Cleo's Mom

Where did I ever say that I thought the "you" was directed at me personally? Nowhere. I knew what you meant and when you saw my reply you backpedaled because you saw how ridiculous and insane your post was. You said it - you backpedaled - now don't blame me for the consequences of what you said. I, and everyone else who read your post, knew what you meant. As I said, ask you union about whether you can opt out at the next meeting. If not, then find another non-union line of work since you find it so distasteful. In the private sector, of course. I hear Walmart's hiring. Hell, they even have those commericals on tv about how you can rise up the ladder there to all kinds off cushy positions in managment.

Entitlements make up themajority of our national budget, so one could deduce that if they wereeliminated or restricted, that we would then have much more money to spend. People pay into unemployment, SS and medicare. And are taxed on all of these. And where would you like to spend all this money that you took from the middle class, working poor and senior citizens? These people put this money back into the economy - they spend it and help stimulate it. If you took 32% of the money out there out of our economy what impact do you think it would have? It would be devastating. What a ridiculous idea, among your many.

Why, in these timeswould their power or political clout have been enhanced? Times are bad, notgood. Things don't usually enhance during bad times. Unfortunately youtypically need money to make money, so the wealthy don't usually lose a wholelot, which is why many strive to get there. Again why should the "playing field"be level? Why shouldn't some have more than others? Those who work harderdeserve more. If you want everyone to be equal, try some communist country, butthat's not how it works in a capitalist one. If it were easy to get rich,everyone would be, and it would mean nothing. It shouldn't, however beimpossible to get rich, which because of our capitalist nation it's not. It canbe done with hard work, determination, and sometimes a little bit of luck. In the Gilded Age those who made money made it off the sweat and blood of their workers in the coal mines, shipyards, steel mills, railroads, etc.. They lived in the big houses on the hill, the workers in shantys by the rivers and shopped in the company stores. (I owed my soul to the company store ...as the song goes). Then the workers wanted their share of the pie (wealth) and better working conditions and they rose up and went on strike and were beaten or shot and died for better conditions. Thus the middle class was formed and it helped build America - the greatest economic story in history. There should be a level playing field so that everyone has the same opportunities. If the owners have all the rights and money and power, well, then that can never happen for the workers. That isn't communism that's fairness. And you operate under the illusion that all one has to do is work hard and they can get rich. Well, most of today's rich got that way from investments not hard work. Who was that old geezer on the news before the mid terms who said "I got rich the old fashioned way - I inherited it". So true.

Well quite simply if wedidn't have SS we would have 32% of our annual budget freed up to use, whichplays into the phase out of SS being a good idea. We pay into SS with the promise that we will receive it when the time comes. SS is not the problem and there are tweaks to make it better, but SS did not cause this problem and if we just taxed the rich at the rate they used to be taxed - the deficit would almost be totally reduced.

I'm all for the poor andmiddle class getting richer, but why must the rich get poorer? Can you explainthat to me? Ah, because there is only a finite amount of money - and the rich got richer by taking it from the working poor and middle class by way of undeserved tax cuts, loopholes, offshore accounts, low capital gains and estate taxes, etc... It's time for them to pay their fair share. Do you know that at one time the rich paid upward of 90% tax and guess what - they were still rich and did very well. No one is proposing that - just a 3% increase and Boehner needs CPR.

Negative. The whole "personalresponsibility" argument, is based on what that stands for and represents. Iwas just watching America Live with Megyn Kelly and she had some left wing guyon who was on the same premise as you that it's all the banks fault, but hefinally acted like an adult and said someof the blame is on the bank, but the majority has to be with the person whotook out the loan they couldn't afford. And as I've stated before, if I had thechoice of not being in my union, I would, as would many of my coworkers. But ifI choose to opt out guess what? The union still take $92 a month from me. How ridiculousis that? I don't think people should take out mortgages that they can't afford. But I still think it is the bank's job to oversee that process. But again, people taking out mortgages they couldn't afford is not the number one reason we are in the economic mess we are in. I have present compelling evidence as to why we are, who has gained (gotten richer in money and power), who has lost and who is at fault and who isn't . You still haven't offered any evidence to the contrary that the people who are getting blamed by the right wing for the mess we're in and on whose backs they want to cut spending and balance budgets are really the ones at fault. As far as unions, I would be a big supporter of allowing people to opt out of unions and all the wages, benefits, and working conditions they gain through the collective bargaining process and be free agents to negotiate their own. Why don't you bring this up at your next union meeting - you and all the others who you claim are like minded - then get back to me on how that went.

And then the incentiveto work hard is what? If you know you aren't going to lose anything if you loseyour job, why worry about it. Eh, I'll find a job eventually. So, you're saying that if a person loses his job it's because they didn't work hard enough? Are you sure you aren't Glenn Beck? Where is your chalkboard? More looney logic from you - you are becoming increasingly discredible, if that is possible.

Nice try - with the backpedaling and all. But you can't put the toothpaste back in the extremist tube now. Even pattygreen didn't try to backpedal on her extremist positions. I don't receive any government handouts. Never did. But your're the one sucking on the teet of the union perks while bashing them. So screw you.

The point about the bailouts is that they played russian roulette with our money and then said to the government - if you don't bail us out then what little money the middle class has left will be wiped out - and it would have been. So we gave them our money to invest and they engaged in greedy practices, lost and then they asked for more of our money. It doesn't matter if you agree with the bailout or not. What matters is that it took one week to get that money to bail them out. Very few questions asked. Almost zero accountability and here's your money. No thanks. Just bonuses for the crooks who gambled. And we collectively yawned. Now compare that to the $785 billion in stimulus to the middle class that created or saved hundred of thousands if not a million jobs. Well, the tea party hypocrites sure have howled about that. I will keep saying this over and over - the economic crisis was not caused by the middle class, working poor or the social security recipients or the unions. They are just too easy targets and easy to blame. It wasn't cause by some guy who took out a second mortgage to buy a big screen tv or a single mom who has cable. Does no one else but me see the hypocrisy of giving the likes of palin, limbaugh, beck, et all billions more in tax cuts and then cutting funding to public television and radio? Show me the facts and statistics and proof that it was the middle class, the working poor or the senior citizens who caused this economic mess and show me where they are getting wealthier and more powerful which the rich are getting poorer and losing power. If you can't do that - then please move on. Isn't there a homeless person you can point in the direction of a dumpster?

Greedy millionaires and billionaries on wall street got $800 billion to bail them out and this is the best you can do? You can't refute the facts I have presented because you have nothing to back up your emotional rants about how it's the greedy middle class person who wants a second home that's the problem. Yeah, that's the problem. And FYI - the number one cause of foreclosures is medical bills resulting from lack of insurance (possible due to losing their job) or insurance won't pay Not someone getting a flat screen tv. Just another right wing rant to deflect from the truth because the right wing can't handle the truth (they come out looking really bad).

Firsty of all no one held the banks hostages and forced them to make bad loans. When we went to buy our first and second home we didn't know what table or computations the banks used to calculate your eligibility for the loan. If we had chosen too expensive of a house, they would have told us. And if the banks are making $1 million dollar loans to people earning $70,000 then they need to get out of the banking business because they are stupid and creating risk for the rest of us. So, it is the bank's fault. If someone loses their job, there ought to be some program that they can pay a certain amount each month on their mortgage until they get back on their feet and are able to repay the loan in full. The bank doesn't have to foreclose (which they don't want) - the people get to stay in their homes and everyone wins. Your whole "personal responsibility" arguement that is the cornerstone of those on the right who have jobs, homes and healthcare (and with you and your spouse - union perks) and is just smoke and mirrors to deflect from the real problem. Show me where the middle class or working poor aren't pulling their weight. I have provided statistics to show how productivity is up. Show me where the middle class have gotten richer and the rich poorer. I have shown you statistics that prove the opposite. Show me where the current economic crisis was caused by middle class greed, enrichment, laziness or the fault of the working poor or senior citizens getting social security. I have shown you statistics that show it was from Wall Street greed and bush's failed economic policies. Show me where the power of the middle class has been enhanced in terms of wealth or political clout. The last bastion of power to level the playing fields - the unions - is being assaulted in a concerted effort from the right (part of their larger, sinister agenda) Because of the current recession there are more people hurting financially that are getting unemployment, food stamps and other entitlements that they paid for when they were working - but show me where, outside of the current recession, that this is the biggest cause of our economic problems - or even within this recession. You can't give tax cuts (costing billions) - that aren't paid for- to millionaires and billionaries - and then say we have a budget problem - and therefore we need to cut subsidies to Planned Parenthood, or home heating oil, etc.. We just threw billions of dollars in tax cuts to the wealthiest americans that didn't need it. They aren't creating jobs - they are just getting richer. And they've been getting richer because they are taking from the middle class by asking for lower wages or shipping jobs overseas or any number of things to get richer. How about if all the Wall Street crooks give up their bonuses for one year and donate that money to the struggling states to be used for education, police, fire and government services? It only took the bush administration one week - ONE FREAKING WEEK - to come up with $800 billion to bail out the crooks on Wall Street - so I think it's time they gave something back. THAT'S WHERE REAL PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY STARTS - WITH THE ONES WHO F***ED UP. Quit blaming the hard working people of this country - starting with the easy targets - for the crimes of the rich. It's time the wealthy started acting responsible.

