ExxonMobil’s Tiller, Tiller the People Killer

Tiller, Tiller the People Killer

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The Costco Business Model: Opt out of the Wall Street Business Model

In other words, the Costco CEO has decided that redistributing income from his employees to his shareholders isn’t good for the employees or for the shareholders. It also isn’t good for the nation. The truth is simple. When you have a massive income redistribution from the 99 to the 1 percent via federal legislation, as in the last thirty-two years, you have a government and an economy that are sick with massive corruption. Costco has opted out of that business model. Thirty-two years ago, the 1 percent took home about 8 percent of the nation’s income, now it’s over 30 percent and growing, and it’s been stolen from the rest of us. Thirty-two years ago, the 1 percent owned 7 percent of the nation’s wealth, now they own over 40 percent, and it’s growing at the expense of us all.

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Costco’s CEO Explains How They Make Record Profits

Costco’s CEO Explains How They Make Record Profits

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The Swiss Vote Overwhelmingly For Executive Pay Curbs

Last Sunday, 67.9 percent of Swiss citizens voted to “impose some of the most restricting rules on executive compensation. All of Switzerland’s 26 cantons passed the initiative.” Such agreement is rare. The new law “will allow shareholders to veto executive pay proposals and will give them the power to ban big rewards for new and departing managers.”

“67.9 percent is one of the highest approval rates that Switzerland has ever seen for a popular initiative. It goes to show that the built up anger and plain outrage, caused by multi-million payouts for executives, can translate into decisive and convincing action in Switzerland’s direct democracy.”

“The opponents of this initiative argued that the executives who are offered better pay elsewhere would leave the country. They also argued that these new measures would damage the country’s competitiveness and possibly scare away international talent.” These are pretty dumb claims since most corporate executives are clueless about what goes on in the companies they allegedly manage. In addition, curbing CEO compensation will make Swiss corporations more competitive with international competition, not less, because reducing CEO pay improves their bottom lines. In addition, curbing CEO compensation gives those guys and gals less money with which to purchase the favors of governments, which, more often than not, are not in harmony with the needs and desires of the vast majority of most populations.

 

 

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CEO Pay and the Bankruptcy of Hostess

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Average CEO Pay Compared to Average Worker Pay By Nation

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CEO’s Make More Than 200 Times What the Average Worker Makes

In 1965, the average CEO earned 18.3 times what the average worker earned. Nowadays, CEO’s steal over 230 times more than the average Joe or Josephine. That’s how bad financial and political inequality has become in the US, the government of which is now no more than a plutocracy of the rich.

Take Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, for example. He poses as a man of the people, and the people he is supposed to represent are in the state of Oregon. To keep their eye off the ball, the senator continues to champion liberal social causes, because it’s mostly a liberal state, but Wall Street Ron bends his knees to his Wall Street masters and screws the people of Oregon on economic matters. He habitually champions federal legislation that redistributes income from the 99 to the 1 percent, such as free trade income redistribution treaties. That’s exactly what Wall Street Ron Wyden champions. As a congressman, he voted for Nafta and every single income redistribution trade treaty that he’s had a chance to vote on.

Take a look at the chart below. CEO compensation began to rise massively after that traitor to the people, President Bill Clinton, signed the Nafta treaty. This isn’t a coincidence. A CEO only has to ship jobs overseas, lower labor costs, and divert much of the difference between the old wages and the new to themselves to get richer. That’s why CEO pay went from roughly 100 times the average worker in 1994 to over 400 times six years later. Nafta was never a free trade treaty; it was an income redistribution scam, negotiated and written by corporate interests with the intention of financially raping the 99 percent on behalf of the 1 percent. They were successful.

The Guardian newspaper calls the Trans Pacific Partnership “Nafta on steroids.” This income redistribution scam is being thinly disguised as a free trade treaty; but aren’t they all? Eleven nations are negotiating the treaty in secret, aided by 600 US corporate lobbyists. The citizens of the US will get no details on the agreement until it’s already signed by the latest traitor-in-chief, President Barack Hussein Obama. And then it will be too late.

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Eight Key Charts About the Growing Income Inequality in the United States

Number one is real simple. I predicted it in my book, The Rigged Game: Corporate America and a People Betrayed, that income inequality is growing in the United States. President Obama, Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, the Democratic party leadership, Mitt Romney and the Republican party leadership, know this. They all have the same plan regardless of who wins the upcoming presidential election. They plan to make sure income inequality continues to grow by redistributing income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent.

Currently, the 1 percent receive about 30 percent of all income in the US, up from about 7-8 percent in 1980. That means the 99 percent have less money to purchase stuff with, which is why the economy is mired in this Great Recession, jobs are scarce, and the economy is tilting on the edge of an economic abyss that will make our current situation look like the good old days.

There is one key difference between the two; Republicans want to redistribute income to the 1 percent faster than the Democrats. Big Deal. The end result is the same; the economic disenfranchisement of the 99 percent. It will soon be banana republic time in the United States. Political disenfranchisement has already occurred.

The rich have created a much larger income gap because they have stolen the money from the 99 percent via US legislation, such as free trade treaties, deregulation and privatization scams. All of these redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent.

