Saturday, September 4, 2010 by Creators.com
by Jim Hightower
America's corporate chieftains must love poor people, for they're doing all they can to create millions more of them.
They're knocking down wages, offshoring everything from manufacturing jobs to high tech, reducing full-time work to part-time, downsizing our workplaces, busting unions, cutting health care coverage and canceling pensions - while also lobbying in Washington to privatize Social Security, eliminate job safety protections, restrict unemployment benefits, kill job-creating programs and increase corporate control of our elections.rece
It's said that the poor and the rich will always be among us. But nowhere is it written that the middle-class will always be there. In fact, it is a very recent creation in our society (and an unavailable dream for most people in the world). America's great middle class literally arose with the rise of labor unions and populist political movements in the 1800s, finally culminating in democratic economic reforms implemented from the 1930s into the 1960s.
Social Security, wage AND hour laws, collective bargaining rights, unemployment compensation, the GI Bill, the interstate highway program, civil rights laws, Medicare, Head Start - and more - provided the national framework necessary to sustain a middle class for the American Majority.
This essential framework was not "given" to us by corporate executives and politicians - indeed, they sputtered, spewed and fought every piece of it tooth and nail. Rather, it came from union-led grassroots movements, organizing for structural change.
This Labor Day, we see corporate executives and their politicians relentlessly dismantling that framework, piece by piece - and we see the middle class disappearing and poverty rising with each dismantled piece. But as labor icon Joe Hill said just before he was executed by Utah authorities for his unionizing activities, "Don't mourn, organize." It's time for working families to organize again for the revitalization of the middle class.
Who'll take a stand these days for restoring America's founding ethic of the common good?
You won't get this leadership from Washington - and damned sure not from those in the corporate suites who're ruthlessly pushing an ethic of uncommon greed, saying to the middle class, "Adios, chumps."
Instead, look to places like Williamson, a town in upstate New York.
This is apple country, home to a sprawling Mott's apple processing plant. Generations of families have worked at this plant, and there had not been a labor dispute in over 50 years. But the Mott family is long gone - and so is the sense of shared purpose that had unified owners and workers.
In 2008, Mott's became a subsidiary of Dr. Pepper Snapple, a giant Texas conglomerate that also owns 7Up, Hawaiian Punch and dozens of other brands. DPS, as it's known, is doing very well, having banked a record profit of half-a-billion dollars last year. But its honchos apparently missed that basic kindergarten lesson about sharing. Indeed, the new owners introduced themselves to the area by eliminating the company's annual summer picnic, the children's Christmas party and other community-building touches.
Then, this March, DPS bosses abruptly demanded pay cuts averaging about $3,000 per worker, while also slashing pensions and hiking employee costs for health care. Why? Because they asserted that Mott's 300 workers were paid more than others in the area and should simply lower their standard of living accordingly. This from a corporation that paid its CEO $6.5 million last year! Adding insult to injury, the plant manager called workers "a commodity like soybeans" that can easily be replaced. Take the cuts - or else, demanded DPS.
The workers chose "else." As we celebrate Labor Day at the beach or at backyard barbeques, they are on a strike for middle-class survival that's now in its fourth month.
This is not just about them, but about what kind of country America will be. If DPS succeeds in knocking down these skilled, experienced, loyal workers, other profitable corporations will follow. The Mott workers are taking a courageous stand for the middle class and our country's commitment to economic justice. To stand with them, go to www.ufcw.org.
Showing posts with label downsizing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label downsizing. Show all posts
Monday, September 6, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
The Conscience of the Very, Very Rich: Buffett, Gates, Rockefeller and ...
The Great Marginalization
By CARL GINSBURG
Of all the farcical notions put forth during this time of high farce, casting America as “broke” places way up there on the list, as trillions of dollars are being stockpiled in the face of a national downsizing and its attendant growth in misery. Here we sit, a captive national audience to the president’s seemingly daily farce, “We are all in this together”.
