Robert, I don't know where you live in meatlife...but speaking as a native Rust Belt punk from Hershey Corporation's home state....

I'd say Hershey's did a damn good job of teaching them what life was like in the United States for workers, except for the brief time in the few places where workers successfully organized for a share of the wealth their productivity generated.

Either they'll return to their respective global garden spots feeling superior (and ready to accept what their bosses tell them there), or they'll maybe work on organizing there. Who knows.

The thing is, this is what life is like for grownups all over the world, whether globalized capital is in charge or not. This is what work is like. You don't have to engage in expensive, fossil-energy-intensive schooling related tourism to learn that. You just have to grow up and go into the job market (or vice versa).

But let's face it. Teenagers getting jetted around the world to learn the obvious are probably going to end up in a higher quintile of global income/wealth no matter what they do. If they come into my community expecting a different deal than the locals get, not to mention for things to work out as they dreamed, that's pretty disingenuous. And what were they expecting? That you jet into a place, get your privileges, and jet out ahead of the game AND ahead of all the local workers whose jobs you took?

Sorry, but in this case, I think the corporate structure actually did the world a service. :^D

The fact is that the locals who work at Hershey probably don't have the luxury of walking out and "rallying" in the parking lot. That sort of thing comes easier when mom and dad, or the rich university supporters or taxpayers of your school, are paying for your short term immersion in real life, as part of a schooling scheme intended give you a class leg-up on all the folks in Hershey, PA, who've had nothing but doing shit work all their lives.

In other words, real slave labor can't Twitter and Facebook their experience, climb on a plane at the end of the fixed term of employment, and go somewhere else. These students weren't slaves, they were tourists. And in my view, it's always good when locals place a reality tax on those romantic getaways.

I've never been able to find the charts, so I figured I'd run the numbers to see what Federal marginal tax rates are when you combine Income, Social Security, and Medicare taxes. Even ignoring the absurd capital gains situation and other loopholes and just assuming that everybody received all their income as wages (and just took the standard deduction and personal exemptions), the rich have a lower Federal marginal tax rate than most middle class single folks and middle to upper class married folks thanks to the Social Security Wage Base and the 10.4% tax break on income above the six figure mark.

Here are the charts:

Highlights (The two income figures assume neither makes more than the wage base):
Marginal Tax rates:
Single Income $43850-$92950: 38.3%
Single Income $92950-$106800: 41.3%
Married w/single income $87700-$106800: 38.3%
Married w/two income $87700-$158050: 38.3%
Married w/two income $158050-213600: 41.3%
Single Income $388500+: 37.9%
Married Income $397850+: 37.9%

These figures include the current payroll tax holiday so add 2% to the figures that are less than the SS Wage Base when those expire:
Single Income $43850-$92950: 40.3%
Single Income $92950-$106800: 43.3%
Married w/single income $87700-$106800: 40.3%
Married w/two income $87700-$158050: 40.3%
Married w/two income $158050-213600: 43.3%
Single Income $388500+: 37.9%
Married Income $397850+: 37.9%

Charts w/o payroll tax holiday:

It is pure B.S. Andy Grove is from Hungary, but came over as a child. This is true of most of the "immigrant" founders (Google founders also came over as little kids, they are American, de facto), plus they ignore the many failed startups, the hype, the scam and then....my favorite, they ignore many of these so called companies are offshore outsourcing conduit shops.

It's truly obscene. One "study" tried to claim "immigrants" have patents by going through the USPTO and categorizing last names as "foreign looking". I kid you not! As if all of America doesn't have "foreign" sounding names. Gee, you can't be a native born American and have the last name Lin? I don't think so!

If they wanted to really start companies they would have a program to give tax incentives to people with valid business plans and background who are U.S. citizens.

The age discrimination is beyond belief in tech with all sorts of talent laid to waste. Many of these people truly can innovate, are creative. Put them into what's called an incubator with support and have them brain storm, prototype and groom them, give them funding.

A slew of startups and innovation would result.

But that said, these days it's discriminatory against Americans because VCs all want companies to have their offshore outsourcing plan in their first rev. business plan. I kid you not. Before one dime is given, even some Angel investors, they want to make sure that business is going to manufacture in China at minimum and even do R&D in India or abroad, at least part of it.

Very very discriminatory and there is so much talent sitting around in the United States, we truly need a host of something to give funds, incubation support, to people with U.S. citizenship required. I think they should have an unemployed preferred requirement as well.

Think about all of those people 35 years and older who cannot get any job. Many of them have years of experience, management experience, there is a lot of low level executive experience out there too.

Instead, nope, corporate lobbyists are demanding even more $$ goes offshore and they are going to displace even more Americans.

Believe me, there are so many methods to get into the country, Tesla is wooed beyond belief and will not be kept out.

This is another very disgusting lie going on and is all about global labor arbitrage and capital flows to EEs, globalization game.

@Frank, what are you hoping to achieve by refusing to vote? What if everyone who saw things as you do refused to vote? I don't think that's the right way to direct your frustration at the two party system. Unless you honestly believe Obama would be no better (not even a little bit) than the Republican in any way, refusing to participate because it makes you feel impure puts you as much at fault as anyone else.

I am still saying "Let's give the Tea Party a chance!" If they can stand up and lead some real opposition to the FTAs, which are all about tax loopholes ... okay, then we are seeing something worthy. The votes won't mean anything unless the progressive Democrats get some opposition to the FTAs going too, but we have seen some across-the-aisle opposition to politics-as-usual with TPers joining progressive-populist Democrats already. So it's possible.

On the issue of eliminating some tax loopholes, when so far that's been a dead letter with TP congress critturs, I could argue the possibility of it like this:

Boehner and the TP had 'no choice' but to insist that even the elimination of well-known loopholes could not be considered in any negotiations because they and their supporters were heavily influenced by personal stakes in the bull market in gold. Now that gold is riding high again, things have changed. Boehner and the TP perhaps are going to begin to consider the possibility that sometime in the next two or three months might be a good time to cash out their gold.

That's probably delusional, of course, but it's the only way that I can see to justify any positive (non-zero) expectation that the current Congress will make any progress whatsoever toward reforming loopholes in the IRC. (Specifically, I am referring to loopholes identified by David Cay Johnston, e.g., in his book Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else. )

The rationale for adamant opposition to cutting loopholes in the context of the budget 'negotiations' was that such a move would have been tantamount to increasing revenue, which by TP 'logic', equates to  "raising taxes"         

But suppose there's more to a book than its cover ... suppose that some politicians actually sometimes mix private financial and public economic decisions.      

Suppose that you were offered an opportunity to transform much of your huge gold amount into cash at a time when equity markets are low ,,,  maybe you can even finagle some margin ... tax benefits galore ...

1. Period of Rising Uncertainty (May-August, 2011)

Immediately after Boehner  walked out of negotiations on the budget, July 22, having earlier made his nod to the TP by way of Rush Limbaugh, July 21, what happened? Surprise! Gold markets quickly reacted, beginning with a nibble on July 22.

A great opportunity was thus created for anyone who might have 'guessed' or 'predicted' the event -- that opportunity being specifically presented by the timing of Boehner's surprise walk-out on a late Friday.

At closing of APMEX  on Monday, July 25, gold was at an all-time high of $1615.40. During the previous week, gold fell for three straight days (July 19-21) to $1587. After Thursday's indications from Boehner,  and more so since the interestingly timed walkout on July 22, gold rose continuously until August 11, when it declined after CME's increase in margin required for gold buyers. Previous to the CME move,  platinum was trading at less than gold, and even professional goldbugs were advising moving from bullion into gold miners. (That is, professionals were taking note of a bubble in the gold market, although not abandoning an overall bullish position.)

Based on analysis of log-linear oscillations in the gold price dynamics for 2003–2010,  Askar Akayev's research group forecast a collapse in gold prices in May-July 2011. As of week beginning Monday, July 18, that collapse had not yet occurred, and question is moot as to whether the three-day decline July 19-21 could have led to something like that, absent the Boehner/TP shenanigans.

