Also, during
the war, the Roosevelt administration set wages and, given the values of that
administration, it tended to set the wages in such a way that the lower paid
workers received more increases than others.
The increase
in taxes for the wealthy, a strong union movement, and wage controls that
shrunk the gap between the wealthy and the middle class led to a much more
equal distribution of the total income for thirty years -- as well as
unprecedented prosperity. Just the
opposite of what we're experiencing today.
The gross
inequalities today are alarming -- and tragic.
As of 2007, the top 10% owned 84% of the financial wealth in the United
States. [4] The bottom 80% owned just 7% of all financial
wealth.
Between 1983
and 2004, in large part because of tax cuts for the wealthy and the defeat of
labor unions, of all the new financial wealth created in the U.S., 43% of it
went to the top 1%. Ninety-four percent
of it went to the top 20% -- meaning that the bottom 80% received only 6% of
all new financial wealth generated in the United States during the strong
economic years of the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s. [5] In short, as working people produced more
because of greater efficiencies, they shared in almost none of the gains --
while investors and top executives took almost all of it.
One factor
contributing to this gaping disparity is yet another outrage: the average executive pay as compared with
the average factory worker pay. CEO pay
by 102 major companies was about 40 times that of average full-time workers in the U.S. By the early 2000s, CEO pay averaged 367
times the pay of the average worker. [6] In 2007, the ratio between CEOs and factory
workers was 344:1, while in Europe it was about 25:1. [7]
* * * *
What can we,
the American people, do? First,
recognize that the Democratic and Republican Parties are a democracy-destroying
political duopoly, which has joined forces in shafting the vast majority of
Americans, who are struggling every day to just get by, while serving
politicians' campaign contributors, including Wall Street bankers, for-profit
insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, hedge fund managers,
for-profit colleges (many of which are owned by investment banks), and
anti-union forces. These Democrats and
Republicans deregulated the financial industry and looked the other way while
financial institutions and their officers engaged in wholesale fraud -- all of
which led to the economic melt-down from which we are still reeling, while the
perpetrators are still lining their pockets with multi-million dollar bonuses,
derived from government bail-outs.
They are the
same duopoly that has caved to the fossil fuel industry in failing to provide
essential international leadership to prevent the most catastrophic
consequences of climate change. They
have become so craven that President Obama even vetoed the EPA's effort to
reduce the emission of ground level ozone and has now paved the way for the
southern leg of the Keystone XL Pipeline and vastly expanded offshore oil
drilling.
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