That's what the average worker would be raking in if the ratio of CEO to worker pay was at the 1970 level here in 2006. Unfortunately, it isn't. That 28:1 ratio from 1970 has ballooned to 369:1.
Average annual CEO pay is $10.5 million, 369 times average worker pay of $28,310. In 1970, before the big runup, the multiple was 28:1, a ratio that would make today's average worker pay $374,800. Put another way: If CEO pay were frozen now, it would take workers 66 years of 4% annual raises to get back to 1/28th of what the boss makes.
Data: Kevin J. Murphy, University of Southern California; CEO pay rounded and based on S&P 500 companies; worker pay, Bureau of Labor Statistics; ratios rounded to nearest whole number
For every additional second we stay in Iraq, we taxpayers will end up paying an additional $6,300.
So aside from the rising body counts and all the other good reasons to adopt a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, here’s another: We are spending vast sums there that would be better spent rescuing the American health care system, developing alternative forms of energy and making a serious effort to reduce global poverty.
In the run-up to the Iraq war, Donald Rumsfeld estimated that the overall cost would be under $50 billion. Paul Wolfowitz argued that Iraq could use its oil to “finance its own reconstruction.”
But now several careful studies have attempted to tote up various costs, and they suggest that the tab will be more than $1 trillion — perhaps more than $2 trillion. The higher sum would amount to $6,600 per American man, woman and child.
“The total costs of the war, including the budgetary, social and macroeconomic costs, are likely to exceed $2 trillion,” Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel-winning economist at Columbia, writes in an updated new study with Linda Bilmes, a public finance specialist at Harvard. Their report has just appeared in the Milken Institute Review, as an update on a paper presented earlier this year.
Just to put that $2 trillion in perspective, it is four times the additional cost needed to provide health insurance for all uninsured Americans for the next decade. It is 1,600 times Mr. Bush’s financing for his vaunted hydrogen energy project.
Another study, by two economists at the American Enterprise Institute, used somewhat different assumptions and came up with a lower figure — about $1 trillion. Those economists set up a nifty Web site, www.aei-brookings.org/iraqcosts, where you can tinker with the underlying assumptions and come up with your own personal estimates.
Of course, many of the costs are hidden and haven’t even been spent yet. For example, more than 3,000 American veterans have suffered severe head injuries in Iraq, and the U.S. government will have to pay for round-the-clock care for many of them for decades. The cost ranges from $600,000 to $5 million per person.
Then there are disability payments that will continue for a half-century. Among veterans of the first gulf war — in which ground combat lasted only 100 hours — 40 percent ended up receiving disability payments, still costing us $2 billion each year. We don’t know how many of today’s veterans will claim such benefits, but in the first quarter of this year more people sought care through the Department of Veterans Affairs than the Bush administration had budgeted for the entire year.
The war has also forced the military to offer re-enlistment bonuses that in exceptional circumstances reach $150,000. Likewise, tanks, helicopters and other battlefield equipment will have to be replaced early, since the Pentagon says they are being worn out at up to six times the peacetime rate.
The administration didn’t raise taxes to pay for the war, so we’re financing it by borrowing from China and other countries. Those borrowing costs are estimated to range from $264 billion to $308 billion in interest.
Then there are economic costs to the nation as a whole. For example, the price of oil was in the $20- to $30-a-barrel range early in this decade but has now shot up to more than $50, partly because of the drop in Iraq’s oil exports and partly because of war-related instability in the Middle East. Professors Stiglitz and Bilmes note that if just $10 of the increase is attributable to the war, that amounts to a $450 billion drag on the economy over six years.
The bottom line is that not only have we squandered 2,800 American lives and considerable American prestige in Iraq, but we’re also paying $18,000 per household to do so.
We still face the choice of whether to remain in Iraq indefinitely or to impose a timetable and withdraw U.S. troops. These studies suggest that every additional year we keep our troops in Iraq will add $200 billion to our tax bills.
