("B")ENDING BUSINESS IN THE NORTH CAROLINA LEGISLATURE

 Below is a letter to the Editor that I just sent to our local paper.  If any of my readers are in North Carolina...please take this information and contact your State Representatives and Senators.

(UPDATE:  This bill was defeated on May 15 in the NC House, but was referred back to committees for review at a later date.  So while we were able to defeat this madness two years in a row, it is likely to show up again sometime in another future session.  Vigilance is required!  But my thanks go to our good representatives who voted this down this time!)

To all of my business friends in Gaston County, you are about to be squashed by the General Assembly in Raleigh if you don't step up and stop them.

There is a legislation making the rounds in the committees that sets up C Corporations and S Corporations for a big fall.  The legislation is enacting something called the "B Corporation."  This is a supposedly "new" corporate designation that sets up a "different" model for doing business.  Why do we need that?  We don't.  But "B Corporation" has deep pockets and expensive lobbyists who are selling this to our legislature with all sorts of cool sounding propaganda;  like giving out tax breaks for "B Corporations" who use low flow toilets, or hire enough diverse minorities, or upfit their buildings to be "green," or sell "green" products, or ...just about anything that the B Corporation folks think satisfies their own agenda or criteria.  The "B Corporation" website states the idea is to give companies a "new" way of capitalizing on doing "social good," such as Social Justice and Environmental Justice.  We already have environmental laws, social programs, and a legal structure that is supposed to provide for equal protection.  The "B Corporation" would create yet another system of regulations affecting whether or not your company is allowed to operate on a capitalist model of profit making.  According to "B Corporation," the profit motive is greed, therefore, you must conduct your business for "the social and environmental good."  According to "B Corporation," doing business as a capitalist provides NO social or environmental good."  How do you like that, Mr. or Ms. Businessperson? Your business is just not measuring up!  Nope.  You just aren't "good" enough.

Who is "B Corporation?"  Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Aspen Institute, the founders of "B Corporation" are very wealthy and successful capitalists who decided to get wealthier by creating a system where you have to go to them to get "certified" to qualify as a "B Corporation."  Their certification comes from another arm of "B Corporation" called "B Labs."  So they get fees for certifying businesses who want to become a "B Corporation." They even have set up their own bank and created a stock exchange category just for "B Corporations" to lure their investors.  

Why is that a problem?  Well, for one thing, the Secretary of State of North Carolina is in charge of determining business classes in our State, not some outside group of unelected people.  Why would the legislature want to take that power away from the Secretary of State?  Bad idea.  Then you have the tax manipulation problem.  While not in this bill as yet, the stated goal of the "B Corporation" is to get States to provide extra tax breaks to companies who pay "B Labs" to get certified as a "B Corporation."  Should the State of North Carolina give special tax status to "B Corporations?"  What happens to the C Corporations and the S Corporations in that scenario?  This is happening elsewhere already.  Philadelphia has put "B Corporations" in the front of the line for all government contracts.  If you are a C Corp. or an S Corp. go to the back of the line.  And that is just what the "B Corporations" are selling....big advantages for themselves over our normal, traditional, business model.  This doesn't work unless you have State legislatures and elected officials cooperating with "B Corporation" to implement their scheme.  Once "B Corporation" is adopted by our State legislature, it is just a hop, skip, and jump to put the preferred status for bids and taxes into the mix.  The well-heeled lobbyists know this and their mouths are watering at the prospects.

Charities will be hurt by this as well.  Why give voluntarily if the State of North Carolina is giving tax breaks to "preferred" businesses who do supposed "social and environmental good?"  Not only that, but the consumer would be financially supporting this scheme by purchasing goods and services from State sanctioned "B Corporations," not by choice of charity, but by the act of purchasing something they may need.  The taxpayers lose by the State handing out more tax breaks to favored "B Corporations" while the rest of the taxpayers carry the extra tax burden on their shoulders. 

This legislation has made it through two committees already.  If you agree with me that this is a very bad idea for North Carolina and for the business sector here in North Carolina, please contact your representatives and tell them to vote against the "B Corporation."  And do it quickly.  Time is of the essence.

Sources below:

http://www.bcorporation.net/
http://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps/the-non-profit-behind-b-corps/our-funders
http://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps/the-non-profit-behind-b-corps/our-history
http://www.pappasontaxes.com/index.php/2010/06/26/whats-a-b-corporation/
http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-dangers-of-quasi-capitalism

CONSERVATIVE DEFENSE OF BUSINESS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS STATE CORPORATISM

The joke in my house when people are tongue tied or getting things mixed up is: "Someone is getting their merds wixed up!" (if you didn't catch that, flip the first letters of "words mixed" and you get it.)

In case you are looking for definitions to describe the current political soup we are in, good luck! We seem to be swirling around in a strange witch's brew of ingredients where socialism is mixed up with fascism, dictatorship, corporatism, communism, and with a small dash of capitalism thrown in just to placate the few Americans left in the nation. That's a lot of isms. We are trying so hard, as Americans, to define the political ideology of our future, while watching capitalism marginalized to near extinction. What do we call the new witch's brew?

We had capitalism in a form that satisfied the needs of most Americans for many years. Capitalism, combined with the rule of U.S. Constitutional law, was simple in design and created opportunity for all comers.

