cruise lines fly under none US flags to avoid US taxes and employment law. should they get bailouts

[Demovictory9]

Morgan Fairchild Retweeted
Sabrina McDaniel
@Sabrina_McDa
All the major cruise lines are asking for bailouts from the U.S. Government.

Yet, Disney Cruises sails under the Bahamian flag ... Celebrity Cruises under Liberian/Maltese flags & Carnival Cruises under the Panamanian flag - all to avoid U.S. taxes & employment law

Link to tweet

[msongs]

1. no, unless its for employees and workers nt

[getagrip_already]

5. They all hire mostly foreign workers....

Except for booking agents and dock workers, these are foreign flag operations. Let the flag countries bail the corporate entity out. We can protect the domestic work force.

[exboyfil]

20. Does anyone know what the total payroll for US citizens

for these cruise lines. That seems to be a very good question to ask for the politicians voting on aid for them. There is only one ship with an all US crew (https://www.marketplace.org/2017/09/29/working-cruise-ship-america-jobs-hiring/).

It is in general an upper middle class luxury. You could argue those tourist dollars would go somewhere else in the US anyway.

The ships themselves are not built in the US.

[getagrip_already]

23. it may be significant, but hidden....

There is an army of people that works to turn a ship around once it arrives at it's us embarkation/disembarkation point. But a lot of those people are third parties or contract workers I suspect.

Maids, laundry workers, food handlers and caterers, mechanics, tradesman, etc.

It's a logistical ballet to get 3500 people and their luggage off, clean the rooms and common areas, restock provisions and remove trash. Plus any mechanical work that might be required. And then bring another 3500 people on. All in a very tight window.

Those are the people who are in pain. They aren't getting paid and there are few unions. But they are also the people the cruise lines would feel no responsibility to support if they got bailed out. Not there problem they would say because they aren't employees.

And that is the myth of corporate giveaways.

[duforsure]

53. I agree

And nothing from this stimulus should go to companies that hire foreign workers here over Americans, or companies that paid zero in taxes .

[Gidney N Cloyd]

2. Scuttle 'em.

[jls4561]

3. Doesn't tRump always say "Murica first"

[rickford66]

4. Let their "Flag" countries bail out the corporations.

The individual US residents should get unemployment though. I knew two people who worked cruise ships and they paid US taxes.

[pdxflyboy]

6. Gidney N Cloyd...

I agree.

[applegrove]

7. From the number of times Mike Pence said "the industry" in his press conference

10 days or two weeks ago makes me almost sure promises were made.

[alittlelark]

8. F, NO !!!!!!! F, NO !!!!!!! F, NO !!!!!!! F, NO !!!!!!!

F, NO !!!!!!! F, NO !!!!!!! F, NO !!!!!!! F, NO !!!!!!! F, NO !!!!!!!

[Ilsa]

9. No. Let trumps"free market" economics drive them out of business. nt

[BGBD]

10. sure...

on the condition that they immediately loan all of their ships to the Federal Government to. e converted into temporary hospitals and agree to sail under the US flag for the next 20 years.

Dock them in Florida, SC, Washington DC, Philly, NY, Boston, New Orleans, Chicago, Texas, LA, San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.

[magicarpet]

11. Well wait a minute,.. not so fast there,...

Jared was just curious,.. how much of a kickback are they willing to fork over ?

You slide $5 million under the table, we slap $5 billion on top of the table per cruise ship line owner.

[DinahMoeHum]

12. NO.

n/t



#newrostrong

[Hoyt]

13. That's one industry that shouldn't get help.

[customerserviceguy]

40. Agreed

It's going to pretty much die off anyway. After the shit we witnessed a week or two ago, few people are going to ever again put themselves in a position where they can't escape from a disease boat.

[Hoyt]

50. Really. They are floating incubators of disease, and will be more expensive

in a time where excess is not affordable to most.

[grantcart]

47. Airlines are part of our infrastructure, Cruise lines are as essential as roller derby.

Bail out every restaurant but not one cruise liner.

And I like cruise liners.

[Hoyt]

49. Good way to put it. My only concern is a lot of people here do work in industry.

[localroger]

14. No, and I'll tell you another one

After the BP oil spill a lot of seafood operators felt they got shafted because they didn't get compensated for the business they were doing off-book to avoid taxes. Boo-hoo, I say, but it was a big deal in some places. They said they couldn't compete doing it honest with those who weren't. OTOH those who did it honest and could document their losses got compensated. It's a big ole complicated world now, ain't it?

[Bluethroughu]

15. Nope.

That's our earned money we gave for services in our country. Nope.

[spanone]

16. NO.

[Glorfindel]

17. Absolutely not. They are foreign corporations.

Let them sink or swim on their own. Isn't that the essence of capitalism?

...sink or swim!

[MoonlitKnight]

18. No

Give the people what they lost in wages and let us “the market” decide where to spend it.

Only help businesses that are critical to national defense and sovereignty. Boeing, under a new board and management and strict rules - because we need aircraft manufacturing capability. To a lesser extent the airlines. Auto companies seem ok so far.

