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In the long run, we are all in this together. Even if you or your industry is not 'directly' taxed, we the taxpayers still pay for government spending. It seems lots of people only want 'others' to pay, but we are the others. IMHO, corporations don't 'pay', their customers do. For my purpose, I will take one of the most flagrant 'fine the corporate culprits' suit in recent history, the tobacco industry. Yes, they paid the fine, but it is their customers that paid for it (in higher prices, that won't come down even after the 'fines are recovered'. There is only one entity to pay. Taxpayers. -------------- I just reread my diatribe, and you can stop reading here. What follows is at this point off topic, I think. The rest is just examples of govt 'punishing' companies, the law of unintended consequences being applied, and what I saw as a 'ultimate' outcome. Breaking up Standard Oil did no good in the long run. The siblings from Standard still exist and in some cases have grown, taken over others, or have been taken over. If you want to go chase them down, you will find they are still, added together, the largest oil/gas conglomerate world wide. Some of the corporate pursuers like BP (previously British Petroleum) purchased Amoco (one of the old siblings of Standard Oil) and from friends still working there have noted the corporate change that has made it a less friendly place to work, even though they spend a LOT more on public relations. Oh, if you buy stock in BP, it is an ADR (a pseudo stock set up to allow US citizens to by 'deposit receipts' of foreign companies, without having to claim they own stock in a foreign company on their tax returns). The Bell Telephone breakup was odd to watch. Yes, the original AT&T died eventually, but the most prolific of their siblings, Southwestern Bell, started out by eating some of their sisters, then eventually eating mommy, and assuming the AT&T name and deathstar logo. The current AT&T is larger than it ever was before $$ wise. And without the threat of being broken up like the old AT&T was, it has no need to even display 'corporate good' or interest in the public as part of its mission. This has just turned the worst of AT&T into even a darker company. SUN computers was pretty good corporate citizen. Not perfect but pretty good. Oracle has eaten it and killed the life of the vision of SUN. But IMHO there isn't much difference in Oracle and M$ ... both are unclean in the area of corporate ethics and morals. Yes, all these 'punished' the 'corporations', but really all it does is shuffle desk chairs and for small shareholders, well they do get punished and often loose everything. Like in the GM and Chrysler government takeovers. There were several documented cases of 'lifetime' workers there investing their savings in 'corporate bonds' that for years were considered 'safe' investments. (Yes, they screwed up and did not diversify so if something did get 'wiped out' it would be typically 10% that got wiped out. But that is another diatribe.) Ok, now it is time to take a breath and go put on my pointy tin hat. :)
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