The forgotten facts

[one...two...tree 2,762]

IMHO, if you fsck something up really bad you should be fired, period. And if the next guy fscks up too, fired. This is why Congress switches from one party to the other, cause the party in power becomes complacent and starts doing a shitty job. It's natural and it's good. What I hate are ppl like Mr. Infidel who believe the Democrats will destroy the country, while ignoring the fact that the Republicans have done a pretty good job in that direction already.

Amen, brother...Amen!

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

Nancy Pelosi will fly in like the Wicked Witch of the West with a bunch of winged monkeys - Surrender Republicans!

Seriously, the shakeup of '94 was a good thing many ways -- unlike the Democrats now the Republicans had a clear cut agenda then. Unfortunately for them, they misread the mood of the public and overreached with the Government shutdown in '95 which pretty much sealed Clinton's re-election.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Nancy Pelosi will fly in like the Wicked Witch of the West with a bunch of winged monkeys - Surrender Republicans!

Seriously, the shakeup of '94 was a good thing many ways -- unlike the Democrats now the Republicans had a clear cut agenda then. Unfortunately for them, they misread the mood of the public and overreached with the Government shutdown in '95 which pretty much sealed Clinton's re-election.

Gringrich was too divisive (brought partisan politics to a new level) but his tone chimed well with a lot of restless Americans who were tired of the same old shenanigans. They came into Washington like they were gonna be the clean-up crew. If there is anything the American public can learn from all this...be suspicious of any politicians who claim they're going to fix what's broken in Washington. Make them stand on substance, not feel good rhetoric.

[Ban Hammer 13,333]

Why not? Margaret Thatcher royally fcuked up the UK, which slid into a recession after she was ousted as Tory leader. She still thinks she did a marvellous job. Enough time has passed that history has proven otherwise.

well she did get back the falkland islands for britain

I still don't understand this irrational hatred of celebrities. Still sounds like subconcious envy to me, or some sort of working class "I hate the rich and famous" mind-set. Just strange...

What's wrong with being independently wealthy?

other than more than a few in the usa believe they should share the wealth, nothing.........

[Carol&Marc 0]

Yep I got an idea for the ones here who think the world owes them something!

How about the "world is so unfair panhandling corp." But it might mean getting off there ####### and get to the nearest busy street corner to put their hand out!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Do you agree that American workers should be paid for what they are worth?

[mawilson 2,133]

Do you agree that American workers should be paid for what they are worth?

Yes, but in a free market economy, their worth is determined by the market, not by you or me.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Why not? Margaret Thatcher royally fcuked up the UK, which slid into a recession after she was ousted as Tory leader. She still thinks she did a marvellous job. Enough time has passed that history has proven otherwise.

well she did get back the falkland islands for britain

Yes she did. Although there is an opinion that the war was essentially a political maneuver to ensure the conservative victory in the 1983 election, before which they had a bit of a "popularity problem".

Why not? Margaret Thatcher royally fcuked up the UK, which slid into a recession after she was ousted as Tory leader. She still thinks she did a marvellous job. Enough time has passed that history has proven otherwise.

well she did get back the falkland islands for britain

I still don't understand this irrational hatred of celebrities. Still sounds like subconcious envy to me, or some sort of working class "I hate the rich and famous" mind-set. Just strange...

What's wrong with being independently wealthy?

other than more than a few in the usa believe they should share the wealth, nothing.........

There's a difference between independently wealthy celebrities, and the general philosophy of economic liberalism that allows corporations to make profit at the expense of the public interest.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Do you agree that American workers should be paid for what they are worth?

Yes, but in a free market economy, their worth is determined by the market, not by you or me.

I agree to a point. The market doesn't exactly set the wages. Companies set wages and ethically speaking, should share in the profits. Why would you not advocate that? The issue is about the growing disparity between top executive's pay and the workers. Percentage wise, it's gone from something like 20 to 1 back in the 50's to about 300 to 1 today. Explain why today's CEO deserve a bigger percentage than the CEO's from 40 years ago, and why the workers of today get less?