By way of background, Akayev, president of Kyrghyzstan 1990-2005, has been described as a 'prodemocratic physicist'. The Kumtor Gold Mine in Kyrshyzstan produced more than 5.8 million ounces of gold from its opening in 1997 through the end of 2006;

2. Period of the Gold King (August-September, 2011 .... or longer?)

Ron Paul has suggested a target for gold of $5000. Is that realistic for 2011? Probably not. It's neither more nor less than the goldbug philosphy echoed by a politician. (If gold goes that high this year, that will mean that currency is giving way not to gold but to guns and ammo.)

3. Period of the Gold King giving way to the Blue-Red-White alliance  (October-November, 2011)

(Order of colors indicates relative value of chips -- blue, red, and white -- the colors also being the national colors of the USA, because the dollar rises when gold falls, but in that context the order is changed to Red, White, Blue.)

In this period, it may be that insiders will be preparing to cash out their gold to buy into equities. What? Have they no principles? 

Could they do that? Well, if the market were seen as reacting to the good news of enactment of the recommendations of the Super Congress ... sure, they could. Or not. Who knows?

If that's what happens, then the insiders might allow something to pass through the Super Congress to be rubber-stamped by the lesser congress, (the congress authorized by the Constitution), that would actually tend to stabilize the NYSE (potentially bad news for brokers)-- something like not exactly tax increases, but anyway revenue increases. Something that would tend to move the dollar upwards, that is, gold downwards. It is possible, after all, to make money by shorting a commodity or currency (whatever you like to consider gold to be).

Of course, I don't know that this will happen. It doesn't pay me to make such predictions.

I'm just saying this is a slightly more realistic delusion than the delusion that Republicans will want to cooperate with Democrats to eliminate some egregious tax loopholes just because it's the right thing to do by American working families.

4. The final period of 2011 will be the Holidays. It is then that I shall reflect. Am I becoming too cynical in my old age?

From: Foreign Students in Work Visa Program Stage Walkout at Plant
"Each summer, the State Department brings many thousands of foreign students to the United States on the international work-travel program, with visas that are known as J-1. "

With U6 unemployment at 16%, this J-1 visa program should be abolished. That's thousands of jobs that Americans could be working. This story provides yet more evidence that guest-worker visa programs are all about providing cheap labor at the expense of American workers.

I'm pretty sure DeFazio can do math and knows labor econ. Of course anyone who dare comment on immigration and labor markets is labeled a racist, ignoring the info like the above.

DeFazio is one of the few out of the box. So is Marcy Kaptur. We sure could use a lot more out of the box.

Remarks by Jim Kainz and Robert Oak as to educating the public are well taken, and I voted for both comments.

HOWEVER, it isn't as though there's nothing available in the way of easily readable analysis, in terms anyone can understand! See, David Cay Johnston's Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else. The situation is known, and everyone should call their congress-crittur and let them know that we know that they know ... and we don't appreciate that loopholes are treated like sacred cows, while our intelligence is insulted by Congress.

"Making Bush tax rates permanent will require bipartisan support." -- Jim Kainz

WRONG VERB! We need to know the truth:

"Making Bush tax rates permanent will would require bipartisan support, assuming bipartisan support were a possibility."

The sentence should be constructed according to the old saw: "Beggars would fly, assuming that wishes were horses."

It's been obvious since December 2010 that there's no chance whatsoever to put an end to the Bush tax cuts until, at the earliest, 2013. That's just reality ... as opposed to political fiction.

Jim Kainz is apparently speculating on developments in the context of the up-or-down votes that will be required when the SuperCongress comes up with a plan to gut U.S. social safety nets over the coming decade. (If the proposals are rejected, pre-arranged spending cuts are to be automatically triggered by the terms of enacted legislation.)

The Super Congress is already receiving intense pressure to the effect that the Super Congress is going beyond its assigned task of further destroying U.S. social safety nets (targeting $ 1.5 Trillion in spending cuts without touching military or war spending) in order to destroy Second Amendment rights of citizens!