Instances of hoarding in U.S. history are many, but the current example stands out for its enduring quality, as Congress reaches deep into corporate pockets, with occasional forays into legislation of the extreme incremental variety. Profits are up 41 percent since Obama’s election; yet half of American workers have suffered a job loss or a cut in hours or wages over the past 30 months--- hardly the recipe for togetherness.
More farce: that irresponsibility is the root of poverty, a stalwart theme in American political theater, with the latest reminder from Treasury Secretary Geithner in a New York Times op-ed this month, saluting Americans for “saving more” and “borrowing more responsibly”. These instructions from the government’s top economic point man were imparted in the face of continued wage stagnation, high foreclosure rates and new forms of financial foolery.
Now enter stage left: the ”Great Givers”, they come in the form of American billionaires proposing to give away half their wealth. Beware strangers bearing gifts.
The billionaire pledge – a broadside of noblesse oblige – was formulated by none other than two of the planet’s leading mega-billionaires, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. These two American moneybags are imploring fellow prophets of profit to address global suffering by earmarking not less than fifty per cent of personal wealth for charity. First discussed at a dinner in May 2009, the specifics are just now surfacing thanks to Carol J. Loomis in the June 16 issue of Fortune.
According to Loomis, Buffett and Gates, who share a commitment to charity and to the Democratic Party, summoned a group of billionaires to dinner in New York City. David Rockefeller -- whose granddad cornered the market in kerosene, then gasoline – played host and invited this billionaire boys club to share their calling. Two subsequent dinners were held, expanding the group invited to take the plunge to about thirty. Areas of charitable concern shared by America’s very richest, Loomis says, include “education, culture, hospitals and health, the environment, public policy, the poor generally.” Generally.
Details are scarce because participating billionaires were promised privacy -- privacy being a constitutional commitment to enormous wealth. One detail that did get out was the name Buffett assigned his file on this new initiative: “Great Givers”.
It would appear that the ability to give greatly stops at the factory door. Buffett’s billions, for example, include holdings in Wal-Mart, a company fresh from victory in Chicago where, after years of resistance by community forces, construction of its first mega-store was just given a green light. Times as they are, with “jobless recovery” taken to new heights and millions looking for work, Wal-Mart offered a wage of $8.75 per hour to seal the deal. The amount Wal-Mart agreed to pony up is 50 cents over the Illinois minimum; still, at under $20,000 per year gross, no one would argue that it constitutes a living wage. Such are the elements of Great Giving.
Buffett’s profits are not tied exclusively to low wages stateside; his Wal-Mart earnings are a result of paying the lowest garment wages in the world, according to labor rights advocates. Wal-Mart has started moving some of its garment factories out of China, where garment workers have been making the princely sum of $147 per month, to Bangladesh, where monthly earnings total $64, the lowest wage of its kind. In this world of farce these wages are linked to Bangladesh’s low literacy rate—55 percent. Had workers only acquired educations, the master thespians of farce would say, wages would be higher.
It’s not fair, however, to solely tie Buffett’s billions to uneducated Bangladeshis.
This Great Giver also bought a stake in Goldman Sachs and its Ivy-educated money managers, doing his part to rescue the financial system by transferring $5 billion to America’s gilded investment bank (in exchange for a 10 percent per annum return). Yes, this is the same Goldman that last month admitted “a mistake” in selling subprime mortgage bonds destined to collapse; the same Goldman that set aside $9.3 billion the first half of this year for salary and bonuses; and, yes, the same Goldman that orchestrated speculation in the world wheat crop with disastrous results, according to Frederick Kaufman’s cover story in the July issue of Harper’s, “The Food Bubble.” Undoubtedly, Buffett’s due diligence uncovered the following when sizing up the Goldman investment:
Buffett’s Goldman investment remains solid, as the SEC fined Goldman for its “mistake” what amounted to little more than petty cash -- $550 million. It was, according to finance professor Charles Geisst, “like passing around the church collection plate and collecting a few extra bucks for sins.” Geisst summed it up this way: “This is unlikely to change much at all. I think it will be business as usual right away.” More money for Buffett to give greatly.