Continued.... The rest of the world Thanks to a 2006 study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research -- using statistics for the year 2000 -- we now have information on the wealth distribution for the world as a whole, which can be compared to the United States and other well-off countries. The authors of the report admit that the quality of the information available on many countries is very spotty and probably off by several percentage points, but they compensate for this problem with very sophisticated statistical methods and the use of different sets of data. With those caveats in mind, we can still safely say that the top 10% of the world's adults control about 85% of global household wealth -- defined very broadly as all assets (not just financial assets), minus debts. That compares with a figure of 69.8% for the top 10% for the United States. The only industrialized democracy with a higher concentration of wealth in the top 10% than the United States is Switzerland at 71.3%. For the figures for several other Northern European countries and Canada, all of which are based on high-quality data, see Table 4. Table 4: Percentage of wealth held in 2000 by the Top 10% of the adult population in various Western countrieswealth owned by top 10%Switzerland71.3%United States69.8%Denmark65.0%France61.0%Sweden58.6%UK56.0%Canada53.0%Norway50.5%Germany44.4%Finland42.3% The Relationship Between Wealth and Power What's the relationship between wealth and power? To avoid confusion, let's be sure we understand they are two different issues. Wealth, as I've said, refers to the value of everything people own, minus what they owe, but the focus is on "marketable assets" for purposes of economic and power studies. Power, as explained elsewhere on this site, has to do with the ability (or call it capacity) to realize wishes, or reach goals, which amounts to the same thing, even in the face of opposition (Russell, 1938; Wrong, 1995). Some definitions refine this point to say that power involves Person A or Group A affecting Person B or Group B "in a manner contrary to B's interests," which then necessitates a discussion of "interests," and quickly leads into the realm of philosophy (Lukes, 2005, p. 30). Leaving those discussions for the philosophers, at least for now, how do the concepts of wealth and power relate? First, wealth can be seen as a "resource" that is very useful in exercising power. That's obvious when we think of donations to political parties, payments to lobbyists, and grants to experts who are employed to think up new policies beneficial to the wealthy. Wealth also can be useful in shaping the general social environment to the benefit of the wealthy, whether through hiring public relations firms or donating money for universities, museums, music halls, and art galleries. Second, certain kinds of wealth, such as stock ownership, can be used to control corporations, which of course have a major impact on how the society functions. Tables 5a and 5b show what the distribution of stock ownership looks like. Note how the top one percent's share of stock equity increased (and the bottom 80 percent's share decreased) between 2001 and 2007. Table 5a: Concentration of stock ownership in the United States, 2001-2007 Percent of all stock owned:Wealth class200120042007Top 1%33.5%36.7%38.3%Next 19%55.8%53.9%52.8%Bottom 80%10.7%9.4%8.9% Table 5b: Amount of stock owned by various wealth classes in the U.S., 2007 Percent of households owning stocks worth:Wealth class$0 (no stocks)$1-$10,000More than $10,000Top 1%7.4%4.2%88.4%95-99%7.8%2.7%89.5%90-95%13.2%5.4%81.4%80-90%17.9%10.9%71.2%60-80%34.6%18.3%47.1%40-60%52.3%25.6%22.1%20-40%69.7%21.6%8.7%Bottom 20%84.7%14.3%2.0%TOTAL50.9%17.5%31.6% Both tables' data from Wolff (2007 & 2010). Includes direct ownership of stock shares and indirect ownership through mutual funds, trusts, and IRAs, Keogh plans, 401(k) plans, and other retirement accounts. All figures are in 2007 dollars. Third, just as wealth can lead to power, so too can power lead to wealth. Those who control a government can use their position to feather their own nests, whether that means a favorable land deal for relatives at the local level or a huge federal government contract for a new corporation run by friends who will hire you when you leave government. If we take a larger historical sweep and look cross-nationally, we are well aware that the leaders of conquering armies often grab enormous wealth, and that some religious leaders use their positions to acquire wealth. There's a fourth way that wealth and power relate. For research purposes, the wealth distribution can be seen as the main "value distribution" within the general power indicator I call "who benefits." What follows in the next three paragraphs is a little long-winded, I realize, but it needs to be said because some social scientists -- primarily pluralists -- argue that who wins and who loses in a variety of policy conflicts is the only valid power indicator (Dahl, 1957, 1958; Polsby, 1980). And philosophical discussions don't even mention wealth or other power indicators (Lukes, 2005). (If you have heard it all before, or can do without it, feel free to skip ahead to the last paragraph of this section) Here's the argument: if we assume that most people would like to have as great a share as possible of the things that are valued in the society, then we can infer that those who have the most goodies are the most powerful. Although some value distributions may be unintended outcomes that do not really reflect power, as pluralists are quick to tell us, the general distribution of valued experiences and objects within a society still can be viewed as the most publicly visible and stable outcome of the operation of power. In American society, for example, wealth and well-being are highly valued. People seek to own property, to have high incomes, to have interesting and safe jobs, to enjoy the finest in travel and leisure, and to live long and healthy lives. All of these "values" are unequally distributed, and all may be utilized as power indicators. However, the primary focus with this type of power indicator is on the wealth distribution sketched out in the previous section. The argument for using the wealth distribution as a power indicator is strengthened by studies showing that such distributions vary historically and from country to country, depending upon the relative strength of rival political parties and trade unions, with the United States having the most highly concentrated wealth distribution of any Western democracy except Switzerland. For example, in a study based on 18 Western democracies, strong trade unions and successful social democratic parties correlated with greater equality in the income distribution and a higher level of welfare spending (Stephens, 1979). And now we have arrived at the point I want to make. If the top 1% of households have 30-35% of the wealth, that's 30 to 35 times what they would have if wealth were equally distributed, and so we infer that they must be powerful. And then we set out to see if the same set of households scores high on other power indicators (it does). Next we study how that power operates, which is what most articles on this site are about. Furthermore, if the top 20% have 84% of the wealth (and recall that 10% have 85% to 90% of the stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity), that means that the United States is a power pyramid. It's tough for the bottom 80% -- maybe even the bottom 90% -- to get organized and exercise much power. Income and Power The income distribution also can be used as a power indicator. As Table 6 shows, it is not as concentrated as the wealth distribution, but the top 1% of income earners did receive 17% of all income in the year 2003 and 21.3% in 2006. That's up from 12.8% for the top 1% in 1982, which is quite a jump, and it parallels what is happening with the wealth distribution. This is further support for the inference that the power of the corporate community and the upper class have been increasing in recent decades. Table 6: Distribution of income in the United States, 1982-2006 IncomeTop 1 percentNext 19 percentBottom 80 percent198212.8%39.1%48.1%198816.6%38.9%44.5%199115.7%40.7%43.7%199414.4%40.8%44.9%199716.6%39.6%43.8%200020.0%38.7%41.4%200317.0%40.8%42.2%200621.3%40.1%38.6% From Wolff (2010). The rising concentration of income can be seen in a special New York Times analysis by David Cay Johnston of an Internal Revenue Service report on income in 2004. Although overall income had grown by 27% since 1979, 33% of the gains went to the top 1%. Meanwhile, the bottom 60% were making less: about 95 cents for each dollar they made in 1979. The next 20% - those between the 60th and 80th rungs of the income ladder -- made $1.02 for each dollar they earned in 1979. Furthermore, Johnston concludes that only the top 5% made significant gains ($1.53 for each 1979 dollar). Most amazing of all, the top 0.1% -- that's one-tenth of one percent -- had more combined pre-tax income than the poorest 120 million people (Johnston, 2006). But the increase in what is going to the few at the top did not level off, even with all that. As of 2007, income inequality in the United States was at an all-time high for the past 95 years, with the top 0.01% -- that's one-hundredth of one percent -- receiving 6% of all U.S. wages, which is double what it was for that tiny slice in 2000; the top 10% received 49.7%, the highest since 1917 (Saez, 2009). However, in an analysis of 2008 tax returns for the top 0.2% -- that is, those whose income tax returns reported $1,000,000 or more in income (mostly from individuals, but nearly a third from couples) -- it was found that they received 13% of all income, down slightly from 16.1% in 2007 due to the decline in payoffs from financial assets (Norris, 2010). And the rate of increase is even higher for the very richest of the rich: the top 400 income earners in the United States. According to another analysis by Johnston (2010a), the average income of the top 400 tripled during the Clinton Administration and doubled during the first seven years of the Bush Administration. So by 2007, the top 400 averaged $344.8 million per person, up 31% from an average of $263.3 million just one year earlier. (For another recent revealing study by Johnston, read "Is Our Tax System Helping Us Create Wealth?"). How are these huge gains possible for the top 400? It's due to cuts in the tax rates on capital gains and dividends, which were down to a mere 15% in 2007 thanks to the tax cuts proposed by the Bush Administration and passed by Congress in 2003. Since almost 75% of the income for the top 400 comes from capital gains and dividends, it's not hard to see why tax cuts on income sources available to only a tiny percent of Americans mattered greatly for the high-earning few. Overall, the effective tax rate on high incomes fell by 7% during the Clinton presidency and 6% in the Bush era, so the top 400 had a tax rate of 20% or less in 2007, far lower than the marginal tax rate of 35% that the highest income earners (over $372,650) supposedly pay. It's also worth noting that only the first $106,800 of a person's income is taxed for Social Security purposes (as of 2010), so it would clearly be a boon to the Social Security Fund if everyone -- not just those making less than $106,800 -- paid the Social Security tax on their full incomes. Do Taxes Redistribute Income? It is widely believed that taxes are highly progressive and, furthermore, that the top several percent of income earners pay most of the taxes received by the federal government. Both ideas are wrong because they focus on official, rather than "effective" tax rates and ignore payroll taxes, which are mostly paid by those with incomes below $100,000 per year. But what matters in terms of a power analysis is what percentage of their income people at different income levels pay to all levels of government (federal, state, and local) in taxes. If the less-well-off majority is somehow able to wield power, we would expect that the high earners would pay a bigger percentage of their income in taxes, because the majority figures the well-to-do would still have plenty left after taxes to make new investments and lead the good life. If the high earners have the most power, we'd expect them to pay about the same as everybody else, or less. Citizens for Tax Justice, a research group that's been studying tax issues from its offices in Washington since 1979, provides the information we need. When all taxes (not just income taxes) are taken into account, the lowest 20% of earners (who average about $12,400 per year), paid 16.0% of their income to taxes in 2009; and the next 20% (about $25,000/year), paid 20.5% in taxes. So if we only examine these first two steps, the tax system looks like it is going to be progressive. And it keeps looking progressive as we move further up the ladder: the middle 20% (about $33,400/year) give 25.3% of their income to various forms of taxation, and the next 20% (about $66,000/year) pay 28.5%. So taxes are progressive for the bottom 80%. But if we break the top 20% down into smaller chunks, we find that progressivity starts to slow down, then it stops, and then it slips backwards for the top 1%. Specifically, the next 10% (about $100,000/year) pay 30.2% of their income as taxes; the next 5% ($141,000/year) dole out 31.2% of their earnings for taxes; and the next 4% ($245,000/year) pay 31.6% to taxes. You'll note that the progressivity is slowing down. As for the top 1% -- those who take in $1.3 million per year on average -- they pay 30.8% of their income to taxes, which is a little less than what the 9% just below them pay, and only a tiny bit more than what the segment between the 80th and 90th percentile pays. What I've just explained with words can be seen more clearly in Figure 6. Figure 6: Share of income paid as tax, including local and state tax Source: Citizens for Tax Justice (2010a). We also can look at this information on income and taxes in another way by asking what percentage of all taxes various income levels pay. (This is not the same as the previous question, which asked what percentage of their incomes went to taxes for people at various income levels.) And the answer to this new question can be found in Figure 7. For example, the top 20% receives 59.1% of all income and pays 64.3% of all the taxes, so they aren't carrying a huge extra burden. At the other end, the bottom 20%, which receives 3.5% of all income, pays 1.9% of all taxes. Figure 7: Share of all income earned and all taxes paid, by quintile Source: Citizens for Tax Justice (2010a). So the best estimates that can be put together from official government numbers show a little bit of progressivity. But the details on those who earn millions of dollars each year are very hard to come by, because they can stash a large part of their wealth in off-shore tax havens in the Caribbean and little countries in Europe, starting with Switzerland. And there are many loopholes and gimmicks they can use, as summarized with striking examples in Free lunch and Perfectly Legal, the books by Johnston that were mentioned earlier. For example, Johnston explains the ways in which high earners can hide their money and delay on paying taxes, and then invest for a profit what normally would be paid in taxes. Income inequality in other countries The degree of income inequality in the United States can be compared to that in other countries on the basis of the Gini coefficient, a mathematical ratio that allows economists to put all countries on a scale with values that range (hypothetically) from zero (everyone in the country has the same income) to 100 (one person in the country has all the income). On this widely used measure, the United States ends up 95th out of the 134 countries that have been studied -- that is, only 39 of the 134 countries have worse income inequality. The U.S. has a Gini index of 45.0; Sweden is the lowest with 23.0, and South Africa is near the top with 65.0. The table that follows displays the scores for 22 major countries, along with their ranking in the longer list of 134 countries that were studied (most of the other countries are very small and/or very poor). In examining this table, remember that it does not measure the same thing as Table 4 earlier in this document, which was about the wealth distribution. Here we are looking at the income distribution, so the two tables won't match up as far as rankings. That's because a country can have a highly concentrated wealth distribution and still have a more equal distribution of income -- both Switzerland and Sweden follow this pattern. So one thing that's distinctive about the U.S. compared to other industrialized democracies is that both its wealth and income distributions are highly concentrated. Table 7: Income equality in selected countriesCountry/Overall RankGini Coefficient1. Sweden 23.02. Norway 25.08. Austria 26.010. Germany 27.017. Denmark 29.025. Australia 30.534. Italy 32.035. Canada 32.137. France 32.742. Switzerland 33.743. United Kingdom 34.045. Egypt 34.456. India 36.861. Japan 38.168. Israel 39.281. China 41.582. Russia 42.390. Iran 44.593. United States 45.0107. Mexico 48.2125. Brazil 56.7133. South Africa 65.0 Note: These figures reflect family/household income, not individual income.Source: Central Intelligence Agency (2010). The impact of "transfer payments" As we've seen, taxes don't have much impact on the income distribution, especially when we look at the top 1% or top 0.1%. Nor do various kinds of tax breaks and loopholes have much impact on the income distribution overall. That's because the tax deductions that help those with lower incomes -- such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), tax forgiveness for low-income earners on Social Security, and tax deductions for dependent children -- are offset by the breaks for high-income earners (for example: dividends and capital gains are only taxed at a rate of 15%; there's no tax on the interest earned from state and municipal bonds; and 20% of the tax deductions taken for dependent children actually go to people earning over $100,000 a year). But it is sometimes said that income inequality is reduced significantly by government programs that matter very much in the lives of low-income Americans. These programs provide "transfer payments," which are a form of income for those in need. They include unemployment compensation, cash payments to the elderly who don't have enough to live on from Social Security, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (welfare), food stamps, and Medicaid. Thomas Hungerford (2009), a tax expert who works for the federal government's Congressional Research Service, carried out a study for Congress that tells us on the real-world impact of transfer payments on reducing income inequality. Hungerford's study is based on 2004 income data from an ongoing study of a representative sample of families at the University of Michigan, and it includes the effects of both taxes and four types of transfer payments (Social Security, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, food stamps, and Medicaid). The table that follows shows the income inequality index (that is, the Gini coefficient) at three points along the way: (1.) before taxes or transfers; (2) after taxes are taken into account; and (3) after both taxes and transfer payments are included in the equation. (The Citizens for Tax Justice study of income and taxes for 2009, discussed earlier, included transfer payments as income, so that study and Hungerford's have similar starting points. But they can't be directly compared, because they use different years.) Table 8: Redistributive effect of taxes and transfer paymentsIncome definitionGini indexBefore taxes and transfers0.5116After taxes, before transfers0.4774After taxes and transfers0.4284 Source: Congressional Research Service, adapted from Hungerford (2009). As can be seen, Hungerford's findings first support what we had learned earlier from the Citizens for Tax Justice study: taxes don't do much to reduce inequality. They secondly reveal that transfer payments have a slightly larger impact on inequality than taxes, but not much. Third, his findings tell us that taxes and transfer payments together reduce the inequality index from .52 to .43, which is very close to the CIA's estimate of .45 for 2008. In short, for those who ask if progressive taxes and transfer payments even things out to a significant degree, the answer is that while they have some effect, they don't do nearly as much as in Canada, major European countries, or Japan. Income Ratios and Power: Executives vs. Laborers Another way that income can be used as a power indicator is by comparing average CEO annual pay to average factory worker pay, something that has been done for many years by Business Week and, later, the Associated Press. The ratio of CEO pay to factory worker pay rose from 42:1 in 1960 to as high as 531:1 in 2000, at the height of the stock market bubble, when CEOs were cashing in big stock options. It was at 411:1 in 2005 and 344:1 in 2007, according to research by United for a Fair Economy. By way of comparison, the same ratio is about 25:1 in Europe. The changes in the American ratio from 1960 to 2007 are displayed in Figure 8, which is based on data from several hundred of the largest corporations. Figure 8: CEOs' pay as a multiple of the average worker's pay, 1960-2007 Source: Executive Excess 2008, the 15th Annual CEO Compensation Survey from the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy. It's even more revealing to compare the actual rates of increase of the salaries of CEOs and ordinary workers; from 1990 to 2005, CEOs' pay increased almost 300% (adjusted for inflation), while production workers gained a scant 4.3%. The purchasing power of the federal minimum wage actually declined by 9.3%, when inflation is taken into account. These startling results are illustrated in Figure 9. Figure 9: CEOs' average pay, production workers' average pay, the S&P 500 Index, corporate profits, and the federal minimum wage, 1990-2005 (all figures adjusted for inflation) Source: Executive Excess 2006, the 13th Annual CEO Compensation Survey from the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy. Although some of the information I've relied upon to create this section on executives' vs. workers' pay is a few years old now, the AFL/CIO provides up-to-date information on CEO salaries at <A href="http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceou/" target=_blank>their Web site. There, you can learn that the median compensation for CEO's in all industries as of early 2010 is $3.9 million; it's $10.6 million for the companies listed in Standard and Poor's 500, and $19.8 million for the companies listed in the Dow-Jones Industrial Average. Since the median worker's pay is about $36,000, then you can quickly calculate that CEOs in general make 100 times as much as the workers, that CEO's of S&P 500 firms make almost 300 times as much, and that CEOs at the Dow-Jones companies make 550 times as much. If you wonder how such a large gap could develop, the proximate, or most immediate, factor involves the way in which CEOs now are able to rig things so that the board of directors, which they help select -- and which includes some fellow CEOs on whose boards they sit -- gives them the pay they want. The trick is in hiring outside experts, called "compensation consultants," who give the process a thin veneer of economic respectability. The process has been explained in detail by a retired CEO of DuPont, Edgar S. Woolard, Jr., who is now chair of the New York Stock Exchange's executive compensation committee. His experience suggests that he knows whereof he speaks, and he speaks because he's concerned that corporate leaders are losing respect in the public mind. He says that the business page chatter about CEO salaries being set by the competition for their services in the executive labor market is "bull." As to the claim that CEOs deserve ever higher salaries because they "create wealth," he describes that rationale as a "joke," says the New York Times (Morgenson, 2005, Section 3, p. 1). Here's how it works, according to Woolard: The compensation committee [of the board of directors] talks to an outside consultant who has surveys you could drive a truck through and pay anything you want to pay, to be perfectly honest. The outside consultant talks to the human resources vice president, who talks to the CEO. The CEO says what he'd like to receive. It gets to the human resources person who tells the outside consultant. And it pretty well works out that the CEO gets what he's implied he thinks he deserves, so he will be respected by his peers. (Morgenson, 2005.) The board of directors buys into what the CEO asks for because the outside consultant is an "expert" on such matters. Furthermore, handing out only modest salary increases might give the wrong impression about how highly the board values the CEO. And if someone on the board should object, there are the three or four CEOs from other companies who will make sure it happens. It is a process with a built-in escalator. As for why the consultants go along with this scam, they know which side their bread is buttered on. They realize the CEO has a big say-so on whether or not they are hired again. So they suggest a package of salaries, stock options and other goodies that they think will please the CEO, and they, too, get rich in the process. And certainly the top executives just below the CEO don't mind hearing about the boss's raise. They know it will mean pay increases for them, too. (For an excellent detailed article on the main consulting firm that helps CEOs and other corporate executives raise their pay, check out the New York Times article entitled "America's Corporate Pay Pal", which supports everything Woolard of DuPont claims and adds new information.) There's a much deeper power story that underlies the self-dealing and mutual back-scratching by CEOs now carried out through interlocking directorates and seemingly independent outside consultants. It probably involves several factors. At the least, on the workers' side, it reflects their loss of power following the all-out attack on unions in the 1960s and 1970s, which is explained in detail in an excellent book by James Gross (1995), a labor and industrial relations professor at Cornell. That decline in union power made possible and was increased by both outsourcing at home and the movement of production to developing countries, which were facilitated by the break-up of the New Deal coalition and the rise of the New Right (Domhoff, 1990, Chapter 10). It signals the shift of the United States from a high-wage to a low-wage economy, with professionals protected by the fact that foreign-trained doctors and lawyers aren't allowed to compete with their American counterparts in the direct way that low-wage foreign-born workers are. (You also can read a quick version of my explanation for the "right turn" that led to changes in the wealth and income distributions in an article on this site, where it is presented in the context of criticizing the explanations put forward by other theorists.) On the other side of the class divide, the rise in CEO pay may reflect the increasing power of chief executives as compared to major owners and stockholders in general, not just their increasing power over workers. CEOs may now be the center of gravity in the corporate community and the power elite, displacing the leaders in wealthy owning families (e.g., the second and third generations of the Walton family, the owners of Wal-Mart). True enough, the CEOs are sometimes ousted by their generally go-along boards of directors, but they are able to make hay and throw their weight around during the time they are king of the mountain. The claims made in the previous paragraph need much further investigation. But they demonstrate the ideas and research directions that are suggested by looking at the wealth and income distributions as indicators of power.

