Sunday, January 31, 2010

Corporations are not People

Let's talk about the Supreme Court's ruling in " Citizens united V. Federal Election Commission,First we need to understand that this ruling overturns more than 105 years of court law, so if anyone tells you this ruling is not "radical" they are stupid, lying or have an agenda.
First my opinion is that corporations are not people, they don't have First Amendment Rights. They are legal construts for Tax reasons and under Corporate Law the have rights, but make no mistake they are not people, they do not die, they do not bleed ,they can't be put in jail and they don't have the Right to Vote. The only defining requirement for a corporation is to make a profit for its owners, that is it. They don't care about people,waste,harm or damage that they do, they are here to make money, period. Now that is not a bad thing but it also doesn't mean they have the best interest of others in mind. That is not part of their charter.The People who run the coropration have rights,the people who work for the cororation have rights and the shareholders who own the corporation rights, but the Corporation only has rights under Corporate Law.
Now the real big issue that has come out of this ruling is that it opens the door for Foreign companies to enter our elections,some on the right say this is not true,but you must read the ruling to see that they make no distinction between Foreign or American companies in the ruling. There are Laws on the books that say that Foreign entities cannot enter into our elections,but this needs to be cleared up.
The First thing to answer is "What is an American Corporation"? I ask you is Budweiser an American Corporation? They are incorporated in Missouri , but they are owned by a Belgian/Brazilian Brewer named InBev. So is Bud an American Corporation, according to US Laws the answer is yes. So now InBev, a foreign corporation can push money through Bud and into our elections. In my opinion once Budweiser was bought by InBev they stopped being American and should be operating under the foreign Corporation Laws,but of course they don't. How much of an American company needs to be owned by foreigners to make it foreign? Is it say 51% is it more or less?. Think about this, we will use IBM jast as an example,say the largest shareholder is from france ,how much stock,percent wise, does he need to own before IBM becomes foreign under Law, is it 10%, 20%. This is something that the "Radical-Right-Five" on the court left blank.
Now the Congress needs to fix this "turd" of a ruling.Barney Frank has already said that he will be looking at writing new Corporate Laws to rein in this spending. Senator Al Franken has already introduced a bill to stop at least Foreign Companies from spending in our elections. I have not read the text of this bill but i'm sure Franken will have it on-line soon for all to read.