Second Amendment advocacy groups like Gun Owners of America fear that the Super Congress could move beyond its effort to control the nation’s purse strings and focus on enforcing gun control legislation, a legitimate concern given the fact that Harry Reid has already insisted there will be “no constraints” on the committee and that it will have “the ability to look at everything.”

Alex Jones' Infowars

(BTW: I agree with Ron Paul that the Super Congress concept, like all 'fast-track' legislation, is a disaster for democracy and of questionable constitutionality. I often find myself agreeing with Paul on principles; however, I disagree with Ron Paul on many issues, including his vote against raising the debt limit.)

If anyone expects that Bush tax cuts will not be continued in the Super Congress recommendations, they'd best be thinking in terms of a veto from Obama of the legislation as enacted by Congress! Even then, after the December 2010 legislation, I'm not sure that Obama could prevent continuation of the Bush tax cuts by a veto of the up-coming legislation.

Clearly, if Obama were thinking to step up to the plate on behalf of his core constituency (voters represented by the Black Congressional Caucus), he should have vetoed the legislation in December 2010, but he was advocating it at that time!

I don't want to be thought to be an apologist for Obama, and I am not saying that Obama will veto the up-coming Super Congress legislation or even that a veto would prevent continuation of tax loopholes, but it is what it is! We might as well think in terms of a veto by Obama as think in terms of even minimal Republican support for a bipartisan compromise representing the best interests of American working families.

On examination, Kainz's underlying premise is false that there is even a remote possibility of any meaningful bipartisan compromise to eliminate loopholes in the IRC. Kainz's conclusions are, therefore, just plain nonsense. (Would you make your investment moves based on such fiction?)

Examine it:

Republicans on the Super Congress committee will vote in lockstep and need only one Democratic vote. Max Baucus will be only too happy to oblige. In the former (Democrat-controlled) congress Baucus led Obama's December "tax cuts for the middle class (including the super-rich and MNCs)" alternative to simply letting the cuts expire on December 31, 2010! The earlier Obama proposals and the December thing were two different animals entirely.

Let me be perfectly clear: if Congress had done nothing in the lame duck session, the Bush tax cuts for the rich would have expired on December 31, 2010!

Baucus acted aggressively to prevent the expiration of the cuts! Further, Baucus will not have to run again until 2014,  by which time he will have acquired assets and MNC connections making it totally painless for him or his ego to step down rather than run!

Republicans in House and Senate will lockstep vote Yea on the Super Congress recommendation, and enough Democrats will go along in the Senate to send the bill to the President. At that point, Obama will get a final chance, that he is very unlikely to take, to show a determination to at least try to represent his most central core constituency - the African-American vote - as we seriously advance into 2012 presidential election mode.

How many Republicans in Congress support eliminating loopholes in the IRC? Maybe Chuck Grassley. If you know of any others please name them and indicate evidential basis therefor. Yes, there are many Democrats who are part of the Money Party and will not support eliminating loopholes, but not all. Virtually all the Republicans are locked into their rhetoric, dependent on RNC support, or outright bought by MNC and other large contributors to campaign funds and who knows what is hidden?

Kainz's premise is faulty in assuming that Republicans in Congress, with probably fewer than ten exceptions, have any interest whatsoever in eliminating loopholes in the IRC.

Again, I don't want to be seen as an apologist for Obama, and Obama likely will not exercise veto power. However, on a preponderance standard, it's clear that the problem with cutting loopholes in the budget 'negotiations' was that Boehner and friends equated elimination of loopholes to  "raising taxes"! This flowed from the Norquist position that their criterion for "tax increase" was "increased revenue."

There is little or no doubt that the TP/GOP demand was to cut spending (except no substantial cuts to the military budget while also retaining the 'off budget' war fiction) and reduce revenue (rejecting any kind of revenue increase by way of elimination of loopholes or otherwise).

You can try to argue around this reality, and it's probably never confronted on FOX News, but it's pretty clear on the preponderance standard. See, e.g., Examiner.com as excerpted below --

After walking out of negotiations with Obama, Boehner immediately went to FOX News with statement that "now is not the time to raise taxes." (Examiner.com, para. 7)

Boehner felt compelled to call Limbaugh’s radio show Thursday [July 21, 2011] to assure him [Limbaugh] he was not making a deal to cut loopholes. Friday, he walked out. (Examiner.com, para. 8)

On the other hand, congressional Democrat leaders cannot be held blameless for letting a precious opportunity go in 2010! Obama right up to the November election (going back at least to August) was supporting a sane compromise that would have been welcomed by Warren Buffet!

All the Democrats needed to do was (1) Nancy Pelosi let the legislation go to the floor for a vote, and, (2) Harry Reid rule it to go direct to vote up-or-down in the Senate, no cloture rule need apply, no messing around with reconciliation by a chosen few appointed to a back-room senate-house joint committee. Reid always says, "We didn't have the votes." Okay, in that case, let that lack of votes be on the record! Can you rob American working people, but be too delicate to embarrass a Senate colleague in an election year?

In other words, the Democrats needed nothing but to recognize that an election was coming in November and they were staring down the jaws of defeat! All they had to do was SOMETHING OUTSIDE THE BOX! All they needed to do was decide that they had to do SOMETHING for the all the working families of America, even if it would make them look good!

Democrat leaders in 2010 had that choice! Yes, it would have been spun by the GOP spin-machine as a terrible example of Communism at work, but whatever the Democrats do is always spun that way. Meanwhile, it would have been seen by all sane folk as a COMPROMISE appealing to swing voters, appealing to the idea of fiscal integrity! What is wrong with Democrat leaders in Congress? Could it be the exact same thing that is wrong with Republican leaders in Congress?

See, NYT article 'Analysis Looks at Effect of Letting Tax Cuts Lapse for Rich' (August 11, 2010), as follows --

If the president gets his way, in 2011 the top two income tax rates — now 33 percent and 35 percent — would revert to the levels before the Bush administration, 36 percent and 39.6 percent, respectively. But the four lower rates would remain 10 percent, 15 percent, 25 percent and 28 percent. For some taxpayers earning up to $250,000, the top marginal rate would remain 33 percent.

With the economy still weak, the issue of the tax cuts has led to an economic debate between those who would end all or some of them to reduce the projected debt and those who say raising taxes on the wealthy could threaten the economic recovery.

For both parties, the dispute has become a defining one as they hone campaign arguments heading toward November. ....

For their part, Republicans do not emphasize the impact of extending the tax cuts for wealthy individuals. Rather, they say Mr. Obama is about to spring a big tax increase on many small-business owners who file their taxes as individuals. Analyses from the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research organization, show that less than 3 percent of filers with small-business income pay at the top two income tax rates, and many of those are doctors and lawyers in partnerships.

Also see, NYT's Economic Scene by David Leonhardt (2 November 2010), '5 Options for Congress to Cut Taxes' --

Congress could [extend] all the Bush tax cuts for households making less than $1 million a year. At the same time, though, a new tax bracket would start at $1 million. The marginal tax rate could be 39 percent, which was the top rate under Bill Clinton. The Financial Times recently endorsed such a plan. It would probably cost something like $30 billion a year, rather than the $60 billion for extending all the upper-income cuts.

Lest you worry about millionaires, they’d still be doing just fine. They would indeed get to keep part of the Bush tax cut — that part that applied to their first million dollars of income.

---  David Leonhardt writing in the New York Times, 2 November 2010

What was the Democrats problem? As pointed out by Leonhardt, proposals to enact sane tax legislation were supported by the Financial Times ... and if that isn't enough, rolling back the Bush tax cuts has been advocated by Alan Greenspan since July 2010 and since. Cheeeesh!

Also see, PoliticalProf's 'A Thought On The Bush Tax Cuts' (3 August 2011).

That's a really good point, an excellent point, they are for profit and that's the problem, institutions pay to have themselves rated.

Supposedly S&P make a $2 trillion mistake, I haven't checked that out, it's real study to read budget deficit/debt and ratings reports in detail, but if you find someone who took the time to verify (w/o political bias), link it up.