And our tax code is simply riddled with exemptions and exceptions targeted specifically to help individual corporations. This is why allowing corporations to write the tax and regulatory laws governing their industries is a Bad Idea
TM.
It seems simple to me--if you want access to our economy and our buying power you need to purchase that access via taxes and jobs, and you need to do it in such a way that you don't fuck shit up for everyone. I don't CARE if it cuts into your profits to comply with safety regulations and environmental protections, if your company is going under from the cost of adhering to regulations then your company is not competitive and needs to go to another country where it's more suited. Somalia, perhaps. Another, better run, company will take its place--a company that has already figured the costs of compliance into its business plan. I get really pissed at these companies that will spend millions bribing congresscritters and running "no, it's not OUR fault" ads and the like when simply cleaning up their shit would have cost less to start out with. Because when their shit cuts loose and they poison thousands of people they whine about how it's going to "ruin them" to clean up their mess--that should never have happened in the first place! I think a few good federal convictions of formerly unjailable CEOs would help stem this tide bigtime. Right now they think they're all "too big to fail, too big to jail" but I'd sure like to disprove that empirically and emphatically.
