The poverty that you talk about, was far worse back then, than it is now. Living conditions were such, that it is almost unimaginable today, to OUR own poor.
Forget the drug industry! All of those super-dooper machines and tests and LAW SUITS are what has mostly increased the disastrously high costs of health care today. And the overuse and misuse has been of criminal proportions for the last 30 years.
You really have to drop your inclination to unadulterated MARXISM. This IS a CONSERVATIVE forum. All if this damned class warfare and replies filled by same, is just out of order here. And it REALLY would be of help to you if you did some actual research about stocks and stock options, before you start talking about them. It is patently and blatantly obvious that you have no knowledge of that area.
When CEOs are given stock options, they DO have a time limit ( usually of several years ) that they MUST be held, before the options can be exercised.
Re: poverty, Marxism, the Middle Class, and stock options
Glad to hear about the holding period of stock options. So you are saying the top executives that bailed out of Enron before the fall had held their stock for several years?
I am currently researching a historical novel that takes place in 1902 and 1903 in the NY/NJ area among others, so I am becoming quite familiar with economic circumstances at that time. So if the middle class of that period (like my grandparents) were like today's poor, then the poor were absolutely destitute. Still the middle class was a lot smaller than it is today, and our middle class is definitely shrinking now. Just ask all the guys who lost $75-100,000 jobs in the past decade as they were sent to India or Ireland, and now feel lucky to get $35-40,000 jobs today. If concern about that is Marxism, then I guess conservative values are Facism.