Continuing the Conversation

We are currently in election mode here in Ontario, and taxes have raised their ugly head again, at the expense of any meaningful discussion about policy and vision on the part of the leaders. Personal attacks tied to taxes are going to be the death of infrastructure and democracy in the long run. Mark Kingwell has spoken eloquently about the loss of civility among elected leaders.

Attached is a chart my research colleague, Yuill Herbert compiled over the past year showing that corporate profits continue to increase while at the same time, profits are being held more and more by corporations and we suspect not enough is being reinvested into innovation, research and development (compared to other countries), and most importantly, in these economic times, into job creation. Here is another reference supporting this. This next chart shows an upward trend in corporate profits and subsidies to corporations.

What is driving these corporate profits? And even more importantly, a good society would be asking what is the social responsibility of corporations to their society, as well as their shareholders? How much is enough?

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