Executive Pay, Union Busting, and the Looting of America

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Sunday November 04, 2007 · 7:05 PM PST

2007/11/04 · 19:05

I am reading a book, The Conscience of a Liberal, by Paul Krugman. I recommend it to everyone here. In the book, Krugman discusses the forces that have caused such income inequality in this country. For example, in the early 1970s, the average CEO of a large company made 30 times what the average worker in that company made. Today, the average CEO makes over 300 times what the average worker makes. And while other executive managers don't tend to make as much as the CEO, often they don't make much less. Krugman discusses the history of this phenomena, starting with the robber barons of the 1920s. He progresses through the New Deal, and how what he calls "movement conservatism" has dismantled much of that New Deal. The result is that market forces have done what they naturally would do when unconstrained by the government: reverted to forms of gross inequality. One of the policies of movement conservatism that has allowed this has been the systemic assault on unions. This demonstrates how critical it is that the next democratic president passes the Employee Free Choice Act, and starts to roll back the devastation inflicted on this country by people like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Bush.

ReasonedStoic

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Saturday November 03, 2007 · 6:37 PM PDT

2007/11/03 · 18:37

A new article in the Washington Monthly, titled "Rudy Awakening" paints a stark picture of the well known but poorly understood dictatorial ambitions of Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani has shown at least as much, if not more, of the authoritarianism shown by not just Bush, but Cheney as well. Ideologically, Giuliani is closer to Cheney than he is to Bush. He isn't the intellectual midget that Bush is, but in some ways, he is more authoritarian than Cheney. This makes him far more dangerous than Bush could ever be. He has a malicious and vindictive streak that neither Bush nor Cheney have. Bush and Cheney, at least, respect the legitimacy of congress's power of the purse. Giuliani recently told a reporter that the president has the power to continue providing funding for the troops in Iraq, even if congress withdraws funding. Bush and Cheney, at least, show some respect for the right of people to say what they want (even if they call these people traitors). Giuliani, on the other hand, said that the MoveOn "Betray Us" ad "passed a line that we should not allow American political organizations to pass." If Giuliani becomes president, the years of George W. Bush will seem like 'the good old days.'

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Executive Pay, Union Busting, and the Looting of America

New Article Details Dictatorial Ambitions of Giuliani