Felons Voting Illegally May Have Put Franken Over the Top in Minnesota, Study Finds

[BanginJimmy]

if taxes are cut and cut and cut, but never increased, where are the wage increases for the employees of large rich corporations?

Just because a company grows, it doesnt automaticly mean that a $10/hr job is now worth $12/hr. It may simply mean you need more people to do that $10/hr job.

I suppose no one in here plays SimCity to even have an idea of how taxes work. You cant grow without a tax base and if your city (in this case) is strapped for $$ but needs to expand and your capital is low. The best way to stimulate your simulation city is to tax, slightly, on a curve over a couple yrs. The businesses and citizens will hate it, but at one point in time u will have enough capital to continue your growth and give the citizens greater opportunites, increase your cities size and create a larger tax base so then taxes can be lowered.

Sim City is a game and in no way reflects real life. In the real world the 'city' would be a company. The company needs access to cash to finance an expansion, they dont have access to that cash if they have increased taxes or operating costs and unlike a city, raising more revenue means cutting overhead or raising prices, not just demanding money from its citizens.

These are just my thoughts based off a simulation game, but it is very hard for any new businesses to crop up or incentives for currently existing business to be made without someone taking it on. The job growth wont happen instantly, but it will eventually pay great dividends in respect to the citizens and your overall city growth.

Right now businesses are afraid to expand further because of all the uncertainty coming from Washington.

Think of it this way. I work at Lockheed. Its a major multi-national fortune 500 corporation. We currently have a pretty good profit margin on the c-130 but at the same time, we have very serious competition from an airbus product. Imagine if cap and trade was to pass this month and went into effect next year. Because power companies, and probably lockheed itself, will be forced to buy carbon credits the costs of producing electricity will go up. That means the lockheed's overhead costs for electricity will go up, cutting into the profit margin. This also means that all domesticly produced components' prices will go up, further cutting into the profit margin. Before long lockheed has to make a decision:

A. Raise the price of their product and possibly price themselves out of competition with Airbus.
B. Reduce the dividend payed to stock holders and possibly reduce investments.
C. Reduce payroll and possibly fall behind schedule projections.

Of those 3, which do you think they are going to do?

Today, every company, from the mom and pop ice cream joint with 2 employees to fortune 500 corporations with 10's of thousands of employees is faced with that exact decision on several issues. How will financial reform affect lending to small and major corporations? How will heath care reform affect everyone? How much more will they need to budget to pay increased utility costs if cap and trade passes. For companies like Lockheed and Chase, the answers to each of those questions affects millions of dollars.