Wealth, Income, and Power by G. William Domhoff September 2005 (updated January 2011) This document presents details on the wealth and income distributions in the United States, and explains how we use these two distributions as power indicators. Some of the information may come as a surprise to many people. In fact, I know it will be a surprise and then some, because of a recent study (Norton & Ariely, 2010) showing that most Americans (high income or low income, female or male, young or old, Republican or Democrat) have no idea just how concentrated the wealth distribution actually is. More on that a bit later. As far as the income distribution, the most amazing numbers on income inequality will come last, showing the dramatic change in the ratio of the average CEO's paycheck to that of the average factory worker over the past 40 years. First, though, some definitions. Generally speaking, wealth is the value of everything a person or family owns, minus any debts. However, for purposes of studying the wealth distribution, economists define wealth in terms of marketable assets, such as real estate, stocks, and bonds, leaving aside consumer durables like cars and household items because they are not as readily converted into cash and are more valuable to their owners for use purposes than they are for resale (see Wolff, 2004, p. 4, for a full discussion of these issues). Once the value of all marketable assets is determined, then all debts, such as home mortgages and credit card debts, are subtracted, which yields a person's net worth. In addition, economists use the concept of financial wealth -- also referred to in this document as "non-home wealth" -- which is defined as net worth minus net equity in owner-occupied housing. As Wolff (2004, p. 5) explains, "Financial wealth is a more 'liquid' concept than marketable wealth, since one's home is difficult to convert into cash in the short term. It thus reflects the resources that may be immediately available for consumption or various forms of investments." We also need to distinguish wealth from income. Income is what people earn from work, but also from dividends, interest, and any rents or royalties that are paid to them on properties they own. In theory, those who own a great deal of wealth may or may not have high incomes, depending on the returns they receive from their wealth, but in reality those at the very top of the wealth distribution usually have the most income. (But it's important to note that for the rich, most of that income does not come from "working": in 2008, only 19% of the income reported by the 13,480 individuals or families making over $10 million came from wages and salaries. See Norris, 2010, for more details.) As you read through these numbers, please keep in mind that they are usually two or three years out of date because it takes time for one set of experts to collect the basic information and make sure it is accurate, and then still more time for another set of experts to analyze it and write their reports. It's also the case that the infamous housing bubble of the first eight years of the 21st century inflated some of the wealth numbers. So far there are only tentative projections -- based on the price of housing and stock in July 2009 -- on the effects of the Great Recession on the wealth distribution. They suggest that average Americans have been hit much harder than wealthy Americans. Edward Wolff, the economist we draw upon the most in this document, concludes that there has been an "astounding" 36.1% drop in the wealth (marketable assets) of the median household since the peak of the housing bubble in 2007. By contrast, the wealth of the top 1% of households dropped by far less: just 11.1%. So as of April 2010, it looks like the wealth distribution is even more unequal than it was in 2007. (See Wolff, 2010 for more details.) One final general point before turning to the specifics. People who have looked at this document in the past often asked whether progressive taxation reduces some of the income inequality that exists before taxes are paid. The answer: not by much, if we count all of the taxes that people pay, from sales taxes to property taxes to payroll taxes (in other words, not just income taxes). And the top 1% of income earners, who average over $1 million a year, actually pay a smaller percentage of their incomes to taxes than the 9% just below them. These findings are discussed in detail near the end of this document. The Wealth Distribution In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2010). Table 1: Distribution of net worth and financial wealth in the United States, 1983-2007 Total Net WorthTop 1 percentNext 19 percentBottom 80 percent198333.8%47.5%18.7%198937.4%46.2%16.5%199237.2%46.6%16.2%199538.5%45.4%16.1%199838.1%45.3%16.6%200133.4%51.0%15.6%200434.3%50.3%15.3%200734.6%50.5%15.0% Financial Wealth Top 1 percentNext 19 percentBottom 80 percent198342.9%48.4%8.7%198946.9%46.5%6.6%199245.6%46.7%7.7%199547.2%45.9%7.0%199847.3%43.6%9.1%200139.7%51.5%8.7%200442.2%50.3%7.5%200742.7%50.3%7.0% Total assets are defined as the sum of: (1) the gross value of owner-occupied housing; (2) other real estate owned by the household; (3) cash and demand deposits; (4) time and savings deposits, certificates of deposit, and money market accounts; (5) government bonds, corporate bonds, foreign bonds, and other financial securities; (6) the cash surrender value of life insurance plans; (7) the cash surrender value of pension plans, including IRAs, Keogh, and 401(k) plans; (8) corporate stock and mutual funds; (9) net equity in unincorporated businesses; and (10) equity in trust funds. Total liabilities are the sum of: (1) mortgage debt; (2) consumer debt, including auto loans; and (3) other debt. From Wolff (2004, 2007, & 2010). Figure 1: Net worth and financial wealth distribution in the U.S. in 2007 In terms of types of financial wealth, the top one percent of households have 38.3% of all privately held stock, 60.6% of financial securities, and 62.4% of business equity. The top 10% have 80% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America. Table 2: Wealth distribution by type of asset, 2007 Investment AssetsTop 1 percentNext 9 percentBottom 90 percentBusiness equity62.4%30.9%6.7%Financial securities60.6%37.9%1.5%Trusts38.9%40.5%20.6%Stocks and mutual funds38.3%42.9%18.8%Non-home real estate28.3%48.6%23.1%TOTAL investment assets49.7%38.1%12.2% Housing, liquid Assets, Pension Assets, and Debt Top 1 percentNext 9 percentBottom 90 percentDeposits20.2%37.5%42.3%Pension accounts14.4%44.8%40.8%Life insurance22.0%32.9%45.1%Principal residence9.4%29.2%61.5%TOTAL other assets12.0%33.8%54.2%Debt5.4%21.3%73.4% From Wolff (2010). Figure 2a: Wealth distribution by type of asset, 2007: investment assets Figure 2b: Wealth distribution by type of asset, 2007: other assets Inheritance and estate taxes Figures on inheritance tell much the same story. According to a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, only 1.6% of Americans receive $100,000 or more in inheritance. Another 1.1% receive $50,000 to $100,000. On the other hand, 91.9% receive nothing (Kotlikoff & Gokhale, 2000). Thus, the attempt by ultra-conservatives to eliminate inheritance taxes -- which they always call "death taxes" for P.R. reasons -- would take a huge bite out of government revenues (an estimated $1 trillion between 2012 and 2022) for the benefit of the heirs of the mere 0.6% of Americans whose death would lead to the payment of any estate taxes whatsoever (Citizens for Tax Justice, 2010b). It is noteworthy that some of the richest people in the country oppose this ultra-conservative initiative, suggesting that this effort is driven by anti-government ideology. In other words, few of the ultra-conservative and libertarian activists behind the effort will benefit from it in any material way. However, a study (Kenny et al., 2006) of the financial support for eliminating inheritance taxes discovered that 18 super-rich families (mostly Republican financial donors, but a few who support Democrats) provide the anti-government activists with most of the money for this effort. (For more infomation, including the names of the major donors, download the article from United For a Fair Economy's Web site.) Actually, ultra-conservatives and their wealthy financial backers may not have to bother to eliminate what remains of inheritance taxes at the federal level. The rich already have a new way to avoid inheritance taxes forever -- for generations and generations -- thanks to bankers. After Congress passed a reform in 1986 making it impossible for a "trust" to skip a generation before paying inheritance taxes, bankers convinced legislatures in many states to eliminate their "rules against perpetuities," which means that trust funds set up in those states can exist in perpetuity, thereby allowing the trust funds to own new businesses, houses, and much else for descendants of rich people, and even to allow the beneficiaries to avoid payments to creditors when in personal debt or sued for causing accidents and injuries. About $100 billion in trust funds has flowed into those states so far. You can read the details on these "dynasty trusts" (which could be the basis for an even more solidified "American aristocracy") in a New York Times opinion piece published in July 2010 by Boston College law professor Roy Madoff, who also has a book on this and other new tricks: Immortality and the Law: The Rising Power of the American Dead (Yale University Press, 2010). Home ownership & wealth For the vast majority of Americans, their homes are by far the most significant wealth they possess. Figure 3 comes from the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances (via Wolff, 2010) and compares the median income, total wealth (net worth, which is marketable assets minus debt), and non-home wealth (which earlier we called financial wealth) of White, Black, and Hispanic households in the U.S. Figure 3: Income and wealth by race in the U.S. Besides illustrating the significance of home ownership as a source of wealth, the graph also shows that Black and Latino households are faring significantly worse overall, whether we are talking about income or net worth. In 2007, the average white household had 15 times as much total wealth as the average African-American or Latino household. If we exclude home equity from the calculations and consider only financial wealth, the ratios are in the neighborhood of 100:1. Extrapolating from these figures, we see that 70% of white families' wealth is in the form of their principal residence; for Blacks and Hispanics, the figures are 95% and 96%, respectively. And for all Americans, things are getting worse: as the projections to July 2009 by Wolff (2010) make clear, the last few years have seen a huge loss in housing wealth for most families, making the gap between the rich and the rest of America even greater, and increasing the number of households with no marketable assets from 18.6% to 24.1%. Do Americans know their country's wealth distribution? A remarkable study (Norton & Ariely, 2010) reveals that Americans have no idea that the wealth distribution (defined for them in terms of "net worth") is as concentrated as it is. When shown three pie charts representing possible wealth distributions, 90% or more of the 5,522 respondents -- whatever their gender, age, income level, or party affiliation -- thought that the American wealth distribution most resembled one in which the top 20% has about 60% of the wealth. In fact, of course, the top 20% control about 85% of the wealth (refer back to Table 1 and Figure 1 in this document for a more detailed breakdown of the numbers). Even more striking, they did not come close on the amount of wealth held by the bottom 40% of the population. It's a number I haven't even mentioned so far, and it's shocking: the lowest two quintiles hold just 0.3% of the wealth in the United States. Most people in the survey guessed the figure to be between 8% and 10%, and two dozen academic economists got it wrong too, by guessing about 2% -- seven times too high. Those surveyed did have it about right for what the 20% in the middle have; it's at the top and the bottom that they don't have any idea of what's going on. Americans from all walks of life were also united in their vision of what the "ideal" wealth distribution would be, which may come as an even bigger surprise than their shared misinformation on the actual wealth distribution. They said that the ideal wealth distribution would be one in which the top 20% owned between 30 and 40 percent of the privately held wealth, which is a far cry from the 85 percent that the top 20% actually own. They also said that the bottom 40% -- that's 120 million Americans -- should have between 25% and 30%, not the mere 8% to 10% they thought this group had, and far above the 0.3% they actually had. In fact, there's no country in the world that has a wealth distribution close to what Americans think is ideal when it comes to fairness. So maybe Americans are much more egalitarian than most of them realize about each other, at least in principle and before the rat race begins. Figure 4, reproduced with permission from Norton & Ariely's article in Perspectives on Psychological Science, shows the actual wealth distribution, along with the survey respondents' estimated and ideal distributions, in graphic form. Figure 4: The actual United States wealth distribution plotted against the estimated and ideal distributions. Note: In the "Actual" line, the bottom two quintiles are not visible because the lowest quintile owns just 0.1% of all wealth, and the second-lowest quintile owns 0.2%.Source: Norton & Ariely, 2010. David Cay Johnston, a retired tax reporter for the New York Times, published an excellent summary of Norton & Ariely's findings (Johnston, 2010b; you can download the article from Johnston's Web site). Historical context Numerous studies show that the wealth distribution has been extremely concentrated throughout American history, with the top 1% already owning 40-50% in large port cities like Boston, New York, and Charleston in the 19th century. It was very stable over the course of the 20th century, although there were small declines in the aftermath of the New Deal and World II, when most people were working and could save a little money. There were progressive income tax rates, too, which took some money from the rich to help with government services. Then there was a further decline, or flattening, in the 1970s, but this time in good part due to a fall in stock prices, meaning that the rich lost some of the value in their stocks. By the late 1980s, however, the wealth distribution was almost as concentrated as it had been in 1929, when the top 1% had 44.2% of all wealth. It has continued to edge up since that time, with a slight decline from 1998 to 2001, before the economy crashed in the late 2000s and little people got pushed down again. Table 3 and Figure 5 present the details from 1922 through 2007. Table 3: Share of wealth held by the Bottom 99% and Top 1% in the United States, 1922-2007. Bottom 99 percentTop 1 percent192263.3%36.7%192955.8%44.2%193366.7%33.3%193963.6%36.4%194570.2%29.8%194972.9%27.1%195368.8%31.2%196268.2%31.8%196565.6%34.4%196968.9%31.1%197270.9%29.1%197680.1%19.9%197979.5%20.5%198175.2%24.8%198369.1%30.9%198668.1%31.9%198964.3%35.7%199262.8%37.2%199561.5%38.5%199861.9%38.1%200166.6%33.4%200465.7%34.3%200765.4%34.6%Sources: 1922-1989 data from Wolff (1996). 1992-2007 data from Wolff (2010). Figure 5: Share of wealth held by the Bottom 99% and Top 1% in the United States, 1922-2007. Here are some dramatic facts that sum up how the wealth distribution became even more concentrated between 1983 and 2004, in good part due to the tax cuts for the wealthy and the defeat of labor unions: Of all the new financial wealth created by the American economy in that 21-year-period, fully 42% of it went to the top 1%. A whopping 94% went to the top 20%, which of course means that the bottom 80% received only 6% of all the new financial wealth generated in the United States during the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s (Wolff, 2007).

