Prevailing conservative wisdom dictates that businesses need tax cuts—and investors need capital gains tax cuts—to get the economy moving. But two very well-executed articles on wages and taxes published recently suggest that targeting tax cuts at business executives may do little to improve the dismal unemployment picture.
The Washington Post offers a startling analysis of income disparity, noting that the gap between the very rich and the rest of us has grown dramatically in the past few decades, reaching current levels that have not been seen since the Great Depression. In 2008, the Post reports, the top one-tenth of one percent of earners took in more than a tenth of the personal income in the United States. But the moneyed class is not dominated by professional athletes or big-name artistic performers or even hedge fund managers, the Post found. Instead, it is due to a big increase in executive compensation, even as real wages for some of their workers have dropped:
The top 0.1 percent of earners make about $1.7 million or more, including capital gains. Of those, 41 percent were executives, managers and supervisors at non-financial companies, according to the analysis, with nearly half of them deriving most of their income from their ownership in privately-held firms. An additional 18 percent were managers at financial firms or financial professionals at any sort of firm. In all, nearly 60 percent fell into one of those two categories.
The New York Times has a fascinating story that serves as an unwitting companion piece to the Post story. Corporate executives, the paper reports, are clamoring for a tax holiday to encourage them to bring their offshore profits back to the United States. And the money in question is big, the Times notes: Apple has $12 billion in offshore cash, while Google has $17 billion, and Microsoft, $29 billion. The companies with money sitting offshore argue that if the federal government were to offer them a huge tax break—say, a one-year drop from 35 percent to 5.25 percent—the businesses would bring the money home and operate as a private-sector economic stimulus.
However, the Times notes:
(T)hat’s not how it worked last time. Congress and the Bush administration offered companies a similar tax incentive, in 2005, in hopes of spurring domestic hiring and investment, and 800 took advantage. Though the tax break lured them into bringing $312 billion back to the United States, 92 percent of that money was returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buybacks, according to a study by the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research.
Who needs a tax cut, then? The U.S. economy is very much consumer-driven; companies aren’t hiring, many business owners say, because people aren’t buying. The past behavior of corporations that have received huge tax cuts has not necessarily been to use the money to hire more people; the Bush-era tax cuts have been in place for a decade, and the unemployment rate is still 9.1 percent. And executive compensation has grown. Executives may feel entitled to earn more and more if their companies are doing well and expanding. But without customers, those companies will go bust.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, JUne 20, 2011
June 23, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Businesses, Class Warfare, Congress, Conservatives, Consumers, Corporations, Economic Recovery, Economy, GOP, Government, Ideology, Income Gap, Jobs, Labor, Middle Class, Politics, Republicans, Taxes, Unemployment, Wealthy | Apple, Bush Tax Cuts, Capital Gains, CEO's, Executive Compensation, Google, Income, Investors, Microsoft, National Bureau of Economic Research, Private Sector, Recession, Stocks, Tax Breaks, Wages Workers |
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Mitt Romney is just like you: He doesn’t have a job. And that’s hilarious!
Mitt Romney sat at the head of the table at a coffee shop here on Thursday, listening to a group of unemployed Floridians explain the challenges of looking for work. When they finished, he weighed in with a predicament of his own.
“I should tell my story,” Mr. Romney said. “I’m also unemployed.”
According to Jeff Zeleny, the room full of unemployed people laughed at this, which would make it the first recorded instance of someone laughing at something Mitt Romney intended to be funny.
But should they have laughed at poor Mitt Romney? Like so many Americans, the longer Mitt Romney has gone without a job, the worse his chances of finding new employment have become. There are not very many openings in his chosen field, and he has no other marketable skills. Poor Mitt Romney is in many respects a modern-day “forgotten man.”
Should Mitt Romney just rest on his laurels, waiting for some government handout? No! In fact, his insistence on getting another job in government is exactly what is preventing him from swallowing his pride and taking any work that is available. He’s too good to work at Walmart now? He should stop looking to Washington for a solution to his problem, get some part-time minimum wage work, and consider going back to school. There are many fine for-profit institutions that offer night courses for adults just like him.
Mitt Romney needs to pick himself up by his bootstraps and quit complaining.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon War Room, June 16, 2011
June 17, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Class Warfare, Conservatives, Economy, GOP, Government, Governors, Income Gap, Jobs, Middle Class, Mitt Romney, Politics, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, Unemployed, Unemployment, Wealthy | Florida, Government Workers, Job Retraining, Minimum Wage, Politicians, Public Workers, Social Safety Nets, Walmart, Workers |
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The battle has resumed in Wisconsin. The state supreme court has allowed Governor Scott Walker to strip bargaining rights from state workers.
Meanwhile, governors and legislators in New Hampshire and Missouri are attacking private unions, seeking to make the states so-called “open shop” where workers can get all the benefits of being union members without paying union dues. Needless to say this ploy undermines the capacity of unions to do much of anything. Other Republican governors and legislatures are following suit.
