Week of 02/05/2018

The “$1000” Bribe
– by David Matthews 2

So... did you get your thousand-dollars yet?

Big Corporate is trying to peddle President Donald Trump’s newly-signed and overly-touted tax reform law by announcing these so-called “thousand-dollar bonuses” for their employees.  They’re trying to sell you on the myth that Trump’s big tax-break for Big Corporate translates into huge “windfalls” for the hard-working employees.

You see, the last time Big Corporate got a break was after the Great Recession, when businesses were given breaks to “encourage” job creation.  This was especially true with the “Too Big To Fail” banks, who were given passes on any and all criminal charges just as long as they gave some already-budgeted pocket change as a “fine” and a mealy-mouthed promise to “do better”.  But then they took the money and they flipped America the bird.  It was clear they didn’t care about the economy or the American people.  All they were interested in was their short-term profits and to hell with the rest of the world.

So this time around, Big Corporate wanted to make sure they got it “right”.  They didn’t want us to be pissed at them again for getting more money while we still struggle.

So you have these big companies announcing $1000 bonuses to their employees.  “Share the wealth”, right?  $1000 bonuses are nothing to sneeze at, right?  Right?

Well... hold on there, Trumpets.  Don’t be self-clapping like your orange-skinned narcissistic cult leader.  You see, those $1000 bonuses come with a huge disclaimer.  Huge, I say.  “Yuuuuge!”  Bigger than even Trump’s narcissistic ego.

First of all, if you continue to read the fine print on the story – something that I understand your narcissistic cult-leader doesn’t have “the time” to do – you’d find out that not every employee will get that $1000 bonus.  With big companies like Home Depot, that $1000 bonus will only go to those employees that have been with the company for at least 20 years.  That’s not a lot of people!  For the most part you’re talking managers, supervisors, and executives.  Not the people that work on the floor, in the trenches, day-in-and-day-out, on hourly wages.  The bulk of the employees, especially those recently employed, will get only about $200.

So we’ve gone from “Christmas”, as Vice President Mike Pence described it, to one week’s grocery shopping, or one monthly utility bill.  Just one.

Second, not every company is taking part in this, despite the overexaggerated claims from our narcissistic President.  Certain companies are, of course.  Those are the companies that people recognize.  But that does not translate into every company giving bonuses.  If you’re thinking that you’re going to spoil your kids with a trip to Disneyland with that bonus money that your boss has not announced, you could be waiting for a long, long, time.

Third, here’s another dirty little secret: that bonus money is not the same as your paycheck money.  It gets taxed differently.  That supposed “$1000” bonus, which would probably will be closer to $200 if you get anything at all, will end up being closer to $125 after taxes.  Yeah, you won’t hear VP Pence gloat about that detail.

So we’ve gone from “Christmas” to grocery shopping to gas money. Yay Big Corporate!

Of course, the whole purpose of this is to sell the myth that tax cuts translate into windfalls for everyone, not just the rich.  It’s the old lie perpetrated during the Ronald Reagan days of “trickle-down economics”, where if you give the rich all the breaks, they’ll turn around and “re-invest” in more jobs and raises.  But, as I’ve mentioned in previous articles, just because companies “could” do something, that doesn’t mean that they actually will do that.  We saw that just ten years ago with the Great Recession.

That brings us to the fourth point: This is happening as other companies and corporations are shutting down stores and laying people off.  Home Depot may be giving out those supposed “$1000*” bonuses (*your amount may vary), but at the same time, Walmart is both raising their minimum wages and they’re also shutting down stores for both their big-box brand and Sam’s Club; some without notice on the same day as their wage hike announcement.  Toys-R-Us is shutting down stores as part of their bankruptcy.  Sears is shutting down several of their own brand stores and K-Mart stores as part of their bankruptcy.  Remember that Carrier manufacturing plant that Trump claimed he “saved”?  They’re laying off more people than they initially announced.  Kimberly-Clark, makers of diapers and tissues, is laying people off.  Even Harley-Davidson – an American manufacturing icon – is laying people off!

All this... while people are crowing about a supposed “bonus” that they may or may not get for an amount that may or may not be $1000 before taxes.

Because let’s get brutally honest here... what this is, is nothing more than a carefully-orchestrated diversion.  It’s all designed to distract us from the ongoing economic uncertainty, the anticipated corporate profit-gluttony, and to spread the myth that Trump is some economic messiah. 

Oh, sure, Wall Street is doing super-well!  It’s on meth as it shatters records.  But Wall Street is not Main Street, and it sure as hell is not our street.  Wall Street lives in its own little bubble of delusion, comfortably separated from reality by obscene amounts of money and influence.  The whole world can live in absolute squalor, but as long as corporations can claim record profits, Wall Street will act like the world is in some new “golden age”.

Remember Enron?  It was the super-big corporate monstrosity that was so powerful that it actually orchestrated the ouster of the Governor of California.  And do you know how it got all that political power and financial might?  They hid their losses in deceptive accounting practices and shell companies.  Debt too high?  Create a new company and transfer the debt to them as an “investment”.  Yay!  “Profit!”  And then they patted themselves on their backs, gave huge self-applauses, and touted themselves as being smart… really smart… in fact, they could call themselves geniuses.

Sound familiar?

Of course, Enron couldn’t keep the deception going forever.  It fell.  And when it crashed, it exposed widescale corruption and graft.  It cost jobs.  Plenty of them.  And not just Enron.  It sparked a mini-recession when it and a bunch of other corporations full of self-applauding “really, really smart” people collapsed.

And that’s where we are right now… a nationwide Enron being run by a self-professed “smartest guy in the room”, and corporate minions using sleight-of-hand tricks to hide our creeping economic misery.

If Big Corporate really did care more about their employees, then they wouldn’t be playing games like the “$1000 bonus” gimmick.  They’d instead be raising wages for the hard-working Americans.  They would actually live up to the false promises of “trickle-down”.  But that would cost them too much money, and this plunder economy that we are forced to survive under considers that kind of thinking to be heresy.  It’s a whole lot cheaper for them to give a one-time-only bonus than to invest in long-term wage increases.  Sure, Walmart did that, but they also laid of a lot of other people at the exact same time.  You know, like it was quid-pro-quo… a bribe.

Yes, I work for a living too.  I struggle to make ends meet.  I also know first-hand what it is like to be out of work for a long period of time thanks to the mechanizations of Big Corporate during the Great Recession.  I see the desperation still going on today from people who are struggling to find work while our politicians lie about how “low” unemployment is.  Be happy if you’re getting something out of the tax sell-out.  But understand as well that there will be plenty that won’t.  And a one-time bonus that simply pays for gas money should not be interpreted as helping the economy or fulfilling the empty promises of Trump and his GOP. 

Take the quid, but don’t buy the quo.  Then you’ll be beating the “smartest guys in the room” at their own game.