Everything you posted is just the extreme right wing political and economic philosophy that the kool aid drinker lap up like a kitten with cream. And I am not going to believe some right leaning Rasmussen poll over a Gallup poll Unlike me, you have offered no facts, no proof of what is really going on or anything close to reality. There is a concerted effort by the right wing in this country to return to the Gilded Age. The facts show the middle class, far from feeling a right to or receiving entitlements, is losing ground fast. While at the same time - those at the top are gaining. They are not creating jobs, they are not doing anything to improve this economy. They are the real takers. And just like with the very costly, unpaid for, adding to the deficit tax cut just given to them - the republicans want to give to this entitled class even more. Now, if you have any real facts and proof that the middle class wage earner has been profiting and improving his lot over the last 30 years in terms of earning power, wages adjusted for inflation, the value of his home, investments, etc. - THEN PLEASE OFFER IT. Otherwise quit pasting this right wing drible. The phone conversation of the duped Walker shows his true colors. He just wants to do a bait and switch with democrats to get them back and then pass the bill without them actually voting. This man is seriously dangerous. He have delusions of grandeur. He thinks of himself as some national hero and after he busts that pesky union he will be worshipped from afar. The corporate Koch brothers have pushed their no tax, no regulations, let us do what we want to increase our profits agenda through with his help and they will certainly help with his current efforts. But in the end, even if this governor gets what he wants, he will have overplayed his hand and his political career will be over. And btw, the independent ethics commison in WI is looking into possible ethic violations as a result of that phone call. Admitting that you were considering planting trouble makers into the protesters is very serious and unworthy of someone elected to this high office. And one more thing about people buying homes they couldn't afford. That is the bank's job. They are loaning out their money - so it the their job to make sure they are loaning it to people who can repay the loan. If they don't, then it is their fault. People will always want to borrow money. It's the lenders who have to make sure it's to the right people. If someone loses their job after buying the house, then that is a different matter. There should be some kind of contigency plan to help them until they get another job and back on their feet. Do we really want to be a country that throws hardworking people who happen to hit some back luck out of their homes? I don't think so. But I think those who write that crap you posted think so. Because they all have jobs, health care and homes, so it's easy to pick on those who don't.