Republicans in Congress are taking aim at the National Labor Relations Board, which issued a relatively minor proposed rule change allowing workers to vote on whether to unionize soon after a union has been proposed, rather than allowing employers to delay the vote for years. Many employers have used the delaying tactics to retaliate against workers who try to organize, and intimidate others into rejecting a union.
This war on workers’ rights is an assault on the middle class, and it is undermining the American economy.
The American economy can’t get out of neutral until American workers have more money in their pockets to buy what they produce. And unions are the best way to give them the bargaining power to get better pay.
For three decades after World War II – I call it the “Great Prosperity” – wages rose in tandem with productivity. Americans shared the gains of growth, and had enough money to buy what they produced.
That’s largely due to the role of labor unions. In 1955, over a third of American workers in the private sector were unionized. Today, fewer than 7 percent are.
With the decline of unions came the stagnation of American wages. More and more of the total income and wealth of America has gone to the very top. Middle-class purchasing power depended on mothers going into paid work, everyone working longer hours, and, finally, the middle class going deep into debt, using their homes as collateral.
But now all these coping mechanisms are exhausted — and we’re living with the consequence.
Some say the Great Prosperity was an anomaly. America’s major competitors lay in ruins. We had the world to ourselves. According to this view, there’s no going back.
But this view is wrong. If you want to see the same basic bargain we had then, take a look at Germany now.
Germany is growing much faster than the United States. Its unemployment rate is now only 6.1 percent (we’re now at 9.1 percent).
What’s Germany’s secret? In sharp contrast to the decades of stagnant wages in America, real average hourly pay has risen almost 30 percent there since 1985. Germany has been investing substantially in education and infrastructure.
How did German workers do it? A big part of the story is German labor unions are still powerful enough to insist that German workers get their fair share of the economy’s gains.
That’s why pay at the top in Germany hasn’t risen any faster than pay in the middle. As David Leonhardt reported in the New York Times recently, the top 1 percent of German households earns about 11 percent of all income – a percent that hasn’t changed in four decades.
Contrast this with the United States, where the top 1 percent went from getting 9 percent of total income in the late 1970s to more than 20 percent today.
The only way back toward sustained growth and prosperity in the United States is to remake the basic bargain linking pay to productivity. This would give the American middle class the purchasing power they need to keep the economy going.
Part of the answer is, as in Germany, stronger labor unions — unions strong enough to demand a fair share of the gains from productivity growth.
The current Republican assault on workers’ rights continues a thirty-year war on American workers’ wages. That long-term war has finally taken its toll on the American economy.
It’s time to fight back.
By: Robert Reich, RobertReich Blog, June 15, 2011
June 16, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Congress, Conservatives, Democracy, Economy, Equal Rights, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Governors, Ideologues, Ideology, Jobs, Labor, Lawmakers, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Wealthy, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Anti-Union, Germany, Income, National Labor Relations Board, Wages, Wisconsin Supreme Court, Workers Rights |
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Dozens of Walkerville activists marched from the Wisconsin state Capitol to DOA Secretary Mike Huebsch’s offices at noon on Wednesday, June 15, to protest the former GOP state rep’s archaic Capitol security measures.
CMD learned while examining the drafting files at the Legislative Reference Bureau that Huebsch’s DOA gave the drafting orders for the collective bargaining section of the budget bill. Huebsch’s top political appointee, Cynthia Archer, served as a top aide to Scott Walker when he was Milwaukee County Executive.
The group roared “Who’s House? Our House!” as they entered the Department of Administration building on East Wilson Street. Protesters weren’t able to schedule a meeting with Huebsch – considered by many to be Governor Scott Walker’s top ally, and the architect of his 2011-2012 budget – but still managed to hang “unWANTED: Mike Huebsch” signs in his personal office and throughout the building.
Pilar Schiavo, an activist with the People’s Rights Campaign and Nurses United, led the peaceful procession. She stressed the danger of overlooking Huebsch’s involvement with Governor Walker’s anti-middle class agenda, and the need to repel his efforts to crush “the public’s right to assemble.”
“We feel like it’s important to pull Mike Huebsch out of the shadows. He’s really been responsible for the shutting down democracy within the capitol, and he’s had his hand in creating the budget,” said Schiavo.
One protestor taped an “unWANTED” sign, which read “Suspect is believed to be dangerous and armed with the unlawful eviction of The People from the Capitol” to Huebsch’s desk chair. With protestors still inside the building, a DOA receptionist began taking down the posters, citing their “offensive” nature.
The mood remained hopeful despite yesterday’s announcement from the Supreme Court legalizing Governor Walker’s collective bargaining legislation. Schiavo reminded the crowd that in spite of recent setbacks, victory looms on the horizon for the Wisconsin workers’ rights movement.
