A ton of data demonstrate how crazy our economic system has become where a relatively few receive astronomical gains that no rational person could see as justified. One study tracked home ownership data for 488 CEOs in the S&P 500 Index set of companies: The typical home of the CEOs has 12 rooms, sits on 5.37 acres, and carries a $3.1 million price-tag.
Companies big enough to rate S&P 500 status hiked their median CEO pay by 23.78 percent in 2006 (to $14.8 million). In comparison, U.S. worker weekly wages rose just 3.5 percent in 2006.
From another study we learn that pay for American college presidents over the past decade has jumped seven times faster than pay for college faculty.
Economists Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley and Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics found that the richest 10 percent of the U.S. population received 44 percent of the pretax income in 2005. This was the highest since the 1920s and 1930s.
What the future holds for the victimized middle class will depend on the uncontrolled greed of the wealthy Upper Class and its control of the political system. The rich will retreat to their walled, protected and well stocked havens.
Lower Class people will be sacrificed – economic slaves fighting to survive in a medieval, ugly and bleak world that so many science fiction stories have portrayed.
[Joel S. Hirschhorn]
No comments:
Post a Comment