I am very sorry this happened to you especially since you liked your band. But you did the right thing and perhaps down the road you can get a revision surgery to the sleeve or RNY. By then, maybe your insurance will cover it. Press them on it. But when you think of it - all WLS is unnatural - we put these foreign things in our bodies or re-route them and then act surprised when things go wrong.

My thoughts exactly. Additionally, both the band and RNY require a whole different approach to eating and relationship with food. And as all these gung ho people get older and their metabolism slows down they are going to be faced with increased exercising or continued reduction in calories. And constant tightening of the band and relying on it tightness is not the solution. I suspect that 20 years down the road we will be looking at more barrett's esophagus and esophageal cancer in lapband patients from years of being overtight and food and acid going back up into the esophagus (even without symptoms). It doesn't belong there and there are major consequences when it happens over and over again. There are just too many people who say..."I have heartburn, reflux and vomit frequently but I LOVE MY BAND and am losing weight and am down ____pounds. " Someday they will pay the price for this.

You're absolutely right. Move over teaparty phonies, the REAL middle class is taking over fighting for real middle class rights and real middle class people. We are tired of being blamed for the greed, corruption and crimes of the rich.

Here's more on this story. But hey, keep believing in the Koch brothers. On prank call, Wis. governor discusses strategy By RYAN J. FOLEY, AP 45 minutes ago MADISON, Wis. — On a prank call that quickly spread across the Internet, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was duped into discussing his strategy to cripple public employee unions, promising never to give in and joking that he would use a baseball bat in his office to go after political opponents.Walker believed the caller was a conservative billionaire named David Koch, but it was actually the editor of a liberal online newspaper. The two talked for at least 20 minutes — a conversation in which the governor described several potential ways to pressure Democrats to return to the Statehouse and revealed that his supporters had considered secretly planting people in pro-union protest crowds to stir up trouble. The call, which surfaced Wednesday, also showed Walker's cozy relationship with two billionaire brothers who have poured millions of dollars into conservative political causes, including Walker's campaign last year. Walker compared his stand to that taken by President Ronald Reagan when he fired the nation's air-traffic controllers during a labor dispute in 1981. "That was the first crack in the Berlin Wall and led to the fall of the Soviets," Walker said on the recording. The audio was posted by the Buffalo Beast, a left-leaning website based in Buffalo, N.Y., and quickly went viral. Ian Murphy told The Associated Press he carried out the prank to show how candidly Walker would speak with Koch even though, according to Democrats, he refuses to return their calls. Murphy said he arranged the call Tuesday after speaking with two Walker aides, including the governor's chief of staff. He placed the call using Skype and recorded it. Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie confirmed that it was Walker's voice on the call. At a news conference, Walker acknowledged being deceived but stuck to his message that the union changes were needed to balance Wisconsin's budget. "I'm not going to let one prank phone call be a distraction from the job we have to do," Walker said. "The things I said are the things I've said publicly all the time." On the call, the governor said he was ratcheting up the pressure on Senate Democrats to return to the Capitol a week after they fled to block the legislation. He said he supported a move to require them to come to the Capitol to pick up their paychecks rather than have the money deposited directly. He also floated an idea to lure Democratic senators back to the Capitol for negotiations and then have the Senate quickly pass the bill while they are in talks. Walker said aides were reviewing whether the GOP could hold a vote if Democrats were not physically in the Senate chamber but elsewhere in the building. At the news conference, he insisted that idea was not a trick but an effort to get Democrats back to work. Democrats seized on Walker's recorded comments as evidence that the governor plans to go beyond budget cuts to crushing unions. "This isn't about balancing the budget. This is about a political war," Rep. Jon Richards of Milwaukee yelled Wednesday on the floor of the state Assembly. The governor's plan would strip most public employees of their collective bargaining rights and force them to pay more for their health care and retirement benefits. Unions could not collect mandatory dues and would be forced to conduct annual votes of their members to stay in existence. The proposal has set off more than a week of protests at the Capitol. The GOP-controlled state Assembly began debating the bill Tuesday and was still hearing dozens of Democratic amendments nearly 24 hours later before taking a break. Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald said he expected to take a vote on the bill by the end of the day. On the call, Walker said he expected the anti-union movement to spread across the country and he had spoken with the governors of Ohio and Nevada. The man pretending to be Koch seemed to agree, telling Walker, "You're the first domino." "Yep, this is our moment," Walker responded. The remarks showed Walker's private relationship with David Koch. He and his brother, Charles, own Koch Industries Inc., which is the largest privately-owned company in America and has significant operations in Wisconsin. Its political action committee gave $43,000 to Walker's campaign, and David Koch gave $1 million to the Republican Governors' Association, which funded ads attacking Walker's opponent in last year's election. The Kochs also give millions to support Americans For Prosperity, a conservative business group that launched a $320,000 television ad campaign in favor of Walker's legislation Wednesday. When the caller asked how he could help, Walker suggested outside groups could try to influence people to call their lawmakers and spread the message that his proposal is necessary. On the recording, after Walker said he would be willing to meet with Democratic leaders, the caller said he should bring a baseball bat to negotiations. Walker laughed and responded that he had "a slugger with my name on it." The caller suggested he was thinking about "planting some troublemakers" among the protesters, and Walker said his administration had thought about doing that, too, but decided against it. Walker said the protests eventually would die because the media would stop covering them. Walker told reporters the plan to bring in outside agitators was one of many ideas his supporters and aides have raised that were dismissed. At the end of the call, the prankster says: "I'll tell you what, Scott, once you crush these bastards, I'll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time." "All right, that would be outstanding," Walker replies, adding that the standoff is "all about getting our freedoms back." The caller responds: "Absolutely. And you know, we have a little bit of vested interest as well" and laughs. Walker's budget bill also allows his administration to sell power plants that heat and cool state buildings to private companies without any bids. Critics have seized on that provision, saying they are convinced the Koch brothers' business interests would be able to buy power plants on the cheap, and then profit by running them and driving up the price of energy. Koch Industries has denied any interest in buying the plants. Republicans tried to privatize Wisconsin's power plants in 2005, but the plan was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. Immediately after taking office, Walker also pushed for legislation that would limit damage awards in lawsuits against many businesses. Koch Industries lobbied for the bill, and Walker signed it into law last month. Walker is also seeking passage for another Koch Industries-backed bill to weaken state regulations by giving him the power to approve all rules proposed by agencies, a proposal that is moving quickly through the Legislature. Koch Industries recently opened a lobbying office a block from the Capitol. Seven lobbyists have registered in Wisconsin to lobby for various Koch Industries companies. Even before recordings of the call surfaced, the government watchdog group Common Cause in Wisconsin released a statement saying Walker's agenda matched with that of Koch Industries. "Koch Industries and other corporate citizens have legitimate interests in Wisconsin, but their demonstrated willingness to push large amounts of money into state politics has given them a dangerously outsized voice," said Bob Edgar, the group's national president. That voice, he said, is "now demanding a return on its investments."

If the media is so liberal why didn't even I hear about this until I read it on (crack pot ) daily kos? Wed Feb 23, 2011 at 05:00 PM EST Media yawns as a third federal judge upholds constitutionality of health care reform by Jed Lewison Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler became the third federal judge to rule in favor of the health care reform law's constitutionality, but as with each of the other rulings in favor of reform, Kessler's decision has barely made a ripple in the media. In contrast, coverage of Judge Roger Vinson's decision against reform saturated the media, even though his ruling had no immediate impact on health reform. The Vinson ruling received A1 coverage in The New York Times and dominated cable news. The Kessler ruling was covered on A14 of the Times and as far as cable news goes, I was only able to find two references to it -- both on Fox, and each for less than a minute. (I'm basing this on closed caption text searches, so it's possible I missed a couple of references, but there was hardly any coverage at all.) After the Vinson ruling, Steve Benen pointed out the huge disparity in coverage between the two rulings in favor of reform and the two rulings against reform. Even if you were to dismiss the significance of those numbers on the theory that the rulings against reform were bigger news because they happened after the rulings that upheld reform, yesterday's ruling should be at least as significant as Vinson's ruling because it means that three judges have now ruled in favor of reform compared with two who have ruled against it. Ultimately, the real test will be in the Supreme Court, but if you dismiss the importance of the Kessler ruling on that basis, then you should also have dismissed the Vinson ruling. That's actually where I'm at: I don't think any of these rulings are huge news. But given that the media treated the Vinson ruling as a Really Big Deal, they should be doing the same with the Kessler ruling.

A man from buffalo beast posed as a Koch brother in a phone conversation to Walker. Walker's office has confirmed that it is his voice on the tapes. Here's what Walker says to who he thinks is one of his big contributors to which he is beholden: "The 14 democratic senators can come back and I will talk to them but I will not negotiate. Once we have the 14 inside chambers, we don't need them, the 19 republicans will take over." That hardly sounds like someone who is sincere about making compromises or negotiatie in good faith. He is just another right wing hack trying to bust unions, and he is losing this arguement no matter how many fireside chats he has. American people, union and non union, don't like these strong armed tactics. It brings back images of Pinkerton police (for those of us who actually studied and remember history - real history, that is, not Texas style revisionist history).

