Beloit billionaire businesswoman Diane Hendricks has been in the news recently because of her political activism on behalf of Gov. Scott Walker. It was in a conversation with Hendricks that Walker made his now-famous comment about using a “divide andApparently all of her personal wealth and the wealth she controls through her company. She is supporting Walker because like him, she wants Wisconsin to become a right-to-work-for-less state. That's so that she can pay her workers less money, cut their benefits (if not eliminate them altogether), and lower the minimum wage, just to name a few of the effects that RTW states experience.
conquer” strategy against labor unions.
During a three-month period in 2012, Hendricks donated $500,000 to Walker’s campaign, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. She is the largest single donor to the governor’s anti-recall campaign, outspending even fellow billionaires Sheldon Adelson (Las Vegas casinos) and Richard DeVos (Amway).
Hendricks, whom Forbes magazine says is worth $2.8 billion, heads Beloit-based ABC Supply Company, which the magazine calls “the nation’s largest roofing, window and siding wholesale distributor” with annual sales approaching $5 billion.
ABC Supply may be a huge money-maker for Hendricks, but the Wisconsin corporate income tax returns she files claim the company makes not a penny in taxable profit.
ABC Supply paid exactly $0.00 in state corporate income tax in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, according to the state Department of Revenue. Tax data for more recent years were not available when the information was requested from the department.
Because, you know, even though most people have to struggle to just keep a roof over their heads and keep their families fed, she just can't make it on a mere few billion dollars.
If we are not successful in recalling Walker on June 5th, we might as well kiss Wisconsin, and our independent way of life, goodbye.
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Yeah, ever since I read that Walker/Hendricks story I've been thinking the same thing. That woman is a billionaire. She got that way under the current system. She obviously wants to cut her employees pay and benefits. How much more does she need? Why does she not want others to make a living? Greedy bitch.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Wikipedia, ABC Supply employs 5,800 in 500+ stores nationwide. With annual sales of $5 billion that amounts to $862,069 of income generated per employee, per year.
ReplyDeleteGreed. Pure greed.
What a miserable thing life is: you're living in clover, only the clover isn't good enough. --Bertolt Brecht
That's odd, I read with zero profit according to tax records. I wouldn't be surprised if recent years were a loss with the new construction where it is at. Most likely why they didnt quote more recent filings in their article.
DeleteIn fact quite a few building supply houses have folded recently. Possible she is just trying to keep her employees employed.
Well, now we're getting somewhere! I'm glad to see that you admit Walker's policies aren't working and are sending the state's economy into a downward spiral.
DeleteIMBR says: "I wouldn't be surprised if recent years were a loss with the new construction where it is at."
DeleteExcept that this report covers 2005-08, the period of the Bush housing bubble, which didn't start popping until 2007. ABC Supply made a lot of money during the bubble years and paid no state corporate tax on all that profit.
Joe, what they don't tell you is that corporate tax is more or less voluntary. A good accountant will ensure you don't pay any corporate tax. Because truthfully it is double taxation. Any funds left in the corporation at the end of the year will be taxed and then taxed again when paid to either employees or to owners. So generally that money left at the end of the year is re-invested, put in tax free bonds, or paid out as bonuses.
DeleteYou did make me laugh though with your "Bush housing bubble" Bush tried to correct it but was stonewalled by Barney Frank. You can google that.
OK, I will. When I enter "Bush housing bubble" in Google, as you suggest, the first entry reads "Bush drive for home ownership fueled housing bubble." That's a New York Times article, which I'm sure you'll dismiss as libtard propaganda. The next entry points to Wikipedia, which says nothing about Bush moving to "correct" the looming disaster. I saw no links to Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling, or other such authoritative sources.
DeleteYou have this irksome habit of simply asserting falsehoods (like trotting out the "double taxation" canard to let corporations off the hook for paying their fair share). But at least you're courteous enough point us to Google so we can verify your foolishness.
To be sure, Hendricks companies are generous as employers go, with loads of upside opportunity, benefits, and reinvestment via training. This was the Ken Hendricks way. The unfortunate thing is that we know it is not the norm, and many employers not only chuck such things as luxuries at the slightest bump in the road, but never believe in their employees in the first place. The labor laws are not for Hendricks, they're for the OTHER employers who will treat their workers with contempt and fire them at the slightest infraction (for an example see the #1 richest guy in Wisconsin, John Menard). I am in fact unaware of any specific fight that she has had with her workers, unionized or otherwise, although there must have been times that companies they acquired and invested in (the Ken Hendricks model) had union tradesmen.
ReplyDeleteIt's very strange why she's so wingnut anti-labor given her apparent history of treating her workers comparatively well.
I don't think it is so strange. She's probably kind of lonely after all.
DeleteBored and lonely billionaires get restless and start to seek out deeper meanings to life.
Some turn to religion, for example, in hopes of finding some more fulfilling purpose to life.
What is really sad is that the places that person turns to often leads to people who just want their money.
Hello, Scott Walker.
I wish information like this could be disseminated to Wisconsin voters before the recall election, but the Democratic Party is too stupid to do that. Too many workers are eager to be jealous of others of the same class who have slightly more than they, but are never jealous of billionaires because that's like being jealous of God. Your average American does not know what a billionaire is, and foolishly defends their "rights" because they all hope to be "rich" one day. They don't know what "rich" really is. It is not the relatively small amount of wealth it would take to buy all the goods and services you want. It is the ability to buy government and recreate society in your own image, the popular will be damned.
ReplyDeleteObama sure has done a good job with inciting class envy, hasn't he?
DeleteRacist, this isn't class envy and you know it. Nor is it keeping up with the Hendrickses. The issue is BUYING AND SELLING GOVERNMENT FOR INDIVIDUAL AND CORPORATE ADVANTAGE TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE COMMONS.
DeleteOur country is supposed to be a democracy. No matter that we started with wealthy landowners as leaders, we have evolved to a nation where individuals, landowning or not, have equal status under the law. And now people like Walker and Hendricks (and you, apparently) want to move toward rule by corporations, which are not people, no matter what Romney and a part of the Supreme Court say.
I'll never be rich. Most of us will never be rich. And I don't want the rich and/or corporations deciding what MY country will be.
A principle of conservatism, the basis for the Republican party, is the preservation of classes.
DeleteThe only class warfare in effect is the upper classes wanting to secure their ownership of the pie. They own this country. Feudalism is not dead. The peasants are divided....
Preservation of the upper class status means the SUPPRESSION of the other classes....
DeleteJB, Its true we cant afford to have corporations running the country, but the same goes for labor unions. Government handouts will end our democracy, whether it be to public unions or through social programs. Or, more recently wealth re-distribution (which encourages lack of self reliance).
DeleteOur government allowed us to become the leading economy in the world, but it will also ruin us, if we allow it to.