My Speech delivered yesterday

My name is Bobby Kearan.  I am a Citizen of the United States of America. My politics follow Thomas Jefferson. I am a Capitalist in the tradition of Henry Ford.  I grew up in Lobutcha, Mississippi – the Hinze community.

The current model of large business activity in this country is destroying our economy.  No, its not the Public School Teacher that is bankrupting us.  I am here to speak about Taxes and Ethical Capitalism.

Once upon a time, there was this Big Corporation.  A small rival was cutting into their profits by offering a cheaper product that was just as good.  The corporation lobbied the government saying that in order to protect it's profits and stay loyal to the country, it needed special tax breaks.  The government agreed and gave the corporation the tax breaks, but then, the government was out a lot of income.  The government could not have such a thing, so it decided to put an extra tax on the company's product when a select group of average citizens purchased it.  To everyone's surprise, the small group said that was unfair and they were not going to pay the extra tax! So they threw the company's tea into the water!

This country has been battling corporations since the Boston Tea Party – yes, The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea coming into the colonies.   Let me say that again – the Tea Party was also against the East India Company.  Look it up.  England gave tax breaks to the East India Company and levied taxes on the tea sold to the colonies to make up for it.  So, the United States was formed by people resisting money for tax breaks to big companies being taken from the hands of the People.  The same thing that is happening now.  Government is giving tax breaks to corporations and billionaires, then turning to take it from teachers, unions, the poor and the elderly.  It did not turn out so good for England and it will not work now.

Kelley McDaniel of Portland, a part-time librarian, said it best - "It's not economically sound. It's not morally sound. And I think you know that," she said. "I would be embarrassed to support something so ludicrous -- taking from the poor to give to the rich.”

It is not economically sound.  Henry Ford was not a friend of Unions, but he was a great business man.  His was the first company to pay a five dollar minimum wage and he had the first forty hour workweek.  He said, “Business is the exchange of goods. Goods are bought only as they meet needs. Needs are filled only as they are felt. They make themselves felt largely in leisure hours. The man who worked fifteen and sixteen hours a day desired only a corner to be in and a hunk of food. He had no time to cultivate new needs. No industry could ever be built up by filling his needs, because he had none but the most primitive.”  In other words, it takes a prosperous worker, a prosperous middle class with some leisure time to create the Demand for things Business can Supply.

What Henry Ford knew that business today has forgotten, what business fails to understand – is that Profit can not be sustained without providing workers with the means to be consumers. Profit can not be sustained without providing workers with the means and opportunity to be consumers.  You can pay your workers well, give them time off and sustain your profits – or you can exploit your workers, make a greedy killing and then go under – like Bernie Ebbers and Worldcom.

Ford Motor company instituted profit sharing with employees.

"It is our belief," said Treasurer James Couzens, "that social justice begins at home. We want those who have helped us to produce this great institution and are helping to maintain it to share our prosperity. We want them to have present profits and future prospects.” 

Ford added : “We believe in making twenty thousand men prosperous and contented rather than follow the plan of making a few slave drivers in our establishment millionaires.”

That is the Heart and Soul of Ethical Capitalism.  We believe in making twenty thousand men prosperous rather than a few executives millionaires.  That will create a healthy economy!

Since 1979, businesses have forgotten this successful business model.  They have consistently decreased the effective wages of workers and increased the rewards to the Executives and CEOs – often rewards for cutting jobs and cutting corners.  This has dried up the consumer base.  We are trying only to survive, seeking just a corner to be in and a hunk of food.  Blueprint Mississippi says sixty two percent of Mississippians believe our children will have to leave the state to find a good paying job!

The top one fifth acquires more income than the bottom four fifths.  The Bush tax cuts only made it worse.  So, now the top few have turned us on each other – laughing as we fight amongst ourselves for less and less available income.  Effective personal income tax was maxed at 25% in 2003, Effective corporate income tax in the same year – 3.4% and those are the TOP numbers.

It is NOT a question of being jealous of those who are wealthier than I am.  Good for them.  IF they earned it.  I am not jealous of teachers because they have great retirement benefits.  It is about what is good for the country! It is a simple fact that Capitalism will only work for so long as there is a good and steady circular flow of income.  It is not flowing in a circle.  It is all flowing in a slow but steady pace up and up and staying there.

We want successful companies, we want profitable businesses – and that can only be sustained with a successful and prosperous middle class!  The American Dream can only be sustained with a prosperous workforce!  Government can not give tax breaks to corporations and take the lost income from the hands of the Citizens.  Ethical companies do not evade their share of taxes!

Wake up and Stand up! We have Truth on our side! We have History on our side! From the Boston Tea Party to Henry Ford! Spread the Truth! No unfair tax breaks for corporations, no taking money from the hands of Citizens, Ethical Capitalism! Tell your friends, tell your family, have discussions! Then get everybody to Go Vote out the politicians – Everyone Vote in a Government by the People!  


Wake up and Stand Up!

Refrences :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party	http://www.boston-tea-party.org/
http://tinyurl.com/4s73eqq	http://tinyurl.com/99g95w
http://tinyurl.com/4p4hkx6	http://tinyurl.com/29crtwt
http://tinyurl.com/4oeamt5	http://is.gd/Y4BTgC
http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/	http://bobbyshead.blogspot.com
http://tinyurl.com/4bjl52e	http://reformparty.org

"If you think you are too small to make an impact, try sleeping in a room with a few mosquitoes. " --West African proverb

Articles about the rally : 

WLBT

Previous rally :
WJTV

Politifact :
Corporations pay no taxes
400 people have more that 50% of US Citizens ( 400 have more wealth than 50 million put together!)

Class Warfare :
Rich vs. Everyone Else - the Tax Breaks

And some other quotes I find may apply to the whole idea :

Thomas Jefferson said of the rising power of corporations in the new Republic :

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” Thomas Jefferson, 1812

and it was Jefferson who also said, “Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” Thomas Jefferson speaking on the first attempt to establish a central bank in America

"Big business is not dangerous because it is big, but because its bigness is an unwholesome inflation created by privileges and exemptions which it ought not to enjoy." -- Woodrow Wilson, 1912

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine

"Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice."
--President Dwight Eisenhower

“And it would be fair. Everyone will pay the same tax and it will eliminate tax cheaters and corporate shenanigans.” Steve Forbes

I wrote (and cut from the speech):

Public Roads, Public Clean Water, Public Transit, Public Parks, Public Recreation, Public Education, Teachers, Law Enforcement, Fire Fighters and our Military – everyone in this state and this nation benefits from these services provided by our government.  Everyone who benefits should be expected to contribute their fair share to help fund these services – and that includes businesses!

Social security IS an entitlement.  I am entitled to all the benefits I have been promised and that I have paid in to all my working life! As is everyone who has paid in.  Unemployment Insurance and Disability Insurance are the same way!


ECSUS (pronounced Ek-Sus) - Ethical Capitalism can Save U.S.