For the year 2021, 23 American companies had profits for the year that exceeded $10 billion. In the previous year of 2020, there were 25 such companies. In 2021, hundreds of American companies had profits over $1 billion. These companies employ a major percentage of the 130 million full-time workers in private industry and yield a great deal of power that allows them to influence politicians to act in their best interests.
This is best exemplified by the Citizens United decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that corporate spending was protected speech, allowing corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections, thus giving them outsized influence on elections. It eroded the public’s faith in the integrity of our democracy. These corporations donated millions to lawmakers who voted to overthrow election results, perhaps not realizing the negative repercussions it could have on democracy.
What could be the repercussions? Two words keep popping up: civil war! Can you imagine what that war would look like? In our original Civil War, the North vs. the South, the Blue vs. the Gray, each side knew who their enemy was and who to kill. A new civil war would create mass chaos; fighting by opposing sides within each state, perhaps not even knowing the enemy, resulting in the death and maiming of millions. And do you think businesses would not be affected by such mass destruction? Realistically, if businesses managed to survive, earnings, if any, would virtually disappear and their stock prices would plummet. Earnings per share? Are you kidding? Little or no earnings would force businesses to close or cut back, causing tens of millions of jobs, even more, to be lost or disappear forever.
Without jobs, what will people do to survive? What about people, like retirees who depend on Social Security, pensions and investments? That, too, would be gone. And those who were working could no longer count on 401Ks, pensions and investments that they wanted to accumulate for their days of retirement, assuming they remained alive. Health plans will be gone too. America, the land of opportunity, would be no more. No businesses! No work! No money! No future! Everybody loses, except the Russians and Chinese, who would be rooting on the sidelines for more of the same.
To summarize: This civil war will not only cause people to die but also corporations, leading to mass unemployment, the destruction of the stock market and financial institutions, leaving everything that people worked for to be no more. The only hope would be survival. For what? An Emperor, the King of Lies, to take over. He played on the anger of people and look where it has taken us and to where it could lead. What a promising outlook.
Is there a solution? Now is the time for corporations and all good people to come to their senses. In America, it’s really all about money and the influence it has on everything. It’s up to the corporations; to use their power and influence, to save our country and our democracy. It can be done by threatening those politicians who support the BIG LIE that is responsible for this craziness, by cutting off funds to them and to convince people that keeping up hostilities will only cause them to lose everything and possibly die. Why should the corporations do it? There’s over a billion reasons why.
Alvin Goldberg
Great Neck
