Links and forum to comment on this and other columns at:
http://www.multinat ionalmonitor. org/editorsblog
The Shameful State of the Union
By Robert Weissman
January 29, 2008
Here's one thing everyone should be able to agree upon from George
Bush's State of the Union address: "We have unfinished business before
us."
Apart from that, it's a little difficult to credit much of what he said.
"So long as we continue to trust the people, our nation will prosper,
our liberty will be secure, and the state of our Union will remain
strong," he concluded.
But the state of our Union is anything but strong. Consider these
snapshots:
1. The United States is spending more than $700 billion a year on the
military.
The 2008 appropriations bills include $506.9 billion for the Department
of Defense and the nuclear weapons activities of the Department of
Energy, plus an additional $189.4 billion for military operations in
Iraq and Afghanistan. [1]
Other military funding is located in the Department of Homeland Security
and other agencies.
Congress has approved nearly $700 billion to fight the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. This is the appropriated amount. It doesn't
include costs to society -- loss of life, injuries, etc. The amount
spent on war-fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq now exceeds the
inflation-adjusted amount spent on the Vietnam War. [2]
The United States accounts for roughly half of the world's military
expenditures. [3]
Depending on how you count, more than half of all discretionary federal
spending is now directed to the military. [4]
2. Wealth is concentrating in the United States at a startling rate.
So startling, in fact, it is very hard to get your head around the
statistics. Notes Sam Pizzigati of the invaluable online newsletter Too
Much: In 2004, the richest 1 percent in the United States held over $2.5
trillion more in net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent.
The concentration of wealth and income reflects a major shift over the
last three decades in how the United States shares its earnings. In
1976, the top 1 percent of the population received 8.83 percent of
national income. In 2005, they grabbed 21.93 percent. [5]
3. Compensation for CEOs and Wall Street financiers is out of control
The average CEO from a Fortune 500 company now makes 364 times an
average worker’s pay, reports the Institute of Policy Studies. This is
up from a 40-to-1 ratio in 1980. [6]
But the managers of businesses that make things and deliver
non-financial services aren't making the truly big money these days. In
the hyper-financialized economy, it's the finance guys who are getting
truly rich.
And they're getting rich despite the huge losses being wracked up on
Wall Street. Bonuses for those toiling on Wall Street totaled $33.2
billion in 2007, down just 2 percent, according to New York state
comptroller' s office. Overall compensation and benefits at seven of the
Street's biggest firms totaled $122 billion, up 10 percent since 2006 --
even though net overall revenue for these firms fell 6 percent. [7]
But even the traditional investment banks can't match the outrageous
compensation captured by private equity and hedge fund managers, a few
of whom manage to pull in more than $1 billion in a single year. Thanks
to a tax loophole, these characters pay income tax at a rate less than
half of what a dentist making $200,000 a year pays.
4. Corporations are capturing more of the nation's wealth.
Corporate profits amounted to 8 percent of GDP over the last decade,
Business Week reports, up from 6.5 percent in the early 1990s. [8]
5. The housing bubble and the subprime mortgage meltdown are driving
millions of families from their homes.
The Center for Responsible Lending estimates that 2.2 million subprime
home loans made in recent years have already failed or will end in
foreclosure. Homeowners will lose $164 billion from these foreclosures,
the Center projects. [9] Overall losses from deflated housing values may
top $2 trillion. One in five subprime mortgages originated during the
past two years is likely to end in foreclosure.
6. The racial wealth divide remains a chasm with little prospect of
being bridged -- and is likely growing worse.
At the rate the wealth divide closed between 1982 and 2004, it would
take 594 more years for African Americans to achieve parity with whites,
according to United for a Fair Economy. But the subprime debacle is
hitting minority communities disproportionately hard, causing what
United for a Fair Economy believes may be the worst deprivation of
people of color's wealth in modern U.S. history. [10]
7. Women continue to be paid far less than men.
The ratio of the annual averages of women’s and men’s median weekly
earnings was 80.8 for full-time workers in 2006, according to the
Institute for Women's Policy Research. Progress in closing the gender
wage gap has slowed considerably since 1990. The gender wage ratio for
annual earnings increased by 11.4 percentage points from 1980 to 1990,
but added only 5.4 percentage points over the next 15 years. [11]
8. More than one in six children live in poverty.
Is there a worse indictment of the richest society in history? The
official U.S. poverty rate was 12.3 percent for 2006. The rate for
children was 17.4 percent. The official poverty line is absurdly low. As
defined by the Office of Management and Budget the average poverty
threshold for a family of four in 2006 was $20,614. For an individual,
it was $10,294. [12]
9. More than 45 million people in the United States do not have health
insurance.
According to the Census Bureau, 47 million were uninsured in 2006, 15.8
percent of the population. [13]
10. The U.S. trade deficit is more than 5 percent of the gross domestic
product.
The 2006 U.S. trade deficit totaled $763.6 billion. [14] The trade
deficit will eventually have to be balanced -- sooner than later, it now
seems. As the dollar continues to swoon, expect to see inflation and
higher interest rates over the medium term. The real standard of living,
in economic terms, will decline as a result.
