Big corporations are predictably mum on abortion rights

We may see some change on this, but probably not much.

In the days since a Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade leaked, corporate America has offered a familiar response: silence.

It mirrors the days following Texas’ implementation of its six-week abortion ban last September — silence from the many companies in the state. But in the weeks after Texas’ ban went into effect, some companies started to speak publicly and implement policies to assist employees who wanted to get an abortion out of state. That response to the Texas law, then the most restrictive abortion ban in the country, created a precedent that corporations could draw on now that it seems imminent that Roe will be overturned. So far, they have not. - AlterNet

Another way the greedheads are screwing up schools

Some vo-tech classes in high school are not a bad thing. That's been going on forever. But as in so much else the pathologically exploitative greedheads are looking to take control.

However, career and technical education programs funded by major companies tend to narrow student learning to the needs of specific employers and can be harmful to students’ long-term employability, limiting their future opportunities.

In a soon-to-be-released study, we looked at the increasing influence of corporations in shaping career and technical education programs in public schools. We found that when corporations gain control of school curriculums—rather than educators, parents, and elected school boards—students get locked into narrower courses of study.

This diminishment of opportunity is often sold to parents as “career pathways” to their children’s future employability. But insufficient attention has been given to the collusion among corporations and government bureaucrats to provide big companies with workforce training at taxpayers’ expense. - The Progressive

Corporate "junk agroecology" is predictably on the rise

There is a lot of money, and therefore power, at stake. And that's what really matters, right?

Agroecology is at a crossroads. The farming system—which is primarily practiced in the developing world but is gaining some traction in the U.S.—incorporates a suite of ecological growing practices into a wider philosophy rooted in shifting power from global agribusiness companies to peasant farmers.

The approach has received growing global attention in recent years from international organizations, including the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which has repeatedly pointed to agroecology as an effective, cross-cutting strategy to reach its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including climate action, zero hunger, and reduced inequalities.

But with that increased attention has come what some advocates describe as a move toward watering down the political, societal, and civic engagement aspects of the system. - Civil Eats

Trump's handouts to the corporate greedheads

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy crunched numbers regarding the Trump corporate tax cut, often noted as his only signifiicant legislative "achievement."

ITEP’s examination of Fortune 500 companies’ financial filings identifies 379 companies that were profitable in 2018 and that provided enough information to calculate effective federal income tax rates, which is the share of 2018 pretax profits they paid in federal income taxes in that year. This report only includes companies that were profitable in 2018 and would thus be expected to owe income tax for that year. (The corporate income tax is a tax on profits.)

For most of these companies, their effective federal income tax rate was much lower than the statutory corporate tax rate of 21 percent. This is by design.

When drafting the tax law, lawmakers could have eliminated special breaks and loopholes in the corporate tax to offset the cost of reducing the statutory rate. Instead, the new law introduced many new breaks and loopholes, though it eliminated some old ones. The unsurprising result: Profitable American corporations in 2018 collectively paid an average effective federal income tax rate of 11.3 percent on their 2018 income, barely more than half the 21 percent statutory tax rate. - ITEP