Inequality

[InRareForm]

http://thebrowser.com/interviews/dar...-on-inequality

[boutons_deux]

U.S. CEO Pay Jumps Minimum Of 27 Percent Last Year, Survey Finds

While the incomes of so many Americans remain the same size or get smaller, corporate chiefs can't say they're suffering in quite the same way.

American CEOs saw pay increases of between 27 and 40 percent last year, according to a GovernanceMetrics International survey cited by the Guardian. In addition, the median value of CEOs profits on stock options jumped to $1.3 million from $950,400.

This, even after Congress passed financial reform regulations that included provisions aimed at making CEO pay more transparent by allowing shareholders to weigh in.

The survey's findings may resonate with Occupy movement activists, who have been railing against income inequality since the protests first started. Indeed, CEO pay by itself exceeded the amount that his or her corporation paid in income taxes in at least 25 cases last year. And in the year before America's highest-highest-paid corporate chief netted more than $145 million, U.S. median income fell to below $27,000, meaning half of all earners made less than that.

But John Hammergren, CEO of healthcare provider McKesson, isn't the only boss taking home the big bucks. JPMorgan Chase Chief Jamie Dimon got a $19 million raise in 2010 and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein netted an extra $3.6 million in bonuses last year.

The news is a good sign for people in the top one percent of earners, who saw their incomes drop by roughly a third in the official years of the recession, according to a recent report by The New York Times. Still, even after that fall, the net worth of one percenters remained 200 times higher than that of the median national income, according to the Economic Policy Ins ute.

Some CEOs even got huge pay packages for not doing their jobs. Eugene Isenberg took home $100 million for dropping his le as CEO of Nabors Industries in October. While Dougless Foshee, the CEO of natural gas pipeline operator El Paso, became eligible for an exit package worth $95 million after the company was acquired by rival Kinder Morgan.

Still, some don't seem to mind the huge CEO paydays. The vast majority of corporate shareholders say that CEOs are being compensated correctly, according to an October study from research firm Equilar.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1...comm_ref=false


Census: Half Of Americans Are Either Poor Or Low-Income

| A record number of Americans, nearly 50 percent, are either in poverty or considered low-income, according to Census data released this week. The data show a shrinking middle class beset by years of stagnant wages, high unemployment, rising health care and living costs, and a fraying government social safety net. “The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal,” Sheldon Danziger, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, told the AP. “If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years.”

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...or-low-income/

========

Just more Americans to be criminalized for being poor, lazy, stupid by the VRWC, Repugs.

Something only 10% of long-term unemployed draw unemployment insurance, which averages $1200/month, so the can those Welfare Queens can make their payments on the St Ronnie Cadillacs.

Almost 3 years now that there are at least 4 job seekers for every opening.

Great ing Country the conservatives, VRWC, and Repug tax cutting have produced, huh?

[DarrinS]

this again?

[boutons_deux]

this sticks to your face, deal with it

[clambake]

this sticks to your face, deal with it

you don't understand. darrin is an obedient piece of property.

[DarrinS]

The gap, the gap, the freaking gap!!!!

The standard of living of ALL classes has increased, but what bothers SOME is that the increase for some has been more than the increase for others.

Woud you rather the poor be poorer if it made the gap smaller?

[boutons_deux]

"The standard of living of ALL classes has increased"

You Lie

Household real income has stagnated since St Ronnie was elected, even with millions of wives starting jobs in the 1980s.

Single male real income is down since 1975.

[DarrinS]

Very old debate, btw

[boutons_deux]

The few, the proud, the very rich



http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2011/12/05...the-very-rich/

[DarrinS]

And?

[boutons_deux]

household wealth wasn’t just “down” 4%, it was the “biggest loss of wealth” for Americans “in more than two years,” and those corporate cash stockpiles didn’t simply continue to grow, they reached “record levels” at $2.1 trillion. Since American wealth is deeply linked to homeownership, the fact that “most economists expect home prices to keep falling” wasn’t exactly good news, nor when it came to pensions and retirement was the July-to-September 12% drop in “the average balance in 401(k) plans managed by Fidelity Investments, the largest workplace savings plan provider.” In sum, the average American household managed to lose $21,000 dollars in those three months, a total loss in household wealth of $2.4 trillion.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1754...eral_elite%22/

[Yonivore]

Funny thing is, the gap is actually smaller than it was in the mid-90's but, I don't recall all this caterwauling then.