11. U.S. fuel efficiency is worse now than it was two decades ago.
The average fuel economy of today’s U.S. car and truck fleet is 25.3
miles per gallon, reports the Union of Concerned Scientists, lower than
the 25.9 mpg fleet average in 1987. Regulatory standards have not
changed (though a modest increase is mandated by the energy bill passed
in 2007), and more SUVs and light truck are on the road. [15]
12. The nation's infrastructure is crumbling.
The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $1.6 trillion is
needed over a five-year period to bring the nation's infrastructure to
good condition. [16]
13. More than two million people in the United States are locked in
prison.
What a colossal waste of human talent. 2,258,983 prisoners were held in
Federal or State prisons or in local jails, at the end of 2006, an
increase of 2.9 percent from 2005. The prison population has grown 3.4
percent annually since 1995. African-American males are imprisoned at a
rate 6.5 times higher than white males, Latino males almost 3 times
higher than whites. [17]
Most of these conditions are worse now than at the start of the Bush
administration, many dramatically worse. But they have their roots in a
bipartisan policy approach over the last three decades, favoring
deregulation, handover of government assets to corporations
(privatization) , corporate globalization, hyper-financializat ion,
lunatic military expenditures, tax cuts for the rich and a slashed
social safety net.
If the United States is to see "real change" -- and actually strengthen
the state of the Union -- there will have to be a reversal of these
policies.
[1] Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation,
http://www.armscont rolcenter. org/policy/ securityspending /articles/ analysis_ c110_conf_ 1585/
[2] Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation,
http://www.armscont rolcenter. org/policy/ securityspending /articles/ analysis_ c110_s_2764_ war_bridge/
[3] SIPRI Yearbook 2007, Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute, http://yearbook2007 .sipri.org/
[4] War Resisters League, http://www.warresis ters.org/ piechart. htm
[5] Too Much, http://www.cipa- apex.org/ toomuch/inequali ty.html
[6] Executive Excess 2007, Institute for Policy Studies,
http://www.ips- dc.org/reports/ #84
[7] Tomoeh Murakami Tse and Renae Merle, The Bonuses Keep Coming, The
Washington Post, January 29, 2008,
http://www.washingt onpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/ article/2008/ 01/28/AR20080128 02561.html
[8] Michael Mandel, How Real Was the Prosperity, Business Week, January
23 2008,
http://www.business week.com/ magazine/ content/08_ 05/b406900001669 1.htm?chan= magazine+ channel_special+ report%3A+ market+reckoning
[9] Center for Responsible Lending, Losing Ground: Foreclosures in the
Subprime Market and Their Cost to Homeowners,
http://www.responsi blelending. org/issues/ mortgage/ research/ page.jsp? itemID=31217189
[10] Foreclosed: State of the Dream 2008, United for a Fair Economy,
http://www.fairecon omy.org/issues/ racial_wealth_ divide/foreclose d_state_of_ the_dream_ 2008_0
[11] Institute for Women's Policy Research, The Gender Wage Ratio:
Women's And Men's Earnings, http://www.iwpr. org/index. cfm
[12] http://www.census. gov/hhes/ www/poverty/ poverty06/ tables06. html
[13] http://www.census. gov/hhes/ www/hlthins/ hlthin06/ hlth06asc. html
[14] http://www.census. gov/foreign- trade/statistics /highlights/ annual.html
[15] Union of Concerned Scientists, Fuel Economy Basics,
http://www.ucsusa. org/clean_ vehicles/ fuel_economy/ questions- and-answers- on-fuel-economy. html
[16] American Society of Civil Engineers, Report Card for America's
Infrastructure, http://www.asce. org/reportcard/ 2005/index. cfm
[17] US DOJ, Office of Justice Statistics, Bureau of Justice Statistics
http://www.ojp. usdoj.gov/ bjs/prisons. htm
Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational
Monitor, <http://www.multinat ionalmonitor. org> and director of Essential
Action <http://www.essentia laction.org>.
(c) Robert Weissman
This article is posted at:
<http://lists. essential. org/pipermail/ corp-focus/ 2008/000275. html>
____________ _________ _________ _________ ________
Focus on the Corporation is a regular column by Robert Weissman. Please
feel free to forward the column to friends, repost it on other lists or
non-commercial, non-profit websites, or publish it in non-profit print
outlets. (For-profit outlets, please contact rob@essential. org).
Focus on the Corporation is distributed to individuals on the listserve
corp-focus@lists. essential. org. To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your
address to corp-focus, go to:
<http://lists. essential. org/mailman/ listinfo/ corp-focus> or send an e-mail
message to corp-focus-admin@ lists.essential. org with your request.
Focus on the Corporation columns are posted at:
<http://www.corporat epredators. org>.
Postings on corp-focus are limited to the columns. If you would like to
comment on a columns, go to:
send a message to rob@essential. org.
No comments:
Post a Comment