Should anyone be respected who vetoes a raise in the minimum wage to $4.55 per hour, or should someone who gets run off their feet serving fast foods for the minimum wage feel content that this group of lawyers earn on average seventeen hundred (1700) times as much per hour? In a similar way, Michael Milken, who made his money from selling LBO junk bonds, did so at the staggering rate of $213,346.00 per hour.
This wage control approach would at last put reins on members of our society such as the legal profession, who seem content to make their services too expensive for the bottom 90% of society to afford, while taking full advantage of the services of citizens who are, relatively speaking, being paid as slaves. (on $3.35 per hour minimum wage, or even $10 or $15 dollars per hour)
Egyptian slave labor built pyramids, whereas American slave labor builds tall rectangular skyscrapers. The alternate perspective is to view the pyramid builders not as slaves, but simply as workers who derived less benefit from their labor than the pharaohs.
We should not forget for one moment either, that when a corporation is forced to pay a court settlement, the losses (which include the lawyers fees) simply get passed along to the consumer, one way or another.
Even if strict "progressive" taxation on earnings in
excess of say 20 times the minimum wage were introduced, the approach
would still be susceptible to tax evasion because it would be
based on Taxable Income. Safeway, Boeing or Walt Disney could
still end up paying less taxes than a pensioner forced to supplement
a meager income by fetching your french fries!!
If the SEC findings are to be believed, one would have to accept that corporations are valued less for their capacity to provide products and services, than for their artificial value as profit vehicles for speculators.
In any case, Congressman Dorgan's bill, even in its present watered
down form, would serve to discourage the continuing wave of takeovers.
Unfortunately by now (two years later), most of the takeovers
have already occurred, but better late than never.{B99}The very least that should be done is to invalidate the tax deductibility
of interest payments on indebtedness which exceeds the owner equity. {B100}
Both are essentially concessions to the economic elite, and have already cost the bottom 90% of Western societies an incredible loss of benefits. Each affects the working man's standard of living in no less a fashion than the bailout of banks and S&Ls, or the loss of tax revenue following LBOs. Neither topic was dealt with adequately because each merited more coverage than I was prepared to devote in this book. The media has largely avoided discussing either topic objectively or in depth, mainly because both yield benefits to the economic elite by the removal of benefits from the rest of the country.
Privatization amounts to a politically motivated, quid pro quo distribution of previously developed national wealth to the richest 10%.
Deregulation
gives the unscrupulous a freer hand to sacrifice
standards and service for profit maximization. Just as deregulation
in the banking industry caused the taxpayer a $300 billion S&L
mop-up headache, deregulation in other industries has had similar
drastic repercussions.
Deregulation of the airline industry, for instance, allowed for profit oriented reductions to maintenance programs. Within no time at all, planes were breaking up in mid air, cracked fuselages were being sent up till the doors blew off and the sky was visible from the passenger section, etc.. Competition was drastically reduced as the industry was reduced through mergers and acquisitions to six mega-carriers which fly about 90% of all passengers. To add to the problems, foreign airlines funded some of the industry takeovers. But worst of all, the cost of financing the LBOs was passed directly on to the passengers in the form of ticket price rises. {B101}
Other sectors of our economy have been given the opportunity to
set their own standards, with similar benefits to the general
public. The reader should, out of self defense, become more concerned
and informed regarding these two additional issues. However, discussion of the rip-offs must of necessity terminate to get on with other equally important issues.
Let's now turn our attention to the democratic process itself
to expose just how and why politicians elected by the bottom 90%
continue to churn out legislation that does not serve the best
interests of the majority whom they supposedly represent. As we shall see, gaining control over the writing of the tax avoidance
legislation may not be as simple a task as those who trust in
their democracy may think. Don't forget that the politicians voted
in by the bottom 90%, are the very same politicians who pass the
tax avoidance legislation favoring the elite!!
The next chapter is therefore devoted to showing that just as the nation has been manipulated and victimized economically, it has been manipulated and victimized with respect to democracy. In America, democracy is as much a hoax as equal opportunity and equitable prosperity. Does that sound unreasonable or even impossible? Then read on.