2004 was a banner year for CEOs and a dismal year for workers, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy.

The ratio of average CEO pay (now $11.8 million) to worker pay (now $27,460) spiked up from 301-to-1 in 2003 to 431-to-1 in 2004.

If the minimum wage had risen as fast as CEO pay since 1990, the lowest paid workers in the US would be earning $23.03 an hour today, not $5.15 an hour.

The report found that CEOs are individually profiting from the Iraq War, with huge average raises at the biggest defense contractors.

At the 34 publicly traded US corporations among the 2004 top 100 defense contractors with 10% or more of their revenues from defense contracts – companies such as United Technologies, Textron, and General Dynamics – average CEO pay increased 200% from 2001 to 2004, versus 7% for all CEOs.

For example, David H. Brooks, CEO of bulletproof vest maker DHB Industries, earned $70 million in 2004, 13,349% more than his 2001 compensation of $525,000. Brooks sold company stock worth about $186 million last year, spooking investors who drove DHB’s share price from more than $22 to as low as $6.50. In May 2005, the US Marines recalled more than 5,000 DHB armored vests after questions were raised about their effectiveness. By that time, Brooks had pocketed about $180 million in war windfalls.

Since September 11, the ratio between median pay for defense CEOs and pay for military generals has nearly doubled to 23-to-1, up from 12-to-1 just three years earlier. The pay ratio between defense CEOs and army privates soared to 160-to-1, up from just 89-to-1 in 2001.

The report reviewed trends in CEO pay and gave CEO Hall of Shame awards to executives who have exemplified five types of excessive pay:

* Pension underfunders: The CEOs of those firms with the most underfunded pensions, on average, received 72% more than the average large company CEO.

Inducted into the CEO Hall of Shame in this category is Exxon Mobil’s Lee Raymond.

* Tax dodgers: 46 large companies paid no federal income tax in 2003, despite collectively earning $30 billion in profits. Some of the savings wound up in the pockets of their CEOs, who made $12.6 million in average pay in 2004.

Inducted into the CEO Hall of Shame in this category is Pfizer’s Hank McKinnell.

* Book cookers: In the last ten years, CEOs of firms with shady accounting appeared 18 times on the top ten lists of highest paid executives. This includes leaders whose companies were either later found to have committed fraud or were forced to make material restatements of earnings to correct previous overstatements of profits.

Inducted into the CEO Hall of Shame in this category is Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski, the highest paid book cooker – more than a half billion dollars.

* Stock tankers: If you had invested in the stock of the company led by the year’s single highest paid CEO each year since 1990, you actually would have lost money. You would have done nearly six times better by investing in the S&P 500 index. A $10,000 investment in such a Greedy CEO portfolio in 1991 would have decreased in value to $8,079 by the end of 2004, while a similar investment in the S&P 500 would have increased to $48,350.

Inducted into the CEO Hall of Shame in this category is Computer Associates’ Charles Wang.

* Gross pay: Over the last 15 years, the cumulative pay of the ten highest paid CEOs in each year together totals more than $11.7 billion.

Inducted into the CEO Hall of Shame in this category is Citigroup’s Sandy Weill, whose $1.1 billion in cumulative pay since 1990 topped all others.

Authored by Sarah Anderson, John Cavanagh, Scott Klinger, and Liz Stanton, Executive Excess 2005 is the twelfth annual CEO pay study by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and United for a Fair Economy (UFE). The IPS is an independent center for progressive research and education in Washington, DC. UFE is a national organization based in Boston that spotlights growing economic inequality.

http://www.faireconomy.org/press/2005/EE2005_pr.html

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Do you agree that American workers should be paid for what they are worth?

Yes, but in a free market economy, their worth is determined by the market, not by you or me.

Unfortunately, that is not entirely true. They have come to the point where they determine each other's worth sitting on each other's boards. Otherwise, an employee (which is what even a top executive is) that causes a firm harm doesn't get paid millions of dollars when (s)he gets fired - or in pc terms, when (s)he gets an opportunity to resign. Those folks can't fall down. The market knows gravity, these folks don't.