FedEx, UPS Push for Tax Cuts as Documents Show Them Sinking Millions into Automation

It was acceptable during the Reagan era to believe in trickle down economics. We have enough evidence now that most economists (even former supporters) agree it doesn't work, and just moves more money to the top while drastically increasing income inequality. Im sorry conservatives and Wall Street democrats, if you still support these policies you are either misinformed or you are being dishonest that it helps anyone but the wealthy.
a reply to: Southern Guardian

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: infolurker

The one to be released Wednesday. More details. The only fact I know, we go from 7 brackets to 3. 12%, 25% , 35% . The 15% bracket is gone. Middle class increase of 10% .

Yeah, hell with that.

If the repubs seriously tax the middle class more and restrict anything (like 401K and Mortgage deduction) there will be hell to pay during the next primary season. To do that is political suicide.

originally posted by: darkbake
One problem with automation is, as the technology advances, the working class will not be able to find enough jobs. This will result in them having less money, if any (in the most advanced case), to spend as consumers.

that is a problem with the economy/society, not a problem with automation, that automation reveals that problems presence in the economy/society is not automations fault.
nor should it prevent us from embracing automation, those problems simply must be rectified by other means.

a reply to: NobodiesNormal

I agree. Those problems were also "exposed" once companies started outsourcing operations to places with low wages & low employee benefits.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: infolurker

The one to be released Wednesday. More details. The only fact I know, we go from 7 brackets to 3. 12%, 25% , 35% . The 15% bracket is gone. Middle class increase of 10% .

The brackets and their presence or absence mean absolutely nothing. The key is the "effective" tax percentage after all the deductions are taken into account. Your first $X of income is taxed at the first bracket percent. Your second $X amount is taxed at the second bracket percent, etc. Few people pay 'at the bracket' percent. Further, the TOP 20% OF INCOME EARNERS PAY 95% OF THE INCOME TAX. Source That's the highest it's ever been. That's why you can;t give tax cuts to the bottom 50%. Thy don't pay any in the first place. How's that for a disparity. IN addition, the USA has the HIGHEST CORPORATE TAX RATE IN THE INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD:

In the United States, the top federal statutory corporate income tax rate (the rate set by law that applies to the highest corporate income tax bracket) has been 35 percent since 1993. Most corporate income is taxed at that rate. With state taxes added in, the top statutory rate is even higher; on average, that combined rate was 39.1 percent in 2012, among the highest in the world.

Source: Congressional Budget Office. Tax table in the article itself with comparisons.

So here we are with the top 20% paying 95% of the income tax and the US with the highest corporate income tax in the industrial world and you guys are saying they don't pay enough? That is, in a word, absurd.

You know I cant even make it to work on time anymore because every morning somewhere on these streets a bunch of them are closed down because the Public Service Gas company is digging into the ground and fixing something.


Ever since the republicans drastically cut taxes on the rich in 1980, under Reagan the US infrastructure has been degrading at an alarming rate. And that shows up in things like how the public streets are maintained.


The country from after WWII to 1980 was developing into a true civilizational super society until they started coddling the rich.

Now China is headed to overtake America as the number one power in the world.

All because the people have been deceived by the Republican ideology that coddles the rich, resulting in always cutting their taxes

After Trump and the GOP cut taxes for the rich in less than 4 years America will be headed for doom

originally posted by: Southern Guardian
When's that wealth trickling down? Record tax cuts in the 80's. Another $ trillion worth of tax cuts in the 2000's primarely aimed at the super rich. Now more tax cuts for the rich? Despite the Middle Class stagnating in growth? Check the stats on income inequality. Worse now than in decades. The term 'Tax reform' is just another word for Reaganomics. Trickle down taxes. A myth, which really doesn't equate to reality. Take the big Corporations pushing for more major tax cuts:

FedEx and UPS—two of America’s biggest employers—have been publicly pushing tax cuts as job creators even as they plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for a coming wave of automation at their distribution centers and along their delivery lines, corporate documents show.

Neither company has said what effect their automation plans may have on their job numbers, but both FedEx and UPS are also actively developing new technology designed to expand automation, according to patent applications reviewed by TYT. One UPS executive told Wall Street analysts new automation initiatives currently being planned will be coming online as late as 2020.

www.globalresearch.ca...

Now you know what? If Corporations like FedEx wish to invest in automation to maximize profit and productivity, have at it. In the end their goal is to the make profit like any business. It's inevitable, automation. The solution isn't to limit technological advances that are inevitable. That being said, these Corporations should not go around posing as primary job creators to get further tax cuts. They clearly have no intention of reinvesting this money to benefit the lower classes. This is all for the primary goal to maximize profit and those of their shareholders. Economics 101. But no, no no, conservatives would have us cut all their taxes. Have at it. While they cut down more jobs and invest those tax cuts right back into the pockets of the executives.

All that automation and innovation though is what allows you to order a package Monday at 5pm and get it Tuesday morning.

UPS has been around more than 100 years and is one of the largest union employers in the country. FedEx revolutionized express delivery.

Both of these companies have been heavily invested in tech and automation. I did some major strategic consulting work for UPS 20 years ago and you would not believe how automated their main facility is in Louisville, KY. It is an engineering marvel. I can't imagine what it is like now. It was ground breaking then before RFID and other tech was readily available.

Automation is natural progression as companies are always going to seek ways to lower costs and increase productivity just as consumers are always looking for lower costs.

a reply to: Edumakated

Yeah, I don't think people realize just how much automation plays a part in modern industrialization. I worked at a small UPS factory roughly 10 years ago, and I'd guess that about half of the place was automated (the other half was backbreaking manual labor).

Recently I've been binge watching "how it's made" videos on youtube. A quick glance at some of them would really help people see that automation is already a major part of our modern factories. It's way too late to put that proverbial genie back in the bottle.





ETA: National Geographic's series "Ultimate Factories" that did a show about the factory you're talking about. I haven't watched it but it's way bigger than the factory I worked at.

No doubt, soon we’ll have robots and drones delivering packages from Amazon, Fed Ex and UPS.


I tell you, if you’ve worked at one of these places, you’ll know that they are primed for robotic development in that they treat their human workers as slave-like robots.


As a youth, I invited my supervisor at UPS outside for a few rounds the way he was slave driving me….And you know the guy didn’t even fire me!

a reply to: schuyler


I Will discuss further when details come out.

a reply to: Southern Guardian

There will be a showdown one day soon, as labor taxes are being sidestepped as well as sales taxes.

If i buy a product from a company, i pay a sales and use tax. If that product is an automated service via software, there is no tax on it as a "Software as a service" transaction.

More and more automation will happen, and more and more taxes will be pulled from government. The less government tends to the labor of its people, the less cash it will have to spend to maintain itself.