Real facts about the failures of the Bush Economy

[Zuni]

Pay increases. CEO cash compensation - base salary plus annual bonus - rose 7.2 percent in 2003, according to Mercer Consulting, while 80 percent of all private sector workers saw their real hourly earnings fall.
Average pay. Median total direct compensation for U.S. CEOs - salary, bonus, and long-term incentives such as stock options - was $6.2 million in 2003, or about $120,000 a week, according to Mercer. This is 232 times the average weekly earnings for a U.S. production worker.
Highest paid. Total compensation in 2003 for the five highest-paid corporate executives in the United States reached $262 million dollars. Sandy Weill of Citigroup ($63 million), Larry Culp of Danaher ($53 million), Chuck Cawley of MBNA ($52 million), John Chambers of Cisco ($48 million), and Warren Spector of Bear Sterns ($46 million) made more than enough to fund the entire new community college initiative proposed by Bush to retrain American workers for jobs in high-growth industries ($250 million).
Corporate profits. The total profits reported by U.S. corporations for 2003 ($1 trillion) are closing in on the GDP for China ($1.2 trillion for 2003). Corporate profits are now the highest ever recorded in U.S. history.
Corporate cash. General Motors is currently sitting on enough cash ($55 billion) to fund the federal government's health care budget for 2004 ($52 billion).
Microsoft has enough cash ($53 billion) to cover all of this year's federal spending on income protection for the unemployed ($49 billion). Pfizer has enough cash ($12 billion) to cover the entire 2004 budget for the Department of Labor ($11.7 billion).
The richest. The two richest men in America - Bill Gates of Microsoft and Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway - have a combined net worth of $82 billion, approximately the entire 2003 GDP of the Czech Republic ($84 billion). The five members of the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame could cash in their assets ($102.5 billion) and purchase the entire 2003 output of Egypt's 65 million citizens ($98.5 billion).
The richer. The ten wealthiest Americans have a net worth of $238 billion. They could personally foot the bill for more than half of all discretionary nondefense spending by the federal government this year ($416 billion).
The rich. The net worth of the 2003 Forbes 400 - the wealthiest 400 Americans - rose 10 percent from 2002, to $955 billion, more than the entire discretionary budget of the U.S. government.
Culture CEOs. Oprah Winfrey earned $180 million last year, more than the 2004 federal budget for enforcing wage/hour laws ($160 million) or OSHA laws ($166 million). Tiger Woods earned $78 million, enough to personally raise 3,248 families from poverty-level living ($18,392 for a family of four) to the U.S. median household income ($42,409).
Income inequality. The long-term trend in the United States has been toward increasing income inequality, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Over the past thirty years, the share of income controlled by the top 5 percent of households has increased from 16 percent to 22 percent.
Asset inequality. The top 1 percent of all U.S. families owns about 30 percent of the nation's assets; the bottom 50 percent of families owns 5 percent.
Gini index. The Gini index, a measure of income concentration, records income equality on a scale of 0 to 100. A measure of 100 indicates complete inequality - one person has all the income and the rest have none. A measure of 0 indicates complete equality - all people have equal shares of income. The Gini index for the United States is 40.8, the highest of any advanced industrial nation. All European and most Asian nations - including Japan and South Korea - have far greater income equality than the U.S. Canada scores 31.4 on the Gini index. Most of the nations with similar or greater income inequality than the United States are located in Latin America or Africa.
The U.S. economy has recovered from the 2001 recession, but the distribution of the income generated has skewed the results away from working Americans. With profits and wealth accumulation still rising in the corporate sector but real wages and income transfers declining, the results for 2004 will be even more damaging.

http://www.laborresearch.org/story.php?id=356

[bribri16]

1. Thanks for posting this. More people need to see this. n/t

[LiberalEsto]

2. If the minimum wage rose at the same level as CEO pay,

it would now be more than $23 an hour, not $5.15.

I heard some expert say that on the Al Franken Show on AAR, which is being hosted by a woman named rachel this week.

Dammit, Americans need a raise!

[Zuni]

5. Fortune 500 CEO's make over 500 times what normal employees make

the minimum wage is at it's lowest real value EVER

[LiberalEsto]

6. I think the $23 figure they gave was way too low

I also read somewhere that the CEO to lowest-paid worker ratio was 42 to 1 in 1990 or thereabouts.

[wli]

3. things have been going downhill

We started Bushler's Reich with a Gini coefficient worse than Turkmenistan's. We sank below Cote d'Ivoire in 2004.

[Zuni]

4. and also the poverty rate has increased every year since 2001

but the rich got their tax cuts

[rniel]

7. These are the people who REALLY elect government

The lobbyists. Until people actually start voting more this country is becoming a feudal society.

[Zuni]

8. it will get worse until the people stand up to the powerful

and make their voices heard. We are getting screwed big time

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

9. The wonderful world of outsourcing

always there to jack up the profits of already overpaid executives even higher, while firing US workers in return for mediocre customer service. Yet another dismally dimwitted idea from the minds of the neocon Republicans.