Why Americans Need Unions Now More Than Ever 'Why Americans Need Unions Now More Than Ever', ' How often do you hear someone say, "Oh, at one time unions were a good thing, but not anymore"? The premise of this argument is that once upon a time there were robber barons stalking the land, and it was a fine thing that workers organized into unions to prevent them from hiring children and paying employees a pittance as they labored in sweatshops working fifteen-hour days. Now, goes the narrative, in the age of high-tech industrial campuses and "information" workers, unions are "obsolete." Next time you hear that argument from an otherwise rational person, give them a good shake and insist that they wake up from their dream world. The central problem facing the American economy -- and our society -- is the collapse of the American middle class. The incomes of the middle class Americans, and those who aspire to be middle class -- 90% of Americans -- have been stagnant for almost three decades. This trend, which was briefly interrupted during the Clinton Administration, is the chief defining characteristic of our recent economic history. This stagnation of middle class incomes has not happened because our economy has failed to grow over this period. In fact, real (adjusted for inflation) per capita gross domestic product (GDP) increased more than 80% over the period between 1975 and 2005. In the last ten years, before the Great Recession, it increased at an average rate of 1.8% per year. That means that if the benefits of economic growth were equally spread throughout our society, everyone should have been almost 20% better off (with compounding) in 2008 than they were in 1998. But they weren't better off. In fact, median family income actually dropped in the years before the recession. It went from $52,301 (in 2009 dollars) in 2000 to $50,112 in 2008. And, of course it continued to drop as the recession set in. How is that possible? Was it -- as the Right likes to believe -- because of the growth of the Federal Government? Nope. In fact, the percentage of GDP going to federal spending actually dropped during the last four years of the Clinton Administration. When Bush took office it began to increase again as the Republicans increased spending on wars. Over the last 28 years, federal spending has averaged about 20.9% of the GDP and varied within a range of only about 5%, with the high being in 1983 (in the middle of the Reagan years) and the low in 2000 before Bush took office. It has never even come close to the 43.6% of GDP that it consumed during World War II in 1943 and 1944, or the 41.9% it consumed in 1945. The percent of GDP that goes to Federal spending went up in 2009 and 2010 -- but that was mainly because the economy shrunk on the one hand, and a major, temporary stimulus bill was need on the other to prevent another Great Depression. Was it because taxes have skyrocketed? No again. In fact, according to the Census Bureau, the median household tax burden actually dropped from 24.9% in 2000 to 22.4% in 2009. Was it that labor became less productive? No. In fact, there has been a major gap between the increase in the productivity of our workforce and the increase in their wages. Even when wages were improving at the end of the Clinton years, productivity went up 2.5% per year and median hourly wages went up only 1.5%. From 2000 to 2004 worker productivity exploded by an annual rate of 3.8% but hourly wages went up only 1% and median family income actually dropped .9%. The bottom line is that people who work for a living (most of us) are getting a smaller and smaller share of the nation's economic pie. In August of 2006, the New York Times reported that Federal Reserve study showed that, "Wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation's gross national product since the government began recording data in 1947; while corporate profits have climbed to their highest shares since the 1960." So the answer to the question is simple. Virtually all of the increase in our gross domestic product over the ten years before the Great Recession went to the wealthiest 2% of the population. These changes in income distribution are not the result of "natural laws." They are the result of systems set up by human beings that differentially benefit different groups in the society. Economist Paul Krugman has summarized the history of income distribution in America. At the beginning of the Great Depression, income inequality, and inequality in the control of wealth, was very high. Then came the great compression between 1929 and 1947. Real wages for workers in manufacturing rose 67% while real income for the richest 1% of Americans fell 17%. This period marked the birth of the American middle class. Two major forces drove these trends -- unionization of major manufacturing sectors, and the public policies of the New Deal. Then came the postwar boom, 1947 to 1973. Real wages rose 81% and the income of the richest 1% rose 38%. Growth was widely shared, but income inequality continued to drop. From 1973 to 1980, everyone lost ground. Real wages fell 3% and income for the richest 1% fell 4%. The oil shocks, and the dramatic slowdown in economic growth in developing nations, took their toll on America and the world economy. Then came what Krugman calls "the New Gilded Age." Beginning in 1980, there were big gains at the very top. The tax policies of the Reagan administration magnified income redistribution. Between 1980 and 2004, real wages in manufacturing fell 1%, while real income of the richest one percent rose 135%. The single largest contributor to this stagnation of middle class incomes has been the corporate attack on organized labor. The percentage of private sector workers in unions has shrunk from 35 percent to 7%. The exception has been the public sector, where 35% of teachers, firemen and public service workers now have access to collective bargaining. The last thirty years shows conclusively that the "competitive market" -- absent collective bargaining -- simply does not assure that everyday employees share in the fruits of increased productivity or economic growth. Left to their own devices, CEO's will pad their own massive incomes and seek higher returns for the stockholders that hire them. That is especially true in an economic world that is globalized -- where CEO's can often hire labor at pennies on the dollar of what they would have to pay in the U.S. -- if it were not for union contracts. Collective bargaining is the only way to level the playing field -- to assure that increases in American productivity are widely shared throughout the economy. And when they are not shared, that is not only bad for the everyday family. It is horrible for the economy. Economies are in balance if productivity gains result in commensurately higher salaries for employees that allow them to buy the larger number of products and services that the productivity increases allow corporations to manufacture and sell. If they don't have increased buying power -- if all of the income growth goes to the top 2% -- then a demand deficit will inevitably develop that will lead to a recession -- or depression. That gap in buying power can be filled for a while -- as it was in the early 2000's -- with greater consumer debt. But after while the bubble bursts and the house of cards comes tumbling down. We saw that movie -- we know the ending. And it was mainly a result of the disparity between increased worker productivity and increased worker income. It was the direct consequence of the corporate attack on the right to join a union. American workers -- and the American economy -- need unions now more than ever. They are the only means by which we can guarantee widely-shared economic growth. And as it turns out, sustained, long-term economic growth requires widely-shared economic growth. Unions are the only way to prevent the collapse of the American middle class. That's why the fight in Wisconsin is so fundamental. Governor Scott Walker and his corporate supporters want to destroy labor unions -- to eliminate the right to choose a union. They want a low wage economy. They want the freedom to pay people as little as possible at their companies -- and in the government. They believe if they can break public employee unions, that they can ultimately eliminate organized labor as a meaningful force in the American economy -- and in American politics. Walker's action are a case study in right wing philosophy. He cut state taxes on corporations and then demanded that middle class state workers take cuts in wages and benefits in order to pay for the corporate tax cuts. Luckily regular voters have begun to smell the coffee. Nationally a new poll shows that 61% of voters reject the kind of proposals that Walker is trying to cram down the throats of the people of Wisconsin. In Wisconsin itself a new poll by Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research found that a majority of Wisconsin voters disapprove of Walker's job performance and give him a negative favorability of 39 percent favorable and 49 percent unfavorable. In contrast 62 percent of voters offer a favorable view of public employees and only 11 percent unfavorable. And 53 percent rate labor unions favorably with only 31 percent unfavorable. Over half of the voters oppose the agenda offered by Walker and Republicans in the legislature. Only 43 percent favor it. There is a major intensity gap as well, with 39 percent strongly opposing their proposals and only 28 percent strongly supporting them. In the end, the Republican attack on the right to choose a union completely ignores what is good for everyday Americans -- and for the American economy. It is only concerned with what is good for the narrow economic and political interests of a tiny fraction of our population. That's why they must be defeated. That's why the battle of Wisconsin is really a battle for the survival of the American middle class. Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com. If the media were really liberal, these facts and the message they convey would have been repeated over and over again until every middle class american could recite them, but they weren't because the conservative media was too busy giving voice to the republican and tea party lies.

The protests in Wisconsin are having a positive effect. The republican governor of Florida said he is not planning similar legislation and the republican governor of Indiana is putting his on the back burner. Good idea, guys, you got the message loud and clear - the middle class working people are not going to be the scapegoats for your fiscal problems, caused in part by tax cuts ($200 million in Wisconsin) and other fiscal problems they didn't create.

