HERE IS THE reality of the American economy. Despite an explosion in technology and a huge increase in worker productivity, the middle class continues its 40-year decline. Today, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages and median family income is almost $5,000 less than it was in 1999.
Meanwhile, the wealthiest people and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well. Today, 99 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent, while the top one-tenth of 1 percent own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. In the last two years, the wealthiest 14 people in this country increased their wealth by $157 billion. That increase is more than is owned by the bottom 130 million Americans – combined.
Over the last 40 years, the largest corporations in this country have closed thousands of factories in the United States and outsourced millions of American jobs to low-wage countries overseas. That is why we need a new trade policy and why I am opposed to the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership now before Congress.
Large corporations and their lobbyists have created loopholes enabling corporations to avoid an estimated $100 billion a year in taxes by shifting profits to the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens. That is why we need real tax reform which demands that the very wealthy and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes.
Corporate America has mounted vigorous anti-union campaigns, making it harder for workers to collectively bargain for decent wages and benefits. That is why we must make certain that workers are given a fair chance to join a union.
Meanwhile, US companies are buying back billions of dollars of their own stock in a way that manipulates stock prices, hurts the economy and, by the way, used to be against the law.
Instead of putting resources into innovative ways to build their businesses or hire new employees, corporations are pumping their record-breaking profits into buying back their own stock and increasing dividends to benefit their executives and wealthy shareholders at the expense of their workers. It is a major reason why CEOs are now making nearly 300 times what the typical worker makes. We must demand an end to stock buybacks.
We also must do a lot more to rebuild the middle class, check corporate greed, and make our economy work again for working families.
We need to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next several years. With 70 percent of the economy dependent on consumers buying goods and services, the best way to expand the economy is to raise wages and create good jobs to increase the purchasing power of the American people.
We need to pass pay equity for women workers. It is not acceptable that women receive 78 cents on the dollar compared to male workers doing the same job.
We need to make certain that every worker in this country receives guaranteed paid sick leave and vacation time.
Who is this "we" the author keeps referring to? The 1% control the courts, own Congress, and run the banks and Wall Street. They have no incentive to hand over wealth or power to those they consider "useless eaters". Instead of pleading to these rich sociopaths that they grow some sort of conscience, we should be kicking them squarely in their investment portfolios. Effectively today, if you have decided you no longer want to finance your own enslavement, then refuse to hand another penny to corrupt banks, corporations, or governments that literally do not care about you. Move whatever wealth you may still have out of the banking system, and ideally, out of the US. If you hold or have rights to a second citizenship, use it. The best way to prevent tyranny is to stop paying for it.
ReplyDeleteAmerica is a fraud upon the working man.
ReplyDeleteThese statistics only serve as an example that our tax code is out of whack.
ReplyDelete“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” – Warren Buffet, NY Times 11/26/2006
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZcPtI7McjY
DAVOS ............ the Billionaire's UNION MEETING ...................... while the "Freedom to Work" JUDAS ISCARIOTS have been undermining the Worker's organizations,the BILLIONAIRES have become ever MORE organized. From the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderbergers,DAVOS ..............they have tightened the noose around the neck of the Working Man. They screen members in their FRATERNITIES and at Country Club socials .......
1) Doctors have UNIONS, one is the American Medical Association.
2) Lawyers have UNIONS, one is the American Bar Association.
3) ALL Professions have UNIONS ...... they have Trade Associations, They have Trade Publications
4) "trade" treaties that favor the 1%
Fraternities, Country Club Memberships are "screening" areas to ensure UNION solidarity............
P.S. YOU pay for THEIR Union Dues &Meetings.
Without Unions the WORKERS would not have living wages, vacations, sick days, pensions, 40 hour weeks, overtime, SAFE work conditions..... LOSING all that? Just as the Unions are undermined and destroyed? WHAT A COINCIDENCE !!!!
Be sure to THANK a "RIGHT to SLAVE" propagandizer next time you see one. Wages in right-to-work states are lower on average than wages in non-right-to-work states, by an average of about $1500 a year. Workers in right-to-work states are also less likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance and pension coverage. The decline of the American middle class mirrors almost exactly the decline of American labor union membership.
American Wages have stagnated since the 1980s and working conditions have worsened. What happened then? REAGAN.
Reagan waged war on the Working People of America (1)Launching the war with his attack on unionization, firing the air-traffic controllers and (2) Introducing the concepts of low paid part-time and contract workers. Remember how Henry Ford introduced the concept that if you paid your people enough money, they would/could buy the products they were building? Well Reagan destroyed that concept, and brought us HERE, to THIS economic crash.