Free Republic

by Mark Finkelstein September 2, 2006 - 06:40 That's not a typo in the headline. According to this Wall Street Journal article reprinted in the Star-Telegram, "on average, GM pays $81.18 an hour in wages and benefits to U.S. hourly workers, including pension and retiree medical costs." But in his vituperative rant against the Big Three U.S. automakers, Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson manages to ignore the huge labor cost advantage enjoyed by non-union Toyota. How much of an advantage? According to that same article, "Harbour Consulting President Ron Harbour estimates Toyota's total hourly U.S. labor costs, with benefits,...

by Mark Finkelstein August 30, 2006 - 08:59 The Globe didn't go totally Mel Gibson's 'Passion' on us this morning. But Dan Wasserman's cartoon does show workers being hung by the hands on rising corporate profits. This was the Globe's subtle way of commenting on news it reported yesterday that wages aren't rising as fast as profits. The Globe predictably overlooks the fact pointed out in this Investor's Business Daily article that: "Most of us aren't paid just in "wages" but in wages and benefits. And when the two are put together, total compensation is up 8.7% since 2003, for...

In his latest attempt to gain traction against Schwarzenegger, Angelides has adopted Truman's populist approach as his own. He says the governor, along with his fellow Republican, President Bush, protects big business and the rich at the expense of middle-class families struggling to make ends meet amid soaring gasoline, healthcare and college-tuition costs. Strategists of both parties say a failure to show any advance among Democrats in the next wave of independent polls could push Angelides into a downward spiral. It would dissuade donors from putting money into his campaign, which, in turn, would make it harder to pay for...

The debate over the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor may be shaping up to be a battle between those who have the clout to make it happen and those who wish they had the clout to stop it. The Texas Department of Transportation’s super-highway of the future is stirring up bad memories of the past for some. The proposed toll road would run somewhere east of San Antonio. Nothing like it has ever been seen in this country. Another 200 or so people showed up at the meeting Thursday night, most of them from rural East Bexar County. They're fighting to keep...

by Mark Finkelstein August 5, 2006 - 10:21 Amongst the many fulminations by Derrick Z. Jackson in his Boston Globe column of this morning, The Divide Remains, this one leapt out at me: "the great gorge between the working poor and the wasteful rich remains far from being bridged." Jackson never gets around to substantiating his 'wasteful rich' slap. Hard to see it as other than a gratuitous slur by a entrenched class warrior. Jackson is the apparent captive of a socialist mindset in which 'the rich' are straight-from-Monopoly caricatures who steal from the poor while not laying about or...

Mexicans living in the Bay Area are split roughly along class lines in their choice for Mexico's next president, conversations with community leaders and everyday people reveal. Business owners, their employees and people who can readily afford to travel tended to support Felipe Calderon, the apparent winner of last week's election, while his unconceding rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador found favor with the more precariously employed and their advocates.In San Pablo, arguably Contra Costa County's most Latino city, workers and customers at Carmelita's Beauty Salon on Tuesday expressed hope that Calderon will prevail."It will be good for the Mexicans who...

Registered nurses, carpenters, and technical writers are unfairly reaping the spoils of the strong economy while hard-working dishwashers and janitors get the shaft. That might as well have been the first sentence of The Washington Post’s class war-engendering July 10 article “Well-Paid Benefit Most As Economy Flourishes.” “Wages are rising more than twice as fast for highly paid workers” in the Washington, D.C., area than they are for low-paid laborers, complained staff writers Neil Irwin and Cecilia Kang. “That means the spoils of the region’s economic expansion are going disproportionately to workers who are already well-paid, widening a gap between...

At the same time that Republicans are fighting to exempt the richest estates from taxes, they are blocking a raise for the nation's poorest workers. Senate Democrats tried unsuccessfully this week to raise the federal minimum wage, which stands at just $5.15 an hour. It has not been increased in nearly a decade, and at its current stingy level, the rate flies in the face of Americans' belief that those who work hard and play by the rules will be rewarded. A minimum-wage worker earns just $10,700 a year, nearly $6,000 below the poverty line for a family of three....

Two weeks ago, the Senate killed an effort to repeal the federal estate tax on multimillion-dollar fortunes. The "no" votes were a stand for budget sanity and basic fairness. But the pro-repeal camp doesn't want to take no for an answer. Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed an estate-tax cut that is a repeal in everything but name. The so-called compromise would exempt more than 99.5 percent of estates from tax, slash the tax rates on the rest and cost at least $760 billion during its first full decade. Of that, $600 billion is the amount the government would have...

I have for many years now, been warning of the age old battle between the super rich and the middle class. Only in the usa during the 19th and 20th century, did the middle class win that battle. During the 19th and 20th century in the usa the power of the super wealthy was curtailed. Government enacted laws that protected the middle class and encouraged exspandsion of the middle class. Anti-trust laws prevented the super rich from gaining control over entire industries. Today these laws are ignored. Labor laws enabled workers to bargain for a living wage. Today these laws...

The Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva accused the European Union, the United States, and other developed economies of "corrupting" inefficient farmers by granting of subsidies and, with this, producing "poverty" in the developing world. In a speech in the second session of the Summit of European Union-America Latin-Carribean, Lula inquired, "How long will we tolerate this perverse situation?" Later, he afirmed that "In the international community, the feeling grows that agricultural subsidies, which we already know are immoral, are also illegal. The countries that retain these privileges are, in truth, producing poverty in the undeveloped countries." Later, Lula...

Eighteen of America's wealthiest families, including the Timkens of Canton, are bankrolling efforts to permanently repeal estate taxes that would save their families a total of $71.6 billion, according to a report released Tuesday by public interest groups. Groups funded by the super-rich have engaged in a deceptive campaign to convince the public that estate taxes cause widespread problems for small businesses and family farms when they actually affect about one in 370 estates, said the report released by Public Citizen and Boston-based United for a Fair Economy. This year, all assets under $2 million for individuals and under $4...

Did any of you just see Durbin with Neil Cavuto? Living proof that Libs are economic ignoramouses. Doing what Leftists do when discussing the economy. Play the "Politics Of Envy" game. Neil Cavuto gave it right back to him while discussing gasoline prices and oil company profits. However, when Durbin discussed compensation for Exxon CEO, Lee Raymond, Cavuto took a pass. He should have said "it's none of my or your buisness. It's the buisness of Exxon stockholders. He should have asked Durbin to define "gouging." Tell America what a "fair" profit margin looks like. Who should determine what is...

For most Americans, today’s rising gasoline prices are an annoyance, not a serious financial hardship. Then there are people like Kenneth and Edith Taylor of Baltimore, who already struggle to make their monthly social security checks of less than $1,700 last by cooking casseroles and soups at home instead of eating out and forgoing new clothes for as long as possible. Now, with neighborhood pump prices averaging $2.85 a gallon, the Taylors say they simply cannot afford the 80-mile roundtrip to visit their daughter more than once a month.

by Mark Finkelstein April 20, 2006 On the heels of MSM outrage at the retirement package granted to Exxon/Mobil CEO Lee Raymond, Good Morning America was back at the class-warfare ramparts this morning with a new target in its sights, Dr. William McGuire, head of United Health Group. As the result of share prices that have increased over 7,000 percent, stock options granted McGuire are currently worth in excess of $1 billion. ABC reporter Dan Harris narrated the segment, and GMA set the tone with its title - "You Must be Kidding!" But there was no joking about the class-warfare...

See for example this thread first. Exxon Mobil's retirement plan for their ex-CEO and chairman: Nearly $400 mill ! Not much compared to Bill-- one year's interest, to the Microsoft man.

JACKSON, Wyo. -- In an era when the rich are the only income group getting richer, ever-larger waves of wealth are spilling in from the coasts and swamping the resort valleys of the Rocky Mountain West. The rich are coming not just to ski, mountain-bike or build imposing second homes. They are coming to stay -- or, at the very least, secure permanent resident status for tax purposes. The moneyed invasion is driving population growth rates that are among the highest in the nation. From Aspen to Jackson to Squaw Valley, high-net-worth individuals fill sleek restaurants night after night...

Please Do Your JobRussell Roberts The headline: Study Finds Rich-Poor Income Gap Growing The story by Mark Johnson of the Associated Press begins: The disparity between rich and poor is growing in America as the federal minimum wage has remained flat for years, union membership has declined and industries have faced global competition, according to a study released Thursday. Interesting.  Let me try a different first sentence: The disparity between rich and poor is growing in America as the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years, Mars came very close to the earth and the global frog...

The S&P had a measly return of 4.9 percent. Securities firms gave out a record $21.5 billion in year-end bonuses. That's fair.NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - It was, as you may have already heard, a record year for Wall Street pay. Securities firms in New York gave out $21.5 billion in end-of-year bonuses, according to the state comptroller's office. That's $125,500 per employee (although of course the money wasn't distributed anywhere near evenly). The last time things were this good for Wall Street's traders and bankers, at the end of the Internet boom in 2000, the rest of the country got...

Former candidate honors MLK with call to fight poverty The ideals and dreams of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. are being forgotten, former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards said Monday. “The great moral issue is the 37 million people in our country who live in poverty,” Edwards told about a thousand people attending Monday’s service for King at Mount Zion First Baptist Church on East Boulevard. “How can we turn our backs on 37 million people who had to beg for health care?” Edwards, who served as a U.S. senator from North Carolina, cited a “void in moral...