Sunday, July 26, 2009

Tax the Corporate Elite

Tax the hell out of them.

The only sound argument for not imposing higher taxes on corporate executives is that there are not enough of them to make a significant difference. The chart over there ---> explodes that myth. In our current oligarchic economy where a tiny handful of executives horde unto themselves a third of the nation's income, the corporate elite are the single best source of funds.

Now, I know what my conservative friends will say, if we tax corporate executives it will remove their incentive to work. To which, my answer is, what do executives actually do?

Like the lilies of the field, "they toil not, neither do they spin" yet they are nowhere near as pretty.
They party like Roman patricians (at left is Dennis Kozlowski's (then CEO of Tyco) 2003 birthday party, paid for by stockholders. They play golf. They play a lot of really expensive golf. Comerica, while sucking over $2 billion out of TARP, gifted its CEO with a $202,928 country club membership perk. Rather than working in their offices they are always jetting about hither and thither at shareholder expense.

As the class currently functions, corporate executives are a drain upon corporate earnings and shareholder dividends far beyond any small benefits they may produce in their spare time. Taxing their excess income would injury nobody of importance.
A field of Tiger Lilies -
more valuable than all the CEOs in the country.

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