If the media is dominated by liberals then why was the message that most americans heard as a run up to the mid-term elections that of the phoney tea party idiots? The message about smaller government, reduced spending and cutting the deficit when what mainstream americans wanted was jobs, jobs, jobs. Why was the message that the stimulus was a failure contrary to evidence? (ask all local, county and state levels of government how much they were helped by this stimulus including the hypocritical elected republicans who bashed the stimulus and then showed up for the ribbon cuttings for projects funded by it). Why was the message that the healthcare bill would add to the deficit (CBO said it would reduce it) and cost jobs (doubted by those who analyze this)? All the messaging in 2010 was conservative, liberal bashing, Obama bashing and pro-conservative agenda. Myth: The U.S. has a liberal media. Fact: The media are being increasingly monopolized by parent corporations with pro-corporate or conservative agendas. Summary The U.S. media are rapidly being monopolized by a dwindling number of parent corporations, all of whom have conservative economic agendas. The media are also critically dependent upon corporations for advertising. As a result, the news almost completely ignores corporate crime, as well as pro-labor and pro-consumer issues. Surveys of journalists show that the majority were personally liberal in the 1980s, but today they are centrists, with more conservatives than liberals on economic issues. However, no study has proven that they give their personal bias to the news. On the other hand, the political spectrum of pundits -- who do engage in noisy editorializing -- leans heavily to the right. The most extreme example of this is talk radio, where liberals are almost nonexistent. The Fairness Doctrine was designed to prevent one-sided bias in the media by requiring broadcasters to air opposing views. It once enjoyed the broad support of both liberals and conservatives. But now that the media have become increasingly owned and controlled by corporations, conservatives defiantly oppose the Fairness Doctrine. This is probably the best proof that the media's bias is conservative, not liberal. Argument Conservatives often promote the myth that the U.S. media are liberal. This myth serves several purposes: it raises public skepticism about liberal news stories, hides conservative bias when it appears, and goads the media to the right. GOP strategist William Kristol also reveals another reason: "I admit it: the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." (1) In unguarded moments, however, even far-right figures like Pat Buchanan come clean: "The truth is, I've gotten fairer, more comprehensive coverage of my ideas than I ever imagined I would receive." He further conceded: "I've gotten balanced coverage and broad coverage -- all we could have asked… For heaven sakes, we kid about the liberal media, but every Republican on earth does that." (2) So what's the real story? The fact is that conservatives have powerful friends in the media: the corporations that own them, and the corporations that pay for their advertising. These giant firms have been increasingly successful in bending the media's message to suit their self-interests, which include a conservative and pro-corporate agenda. Studies show that the media are eerily silent on the issues most important to workers, consumers and other citizens adversely affected by corporate behavior. Conservatives respond to these charges with (old) polls showing that most journalists are personally liberal, but these polls are outdated. New polls show the majority of journalists are centrists. And of those who are not centrists, there are more conservatives than liberals on economic issues. We'll explore more of this question below. The Media Monopoly Easily the most famous book on media trends in the last 15 years is Ben Bagdikian's 1983 book, The Media Monopoly. In it, he predicted that deregulation under President Reagan would allow media ownership to concentrate in fewer and fewer corporate hands. This, in turn, would result in a more pro-corporate media. Ridiculed as "alarmist" when it first came out, it has since been praised as a classic for the accuracy of its predictions. "I derive no pleasure from having been correct," writes the former dean of American journalism in his most recent edition. (3) To be specific, the number one trend within the media today is that they are rapidly being monopolized by large corporations. Technically, the term "monopoly" is incorrect when describing today's media -- what we actually have is a shrinking media oligopoly. Most scholars use the term "media monopoly" only because that's the direction the media are headed. This essay will also use the term "media monopoly" to denote the direction, rather than the current status, of the media. The dangers of a media monopoly Before reviewing the statistical evidence of the media monopoly, which is undisputed even by the media themselves, we should make certain of its dangers. The incentives for buying media organizations have long been obvious to Wall Street, which has seen vicious competition break out to capture the remaining media markets. These incentives were articulated in 1986 by Christopher Shaw, a Wall Street expert who has handled over 120 media mergers. Shaw told investors that media buy-outs would give them two things: "profitability" and "influence." (4) There is nothing inherently wrong with either profitability or influence, of course -- it's just that in a monopoly, they would be abused. Consider the abuse of profits. All the usual market failures would be present in a media monopoly: the captive market, the rise in prices, the drop in quality, and the exploitation of consumers. But significantly more troubling is the monopolization of influence. If one person controls all information, there are no opposing viewpoints so essential to keeping public and scientific debate honest. We profoundly condemn the monopoly of information by the state, as exemplified by Joseph Goebbels' "Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment." But this danger is no less evident if a single business takes over the control of all information in society. Then all information would come from a corporate point of view, silencing the voices of workers, consumers and other citizens who are affected by corporate behavior. Democracy is based on the assumption that opposing viewpoints can be heard. If corporations could somehow eliminate or control populist debate, then we will not have a true democracy. The potential for abuse by corporate owners is obvious. Just one example was General Electric's earlier buyout of NBC News. General Electric is the 10th largest company in the United States. It is a major Defense contractor and an international player on the world market. It is sensitive to the needs of its clients, who come from all sectors of the economy. It is also a fact that GE has suffered many a scandal throughout its history. During the Great Depression, it cut the life of its light bulbs by one-third to drive up profits. It was convicted of an illegal agreement with a German arms company during World War II. It has been convicted of fraud, fixing bids, conspiracy and tax evasion. (5) In all these cases, control of a major media outlet would have given it undue influence, whether in the market or before Congress or the courts. Furthermore, GE has played an active role in conservative politics. Shortly after the company acquired NBC, a GE executive announced that NBC should start a political action committee to contribute money to strengthen the company's influence in Washington. Failure to cooperate, the executive said, would raise questions about the employees' "dedication to the company." (6) Later the President of NBC News clarified that its news employees would be exempt from contributing, but this hardly removes the larger conflict of interest. It should not be surprising that these parent companies, like most big businesses and all Defense contractors, are extremely conservative. They have agendas: they desire lower taxes, fewer lawsuits from the public, fewer environmental restraints, better public relations (a euphemism for less public exposure to scandals), higher profits and more effective lobbying power in Washington. Controlling public opinion would give them all these things. Ironically, it would not be necessary for a single winner to emerge from the take-over wars. Shaw maintains that by the year 2000, all U.S. media will be in the hands of six giant corporations. Most business analysts agree with him. (7) One can safely assume that they will all have the same business and political agenda. The statistical evidence of a media monopoly That said, let's review the evidence of a media monopoly. Ownership of all forms of media (newspapers, magazines, radio shows, network television, cable, journals, books, movies, videos and cassettes) are quickly being consolidated under a few corporations. In all, the number of dominant corporations who control any form of media has shrunk from 46 in 1981 to exactly half in 1992: 23. At the end of World War II, 80 percent of all newspapers were privately owned. Today, that figure is its exact opposite: 80 percent of all newspapers are owned by corporate chains. From 1960 to today, the number of corporations which own newspapers fell from 27 to 14. (Gannett Company, which publishes USA Today, is the largest, with 87 other daily newspapers.) From 1981 to 1988, the number of corporations who owned magazines fell from 20 to a mere three. Television news is dominated by four major networks, who control up to three-fourths of the audience share. (8) One of the most obvious signs of this trend is that cities are becoming "one-newspaper towns." One of the persons most responsible for buying out competing newspapers is Rupert Murdoch, who says that his worldwide strategy is acquisition and takeovers. (9) Another is Allen Neuharth, chairman of Gannett Company, who told a group of Wall Street investors that "No Gannett newspaper has any direct competition." (10) Since the 1992 edition of The Media Monopoly, media mergers of unprecedented scale have continued unabated -- but there's no discussion of the dangers involved, or the controversy it should represent. Disney has since bought ABC, Westinghouse has bought CBS, and Time-Warner has bought Turner Broadcasting System. Congress cleared out the remaining obstacles for still more media mergers by passing the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Headlines in the media blared about the bill's attempt to censor pornography on the Internet, but otherwise remained completely silent about its deregulation of anti-trust laws for the media. For this bit of censorship, the Telecom Act was voted the number one censored story of 1995 by Project Censored. The cable industry offers a perfect snapshot of media monopolization and all its dangers. After the cable television industry was deregulated in 1984, prices soared, quality of programming plummeted, and cable systems began selling their channels in indivisible blocs that prevented subscribers from voting with their dollars. From 1986 to 1990, the cost of basic service rose 56 percent -- twice the rate of inflation. (11) The problem? Growing monopolization, at several levels. There are now 11,000 cable systems across the nation, almost all of them exercising a local monopoly over their municipal region. They in turn are controlled by a handful of national companies. By far the most dominant is the phenomenally expanding TCI, which is a gatekeeper over national programming. Its owner, John Malone, owns all or part of 25 national or regional cable channels, including Turner Broadcasting. (12) Because there is little or no competition, cable programmers search for the cheapest shows to produce. Quality of programming has sunk to network TV levels. It seems that each year, Congress passes yet another cable deregulation bill. Every single one has been touted to "open competition" and "benefit the consumer." But the concentration of power in the cable industry keeps getting worse, not better. Another source of pro-corporate bias: advertising Owning and monopolizing the media is only one way that corporations introduce a pro-corporate bias into the media. An equally pervasive one is advertising. Most media depend on the sale of corporate advertisements to stay alive. Without advertisements, a medium would have to charge its customers a higher up-front price for its product. But that would kill its circulation, since competitors would offer up-front prices that were considerably lower or even free. Of course, there's no such thing as a free lunch. The consumer actually pays a higher price for the advertiser's products, which then go to the media. Advertising has been criticized on many grounds: it is inefficient, wastes time and resources, is terribly unpleasant, stifles free market competition, helps sustains long-term advantages to giant corporations, and makes people buy products for psychological reasons instead of economic ones like cost, quality and demand. Entire essays could be written on each of these shortcomings, but what we will address is how advertising injects a pro-corporate bias into the media. The media generally cannot run stories that offend corporations, because sponsors will threaten to pull their advertising dollars. In 1980, the liberal staff at Mother Jones debated over whether or not to publish a series of articles linking cigarettes to cancer. The editors knew that the tobacco industry would punish them by canceling their lucrative advertising contracts, which the young, struggling magazine desperately needed. Mother Jones stuck to its principles and printed the articles anyway; and, just as expected, the tobacco companies angrily pulled their ads. And whereas a parent corporation like GE has a particular set of interests that NBC would never report against, advertisers have general interests that reporters would never tilt against either. A publisher never knows who the next advertiser might be; therefore it's good policy not to write offensive things about any corporation, or even corporate culture in general. No news organization could attract advertisers if it persistently attacked the corporate agenda. Evidence of pro-corporate bias in the media Obviously, parent corporations and advertising sponsors have the ability and incentive to twist journalists' arms, but do they actually? The answer is both yes and no. Media owners and advertisers are generally prevented from interfering in the editor's office because of 75 years of improving journalist ethics. Back in the 1920s, the blatant manipulation of the news by owners resulted in "Yellow Journalism" and the sort of corruption so brilliantly captured by the movie Citizen Kane. But that does not mean that owners today still do not exert influence over their editors. Ben Bagdikian writes that owners let the editors operate freely until a story arises that affects the company's interest. Then one of two forms of influence will be exerted. It may be a direct order, as when the Chairman of General Electric called the President of NBC News after the 1987 stock market crash and told him not to use words in their reporting that would adversely affect GE stock. (13) (The NBC News president claimed he did not pass on the order.) Or it may be an unspoken agreement. Editors and writers know what their employer's interests are, and they protect them without being told. Why? Either to demonstrate their dedication to the company, thus protecting their future promotions, or simply because they fear being fired. Unfortunately, it is a frequent practice for owners to fire journalists who, knowingly or not, write against their particular interests. Just one of many examples is the owner of the Dallas Morning News, who fired Earl Golz for writing a story about an imminent bank failure that outraged the owners of the Abilene National Bank. Golz' story proved true -- the bank crashed a few weeks later -- but Golz' was not rehired. (14) To be sure, other journalists witnessing his fate would practice self-censorship whenever it came to protecting their owner's interests. Whether owners interfere explicitly or implicitly in the newsroom, evidence of it continually surfaces. Here are just a few examples: During the debate on health care reform, the New York Times ran stories persistently in favor of managed competition, a program which would have been profitable to major health care corporations. Other proposals for reform, like the Canadian single-payer program, were criticized or ignored. Reason: four members of the Times board of directors are also directors of major insurance companies, and two are directors of pharmaceutical companies. (15) Victor Neufeld, the executive producer of ABC's top-rated news show 20/20, repeatedly rejected several promising stories on nuclear power hazards. Reason: His wife is a prominent spokesman for the nuclear and chemical industries. (16) Walter Annenberg, owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, used his paper to attack a candidate who opposed action that would have benefited the stockholders of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Reason: he was the single largest stockholder. (17) Rupert Murdoch's Post endorsed President Carter in the crucial New York Presidential primary, contributing to his victory. Reason: two days earlier, Murdoch had lunch with Carter, convincing him to lean on the Export-Import Bank of the United States to give him a taxpayer-subsidized loan of $290 million. The bank had previously rejected the loan. (18) A four-month study by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) analyzed how the New York Times and Washington Post covered NAFTA. Of the experts quoted in their articles, pro-NAFTA outnumbered anti-NAFTA sources by three to one. Not a single labor union representative was quoted. Reason: these newspapers' boards of directors are drawn from big business. (19) Journalist Elizabeth Whelan asked ten major women's magazines to run a series of articles on the rise of smoking-related diseases in women; all ten magazines refused. Reason: "I frequently wrote on health topics for women's magazines," says Whelan, "and have been told repeatedly by editors to stay away from the subject of tobacco." (20) The above stories are anecdotal, but they show specifically how editors and advertisers interfere with the objectivity of the media. Now let's look at broader statistics. All feature the same theme: the power of editorial selection. Editors play a crucial role in deciding which stories get covered and which ones don't. This is an important tool for shaping and influencing the nation's debate. Due to the abuse of this power, three