i
The corporate cheer leaders in their media choose not to note that in
this much vaunted richest country in the world, 40 million people live
in poverty, by govt measure--and the middle class through automation (computers) and job export) is suffering steady wage loss.
wcm
>
> goes the water...... Fuel for your fire.
>
> johnk
>
> >>Forward< :
> >
> >As the Dow Jones industrial average shoots past 11,000 on its way to the
> >stratosphere, could we pause for a moment of silence to recognize the
> >wealth disparity that has resulted and the threat it poses to our fragile
> >democracy?
> >
> >If you read and listen to the corporate press -- the Wall Street
> >cheerleaders at Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business
> >Daily, or the other major corporate news services -- you might think that
> >the market boom has resulted in wealth all around.
> >
> >For the most part, the corporate press, caught up in their euphoria over
> >this bubble economy, has ignored the reality on the ground.
> >
> >They generally ignored, for example, the bit of reality recently presented
> >in succinct detail by the Boston- based United for a Fair Economy.
> >
> >Last month, the group issued "Shifting Fortunes: The Perils of the Growing
> >Wealth Gap in America," a report that features the latest findings of
> >economist Edward Wolff of New York University, a leading authority on
> >wealth distribution.
> >
> >This is what the report found:
> >
> >* Most households have lower net worth, adjusting for inflation, than they
> >did in 1983, when the Dow was still at 1,000.
> >
> >* From 1983 to 1998, the S&P 500 grew a cumulative 1,336 percent. But the
> >wealthiest households reaped most of the gains.
> >
> >* Since the mid-1970s, the top 1 percent of households have doubled their
> >share of the national wealth. The top 1 percent of U.S. households now
> >have more wealth than the entire bottom 95 percent.
> >
> >* The top 1 percent of households control 40 percent of the wealth.
> >Financial wealth is even more concentrated. The top one percent control
> >nearly half of all financial wealth (net worth minus equity in
> >owner-occupied housing).
> >
> >* Microsoft CEO Bill Gates owns more wealth than the bottom 45 percent of
> >American households combined. In the fall of 1997, Gates was worth more
> >than the combined Gross National Product of Central America -- for you
> >geography buffs, that's Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama,
> >Honduras, Nicaragua and Belize. By the fall of 1998, Gates' $60 billion
> >was worth more than the GNPs of Central America plus Jamaica and Bolivia.
> >
> >* The boom has been a bust for millions of Americans. The
> >inflation-adjusted net worth of the median household fell from $54,600 in
> >1989 to $49,900 in 1997. Nearly one out of five households have zero or
> >negative net worth (greater debts than assets), an increase from the
> >1980s.
> >
> >* Workers are earning less, adjusting for inflation, than they did when
> >Richard Nixon was president. Average weekly wages for workers in 1998 were
> >12 percent below 1973, adjusting for inflation. Productivity grew nearly
> >33 percent in the same period.
> >
> >* Families have sunk deeper into debt. Household debt as a percentage of
> >personal income rose from 58 percent in 1973 to an estimated 85 percent in
> >1997. Total credit card debt soared from $243 billion in 1990 to $560
> >billion in 1997. Credit card limits have risen to the point that the
> >average person can charge more than eight times what they already owe. As
> >of 1997, almost 60 percent of American households carried credit card
> >balances -- balances that average more than $7,000, costing these
> >households more than $1,000 per year in interest and fees.
> >
> >There is little question that wealth concentration presented in this
> >report is being fueled by corporate greed. And the resulting wealth
> >inequality poses serious threats to our democracy and civic life.
> >
> >"The wealth gap reinforces -- and is reinforced by -- widening disparities
> >in education, economic opportunity, and quality of life,"  says Chuck
> >Collins, co-director of United for a Fair Economy, and a co-author of the
> >report. "Even the affluent lose from inequality as it hurts life
> >expectancy for rich and poor, fuels violence, and denies all of us the
> >contributions of people whose opportunities are denied."
> >
> >Another co-author of the report, Juliet Schor, argues that "health,
> >well-being and satisfaction appear to be heavily influenced by the ways in
> >which economic resources, prestige and social position are distributed."
> >
> >"In more unequal societies, human well-being and quality of life appear to
> >be lower," Schor says. Wolff makes the point that "wealth, more than
> >income, directly translates into political power." To counter the wealth
> >threat to democracy, Wolff proposes a wealth tax on the richest Americans.
> >
> >As an act of capitalist self-preservation, we think Gates and his buddies
> >should agree.
> >
> >Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
> >Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
> >Multinational Monitor. Together, they are authors of Corporate Predators:
> >The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Common Courage
> >Press, 1999, http://www.corporatepredators.org).
> >
> >(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
> >
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