Warren Buffett’s fellow Giver of Great Gifts, Bill Gates, has diversified his holdings as well. But his tens of billions result chiefly from the company he co-founded and led for decades, Microsoft, where profits remain very strong. “Microsoft Still Earnings Powerhouse,” barked the headline in USA Today, July 23, 2010. In its fledgling years, profits on Gates’ software were reportedly 70 per cent annually. Otherwise, after all, you don’t make upwards of $50 billion charging cost plus five percent.
Current returns for this scion of the responsible class were reported at 48 per cent, as Windows 7, the latest software batch out of Microsoft, led the company’s product pack. “It certainly shows that Office and Windows franchises are as strong as ever and delivering huge revenue,” analyst Brendan Barnicle told the Wall Street Journal recently. Indeed, annual sales have hit new records year after year, tripling to $62.5 billion in fiscal 2010. Net income for Gates’ Microsoft grew from $9.4 billion per year a decade ago to $24.1 billion this year.
Another way to gauge Gates’s billions is by catching a glimpse of the multitudes of students priced out of the computer market – thanks in part to that Great Giver’s expensive software – lined up daily at community college libraries for some free access to computers, each machine an expression of Gates’ creative commitment to profit in the +40 percent range – a gift Gates gave himself that keeps on giving. As Gates told Fortune: “The diversity of American giving is part of its beauty.”
By CARL GINSBURG
Of all the farcical notions put forth during this time of high farce, casting America as “broke” places way up there on the list, as trillions of dollars are being stockpiled in the face of a national downsizing and its attendant growth in misery. Here we sit, a captive national audience to the president’s seemingly daily farce, “We are all in this together”.
Instances of hoarding in U.S. history are many, but the current example stands out for its enduring quality, as Congress reaches deep into corporate pockets, with occasional forays into legislation of the extreme incremental variety. Profits are up 41 percent since Obama’s election; yet half of American workers have suffered a job loss or a cut in hours or wages over the past 30 months--- hardly the recipe for togetherness.
More farce: that irresponsibility is the root of poverty, a stalwart theme in American political theater, with the latest reminder from Treasury Secretary Geithner in a New York Times op-ed this month, saluting Americans for “saving more” and “borrowing more responsibly”. These instructions from the government’s top economic point man were imparted in the face of continued wage stagnation, high foreclosure rates and new forms of financial foolery.
Now enter stage left: the ”Great Givers”, they come in the form of American billionaires proposing to give away half their wealth. Beware strangers bearing gifts.
The billionaire pledge – a broadside of noblesse oblige – was formulated by none other than two of the planet’s leading mega-billionaires, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. These two American moneybags are imploring fellow prophets of profit to address global suffering by earmarking not less than fifty per cent of personal wealth for charity. First discussed at a dinner in May 2009, the specifics are just now surfacing thanks to Carol J. Loomis in the June 16 issue of Fortune.
According to Loomis, Buffett and Gates, who share a commitment to charity and to the Democratic Party, summoned a group of billionaires to dinner in New York City. David Rockefeller -- whose granddad cornered the market in kerosene, then gasoline – played host and invited this billionaire boys club to share their calling. Two subsequent dinners were held, expanding the group invited to take the plunge to about thirty. Areas of charitable concern shared by America’s very richest, Loomis says, include “education, culture, hospitals and health, the environment, public policy, the poor generally.” Generally.
Details are scarce because participating billionaires were promised privacy -- privacy being a constitutional commitment to enormous wealth. One detail that did get out was the name Buffett assigned his file on this new initiative: “Great Givers”.
It would appear that the ability to give greatly stops at the factory door. Buffett’s billions, for example, include holdings in Wal-Mart, a company fresh from victory in Chicago where, after years of resistance by community forces, construction of its first mega-store was just given a green light. Times as they are, with “jobless recovery” taken to new heights and millions looking for work, Wal-Mart offered a wage of $8.75 per hour to seal the deal. The amount Wal-Mart agreed to pony up is 50 cents over the Illinois minimum; still, at under $20,000 per year gross, no one would argue that it constitutes a living wage. Such are the elements of Great Giving.
