Thursday, December 29, 2011

Wages as a percentage of corporate profits.

This chart paints an ugly picture.

Corporate profits are at an all time high, personal income and salary for the 99% is at an all time low.
Why the disconnect? 
The top 1% which include the CEO's directors, and upper level managers are siphoning more of the salary pie than they used to receive as compensation. 

What's left after the executives take the lions share is a tiny fraction. The small crumbs that are left are split amongst offshore workers that make pennies a day, and the American laborers that are forced to work for salaries that are barely above minimum wage.

Before the Ronald Reagan revolution- that was the beginning of the destruction of the middle class, executives in the 1% took 10% of the salary pie, now they take 40% of all wages. The middle class in the 99% now has 30% less of that salary pie to divided between themselves. Its even worse when you consider anther 20% of that income pie goes to workers in India and China.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

If you thought Bloomberg even had one shred of decency- think again.

A Living Wage, Long Overdue
Published: December 25, 2011
Published in The New York Times.

New York City provides hundreds of millions of dollars a year in taxpayer-financed subsidies to private developers. It is only right that the jobs created by those projects pay a decent wage. The Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act, widely known as the living-wage bill, would nudge these employers in the right direction.

Get that- middle class NYC taxpayers provide kickbacks to developers so that they can build fancy buildings for wall street big shots and others.

The bill now before the City Council would require future development projects that receive $1 million or more in discretionary financial assistance from the city to pay $10 an hour plus benefits for full-time workers and $11.50 an hour without benefits for at least 10 years. That may not be much, but it is an improvement over the minimum wage of $7. 25 an hour.

The benefits sound fair.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is fighting this change, arguing that a wage increase might scare off new developments and cost the city thousands of lower-paying jobs. That has not been the experience elsewhere.

First off, $7.25 isn't a living wage in New York City, it hasn't been for years. Meanwhile, on the left coast, the other expensive city, San Francisco, just raised their minimum wage for ALL workers to $10.24 an hour.

Once again Bloombito is talking his book:
"But, if we don't give these fancy billionaire developers millions in kickbacks, they will build those penthouses that sell for 30 million in Cincinnati!
We can't make these job creators pay another 3 bucks an hour to poor people- that would cut into their tens of millions in profits."

Disgusting!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/opinion/a-living-wage-long-overdue.html