Question: Do you ave anything that you would like to tell younger evangelical voters?
Nader: Yeah, roll up your sleeves and put the Golden Rule in practice.
(Applause)
And when you finish doing that, call me up and I'll give you more scripture.
(Laughter)
Question: Corporate welfare?:
Nader: This is what they call the race to the bottom--where states and municipalities fall all over themselves trying to give tax abatements and other breaks to companies to either stay where they are--to not move, or to come to where the jurisdiction is. Studies show that a lot of this extortion--that is, the company will decide where to put its plant or where to keep its plant based one location, transportation and available labor, and the abatements are just sort of like gravy.
When GM dangled the Saturn plant in front of the governors of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan, they fell all over themselves giving them the score to get the Saturn plant. They were going on the Phil Donahue show to bid against one another. No one thought that the Saturn plant would go to Tennessee, but it went to Tennessee. Tennessee wasn't even on the Donahue show. Because of transportation, land and available labor--cheap labor, rural Tennessee labor. Hardworking labor that wouldn't be prone to forming a UAW to challenge them. I don't know all the details of this, but I know what they've been doing for sports teams.
It's not good to expenditure money to begin with, but the way to prevent it is to have an inter-state compact where the states protect themselves from being subjected to these bids. If you're aligned through an inter-state compact or a federal law that would protect these jurisdictions--sometimes you can feel a lot of pressure especially if you have a company with jobs. Like in Toledo, they said they were going to loose their Jeep plant. The company said, "We could go to Michigan you know, depending on what you will give us." And Toledo gave them a lot to keep that Jeep plant there, but if you have an interstate compact that prevents that kind of thing.
There are entire consulting firms and strategies who show companies how to twist and turn mayors and governors to distract them. It's so bad.
You'll be amused by this: The citadel of capitalism--the New York Stock Exchange before automation really kicked in--they wanted to build a new headquarters right across the street, and the NYSE said if the city didn't give them several hundred million dollars they were possibly going to move across the Hudson river. Yeah, that's right, the New York Stock Exchange goes to Hoboken, right? And the city agreed! They didn't quite finish the deal when all this automation came in and they shrunk the space that was necessary in electronic trade. Can you imagine the gall? Here's the citadel of capitalism, demanding welfare from the City of New York and the State of New York! While the schools are crumbling, the subways need repair, and we don't have enough clinics.
Do you see the greed?
The synonym for greed? Infinity! There's no limit to corporate greed. And when you combine corporate greed and power? There's no limit. They get slaves--sweat shops overseas or dark streets in New York City where they get these poor Chinese and other people who are working for a buck or two an hour--60-70 hours a week. Los Angeles sweat shops too! It's like slavery. And there is no end to it unless we subject it to the rule of law, and subject it to political control.
Question: It appears the nuclear power industry is attempting to get a massive subsidy package through legislation...
Nader: This is corporate subsidy-auto. You know the auto companies are about to get about a 50 billion dollar essential loan guarantee to build plants to build produce fuel efficient cars--all this after 30 years of opposition to improve fuel efficiency standards.
See how they get you going and coming? You pay billions of dollars for gas guzzlers, then the price went up for gasoline, and their sales went down. And now they say, "Oh! Uncle Sam!" You the taxpayer, you have to pay to bail us out so we can build new factories to keep up with the Japanese and the Koreans and the Europeans-- none of whose CEOs are paid anywhere near what the CEOs of Ford GM and Chrysler are. You get the highest paid CEOs for the worst performance. Go figure.
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