My vote would be to spend a chunk of that sum instead fighting malaria, AIDS and maternal mortality, bolstering American schools, and assuring health care for all Americans. We’re spending $380,000 for every extra minute we stay in Iraq, and we can find better ways to spend that money.
One of the top tight asses at Fox News, Sean Hannity, is telling Democrats to, quote, "Stay home on election day, for the sake of the nation." On his radio show yesterday, Hannity also told Democrats, quote, "Your vote doesn't matter anyway," because it "won't change who's in the White House." No, but it will change who's in Congress. Remember, the wicked witch is powerless...without her flyin' monkeys.
So true. Get out and vote the failed conservative leadership off the Hill.
Senator and Presidential hopeful John McCain told folks in Iowa, of course, that he's ready to "commit suicide" if Democrats take over the Senate.
If he keeps supporting Bush's misadventures at home and abroad and making ridiculous statements like these he will be committing political suicide too.
Yesterday the Washington Post reported, "President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone 'hostile to U.S. interests'."
The Administration denies this measure will lead to the weaponization of space but experts agree this step opens the door.
That's right. Rather than addressing the Republicans' total failure to adequately protect our own borders since the 9/11 attacks, the Bush Administration is moving forward on protecting us from...space invaders?
The quality of leadership Bush has shown as the commander of our armed forces in Iraq doesn't exactly inspire confidence when thinking he may next have his hand on the controls of a giant space laser.
Have you recovered yet from celebrating the Dow's record highs last week? Hope you didn't go too wild. Hangovers can be so nasty -- though it sure was fun watching folks on the New York Stock Exchange floor whoop it up as the Dow finally eclipsed its highs set in early 2000.
But in my customary role as party pooper, I'll let you in on a little secret: Even though the Dow has broken the high it set on Jan. 14, 2000, the market is nowhere near its all-time high. That's because the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average isn't the same thing as the U.S. stock market. Not even close.
Although the Dow notched three straight records last week and ended yesterday close to 12,000, the real market indicators are still way below their highs. One of them, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index -- which includes 470 more stocks than the Dow does -- ended the week 12 percent below its peak, reached on March 24, 2000. The Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, which includes all U.S. stocks and peaked the same day as the S&P, was down 8 percent.
A jury Pennsylvania is trying to smack Wal-Mart with some justice though with a $78 million dollar ruling for forcing employees to work without pay.
I'm sure Wal-Mart will just offset the cost by forcing their overseas suppliers to lower their production costs. Probably by further deteriorating work conditions for the suppliers' employees.
Great, they'll probably find a way to outsource abuse too.
On this National Coming Out Day we urge you to participate in our new Phone Home campaign! It's a campaign to mobilize fair-minded people everywhere in the fight against the anti-LGBT constitutional amendments that will be on the November ballot in eight states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.
If you come from or know anyone in any of these states - and surely you do - then you can take action today.
Just go to the campaign Web site, www.PhoneHome2006.org, where you'll find all the tools you need to quickly and easily contact your relatives, friends, classmates and former co-workers in these states and tell them you need them to do the right thing on Nov. 7. You can also donate to the state campaigns through this site.
Your LGBT community members back home need all the help they can get - so take action today. Please also forward this message to everyone you know. There's no time to waste.
Thanks for doing your part to stand up to bigotry and intolerance.
Should we be cheering over the fact that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has finally set a new record? No. The Dow is doing well largely because American employers are waging a successful war against wages. Economic growth since early 2000, when the Dow reached its previous peak, hasn't been exceptional. But after-tax corporate profits have more than doubled, because workers' productivity is up, but their wages aren't - and because companies have dealt with rising health insurance premiums by denying insurance to ever more workers.