But Michael Moore says capitalism is dead. (I would say it lives on in the hearts of Americans, but Michael Moore doesn't listen to me.) What Michael Moore is really saying, I think, is that corporatism has taken over capitalism through political corruption. Large corporations are indeed now political organizations being played by governments and politicians on a global scale. This has happened to such an extent that corporatism has nearly killed capitalism. Of course Michael Moore never liked capitalism anyway, so he delights in the death of the most productive economic system in the history of the world.

But let's define our "merds." What is the difference between Corporatism and Capitalism?

Corporatism defined

corporatism (plural corporatisms)

1. Political / Economic system in which power is exercised through large organizations (businesses, trade unions, their associated lobbying efforts, etc.) working in concert or conflict with each other; usually with the goal of influencing or subsuming the direction of the state and generally only to benefit their own socioeconomic agendas at the expense of the will of the people, and to the detriment of the common good.
2. The influence of large business corporations in politics.

Capitalism defined

"Capitalism" is conventionally defined along economic terms such as the following:

An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.
Source: Dictionary.com

This is an example of a definition by non-essentials. An essential definition of capitalism is a political definition:

Capitalism is a social system based on the principle of individual rights.
Source: Capitalism.org

Obama hates capitalism and proves by his policies that he will do anything he can to destroy it. Tea Partiers, conservatives, who love capitalism are defamed by the left as bitter clingers. Defenders of business enterprise, "the American Way," are told they are greedy sons of bitches and need to share the wealth. Obama is the champion of this defamation, all the while he is kissing up to the likes of Jeffery Immelt, CEO of GE. Curious, no?

So what is going on here? Merds are getting wixed up. How so? Capitalists are being confused with corporatists. People on the street are being told that businessmen and women are greedy and are the abusers of workers. Business, the act of producing products and employing people, has come under the heading of criminal activity as defined by leftists.

At the same time, leftists are using corporations to implement their top down control of the American people. How? Through tax incentives, through regulations, through propaganda, through bribery of campaign money, through favortism, and any other way they can. You see, corporatism is not the same thing as capitalism.

The guy on the street is being told to despise "capitalism," business enterprise, as we all used to know it. Then the guy on the street sees the likes of Jeffrey Immelt and GE and says to himself, "Yeah, those nasty businessmen are greedy sons of bitches and should pay their fair share." And then, the guy on the street hears Tea Partiers and conservatives defending capitalism and says to himself, "Well, I don't like that idea because look at Jeffrey Immelt and GE." The guy on the street has his "merds wixed up," confused by contemporary definitions of "business enterprise." And who would not be confused? The witch's brew being cooked up is a mess.

The trouble with this is that GE is the poster child of "corporatism," not capitalism. The act of business in this country is now divided into two categories; big business corporatism, and entrepreneurship capitalism. It is the entrepreneur capitalist who is being smashed into oblivion, while the politically connected corporatist is sitting lofty in the favored highest halls of our government. Corporatists have sold out capitalism. There is good business and bad business and corporatism is bad business.

GE gets away with this by pretending to be on board with global environmentalist goals, i.e. wealth redistribution through environmental policies, windmills and squirrelly light bulbs, energy star appliances, etc. Warren Buffet gets away with his billions by telling Americans to pay more taxes. (spokesperson for the global leftist O in the WH.) Bill Gates gets away with it because he, too, plays the global leftists game of wealth redistribution, depopulation initiatives, foreign aid, and more. But those are only three of huge players who are playing the corporatist political game. Duke Energy, Home Depot, Ted Turner, Banks of all stripes, so many I could not begin to count.

And in case you don't know the corporatism game, here is a brief description:
Step 1. Spend money on politicians' campaigns and lobbyists.
Step 2. Ask for regulations and laws to benefit your corporation.
Step 3. Once favored status is achieved, make more money.
Step 4. Ask for tax loopholes and tax deductions, subsidies and grants.
Step 5. Politicians then tell you to trade the loopholes, subsidies and grants for your support of anti-capitalist orgs., such as NGO's, non-profits, leftists foundations, etc. (which you are all too happy to do because capitalism is not what you are doing anymore.)
Step 6. Throw parties and live it up! Dance on the grave of capitalism.

As 2012 elections draw near, Americans need to know the difference between capitalism and corporatism. Candidates who espouse support of business, need to define what that means to them. Are they supporting corporatism or capitalism? Romney? Perry? Bachmann? Whoever? Who is standing with the U.S. Constitutional support of capitalism? Who is in bed with corporations who want nothing but government favors in trade for squashing any business in their way, tax deductions, subsidies, grants, and loopholes? It's an important distinction.

For all of the leftist media consternation over Halliburton during the Bush / Cheney years, the Obama leftists have doubled down on the worst corporatism policies I have ever seen in my lifetime. Truthfully, our government has been corrupted by corporatism for a long time and is now into it up to its eyeballs. Republicans, as a whole, are not pristine in their conduct on this issue, either, to say the least. Conservative voters need to be discerning which candidates are actually still supporters of capitalism.

As supporters of business, let's not get our merds wixed up! We need capitalists, not state corporatists.