Saving Capitalism, by Robert Reich: on Corporations

Barack Obama: Criticized as anti-business, but stocks hit record highs

Barack Obama--although often criticized by the business community for being anti-business--in fact presided over one of the most pro-business administrations in American history. Obama pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into Wall Street in order to save the Street (and the U.S. economy) from imploding after the crash of 2008, created a stimulus package that avoided another Great Depression, and enacted a broad-based health care law that enriched insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Under Obama's watch the stock market made up for all the losses it suffered in the Great Recession and reached new record highs, and, corporate profits rose to the highest portion of the national economy since 1929.

Elena Kagan: Disallow monopolies from disadvantaging small business

Eric Cantor: Fought for Great Recession bailout of Wall Street

Paul Ryan: Eliminate taxes on estates, interest and dividends

Barack Obama rolled back some of these cuts, but many remained. House Republicans sought to go even further. Representative Paul Ryan's so-called road map eliminated all taxes on interest, dividends, capital gains, and estates. By 2013, only 1.4 out of every 1,000 estates owed any estate tax, and the effective rate they paid was only 17 percent.

Meanwhile, the tax rate paid by America's wealthy on their capital gains--the major source of income for the non-working rich--dropped from 33 percent in the late 1980s to 23.8 percent.

Robert Reich: Monsanto lobbies Congress to ensure agribusiness monopoly

To enforce and ensure dominance, the company has employed a phalanx of lawyers. They've sued other companies for patent infringement and sued farmers who want to save seed for replanting. You might think Monsanto's overwhelming market power would make it a target for antitrust enforcement. Think again. In 2012, it succeeded in putting an end to a two-year investigation by the antitrust division of the Justice Department into Monsanto's dominance of the seed industry.

Monsanto has the distinction of spending more on lobbying--nearly $7 million in 2013 alone--than any other big agribusiness.

Robert Reich: Left Atlantic City before Trump Plaza folded

In America, people with lots of money can easily avoid the consequences of bad bets and big losses by cashing out at the first sign of trouble. The laws protect them through limited liability and bankruptcy. But workers who move to a place like Atlantic City for a job, invest in a home there, and build their skills have no such protection. Jobs vanish, home values plummet, and skills are suddenly irrelevant. They're stuck with the mess.

Robert Reich: Executive pay skyrocketed from 5% in 1993 to 15% in 2013

So why, exactly did CEO pay skyrocket? One theory is that CEOs play large roles in appointing their corporations' directors for whom a reliable tendency toward agreeing with the CEO has become a prerequisite.

Corporate law in the United States gives shareholders at most an advisory role on CEO pay. "Say on pay" votes are required under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial legislation, but the votes are not binding on a corporation. Such cronyism in American boardrooms has been common for decades.

Robert Reich: Make corporate pay depend on pay of median worker

One possibility would be to make corporate tax rates depend on the ratio of CEO pay to the pay of the median worker in the firm. Corporations with low ratios would pay a lower tax rate and vice versa. For example, in a 2014 CA bill, if the CEO makes 25 times the pay of the typical worker, the tax rate drops to 7%. If the CEO earns 200 times that of the typical employee, the tax rate rises to 9.5%.

The Chamber of Commerce has dubbed the bill a "job killer." But CEOs do not create jobs. Their customers create jobs by buying more of what their companies sell, giving the companies cause to expand and hire. So pushing companies to put less money into the hands of their CEOs and more into the hands of their average employee creates more purchasing power among people who will buy, and therefore more jobs.