If you want to see how the war against wages is being fought, and what it's doing to working Americans and their families, consider the latest news from Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart already has a well-deserved reputation for paying low wages and offering few benefits to its employees; last year, an internal Wal-Mart memo conceded that 46 percent of its workers’ children were either on Medicaid or lacked health insurance. Nonetheless, the memo expressed concern that wages and benefits were rising, in part "because we pay an associate more in salary and benefits as his or her tenure increases."
The problem from the company's point of view, then, is that its workers are too loyal; it wants cheap labor that doesn't hang around too long, but not enough workers quit before acquiring the right to higher wages and benefits. Among the policy changes the memo suggested to deal with this problem was a shift to hiring more part-time workers, which "will lower Wal-Mart's health care enrollment."
And the strategy is being put into effect. "Investment analysts and store managers," reports The New York Times, "say Wal-Mart executives have told them the company wants to transform its work force to 40 percent part-time from 20 percent." Another leaked Wal-Mart memo describes a plan to impose wage caps, so that long-term employees won't get raises. And the company is taking other steps to keep workers from staying too long: in some stores, according to workers, "managers have suddenly barred older employees with back or leg problems from sitting on stools."
It's a brutal strategy. Once upon a time a company that treated its workers this badly would have made itself a prime target for union organizers. But Wal-Mart doesn't have to worry about that, because it knows that these days the people who are supposed to enforce labor laws are on the side of the employers, not the workers.
Since 1935, U.S. workers considering whether to join a union have been protected by the National Labor Relations Act, which bars employers from firing workers for engaging in union activities. For a long time the law was effective: workers were reasonably well protected against employer intimidation, and the union movement flourished.
In the 1970's, however, employers began a successful campaign to roll back unions. This campaign depended on routine violation of labor law: experts estimate that by 1980 employers were illegally firing at least one out of every 20 workers who voted for a union. But employers rarely faced serious consequences for their lawbreaking, thanks to America's political shift to the right. And now that the shift to the right has gone even further, political appointees are seeking to remove whatever protection for workers' rights that the labor relations law still provides.
The Republican majority on the National Labor Relations Board, which is responsible for enforcing the law, has just declared that millions of workers who thought they had the right to join unions don't. You see, the act grants that right only to workers who aren't supervisors. And the board, ruling on a case involving nurses, has declared that millions of workers who occasionally give other workers instructions can now be considered supervisors.
As the dissent from the Democrats on the board makes clear, the majority bent over backward, violating the spirit of the law, to reduce workers' bargaining power.
So what's keeping paychecks down? Major employers like Wal-Mart have decided that their interests are best served by treating workers as a disposable commodity, paid as little as possible and encouraged to leave after a year or two. And these employers don't worry that angry workers will respond to their war on wages by forming unions, because they know that government officials, who are supposed to protect workers' rights, will do everything they can to come down on the side of the wage-cutters.
The Fox News team doesn't miss a trick. Right out of the Hastert/Rove playbook which says, "In case of Emergency: Blame a Democrat" comes a Hail Mary pass.
In stories about shamed Republican Congressman Mark Foley, Fox News titled him "Mark Foley (D-FL)". When will they learn that saying something doesn't make it so?
From Bob Woodward's new book, State of Denial. This was distributed by the DSCC.
In case you haven't yet made it through all 491 pages of Bush Administration missteps chronicled in Bob Woodward's new book, State of Denial, here is a timeline of ignored warnings and disregarded expertise. Members of the military and Bush Administration officials realized that the situation in Iraq was bad and getting worse starting in 2002. Nevertheless, the Bush Administration stuck with its failed Iraq policy and showed more interest in winning elections than in winning the peace. It's time for a new direction.
