It’s not the Democrat’e or Republicans. It makes no difference to the CEO’s out there whether Obama or Romney win. Sure some have the pet projects for their own reasons. Thats not why balance sheets are expanding and investing and hiring are on hold across most industries.

What plunged all CEO’s into a ‘no hire – no investment mode’ is the sequester. You’ve basically told every capital market in the world that the US political system is so dysfunctional that you’d plunge your country into a 3-5% self imposed GDP reduction for no particularly good reason. So why would I commit to capital expansion now into the US?

Each candidate is using this as a poke at the other: It’s congress, and congress is dysfunctional, completely, blindly irresponsible and that is not likely to be resolved in this election. You have candidates who have signed odd agreements not raise taxes or discuss it in any way and blame the other parties. Well, that is not how comprise works. You’re country is in a revenue crunch and yes that will affect what you can do in the world, so perhaps it is a security threat to the US.

Remember: The US dollar is currently the world reserve currency. I can however see a day where that is stripped away. And I can see that day coming much faster if the sequester actually goes through.

That is a game changer and the next stop for the US would be hyper inflation and depression: That is what got put into motion two years ago when they walked on the deal Boehner and Obama put together. Now?…good luck: Let us know when you are open again, serious again, and are done playing around.

This post got destroyed by Coyote http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/20 12/10/you-ungrateful-slobs-should-be-tha nkful-that-the-federal-government-is-run ning-up-huge-debt.html, but there is plenty to add, especially about the comments.

Hey there, jimingrapevine, a few questions. Who wrote America’s byzantine and stupid tax code? Was it lefties calling for special rules for their pet political causes? Was it faux conservative corporate cronies pretty much bribing congress critters? Does it make a difference? What did Obama and the Dems do about it when they owned the executive and both houses of congress? Did they do nothing and in fact worsen things with the further tax and regulatory madness of Obamacare? If they really wanted medical coverage for the poor, why didn’t they pass a two page bill saying so?

Calling people “tax cheats” for obeying the tax laws is insane, not? You seem to think that there is some hidden intent in the tax laws that taxes be paid how you think they ought to be. You’re wrong.

I am a CEO, while we don’t have offices in the US, I can tell you our decision to put off expansion into the US came two years ago when the Tea Party and repulicans walked away from a tax reform bill. Some how the American media has made the heros in that drama.

As CEO, we have a responsibility to our employees and customers. We also have to manage investment and growth. The US is a choice in a world economy, not the only one. The reason the US growth has been so stunted in the last two years happened that day and somehow you missed it.

Your article mentions employment as the major problem: that is partially correct. The major problem, and what the letter I suspect was trying to say, though it doesn’t do a good job is that CEOs in your country and others that want to do business, expand, grow and hire in the US, aren’t. Why?

If we commitncapital and the tax code changes, we may not be able to recover. If we comit the capital and the fiscal cliff come along, we may not be able to recover. So two years congress effectively told CEOs America is closed for business investment and growth until further notice.

That’s the message that was sent out. That’s the message received. So we wait until we know and move to other countries. Don’t like it, don’t vote for the guy who walked on that deal, or will on the next one; you got the ball.

Paul Krugman is a clown. He won a Nobel prize, remember, these people gave Obama one in his first year because of a speech.

These dedicated professionals are doing this because they are patriots and not because the are greedy bastards you imply. Obama and his snakes in Chicago, have ruined our capitalism model.

I’m not suggesting the government tell companies what to do with their cash, but rather that if they don’t put their profits back in circulation, and the government doesn’t replace those profits, there will be consequences that are far worse than deficits. And I’m not suggesting that taking the money via a tax a the solution, but rather a tool to get businesses to re-invest or share more of their profits.

2). Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
Amount of fed
eral income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $278 million tax refund.
Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $824 billion.
Amount of federal income taxes Goldman Sachs would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.7 billion

3). JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon
Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $416 billion.
Amount of federal income taxes JP Morgan Chase would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.9 billion.

4). General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $3.3 billion tax refund.
Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve? $16 billion.
Jobs Shipped Overseas? At least 25,000 since 2001.

5). Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $705 million tax refund.
American Jobs Cut in 2010? In 2010, Verizon announced 13,000 job cuts, the third highest corporate layoff total that year.

6). Boeing CEO James McNerney, Jr.
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? None. $124 million tax refund.
American Jobs Shipped overseas? Over 57,000.
Amount of Corporate Welfare? At least $58 billion.

7). Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
Amount of federal income taxes Microsoft would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $19.4 billion.

8). Honeywell International CEO David Cote
Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $34 million tax refund.

9). Corning CEO Wendell Weeks
Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $4 million tax refund.

10). Time Warner CEO Glenn Britt
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $74 million tax refund.

11). Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $55 million tax refund.

12). Deere & Company CEO Samuel Allen
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $1 million tax refund.

13). Marsh & McLennan Companies CEO Brian Duperreault
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $90 million refund.

14). Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs
Amount of federal income taxes Qualcomm would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.7 billion.

15). Tenneco CEO Gregg Sherill
Amount of federal income taxes Tenneco would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $269 million.

16). Express Scripts CEO George Paz
Amount of federal income taxes Express Scripts would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $20 million.

17). Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman
Amount of federal income taxes Caesars Entertainment would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $9 million.

18). R.R. Donnelly & Sons CEO Thomas Quinlan III
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $49 million tax refund.

Eighteen of the 80 CEOs who signed the call for deficit action are actually some of the biggest outsourcers and tax cheats in America. First, they crashed the economy in 2008. They followed that up by taking billions in taxpayer bailout dollars. Their next step was to outsource jobs and evade taxes. Now they are calling for action on a deficit that they helped create over the past four years.

Bernie Sanders is exposing the hypocrisy of these CEOs, and every American should understand that if Mitt Romney is elected president, these Corporate welfare recipients see potential for unlimited feeding from the taxpayer trough. Only by standing together can we tell these CEOs that the bill has come due, and it is time for them to pa

The large cash balances on corporate books are largely beyond our reach. KO, AAPL, GE and most large companies make the vast majority of sales and profits outside of the United States. They would be fools to repatriate those foreign profits and volunteer to pay US taxes on products made abroad and sold abroad.

Short of one world government, the US can no longer tell AAPL what to do with their cash. If we tried they would just leave. If you want the US treasury to get more out of the Fortune 500 you would need to levy a national sales tax.

Perhaps we should begin with:

Ex-Im Bank export subsidies: Boeing, GE, Caterpillar

Bank Bailouts: J. P. Morgan Chase, B of A, Goldman Sachs

Farm and ethanol subsidies: John Deere, Continental Grain

Life Insurance as a tax shelter: Aetna, State Farm, Allstate

‘Carried Interest’ tax treatment: Knight Capital, Pershing Square

Mortgage Interest deduction: Weyerhaeuser

And, if you must ask: “broaden the tax base” is a faintly-disguised euphemism for higher taxes on low income workers.

There are just too many people who hate the idea of a black President.