Monday, November 21, 2011

He Sits Down and Circulates

From Whiskey Fire.--SS

He Sits Down and Circulates:

Who are the One Percent?

Though the situation is often described as a problem of inequality, this is not quite the real concern. The issue is runaway incomes at the very top—people earning a million and a half dollars or more according to the most recent data. And much of that runaway income comes from financial investments, stock options, and other special financial benefits available to the exceptionally rich—much of which is taxed at very low capital gains rates. Meanwhile, there has been something closer to stagnation for almost everyone else—including even for many people in the top 20 percent of earners.

And how do they remain the One Percent?

Next, think about how these executives managed their businesses. If they wanted a big pay check they had to orient their strategies to push up their stock prices—that is, often to appeal to the financial fads and fashions of the day. These strategies typically have included cutting labor costs and R&D in order to boost short-term profits. This delighted their advisers on the Street. Stock investors soon loved nothing better than consistent increases in quarterly profits, and not coincidentally, stock options accounted for an ever-growing proportion of executive pay over the past thirty years. We used to say once that Wall Street worked for business, but over the past thirty years business has come to work for Wall Street.

And what won't we do to get out of this ever-narrowing shite-gyre?

So Occupy Wall Street is right: the financial firms are much to blame for runaway incomes at the top. Yet understanding the nature of inequality in America should place the focus where it truly belongs, on the other 99 percent. Wages have by and large stagnated in America. The real problem is that America’s job machine is broken. Wall Street is partly but not entirely responsible for this. And policies to adjust this—persistent fiscal stimulus, substantial public investment in infrastructure and industry, a lower dollar to the yen, a higher minimum wage, and direct job creating programs like the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration—are what’s needed. If we do not begin to develop such policies, we will not have only the problem of runaway incomes for the few at the very top, but a large and growing part of the population—some of which is highly skilled and educated—that is cut off from the economy altogether.

But there's good news!

There's just no way America survives long enough to get destroyed by climate change. President Romney will be nuking Manhattan and San Francisco by 2015 in order to prove to Ann Coulter that he's not a gay dhimmi pussy.

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