Sarah Palin blasts Donald Trump Carrier deal as 'crony capitalism'

[Dill]

(12-03-2016, 09:37 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: She's right, though. This is populist politics, not conservative. The Wall Street Journal also attacked him yesterday, saying this hurts the idea of free markets and sets an dangerous precedent of ad hoc politics every time a company makes a decision to be more competitive. They called upon their readers to reject his policies that weren't actually conservative.

LOL we may be seeing ad hoc politics across the board now, considering his recent foreign policy gaffs.

Sanders has an interesting op ed in the Washington Post regarding what he sees as the long term consequences of the Carrier deal. He also notes how different Trump's actual handling of Carrier is from the campaign version, which involved a brutal, big-stick approach to offshoring.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/bernie-sanders-carrier-just-showed-corporations-how-to-beat-donald-trump/?utm_term=.76f1b9b8ea49

Quote:In exchange for allowing United Technologies to continue to offshore more than 1,000 jobs, Trump will reportedly give the company tax and regulatory favors that the corporation has sought. Just a short few months ago, Trump was pledging to force United Technologies to “pay a damn tax.” He was insisting on very steep tariffs for companies like Carrier that left the United States and wanted to sell their foreign-made products back in the United States. Instead of a damn tax, the company will be rewarded with a damn tax [i]cut. Wow! How’s that for standing up to corporate greed? How’s that for punishing corporations that shut down in the United States and move abroad?

Trump has endangered the jobs of workers who were previously safe in the United States. Why? Because he has signaled to every corporation in America that they can threaten to offshore jobs in exchange for business-friendly tax benefits and incentives. Even corporations that weren’t thinking of offshoring jobs will most probably be re-evaluating their stance this morning. And who would pay for the high cost for tax cuts that go to the richest businessmen in America? The working class of America.  

Let’s be clear. United Technologies is not going broke. Last year, it made a profit of $7.6 billion and received more than $6 billion in defense contracts. It has also received more than $50 million from the Export-Import Bank and very generous tax breaks. In 2014, United Technologies gave its former chief executive Louis Chenevert a golden parachute worth more than $172 million. Last year, the company’s five highest-paid executives made more than $50 million. The firm also spent $12 billion to inflate its stock price instead of using that money to invest in new plants and workers.[/i]

The last statement suggests (to me at least) that part of the problem of lower wages is the shift of profits earned from wages to corporate salaries and bonuses. Keeping businesses viable and profitable over the long term may not be a goal for some  corporate executives moving from company to company as they do.