Corporate America's sunshine patriots

[Diving Mullah]

A great Read

In June, a report from Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies found that since the economic recovery began two years ago, "corporate profits captured 88 percent of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than one percent." It goes on to declare, "The absence of any positive share of national income growth due to wages and salaries received by American workers during the current economic recovery is historically unprecedented. The lack of any net job growth in the current recovery combined with stagnant real hourly and weekly wages is responsible for this unique, devastating outcome."

The report concludes that in this jobless, wageless recovery, "The only major beneficiaries of the recovery have been corporate profits and the stock market and its shareholders."

A new study conducted for the New York Times by the executive compensation data firm Equilar found that the median pay for top executives at "200 big companies" last year was $10.8 million: "That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009." The richest 1 percent makes almost 25 percent of the nation's income. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes that the United States has the worst income inequality of the 24 industrialized nations that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- more horrendous, in fact, than Pakistan and Ethiopia.

And yet a recent headline on CNBC's website reads, "Firms Have Record $800 Billion of Cash But Still Won't Hire." Maybe they've never heard the Bible's exhortation that to whom much is given, much is expected, a sentiment well understood by George Washington, who gave up the life of a gentleman farmer -- twice -- to come to the aid of his fledgling nation.

Just a couple of days before Washington crossed the Delaware during that bleak Christmas of 1776, with real ice, wind and snow -- no soap suds -- Thomas Paine famously predicted that "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country." Today's corporate giants, blinded by greed, oblivious to the despair around them, are doing much the same. That can't last.

By the way, all those complaints about corporate tax rates and hanging on to their precious loopholes, subsidies and Bush tax cuts? The Center for Tax Justice, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, finds "the U.S. is already one of the least taxed countries for corporations in the developed world" -- as a percentage of GDP second only to, wait for it, Iceland. Up the revolution.

Corporate America's sunshine patriots - Great Recession | Economic Recession, Economic Crisis - Salon.com

 

[jambalaya]

More like a very short-sighted, one-sided read. Rich people bad.

I think this article at least makes an attempt at a balanced look at the problem: Why Jobs, Corporate Profits, and Economic Growth Are Diverging - The Curious Capitalist - TIME.com

 

[Ikari]

A great Read

In June, a report from Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies found that since the economic recovery began two years ago, "corporate profits captured 88 percent of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than one percent." It goes on to declare, "The absence of any positive share of national income growth due to wages and salaries received by American workers during the current economic recovery is historically unprecedented. The lack of any net job growth in the current recovery combined with stagnant real hourly and weekly wages is responsible for this unique, devastating outcome."

The report concludes that in this jobless, wageless recovery, "The only major beneficiaries of the recovery have been corporate profits and the stock market and its shareholders."

I've been saying that for some time now. The efforts were never gauged at the Middle class recovery, it was all meant for the corporations, banks, and hedge funders to recover. And as soon as they weren't in danger of ending up on the street, the government returned to not caring.

 

[sangha]

The rich are waging class warfare and using the tax code to redistribute wealth from the bottom to the top.

 

[Geo Patric]

"the economic recovery began two years ago"

"The only major beneficiaries of the recovery have been corporate profits and the stock market and its shareholders."

been saying it for a year. economic ideology as social policy.

geo.

 

[Geo Patric]

the success of the oligarchs can be seen in the tepid response to this topic. the numbers of us gulled into complacency by the "bread and circus" philosophy of the monied few, coddling the masses with consumer crap to win votes while witholding real eqaulity. and the worst aspect is that so many have actually swallowed the premise that 1% of the citizenry SHOULD own 50% of the wealth and NOT use that wealth for the well being of the nation, swallowed it to such an extent that they PREACH it as moral and just and right.

geo.

 

[sangha]

the success of the oligarchs can be seen in the tepid response to this topic. the numbers of us gulled into complacency by the "bread and circus" philosophy of the monied few, coddling the masses with consumer crap to win votes while witholding real eqaulity. and the worst aspect is that so many have actually swallowed the premise that 1% of the citizenry SHOULD own 50% of the wealth and NOT use that wealth for the well being of the nation, swallowed it to such an extent that they PREACH it as moral and just and right.

geo.

Actually, I think the tepid response is more the result of the rightwingers knowledge that the wealthy welfare recipients they defend are destroying our economy, and so they avoid facts like this in order to maintain their delusion that they are opposed to the distribution of wealth.

 

[sangha]

"the U.S. is already one of the least taxed countries for corporations in the developed world" -- as a percentage of GDP second only to, wait for it, Iceland. Up the revolution[/b].