Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Profits in your pockets? NOT!

By

I found this in a bondad diary at Daily Kos.

Since 2001 profits have been rising (dramatically) while compensation has been dropping.

What big event happened in 2001? Why GWB of course…

Not even “voodoo economics” Ronnie Raygun can boast such a success.

For a creepy view of a corporate run America see the movie Blade Runner.

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Comments

  1. So what was going on during the Clinton years of 96 and 97 that had the disparity almost as bad as it is today?

  2. I bet GWB lives in your closet and scares you at night.

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    Of course it’s not GWB.  Eury13’s point:  How about the mid 90s?  You going to blame it on the Republican Legislature?

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    The bigger point:  look at the trend.  This divergence started in 1980 and the spread between corporate profits and wages has been steadily growing.  No matter how you analyze the data that graph shows one clear conclusion: the most highly paid folks have done better than all the rest.

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    To wit, in 2004, US workers in the 90th percentile–top 10%–earned nearly 5 times as much as those in the bottom 10th percentile. In 1979, they were earning 3.5 times as much.

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    Why? Economists’ collective agreement is still out on the “why”, but all agree that something happened in the 1980s.

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    Is income inequality a bad thing or something that government policy should address?  Not from my point of view. I don’t see economic angst in the streets and government should be used for more important matters than addressing a blip in a graph. YMMV. 

  3. Libs/progressives think corporations are some 4th state of being when in fact … I’m an owner of these corporations.  So are 75% of Americans. 

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    Anyone who has a 401(k), an IRA, a company pension plan or a government pension plan is an owner in American corporations.

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    As far as I’m concerned, it’s in one pocket, out the other.  When corporations do well, my retirement fund grows along with 220 million other Americans.

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    What’s wrong with that?

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