Buffett’s profits are not tied exclusively to low wages stateside; his Wal-Mart earnings are a result of paying the lowest garment wages in the world, according to labor rights advocates. Wal-Mart has started moving some of its garment factories out of China, where garment workers have been making the princely sum of $147 per month, to Bangladesh, where monthly earnings total $64, the lowest wage of its kind. In this world of farce these wages are linked to Bangladesh’s low literacy rate—55 percent. Had workers only acquired educations, the master thespians of farce would say, wages would be higher.
It’s not fair, however, to solely tie Buffett’s billions to uneducated Bangladeshis.
This Great Giver also bought a stake in Goldman Sachs and its Ivy-educated money managers, doing his part to rescue the financial system by transferring $5 billion to America’s gilded investment bank (in exchange for a 10 percent per annum return). Yes, this is the same Goldman that last month admitted “a mistake” in selling subprime mortgage bonds destined to collapse; the same Goldman that set aside $9.3 billion the first half of this year for salary and bonuses; and, yes, the same Goldman that orchestrated speculation in the world wheat crop with disastrous results, according to Frederick Kaufman’s cover story in the July issue of Harper’s, “The Food Bubble.” Undoubtedly, Buffett’s due diligence uncovered the following when sizing up the Goldman investment:
“The history of food took an ominous turn in 1991, at a time when no one was paying much attention. That was the year Goldman Sachs decided our daily bread might make an excellent investment…. [W]ith accustomed care and precision, Goldman’s analysts went about transforming food into a concept. They selected eighteen commodifiable ingredients and contrived a financial elixir that included cattle, coffee, cocoa, corn, hogs, and a variety or two of wheat…. They weighted the investment value of each element… that could be expressed as single manifestation, to be known thenceforward as the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index….Clarifying what the Great Giver Buffett means by the poor generally.
“Since Goldman’s innovation, hundreds of billions of new dollars had overwhelmed the actual supply of and actual demand for wheat….
“In 2008, for the first time since such statistics have been kept, the proportion of the world’s population without enough to eat ratcheted upward. The ranks of the hungry had increased in a single year, the most abysmal increase in all of human history.”
(pp. 27-28)
Buffett’s Goldman investment remains solid, as the SEC fined Goldman for its “mistake” what amounted to little more than petty cash -- $550 million. It was, according to finance professor Charles Geisst, “like passing around the church collection plate and collecting a few extra bucks for sins.” Geisst summed it up this way: “This is unlikely to change much at all. I think it will be business as usual right away.” More money for Buffett to give greatly.
Warren Buffett’s fellow Giver of Great Gifts, Bill Gates, has diversified his holdings as well. But his tens of billions result chiefly from the company he co-founded and led for decades, Microsoft, where profits remain very strong. “Microsoft Still Earnings Powerhouse,” barked the headline in USA Today, July 23, 2010. In its fledgling years, profits on Gates’ software were reportedly 70 per cent annually. Otherwise, after all, you don’t make upwards of $50 billion charging cost plus five percent.
Current returns for this scion of the responsible class were reported at 48 per cent, as Windows 7, the latest software batch out of Microsoft, led the company’s product pack. “It certainly shows that Office and Windows franchises are as strong as ever and delivering huge revenue,” analyst Brendan Barnicle told the Wall Street Journal recently. Indeed, annual sales have hit new records year after year, tripling to $62.5 billion in fiscal 2010. Net income for Gates’ Microsoft grew from $9.4 billion per year a decade ago to $24.1 billion this year.
Another way to gauge Gates’s billions is by catching a glimpse of the multitudes of students priced out of the computer market – thanks in part to that Great Giver’s expensive software – lined up daily at community college libraries for some free access to computers, each machine an expression of Gates’ creative commitment to profit in the +40 percent range – a gift Gates gave himself that keeps on giving. As Gates told Fortune: “The diversity of American giving is part of its beauty.”
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