“People need to remember that this is a long fight, and that we’ve been successful already. We were able to hold that law for months. This is a long term struggle – the Walker agenda has been in the works for 30 years.”
By: Eric Carlson, Center for Media and Democracy, June 15, 2011
June 16, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Democracy, Elections, Freedom, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Government, Ideologues, Ideology, Labor, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Voters, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Collective Bargaining, Cynthia Archer, Mike Huebsch, Nurses United, Peoples Rights Campaign, Walkerville, Wisconsin Budget, Wisconsin Dept of Administration, Wisconsin Politics, Wisconsin Supreme Court, Workers Rights |
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Yesterday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a 4-3 ruling, overturned the lower court decision that had barred implementation of Scott Walker’s anti-collective bargaining law on procedural grounds.
While Walker’s law will now take effect, this is the least of the problems revealed by the high court’s ruling.
After all, the anti-collective bargaining legislation was going to become law, one way or another. Had the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court ban and struck down the law, Walker would have simply included the legislation in his new budget and pushed it through once again. Only this time, there would not have been the procedural snafu that has left the legislation hanging in limbo as it worked its way through the state court system.
However, the decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court revealed something far more shocking than the ruling which went against the supporters of collective bargaining. It revealed, by way of written opinion, a now ‘out in the open’ battle between the members of the court wherein the minority opinion bluntly and directly accused the majority of fudging the facts to reach the decision they had already determined they wanted to reach. The minority opinion further alleged that the majority was driven by political motives rather than the desire to deliver a fair and judicious opinion.
In the world of the law, this is beyond huge. This is gargantuan.
Of course, it is no secret that high courts will, from time to time, give us reason to believe that politics might be at work. However, members of such a court use extraordinary care and caution to avoid calling out a fellow justice for doing what is considered the unthinkable.
The notion that a minority opinion would level a charge of judicial cheating against brother and sister members of the court, in an opinion that will now become part of the Wisconsin judicial body of legal authority, is positively remarkable. I’ve read more cases in my life than I could possibly count and never-and I mean never- has anything I’ve seen so much as approached what I read in this case.
And the fact that these charges were leveled in an opinion concurring with the minority written by the Chief Justice of the Court just makes this all the more astounding.
In a fiery dissent, Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote that justices hastily reached the decision and the majority “set forth their own version of facts without evidence. They should not engage in this disinformation.”
Abrahamson also said a concurring opinion written by Justice David Prosser, a former Republican speaker of the Assembly, was “long on rhetoric and long on story-telling that appears to have a partisan slant.”Via Huffington Post
Astounding. Truly ‘jaw dropping’, mouth gaping, astounding.
When the Chief Justice of the highest court in the state feels moved to accuse those in the majority of recreating the facts to meet a desired decision, this is a court that is inextraordinary crisis.
And if Chief Justice Abrahamson is correct in her assessment, Wisconsin now finds itself in a period where their highest court decisions can no longer be relied upon when assessing the law.
Every state in the nation – with the exception of Louisiana who retains its roots in the French Napoleonic system- bases its law in the concept of stare decisis. This means that when the court makes law through their decisions, other courts will strive to remain consistent with that law by following the judicial precedents set so that people will never find themselves confused as to the likely outcome of their actions.
This is why changes in American law – other than those brought about by legislation- happen very, very slowly. Consistency in the law is one of the fundamental goals of our system.
However, when the Chief Justice of the State’s highest court accuses the majority of highly unethical behavior and political motives when making law, and does so in the writings found in a decision of the court, there is no court in the state – nor citizen seeking to follow the laws of the state – who can give credence and credibility to the high court’s rulings. Every ruling of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, so long as it is composed of its current Justices, will result in precedents that are instantly suspect due to the charges that have been levied by members of the court.
While the State of Wisconsin has a lot on its plate in the recall department, I’m afraid they now have little choice but to consider taking a look at some of their Supreme Court Justices for similar action.
Not because the court handed down a ruling that will make people unhappy – but because the people of Wisconsin now have every reason to believe that their Supreme Court has been corrupted and their opinions subject to invalidation.
Make no mistake. This is not about a judicial philosophy with which I might disagree. Reasonable, learned judges can – and often do – apply the law to a fact situation and come up with different opinions and they do so in the utmost of good faith and their best understanding of the law.
However, the minority opinion issued yesterday in the Wisconsin Supreme Court did not charge mistaken application of law. The opinion charged perversion of the facts and the law to meet a desired result.
If this is true, this is court corruption at its absolute worst and the people of Wisconsin cannot permit this to stand.
By: Rick Ungar, The Policy Page, Forbes, June 15, 2011
June 15, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Democracy, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Government, Ideologues, Ideology, Politics, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, States, Union Busting, Unions, Voters, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Anti-Collective Bargaining, Corruption, David Prosser, Judiciary, Law, Shirley Abrahamson, Stare Decisis, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Recall |
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