What's changed?

Top Earners Not So Lofty in the Days of Recession

The share of income received by the top 1 percent — that potent symbol of inequality — dropped to 17 percent in 2009 from 23 percent in 2007, according to federal tax data. Within the group, average income fell to $957,000 in 2009 from $1.4 million in 2007.

Average income of the 1% is under a million. Will Obama and his cootie cronies at Occupy start calling the 1% Thousandaires now?

[RandomGuy]

Funny thing is, the gap is actually smaller than it was in the mid-90's but, I don't recall all this caterwauling then.

There wasn't an internet, goober.

That and you were probably not paying much attention to politics, as most young kids don't.

[CosmicCowboy]

Funny thing is, the gap is actually smaller than it was in the mid-90's but, I don't recall all this caterwauling then.

What's changed?

Top Earners Not So Lofty in the Days of Recession


Average income of the 1% is under a million. Will Obama and his cootie cronies at Occupy start calling the 1% Thousandaires now?

Well technically, if you have an income of $400,000 a year and haven't acquired a net worth of at least million dollars you are doing things terribly wrong...

[TDMVPDPOY]

if u guys are pissed about ceos pay packet increasing, maybe u should buy shares and have ur vote count at the AGM over pay increases, then again u will usually get outvoted cause the idiots with voting proxys are all in the boys club looking after its members

[boutons_deux]

If Workers’ Share Of National Income Were At The Post-War Average, They Would Earn An Extra $740 Billion This Year

Since 2009, 88 percent of national income growth has gone to corporate profits, while just one percent has gone to wages, adding another chapter to the decline of the middle class, whose incomes have been shrinking and wages stagnating for decades. In fact, according to data analyzed by the Financial Times, workers’ share of national income has fallen to its lowest level on record, and if it were back at the post-war average, workers would earn an additional $740 billion this year:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...tional-income/

[DarrinS]

It's really unfair that I didn't start Apple, or Microsoft, or Walmart.

!!!!

[Drachen]

if u guys are pissed about ceos pay packet increasing, maybe u should buy shares and have ur vote count at the AGM over pay increases, then again u will usually get outvoted cause the idiots with voting proxys are all in the boys club looking after its members

I would if my pay would increase!

LOL

[boutons_deux]

To those of you who defend the redistribution of wealth from 99% to 1%, who defend the concentration of wealth and political power, who say to inequality "so what?", some numbers below say there is a very big "what".


Inconvenient Income Inequality

By CHARLES M. BLOW

Published: December 17, 2011

Is income inequality becoming the new global warming? In other words, is this another case where the facts of an existential threat lose traction among a weary American public as deniers attempt to reduce them to partisan opinions?

It's beginning to seem so.

A Gallup poll released on Thursday found that, after rising rather steadily for the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who said that the country is divided into "haves" and "have-nots" took the largest drop since the question was asked.

This happened even as the percentage of Americans who grouped themselves under either label stayed relatively constant. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans still see themselves as the haves, while only about a third see themselves as the have-nots. The numbers have been in that range for a decade.

This is the new American delusion. The facts point to a very different reality.

An Associated Press report this week on census data found that "a record number of Americans - nearly 1 in 2 - have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income." The report said that the data "depict a middle class that's shrinking."

An October report from the Congressional Budget Office found that, from 1979 to 2007, the average real after-tax household income for the 1 percent of the population with the highest incomes rose 275 percent. For the rest of the top 20 percent of earners, it rose 65 percent. But it rose just 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent.

And a report released in May by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that "the gap between rich and poor in O.E.C.D. countries has reached its highest level for over 30 years."

In the United States, the average income of the richest 10 percent of the population had risen to around 14 times that of the poorest 10 percent.

Our growing income inequality is a fact. So is the possibility that it could prove economically disastrous.

