CEOs to workers: More for me, less for you

[OhioChick]

Sunday, July 31, 2011, 3:00 AM

Big company CEOs got a 23 percent raise last year and corporate profits are at record highs. But the minimum wage has less buying power now than in 1956 -- the year Elvis Presley first topped the charts, videotape was breakthrough technology and the Dow closed above 500 for the very first time.

It's no accident wages are down while corporate profits are up. As JPMorgan's July 11 "Eye on the Market" newsletter put it, "Reductions in wages and benefits explain the majority of the net improvement in margins. ... U.S. labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and U.S. GDP."

The minimum wage sets the floor under wages, and that floor is sinking. The 1956 minimum wage was $8.30, adjusted for inflation.

Today's minimum wage is $7.25 -- just $15,080 annually.

More: http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/07/ceos_to_workers_more_for_me_le.html

[Veri1138]

1. What most on the bottom fail to get...

is that... for someone to win... someone else has to lose.

For instance, in 2001 and 2003, Bush gave the wealthy incredibly generous tax breaks. After repeatedly pointing to future surpluses. Why wait til then when you can enjoy now. A short-sightedness and lack of responsibility on the part of Republicans and Conservative voters. Those tax cuts cost $2.5 trillion. And to make up for the losses, someone else had to pay (lose) - and that someone else is Main Street.

Two wars paid for on the national credit card. Wars that benefited the few, the corporations, and the banks that made loans to fund the wars. And who pays for it. Who has to give? Main Street. The average American sucker. Joe Blow and Jane Blow.

The insanity of it all is that people still, to this day, support Republicans. And now, an even more extreme and dangerous threat to America - the corporate backed Tea Party. The Tea Party is funded by special interests who see Wall Street as the main benefactors of previous policies; the beneficiaries of power. What the backers of the Tea Party want is to seize that power for themselves and wield it. This is a fight between rich entities, people, and corporations within The Conservative movement to seize power and control for themselves.

That is the real story. And for the Tea Party backers, someone else has to lose. Among those losers will be the ideologically blinded who support and form the Tea Party - and You, Main Street. This is a fight among wealthy factions about who gets to control America.

You are just a casualty. You are expendable. You simply do not count. You are considered the parasitical poor.