Why do corporations sell Americans the the most expensive products?

[ColbertWatcher]

The auto makers can make fuel efficient vehicles, but Americans never see them. We get the worst polluters with the lowest mpg.

The pharmaceutical corporations make the same exact medicine available for everyone, but Americans are charged more than anywhere else in the world.

The worst part is when the corporations do the R&D in America, then run off to another country (Grand Cayman Island for instance) to avoid paying the communities that gave them their start.

Am I missing something? Why are we getting screwed by these mega-corporations?

[magellan]

1. Our government allows them to screw us

Quid pro quo is SOP between our elected officials and the mega-corporations.

One day, maybe we'll stop putting up with it and remind them who they work for in no uncertain terms.

[ColbertWatcher]

2. But, do you think it's only the government's fault?

I think the GOP-controlled media is to blame as well.

How many people do you know about the car thing?

How many people who listen to GOP radio know about the car thing?

[ixion]

3. Because Americans are stupid enough to buy it...

Personally, I'm okay with expensive as long as there is qualitative value in a product. But paying competitive prices for things like sub-standard cars, well, that's where I draw the line. It would make me very happy to see America take pride in building quality products again. That is an art we've left by the wayside.

[dysfunctional press]

4. because they can because the government allows it.

we're a center-right nation after all, don'tcha know...:shrug:

[victoryparty]

5. Mexican Coke

Yes, and why does Coke choose to make Coke with real sugar in Mexico and sell it to Americans for higher prices than the Coke made with high-fructose corn syrup in the USA?

[no_hypocrisy]

6. One theory is that the decisions of corporations are made by MBA's who

haven't had the experience of working in their businesses. By that I mean they've been in a sterile classroom and haven't learned by doing such as learning how a product is invented, developed, marketed, and sold. The MBA's decide using spreadsheets and other paper. And their decisions are not necessarily practical. They get their profits but at the expense of their corporations and the people depending on the longevity of the corporations.

[pampango]

7. Until 8 years ago, didn't we have the most money?

Expensive products - yachts, jets, mansions - are generally bought by the people with the most money.

[ColbertWatcher]

13. But a corporation can only sell so many expensive products.

Haven't we learned anything by the $5-internet-based presidential campaign?

Small is good.

[Egalitariat]

8. I would guess it's because we have the most money

Any corporation whose strategy is to sell the most expensive products to Guatemalans won't be in business very long.

[BeFree]

9. Profits

The one thing that matters the most. The next is being successfully above those you profit from.

If you are a success in this country, then you are to be admired. If you are not a success then you haven't
profitted, and being profitable is the most important thing.

[codjh9]

10. Huh? Because they're greedy bastards, that's why! That, and the fact that the American public

largely fell for the BIG, BIG, BIG bullshit (BIG trucks, BIG SUVs) that they pushed on us for the last what, 20 years? You're an effete wimp if you drive a small car! (I'm 6'4" and have never owned a big car or big truck).

[icnorth]

11. A big reason you are getting screwed...

SNIP:
President Bush's tax loophole for giant SUV buyers has now passed Congress, allowing small businesses to deduct up to $100,000 for purchasing the heaviest, most fuel-inefficient vehicles available...

President Bush wants to enlarge an already engorged tax loophole for business owners' giant SUVs. The tax deduction a good idea for farmers and other business people who need pick-up trucks and vans—has been a boondoggle for lawyers, doctors, accountants and the like who are applying the generous tax break to purchase their oversized SUVs. And who, need we ask, gets the bill. . .we, the people. The group "Taxpayers for Common Sense" estimates that the SUV tax loophole costs government between $840 million and $987 million for every 100,000 vehicles sold to business...

http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/int/hummer

[ColbertWatcher]

14. You should consider posting this as its own thread. I think it's very important. n/t

[Canuckistanian]

12. High drug prices can be fixed

Right now, your government FORBIDS mass purchases of drugs by the states.

If your government would allow mass buying, Canadian Internet drug suppliers and cross-border pharmacies would be out of business.

And this is all brought to you by "free-market" Republicans.

[ColbertWatcher]

15. CAN be? I think they ARE fixed! n/t

[Canuckistanian]

16. LOL

You're right.

Didn't mean for it to come out that way.

[Uncle Joe]

17. Mass brainwashing by the corporate media have enabled their

clients to gouge the American People; who are at best regarded as consumers or customers, to be sold a product or down the river.

The primary lesson for anyone to remember is, the corporate media represent corporations' best interests, not the American People's, for the simple reason being mega-corporations pay for their commercials and American Business as a whole has very short vision usually going only so far as the next quarter. Corporations are the corporate media's daddies.

The one word, you will almost never hear the corporate media use in referring to the American People is as citizens because that word is empowering and represents ownership as in owners of the government. The corporate media don't want the American People to emotionally know, the people own the government because if the people did emotionally recognize this, the government would be strengthened and the corporate media's corporate clients would be relegated to a lower power status under the watchful eye of the people's actual representative government.

As it is, the mega corporations own the corporate media propaganda arm and up until the Internet started growing in power and influence, challenging this dynamic, political leaders were more beholden to the image portrayed by the corporate media and the huge chunks of money passed to them by corporate lobbyists. Thus the people's government was weakened and corporate supremacy reigned.

Abraham Lincoln warned against the moneyed interests as the preeminent danger to the nation, Theodore Roosevelt fought against the monopolistic trusts, Dwight Eisenhower warned against the military industrial complex gaining too much power whether sought or unsought in his farewell address. Two of those Presidents are on Mount Rushmore but in spite of their best efforts, the corporate media continue to promote either overtly or subliminally the self-serving and yet nationally-destructive ideology that "greed is good."

Thanks for the thread, ColbertWatcher.

[ColbertWatcher]

19. This is the main reason why the vast majority of Americans will not know how bad everything is ...

... until after Obama takes office.

I fully expect the GOP-controlled media to "report" on the economy with as much integrity and diligence as they showed with their Iraq coverage (before, during and after the invasion). Or with the embarrassing job they did with the campaign (admitting afterward that they withheld information).

We need to do something to make more people understand that there is only one president at a time, and what happens now is the responsibility of the man/party who is president right now.

[Selatius]

18. Corporations exist, first and foremost, to generate profits for shareholders.

Everything else has been subordinated to that primary objective, much to the planet and society's detriment.

[ColbertWatcher]

20. Well, whoever is telling all these companies that volume doesn't matter ...

... really needs a reality check.

[Realityhack]

21. In part because we can afford it...

and we choose to buy it.

[icnorth]

22. Greed, the "G" in the G.O.P.

Michael Douglas’ character in the movie “Wall Street”

“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.”

Before FDR introduced the New Deal as President he saw the collapse of Wall Street, he went through the depression and he saw the affliction on America and her people. When he came to office corporate intrusion in the halls of power was constrained for a time by leaders who recognized the inherent damage it could inflict because they had lived it.

In 1961, as he was ready to leave office, Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the nation for the last time; he warned about the industrial military complex as it began to take root in government and the danger it presented. As the I.M.C. gained power and influence in the Reagan administration, toleration of corporate governance blossomed into a full embrace by the Bush White House. Deregulation really took off in the Reagan era but during his eight years in office Bush shredded the remainder of the checks and balances in the system and gutted regulations and regulatory bodies.

The PNAC had achieved what they wanted, a fully operational government corporatocracy. For President Elect Barack Obama this is the reality he faces as he looks towards January 2009. President Obama, I wish you well.

Eisenhower knew whereof he spoke. If you have seen this before I recommend watching it again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY