The Tax Justice Network recently reported the world's richest individuals have placed $11.5 trillion in assets in offshore tax havens to avoid paying taxes, a sum 10 times the GDP of Great Britain. The ratio of CEO pay to average worker pay reached 301 to one in 2003. *** In 1982, the ratio was 42 to one. ***Looking at the statistics from another perspective, if we assume a 9-5 workday, by 4:00pm on the first workday of the year, the average CEO will have earned more than the average worker will earn in the entire year. (Or: From 1982 to 2003, the time it took the average CEO to earn the average worker's annual income went from seven days to seven hours.) As the wealthy keep getting their tax breaks, the
In previous recoveries, workers got an average of 49 percent of the national income gains, while corporate profits got 18 percent. This time, the workers are getting 23 percent and the corporations are getting 44 percent — about one half as much as the share that has gone to corporate profits.
Even businesses which some might think would have a more enlightened approach to labor rights have sided with the forces of global destruction.
In yet another Orwellian reversal, Bush's "ownership society" has nothing to do with what that might really mean.
Today, May Day, is the time to join the movement that will correct such reversals, demanding basic fairness and responsibility along with an end to imperial aggression.
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