial company built on leveraging light bulb revenues with commercial paper using a glaring loophole to the Bank Holding Company Act.
This isn't your daddy's multinational.
If you don't mind living in a Borg World, let's keep on current trajectory.
By , at
Fri Mar 25, 06:36:00 PM:
Follow-up to my prior point.
ABC's Jake Tapper beat up on the new White House press secretary today over GE's not paying taxes but Immelt being an Obama favorite.