Help small businesses. And it’s time to make Amazon into a market platform rather than an oligopoly.

Refinance all loans at 1% secured and 5% unsecured. Since we are fully compensating lost wages, people will still qualify without lowering criteria. No cash out. This is all loans, including credit cards moved to a consolidated 5% loan since it is unsecured.

Offer Medicare for the unemployed. They can choose to stay on it or take employer plan once reemployed. One time choice.

That leaves a ton of money for an infrastructure plan. Corporations can bid for a piece of that pie.

[Gothmog]

19. No

[doc03]

21. Hell no!

[exboyfil]

22. National Review agrees

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/coronavirus-economic-stimulus-cruise-lines-not-vital-industry/

[Demovictory9]

24. "Carnival, which employs few Americans and is of no strategic economic value, is not one of those co

Carnival, which employs few Americans and is of no strategic economic value, is not one of those companies.

[craigw]

25. Like somebody else said, these are one of the least essential businesses out there.

F* the cruise lines. Protect the workers/contractors.

[relayerbob]

26. Hell, no. They also

violate US environmental laws and are among the worst polluters of the oceans per ship. Thousands of people's raw sewage flushed to sea every day

[JCMach1]

27. force them to re-flag, permanently, or face a penalty...

[Sgent]

42. They can't

at least all the boats in their current fleet couldn't be used.

To carry a US flag, a ship has to be built in the US and largely crewed by US citizens.

That said, screw bailing the mout.

[Bengus81]

54. Screw em...they wanted to pay NOTHING here,give them NOTHING

[bringthePaine]

28. saltwater leeches

[Aquaria]

29. No

This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.

[spanone]

30. K&R

[TheDemsshouldhireme]

31. No

[SunSeeker]

32. Fuck those polluting gluttony emporiums!

They shouldn't exist, let alone be subsidized.

Subsidize our NATIONAL PARKS instead!!

[xmas74]

33. Only if

They send all available ships to port amongst major US cities to be used immediately as hospital care ships. They must also agree to reflag their ships and agree to a loan with market value interest. I would consider a decent deduction in total payback depending on how much they contribute to fighting C19 and in the future if they would promise to hire some positions directly from our youth trained Job Corps.

I'm sure I can come up with other stipulations if I gave it more time

[NotHardly]

34. Absolutely not... not paying taxes & avoiding US employment law sounds like enough bailout

[whathehell]

39. Exactly..

Hard to believe they had the gall to ask.

[whathehell]

35. Let them get bailouts from the countries whose flag they sail under

[Demovictory9]

36. lol. Bahamas bailout.

[whathehell]

38. They don't give us squat -- We owe them Nothing. .n/t

[Initech]

37. When John Oliver starts back up again, I would love to see him take down cruises.

[Luciferous]

43. Patriot Act on Netflix did an episode on cruise ships. It's crazy the amount of stuff they

get away with- I would never get on a cruise ship!

[Initech]

45. I will have to check it out.

[Luciferous]

41. Hell no

[cstanleytech]

44. No corporations should be getting any bailout at all. The American citizens that earn 100k or less

a year are the only ones that should be given a helping hand with maybe 60% to 80% of the money but whatever % they do decide on though the rest of the money should go to infrastructure but not one fucking dime for any corporation.

[sandensea]

46. Let'em go to Liberia for a bailout

They can stay there while they're at it.

[Brother Mythos]

48. Cruise Lines are almost the definition of "nonessential industries."

Almost all of those big cruise ships were built in foreign countries, sail under foreign flags, and are crewed by mostly foreign nationals. The consequences of the Cruise Lines failing will have a financial impact on very, very few American citizens.

What will ultimately happen if the Cruise Lines fail is that newly incorporated, multinational corporations will quickly buy up most of the idle ships at bargain basement prices, re-register them under foreign flags once again, and then re-crew them with mostly foreign nationals once again.

I believe a bailout of the Cruise Lines would be little more than a bailout of their big investors (Do you, personally, own any Cruise Line stock, other than Disney? Do you even know anyone who owns any Cruise Line stock, other than Disney?), and a bailout of the Cruise Lines' big bankers.

In any case, I suspect almost all of the bailouts the Global Oligarchs' Posse (GOP) will pursue will mostly benefit the biggest of investors and the big banks.

This time around, I'm all for letting more than a few of the big investors, big hedge funds, and "too big to fail" banks, bear the burden of their bad investments. I mean, it's not like big investors are going to not invest once again, and new hedge funds and banks won't immediately be incorporated to fill the voids left by the old, bankrupt ones.

[Demovictory9]

58. nope... no known investments in Disney... don't some of their practices

[Amishman]

51. Nope, better that money go to save American businesses

We have enough of our own to bail out, no need to rescue luxury operations based in other countries

[KY_EnviroGuy]

52. Celebrity's headquarters is in Miami. My what a little flag can do!

This is not a new issue..........

[Magoo48]

55. Seems like a good time for one of the world's great environmental hazards to sail into the sunset.

[Chainfire]

56. Bail out the workers, not the businesses

That should be the word going forward.

[Nay]

57. Not a fucking dime. nt