Liberal Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden, a nasty son-of-a-Wall Street-Bitch, is a driving force behind these scams. Free trade treaties open the door for US businesses to ship (or create) jobs overseas. The difference between the lost higher wage US jobs and the new lower overseas jobs goes into the pockets of the rich via higher corporate profits, surging dividends and rising share prices. The senator of Wall Street knows this but continues to vote for Wall Street and hedge funds over the interests of the 99 percent. Worse yet, the jobs shipped away or created overseas were once the tax base that supported government services, such as schools, roads, bridges, fire fighters and polices.

“The middle class is shrinking. According to Prof. Alan Krueger, Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, ‘the shift in income inequality over the last three decades is the equivalent of moving $1.1 trillion of income from the 99 percent to the top 1 percent every single year.’” There’s a reason for this. That’s because $1.1 trillion of income has been redistributed every year on average from the 99 to the 1 percent via free trade treaties, deregulation and privatization scams.

The middle class is still shrinking under Obama. He knows this and continues to sign legislation to do exactly this. Last autumn he signed free trade treaties with Panama, South Korea and Colombia. The result, according to numerous estimates, will be a net loss of nearly a million jobs. So the difference between the old higher wages and the new lower wages goes into the pockets of the wealthy. Now Obama has his people negotiating the Trans Pacific Free Trade Agreement (TPP), which the Guardian newspaper of the UK calls “Nafta on steroids.” The TPP will accelerate the decline of the middle class by redistributing more income and political power from the 99 to the 1 percent. Obama knows this, but continues the policy anyway.

So what? Profits are up? Where are the jobs? Obviously, trickle down didn’t work. Worldwide, US corporations are sitting on over $5 trillion. But they can’t invest it because demand is so slack due to the massive redistribution of income from the 99 to the 1 percent.

Wall Street Mitt the Twit Romney claims tax cuts for the rich will stimulate the economy, but 30 years of failed trickle down economics is ultimately the primary reason the current economy sucks big time, like total New Great Depression. The Twit’s trickle down economic policies will only make things worse for the 99 percent. That’s because the 1 percent will have more income with the cuts with which to purchase more legislation from Mitt Romney (if elected), Obama (if re-elected), Ron Wyden, John Boehner, Rand Paul, Earl Blumenauer and lots of others in congress and the senate. So does Obama and Wyden. Too bad for the 99 percent. Apparently, Mitt the Twit thinks the US economy should be used to redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent. Make the rich richer at the expense of the rest of us? I don’t think that’s what an economy is for.

Bank profits are enormous because the Federal Reserve continues to help these folks out. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last week announced a plan to stimulate the economy. It was a lie. The fed has decided to purchase $40 billion of worthless mortgage backed bonds from wealthy investors and institutions such as investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The Fed will purchase the worthless or nearly worthless bonds on a face value basis. If the investors or banks paid $10 million for the bonds, which are now valueless, the Fed will still pay the stupid bank or investor $10 million for the worthless bonds. The Fed has been very helpful with increasing the profits of banks for several years now using such scams.

CEO pay has risen because the government and the Federal Reserve continue to bail out the rich and help to increase corporate profits by enacting income redistribution legislation, like the South Korea free trade treaty. See the chart above.

There is a reason 1 in 5 US workers earn so little. Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden and others continue to redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent via free trade treaties that ship or create jobs overseas. This puts downward pressure on wages in the US, which redistributes income from the 99 to the 1 percent. The same process occurs when too many immigrants come to the US, creating a surplus of labor, which also puts downward pressure on wages. Republicans love this, but so do Wall Street democrats, like Ron Wyden.

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Breakdown of the $26 trillion the Federal Reserve Handed Out to Save Stupid, but Rich, Investors and Banks

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Robbing From the Poor and Middle Class: How the 99 Percent of Taxpayers Subsidize Multimillion Dollar CEO Salaries

“A new report finds many top executives are taking home more than their corporations pay in taxes – at our expense” In other words, this report is about another income redistribution scam from the 99 percent to the 1 percent. That’s what your federal, state and local government officials do for a living. That is while they’re in office.

“The Institute for Policy Studies found that 26 of the 100 highest-paid US CEOs took home more in pay than their companies paid in federal income taxes. On average, each of these company bosses was paid $20.4m last year.”

“Dozens of US CEOs have cashed in on this major tax incentive at an estimated cost to US taxpayers of $9.7bn last year. Statistics provided by National Priorities Project suggest that the same amount of money could have paid for 142,625 elementary school teachers, or healthcare for 4.96 million low-income children.

“At a time of austerity, it’s beyond absurd that billions of our tax dollars are pouring into executive pockets,” says Sarah Anderson, a report co-author.”

Click below for a synopsis of the story from the Guardian of the UK or the original report below it from the Institute for Policy Studies.

The New Robber Barons: How the 99 Percent Subsidize Multimillion Dollar CEO Salaries–The Guardian of the UK

Executive Excess 2012: The CEO Hands in Uncle Sam's Pocket–The Institute for Policy Studies

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The Ratio of CEO to Average Worker Pay

Guess which country has the highest gap between CEO and average worker pay. Some of you may say the USA and you’d be right. But look at the massive difference between the pay gap in the USA and the rest of the world.

One of the great problems in the United States is shown below. It’s the giant income gap between the politically connected 1 percent and the 99 percent.

Country Ratio of Pay: CEO to Average Worker

Japan 11:1
Germany 12:1
France 15:1
Italy 20:1
Canada 20:1
South Africa 21:1
Britain 22:1
Mexico 47:1
Venezuela 50:1
United States 475:1

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