An April report from the International Monetary Fund found that growing income inequality has a negative effect on economic expansion. The report said that long periods of high growth, which were called "growth spells," were "much more likely to end in countries with less equal income distributions. The effect is large." It continued: "Inequality seemed to make a big difference almost no matter what other variables were in the model or exactly how we defined a 'growth spell.' "

Our income inequality could jeopardize our recovery.

Yet another Gallup report issued Friday found that most Americans now say that the fact that some people in the U.S. are rich and others are poor does not represent a problem but is an acceptable part of our economic system.

If denial is a river, it runs through doomed societies.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article;js...&sub=Columnist

[Halberto]

Getting tired of reading this . Does anyone think the top 1% will ever voluntarily fix this problem? They run the government and essentially everything else we do. It will take a catastrophe for things to change, not hipsters camping out in parks.

[boutons_deux]

"voluntarily"

never.

Likewise with the militarized and continuously militarizing police. They have every intention of using and abusing that power, they have, and they will.

Once (financial, political, military) power is obtained, it's NEVER given up voluntarily and it's ALWAYS abused.

The American Dream, you have to be asleep to believe it.

[JayTheClown]

Getting tired of reading this . Does anyone think the top 1% will ever voluntarily fix this problem? They run the government and essentially everything else we do. It will take a catastrophe for things to change, not hipsters camping out in parks.

This

[boutons_deux]

Did U.S. Tax Policies Increase Economic Inequality?

"Almost without exception, every proposal put forth by GOP lawmakers and presidential candidates is intended to preserve or expand tax privileges for the wealthiest Americans," writes Rolling Stone political correspondent Tim inson. "Most of their plans, which are presented as commonsense measures that will aid all Americans, would actually result in higher taxes for middle-class taxpayers and the poor."

On Wednesday's Fresh Air, inson explains how the tax policies pursued by the Republican Party have changed in the past 14 years — and says those changes have led to greater economic inequality in our country.

He explains that the top 400 taxpayers in the United States have seen their incomes increase threefold since 1997. In that same period, their tax rate has fallen by 40 percent.

"Today, a billionaire in the top 400 pays an effective tax rate of about 17 percent," he says. "That's about 5 percentage points less than your average worker."

"since Republicans began their tax-cut binge in 1997, they have succeeded in making the rich much richer. While the average income for the bottom 90 percent of taxpayers has remained basically flat over the past 15 years, those in the top 0.01 percent have seen their incomes more than double, to $36 million a year."

the revenue going to the wealthiest Americans is increasing.

"This isn't just about the broadest sweep of American society — this 90 percent — if it's getting ahead, it's getting ahead just at the margins," he says. "The people at the very top of the income period are taking off like a rocket — $10,000 an hour raise for the people in the top .01 percent."

"Traditionally, Republicans cared deeply about fiscal balance," he says. "So you fought over balance — and taxes were an otherwise uninteresting mechanism to pay the bills. And tax policy wasn't meant to prod and stimulate the economy because prosperity came from the private sector. So the GOP focus on tax policy was not to give the economy a boost, but to find a nondestructive way to raise the revenue that [the government] decided it needed."

The biggest tax cut during that era, says inson, was made by Democratic President John F. Kennedy. Republicans largely opposed it.

"[They] were concerned that this was going to create deficits that were unwieldy," inson explains. "This was consistent with the ideas that Republicans held that their duty in the system was to keep the nation's books in balance."

"[In the '80s and early '90s,] people were paying the same amount of tax on income that they got from wages as they got from income that they got from investments," he says. "But starting in 1997, Republicans led by Newt Gingrich dropped that [capital gains rate] to 20 percent. And in 2003, led by Cheney, the Republicans dropped the capital gains rate tax down to 15 percent. And this is why you have this grotesque situation where the richest taxpayers in America are paying a lower effective tax rate than the average wage earner."

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/16/142353...y?sc=17&f=1006

[ChuckD]

this again?

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

If you're in the bottom 30%, there's nothing to prevent you from going out and getting a better paying job.

Just sayin'.