December 2002: Special Assistant to Secretary Rumsfeld, Steven Herbits, Says Post War Planning is "Screwed Up". "At the Pentagon, on Thursday, December 5, 2002, in the middle of the most intense invasion planning for Iraq, Steve Herbits walked into Rumsfeld's office. "You're not going to be happy with what I'm going to tell you," he said...Herbits continued. "Now that I've got your attention, you have got to focus on the post-Iraq planning. It is so screwed up. We will not be able to win the peace." [p. 103]
August 2003: Coordinator for Strategic Planning on the National Security Council, Robert D. Blackwill, Tells Rice and Hadley "We're Losing". "After a couple of weeks, [Robert D.] Blackwill [the new coordinator for strategic planning on the NSC staff who Rice made point man for Iraq] told Rice and Hadley. 'We're losing. We're just losing this whole thing. The public opinion is going against us. This is awful. We're losing the battle for Iraq heart and soul.'" [p. 241]
September 2003: Herbits Tells Gingrich and Wolfowitz the President is Losing the Peace. Herbits, Wolfowitz and Gingrich meet for dinner at Les Halles to discuss the war. "The three chit-chatted briefly, and then Herbits stepped in. 'This is the premise of the meeting. The president is losing the peace. He is not going to get reelected unless we get this thing straightened out." [p. 250]
Ongoing: Secretary of State Colin Powell and Richard Armitage Wonder if the President Had Thought Things Through. "Powell and Armitage engaged in a private, running commentary about Bush, Cheney, the White House and what was really going on. Both wanted Bush to succeed and they believed the Iraq War had to be won for the stability of the Middle East. A precipitous U.S. withdrawal would be followed by chaos. But what about adjusting the policy? they were asking. Shouldn't we all be more realistic?... Armitage was baffled. 'Has he [President Bush] thought this through?' Armitage asked Powell. 'What the President says in effect is we've got to press on in honor of the memory of those who have fallen. Another way to say that is we've got to have more men fall to honor the memories of those who have already fallen.'" [p. 325]
Early 2005: Richard Armitage Says Time is Working for the Insurgents. "Armitage traveled to Iraq at the end of 2004. 'We're not winning...we're not losing. Not winning over a long period of time works for the insurgents." [p. 373]
February 2005: State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow Says Iraq is a Failed State. "At this point Iraq remains a failed state shadowed by constant violence and undergoing revolutionary political change." [p. 388]
July 2005: NATO Commander General James Jones Wonders Whether He Should Resign in Protest. "Jones expressed chagrin that Pace would even want to be chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]. 'You're going to face a debacle and be part of the debacle in Iraq,' he said. U.S. prestige was at a 50- or 75- year low in the world. He said he was so worried about Iraq and the way Rumsfeld ran things that he wondered if he himself should not resign in protest." [p. 403]
September 2005: State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow Warns That Iraqis Suffered Profound Disillusionment about America. "On the two other pillars for postwar Iraq - economic development and governance, the two that State was responsible for - the report was grim: 'Not visibly advanced and some areas had moved backwards.' In the areas of electricity, oil and water, the U.S. was expending a huge effort just to stay in the same place. Then came the killer line: 'Iraqis had exaggerated hopes about what we would do in their country and the general failure of public services has hurtled [them] into profound disillusionment about America.'...Zelikow concluded, 'Failure is a condition where you don't get that by the time the administration leaves office' - January 2009. 'Catastrophic failure' could be said to occur 'if the center doesn't hold and Iraq's experiment at truly national government has collapsed." [p. 413]
March 2006: State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow Notes Existence of an Unstable Equilibrium. "The Iraqi Army has been rebuilt and the insurgency has been contained, but the underlying rhythm and scale of insurgent attacks has actually been remarkably steady for more than a year. Neither side has gained decisive edge. The result is a lingering unstable equilibrium." [p. 452]
June 2006: Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte Concludes U.S. Policy in Trouble. "Overall, he concluded, it had all been downhill in the first six months of 2006. Clearly now, in early June, he could see the U.S. Iraq policy was in trouble. It was time to face facts. The Shiites were already the winners. They would prevail. The only question was how the United States could shape things - which was different from determining them. It was time to take American hands off." [p. 478]
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