As global capital becomes ever more
powerful, giant corporations are holding governments and citizens up for
ransom — eliciting subsidies and tax breaks from countries concerned
about their nation’s “competitiveness” — while sheltering their profits
in the lowest-tax jurisdictions they can find.
Major advanced countries —
and their citizens — need a comprehensive tax agreement that won’t
allow global corporations to get away with this.
Google, Amazon, Starbucks, every other
major corporation, and every big Wall Street bank, are sheltering as
much of their U.S. profits abroad as they can, while telling Washington
that lower corporate taxes are necessary in order to keep the U.S.
“competitive.”
Baloney. The fact is, global corporations have no allegiance to any
country; their only objective is to make as much money as possible — and
play off one country against another to keep their taxes down and
subsidies up, thereby shifting more of the tax burden to ordinary people
whose wages are already shrinking because companies are playing workers
off against each other.
Reich warns, however, that rightwing nationalist movements are spreading throughout North America and Europe, thwarting the very prospect of cooperative multinational action and thereby delivering us straight into the hands of multinational, global corporatism.
