Local Chambers of Commerce: the Cannon Fodder of Reaction

[cthulu2016]

Great Democratic-Socialist Michael Harrington once called local chambers of commerce the cannon fodder of reaction.

It is funny/sad that the real business community perceives a shared interest with international kleptocrats and parasitic inheritors of wealth.

The Republican mantra is it's all about small business! We love small business! (Last night Mitt claimed that Bain Capital is a small business.)

But actual small business does better under Democrats. The economy tanks every time a Republican gets near it.

And this raises a question... since the economy tanks under Republicans why does big money support them?

Well, lets take Stock Dividend income. No actual small business relies on dividend income, of course. Large dividend income comes from owning very large blocks of stocks.

Under the Bush tax cuts dividend income is taxed at 15%, rather than at 33%. Thus is a government subsidy of the share price of publicly traded corporations that pay dividends, and of the ownership of dividend-paying stock.

Name anything a normal person could call a small business that has publicly traded dividend-paying stock. I'll wait.

But if you have millions in dividend income (on billions in stocks) that special tax treatment is worth a lot of money. And if you are a large publicallt traded corporation, the same applies.

Capital Gains... another thing real small businesses don't operate on much. If you buy a stock for $100 and sell it for $200 your $100 profit is taxed as a capital gain. If you buy $100 worth of bananas wholesale and sell them to the public for $200 it would seem that te same thing has happened... you bought something and sold it for more. But the bananas are not capital investments, they are business inventory.

See... you fucked up. You should have bought a futures contract for bananas, but you bought the actual bananas and sold them to people who wanted something to eat. That productive activity (making bananas available) has the stench of sweat about it and is thus not entitled to be taxed at a lower rate than regular income.

Mom and Pop's soda shoppe does not make their money from trading stock. They sell soda. For them, a better economy means more kids with the price of a soda.

But to a billionaire, all of his income is going to be capital gains and dividends and interest.

And for mega corporations and the idle inherited money crowd the preferential tax treatment is worth more to them than the prospect of higher economic growth. The tax benefits are a bird in the hand.

But actual small businesses go to the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary to be indoctrinated in the view that the world is them and Donald Trump versus the unwashed masses.

[cthulu2016]

1. .

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. I joined my local Chamber thinking it was strictly a good networking organization.

Well that and the monthly breakfasts. Which I fully admit were rather delicious.

Instead, I was bombared regularly by the Chamber president with propoganda emails that pretty much ran in the face of what I believed.

Needless to say, after a year I chose not to re-up.

I do miss the breakfasts though.