giant trends have grown within the media as big business continues to monopolize it: The first is that pro-labor stories are almost completely absent, even though blue-collar workers make up the vast majority of this nation's work force, and indeed the news media's audience. The majority of stories should include the conditions they work under, the challenges they face, the wages they earn and the hazards that maim and kill them. But the media is curiously silent on nearly all these natural topics. In 1989, researcher John Tasini studied ABC, NBC and CBS for a year to see how much coverage was devoted to workers' issues, including the minimum wage, workplace safety and child care. He found it amounted to a dismal 2.3 percent of all coverage. In fact, all three networks carried only 13 minutes of coverage on workplace safety for the entire year! The worst offender was NBC Nightly News, who devoted a total of 40 seconds to worker safety. This is not surprising, since its parent corporation, GE, has an appalling work safety record. (21) Elsewhere, a Los Angeles Times poll found that 53 percent of the nation's newspaper editors were pro-management, but only 8 percent were pro-labor. (22) The pro-corporate bias of our media is one of the most important reasons for the decline of labor unions in this country. The second trend is the increasingly conservative selection of experts to be quoted in the news. Think tanks are ideal places to find such "experts." (True academics have a low opinion of think tanks, which are simply propaganda outlets for the giant corporate foundations that pour millions of dollars into them.) Think tanks are highly partisan, and the quality of their work is mediocre at best. Why? They lack the checks and balances which keep academia honest, such as peer review, the scientific conference and independence of funding. Unfortunately, it has been a growing trend in journalism to rely on think tanks more than academia. That's because think tanks have conducted an aggressive campaign to become media friendly, packaging their findings in nice sound-bites and faxed press releases. This is in stark contrast to academics, who have little interest, expertise, funding or organization to conduct mass media relations. And this is not to mention that corporate-owned media organizations are encouraged to gather their facts from corporate-funded think tanks. So, how many times do journalists quote conservative think tanks over liberal ones? The media watchdog FAIR conducted a Nexus search of major newspapers, radio and TV transcripts for 1995, and came up with the following answer: Total Number of Think Tank Citations in Major Newspapers, Radioand TV transcripts: (23)Conservative 7792Centrist 6361Progressive 1152 Although there are far more conservative think tanks than liberal ones in the first place, reporters could easily balance the facts if they wanted to simply by consulting academics at universities. The third trend is that when news organizations cover corruption in Washington, it is always politicians who get the blame, and never corporations. This is one reason why Americans hate politics, why voter anger has been rising over the last 20 years, why the people's trust in Congress has reached its lowest point in half a century. But this one-sided anger is illogical. The politicians are getting the money from somewhere. Big business, of course, need not fear being exposed as the ones donating the money and requesting the shady favors in the first place; after all, a watchdog doesn't bite its master. It is interesting to note that when President Clinton became embroiled in a campaign contribution scandal on the eve of his re-election, the corporate media made sure to choose a foreign corporate lobbyist to blame. To be sure, if Westinghouse were to get caught laundering millions in drug money, CBS News would report the story in a straightforward fashion. But otherwise, the searchlight is directed away from business and onto politicians. Even once liberal news magazines like 60 Minutes, which proudly took on corporate criminals in the 70s, has considerably toned down its approach towards the Fortune 500 today, and concentrates on everyone else. The personal biases of journalists The claim that the U.S. has a "liberal media" began with a book called The Media Elite, by S. Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman and Linda Lichter. Their 1980 survey of journalists revealed that journalists were indeed much more liberal than the rest of America, a point which no one disputed. However, the authors then went on to make a second claim: that these liberal journalists inserted their own personal bias into the news. This second claim has not withstood academic scrutiny. (Click on <A href="http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-oldliberalmedia.htm">the following link to see why.) However, that debate is archaic today, because new studies show that today's journalists are more centrist than anything else. However, those who are not centrists identify themselves more frequently as conservatives on economic issues, and more frequently as liberals on social issues. The following study was conducted by David Croteau of Virginia Commonwealth University. (24) He targeted Washington bureau chiefs and Washington-based journalists who cover national politics and/or economic policy. His questionnaires went to 78 national news organizations, with an emphasis on the following 14: 1. ABC News /ABC Radio 2. Associated Press /AP Broadcast News 3. Bloomberg News 4. CNN 5. Knight-Ridder Newspapers/Tribune Information Services 6. Los Angeles Times 7. NBC News 8. New York Times 9. Reuters America, Inc. 10. Time 11. USA Today/USA Weekend 12. Wall Street Journal 13. Washington Post 14. Washington Times The 141 journalists and bureau chiefs who responded were an excellent cross-section of the target group as a whole. When their positions on political issues were tallied up, this was the result: Q#22. On social issues, how would you characterize your political orientation? Left 30%Center 57%Right 9% Other 5% Q#23. On economic issues, how would you characterize your political orientation? Left 11% Center 64%Right 19%Other 5% What caused journalists to shift over the last 15 years from liberal attitudes to centrist ones, even conservative ones on economic issues? One answer, of course, is that the media's parent corporations began hiring less liberal journalists. But another answer has to be the exploding salaries of celebrity journalists. It is a common observation in political science that receiving a higher income tends to make a person more economically conservative. Between 1980 and 1995, the salaries of celebrity journalists sky-rocketed. In 1995, Diane Sawyer made $8 million; Ted Koppel, $5 million; David Brinkley, $1 million; George Will, $1.5 million; Cokie Roberts, $700,000. (25) These salaries place them in America's richest 1 percent (actually, the top one-twentieth of the top 1 percent). Keep in mind that the top 1 percent saw their wealth explode during the 80s, eventually coming to own 40 percent of America's wealth. These celebrity journalists live and work in centers of power like Washington D.C and New York City, where they rub elbows with the nation's political and business elite. Says PBS producer Stephen Talbot: "There's an Our Town quality to official Washington -- a very small, incestuous world of politicians and press who are now almost interchangeable. The press was once known as ink-stained wretches. But in their tuxedos and evening gowns at an event like the White House Correspondents dinner, they resemble nothing more than the politicians they cover." (26)Newsweek columnist Jonathon Alter concedes: "I'm a part of this so-called overclass -- and so are my bosses and many of my colleagues at Newsweek and elsewhere in the national media. There's no point in denying it." (27)And all evidence shows that celebrity journalists identify with the various elites they cover. Recently, ABC weathered a scandal (due to lack of coverage, naturally) in which its journalists were criticized for accepting huge speaking fees before big business groups. It turns out that corporate lobbyists cultivate "friendships" not only with politicians, but TV journalists as well. They were paying Cokie Roberts, David Brinkley and Sam Donaldson between $20,000 and $35,000 per 40-minute speech. David Gergen collected over $700,000 from speaker fees in one 16-month period alone. In general, the speeches have been very friendly to big business, and that is why lobbyists were willing to pay such huge honoraria. In a 1992 speech, for example, David Brinkley described Bill Clinton's tax increase on the rich as a "sick, stupid joke." (This was even before he called Clinton "boring" on the eve of his 1996 reelection.) In July, 1994, ABC finally advised its journalists to stop accepting speaker fees from corporations and lobbying groups. The decision was immediately protested by Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts, David Brinkley, Brit Hume and others. (28) The ironic thing is that Cokie Roberts is a Democrat, as are many of her colleagues. Again, this underscores the fact that inside the Beltway, a "liberal" is often no more than a moderate conservative. Does personal bias result in media bias? Granted, journalists have their own personal viewpoints, ranging from liberal to conservative. But what does that really mean? Very little, it turns out. The idea that the media's message can be boiled down to the personal biases of individual journalists is profoundly and absurdly reductionist. The media is composed of individuals, yes, but it is also composed of institutions, organizational structures, traditions, rules, social and economic forces, and interest groups applying pressure. And all these things affect the media's message in profound ways. For example, consider the rule of balanced sources. Under normal circumstances, journalists get both sides of the story. This is a basic rule of thumb that every journalist knows, and is taught in every Journalism 101 class. It doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative; it is widely considered unethical to present only one side of the story. The only time that this ethic seems to break down is when a conflict of interest arises between journalists and the corporations that pay their paychecks. But this ethic doesn't stop corporations from "legitimately" biasing the media towards conservatism. All they have to do is hire pundits who are mostly conservatives themselves. Pundits enjoy a unique role in the media, in that they are expected to be biased. In fact, the more outrageous their opinions, the better. Whereas a reporter must stick to the facts and report both sides, pundits are free to interpret them any way they want. What this means is that criticism of reporters for their alleged liberal bias is actually misplaced. It is really the political spectrum of pundits that we should worry about. Unfortunately, there are far more conservative pundits than progressive ones: Conservative pundits: Pat Buchanan, Fred Barnes, John McLaughlin, David Gergen, Robert Novak, William F. Buckley, Jr., George Will, William Safire, Cal Thomas, Jonathon Alter, Joe Klein, Robert J. Samuelson, James Kilpatrick, Rush Limbaugh, and hundreds of other conservative radio talk-show hosts. Centrists (self-described): Sam Donaldson, Mark Shields, Michael Kinsley, Morton Kondrake, Al Hunt, Jack Germond, Hodding Carter. Progressive pundits: Jim Hightower (cancelled), Barbara Eirenreich, Molly Ivins. Conservatives freely admit to this bias themselves. Here's Adam Myerson, editor of the Heritage Foundation's Policy Review: "[Pundit] journalism today is very different from what it was 10 to 20 years ago. Today, op-ed pages are dominated by conservatives… We have a tremendous amount of conservative opinion, but this creates a problem for those who are interested in a career in journalism after college… If Bill Buckley were to come out of Yale today, nobody would pay much attention to him. He would not be that unusual… because there are probably hundreds of people with those ideas [and] they have already got syndicated columns." (29)In fact, no one can deny the extreme right-wing bias of the pundit spectrum after listening to talk radio. Conservatives have captured an entire media arm and devoted it almost exclusively to corporate and conservative propaganda. Liberal talk-show hosts are almost non-existent. Conservatives blame this on the low ratings of liberal talk show hosts, but this is a curious argument, since liberals form the largest political school of thought in America. The fact is that corporate owners simply do not promote liberal talk show hosts. When ABC first hired Rush Limbaugh, they spent millions promoting him, ghost-writing his books and arranging appearances on Nightline, The McNeil/Lehrer News Hour and even Phil Donahue. No liberal talk show host has received anything even remotely resembling this kind of promotion. It's just another way that corporations ensure the conservative slant of the media. The Fairness Doctrine The United States once had a law which attempted to balance viewpoints in radio and television: the Fairness Doctrine. Created by the Federal Communications Commission in 1949, this law required broadcasters to cover controversial issues with some opposing views. It required neither the internal balancing of programs, nor for equal time, nor for all opinions to be heard. It merely prevented broadcasters from airing relentless, one-sided propaganda. An example of the Fairness Doctrine in action was the ABC movie The Day After. This anti-nuclear war movie angered many conservatives like Henry Kissinger, who believe that the willingness to use nuclear weapons is actually a deterrence to war. However, Kissinger got a chance to respond to the movie on national television, for Nightline followed the movie with a group discussion that included Kissinger and other conservative pundits. The reason why ABC was so even-handed, presenting both a liberal and conservative viewpoint on nuclear war, was because the Fairness Doctrine required them to. Another example was controversial state ballot measures. The Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to air both viewpoints of any initiative. It is interesting to note that since the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987, studies show that the media's treatment of many initiatives has been heavily one-sided. (30) Why the Fairness Doctrine? Why not just let the market produce what it wants? The market works fine in the case of print media, because almost anyone can afford to print something, even if it's just a flyer. However, this is not the case for radio and television. In the 1920s, the airwaves were unregulated, and became so overcrowded with signals that they jammed each other. The Federal Communication Commission therefore started issueing licenses for broadcasters to use certain radio frequencies. Because the spectrum is so limited, however, there can only be a limited number of broadcasters. Diversity of opinion cannot be achieved by adding more stations, but only by creating it within stations. This is the rationale for the Fairness Doctrine. Up until the late 1980s, the Fairness Doctrine enjoyed broad popular support, ranging from the left-wing ACLU to the right-wing National Rifle Association and Accuracy In Media. In 1987, Congress considered a bill that would inscribe the Fairness Doctrine in federal law. It passed with overwhelming support in the House (3 to 1) and the Senate (nearly 2 to 1). Even such far-right legislators as Newt Gingrich and Jesse Helms voted in favor of it. (31) Unfortunately, Reagan vetoed the law, and then went a step further: his FCC repealed the Fairness Doctrine completely. Reagan had staffed the FCC with corporate media types who were bent on deregulating the media at all costs, and were thus hostile to the Fairness Doctrine. It was the equivalent of letting the fox guard the chicken coop. Shortly afterwards, Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives were free to take over AM talk radio, without fear of giving equal time to liberals. Interestingly, media corporations have fought all subsequent attempts by Congress to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine -- a sure sign that they have an incentive to avoid balanced coverage. Rush Limbaugh has gone so far as to slander it the "Hush Rush Law." (In fact, Rush would not be silenced, nor even forced to internally balance his program.) Today, conservatives have done a complete 180 on the Fairness Doctrine: their one-time support has turned into angry opposition. This speaks volumes about the true bias of the media. It also shows conservative media criticism to be highly incoherent. If the media were truly as liberal as they claim, they would jump at the chance to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, for it would give them a voice they didn't have before. The fact that they oppose it so vigorously proves that they know when they have a good thing, and don't want to give it up. A solution: public media The manipulation of the media by the interests that control it proves the need for major reform. There are a number of good suggestions, but by far the best is expanding public media. This is media supported neither by advertisements nor parent corporations, but by the taxpayers themselves. With only the American people to answer to, public journalists are free to investigate businesses as aggressively as they do government. In fact, journalists in public media should be elected, just as politicians are elected. The media prides itself on being the "Fourth Estate" or "fourth branch of government." We should recognize this fact by making it true. Of course, the private media would be free to continue operating as before. The creation of a truly public media would be just one more player on the block -- but a player that has no secret agenda and is more responsible to the people. Europe has a much stronger tradition of public media than the U.S., and it has worked superbly for them. In the U.S., our experiment with public media is limited to National Public Radio and National Public Television -- both underfunded, both under severe attack by the Republican party. With the GOP threatening to cut off its funding, NPR has recently backed off its criticism of corporations. It should also be noted that our "public" media depends rather heavily on corporate donations. This is a mistake. Progressives argue that the U.S. should strengthen its public media, and institute reforms that insulate it from all political and economic influence. And only then will we have a media that truly operates "without fear or favor." And we all know that corporate america supports republicans and conservatives.