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IMO - the fundamental problem is that there is, or appears to be, one LAW for the very wealthy and another more restrictive LAW for the rest of us. That is the essence of the two Americas. The really rich will never be prosecuted for rigging markets by creating monopolies and bribing politicians or creating ENRON schemes. The lesser citizens will wind up in jail for taking part in a protest march.
Economic fairness and impartiality is a dream. Legal fairness and impartiality is a necessity
Are you a proponent of a classless society?
Are you a proponent of income equalization? (like Sweden where the owner of a company cannot earn more than their employees)
Yes, I am a proponent of a classless society where everyone benefits from his or her own work and not from the luck of being born to wealthy parents. I am opposed to aristocracy in any of its forms.
BTW - there are some very wealthy Swedes. The Nobel family is only one example.
Nobody beats the U.S. when it comes to the difference in pay between CEOs and the average worker. In 2000, on average, CEOs at 365 of the largest publicly traded U.S. companies earned $13.1 million, or 531 times what the typical hourly employee took home. The corresponding ratio in 1980 was only 42, and in 1990 it was 85. As one source has put it, "in 2000 a CEO earned more in one workday (there are 260 in a year) than what the average worker earned in 52 weeks. In 1965, by contrast, it took a CEO two weeks to earn a worker's annual pay". US CEOs' pay rose 313 percent from 1990 to 2003, an advocacy group UFE said. By contrast, the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index rose 242 percent and corporate profits gained 128 percent.
Around the rest of the world, Latin America is the leader in pay disparity, though even it doesn't come close to the U.S. At the other end of the spectrum, Japan has the smallest gap between CEO and average-worker pay.
The calculations below are based on on estimates by the consulting firm Towers Perrin as of Apr. 1, 2000. Average employees were assumed to be working in industrial companies with about $500 million in annual sales.
Country CEO compensation as a multiple of average employee compensation
Brazil 57
Venezuela 54
South Africa 51
Argentina 48
Malaysia 47
Mexico 45
Hong Kong 38
Singapore 37
Britain 25
Thailand 23
Australia 22
Netherlands 22
Canada 21
China (Shanghai) 21
Belgium 19
Italy 19
Spain 18
New Zealand 16
France 16
Taiwan 15
Sweden 14
Germany 11
South Korea 11
Switzerland 11
Japan 10
I don't know who said it, but someone was quoted as saying that the US is no longer a melting pot but more of a "salad bowl" with all the ingredients separated distinctly. I thought that comment had some truth to it. Being a child of the 70s and 80s and located in a metropolitan area, the melting pot seemed to be a reality back then - now, well, I am not so sure.
You are absolutely correct--the "melting pot", once a "given", is now thought of as hopelessly out-dated and even racist. Canada, in fact (always determined to avoid "our" more egregious errors) openly embraces the "salad bowl" model, for better or for worse. There are conflicting reports on how well it is working.
But in many ways, Canada's society is not "holding together" all that well. Remember that there was a rather nasty "separatism" movement up there a few years back. Not everyone is happy with bilingualism, and many Canadians have complained that their nation lacks a true culture that makes it "distinctly Canadian".
The point is that open, liberal, multi-ethnic, and non-judgemental societies like Canada and the USA have very little holding them together except a sort of agreed-upon "unity". In other words, we all AGREE to downplay our differences in order to "work together" in some sort of harmonious "whole". Just how far can we go in the "salad bowl" theory, before the onions, the endive, the garbanzos, the croutons, and the cherry tomatoes begin to work AGAINST each other?---No one really knows---and it's my belief that this sort of multiculturalist ideal has never yet been achieved anywhere. Nice idea, indeed, if it works---but there's a very scary list of "failures", and it will be a very tall order to fill.....Guess we'll find out.
Soooo, in Sweden a CEO typically earns 14 times more than a "regular" worker. Just ahead of my native Germany, where a CEO typically earns 11 times more, sounds like plenty to me.
Earning 531 (!!!!) times that of the regular hourly employee sounds totally absurd to me. Maybe if you were going to find the cure for cancer or make world peace possible. Otherwise... no way.
So please, if you are an OJ supporter, remember: OJ is part of the rich liberal America, the get-out-of-jail-free card America. The America that knows no law and no limits.
So what do yuo think? Is there a rich and liberal America and our America? Or that is just John Edwards' bumper sticker? OJ has his own America where he is immune from all crimes. Now we have a armed robbery OJ clearly committed and if liberal America has its way, they will claim racism and he will walk.
Let me try to help you out. In the real America, one you seem unfamiliar with, we actually have a system of justice, one in which innocence is presumed until proven otherwise, even of the lowest of the low. If you find that to be a poor system there's a very good chance you'd be more comfortable in a gulag somewhere over the rainbow.
Nirvana guy where do you come up with your material? Time and time again....just amazing. I am drawn to your posts like a car wreck. I know I will be both sickened and morbidly entertained.
"Our results suggest that the popular journalistic image of rich latte-drinking Democrats and poor NASCAR Republicans is a gross oversimplification," Park says. "Income varies far more within states than average income does between states, and it is these with-in-state variances that explain national voting patterns."
The bottom line, the study suggests, is that little has changed in terms of income's general influence on individual voting patterns: in every presidential election since 1952, the richer a voter is, the more likely that voter is to vote Republican, regardless of ethnicity, sex, education or age.
What's changing, the researchers argue, is how differences in income are playing out at the county and state levels. A key finding is that relative income is a much stronger predictor of voting preferences in poor states than it is in rich states.
"We find that income matters more in 'red' America than in 'blue' America," the researchers explain. "In poor states, rich people are much more likely than poor people to vote for the Republican presidential candidate, but in rich states (such as Connecticut), income has a very low correlation with vote preference."
In Connecticut, one of the nation's richer states, researchers found little difference between the voting patterns of the state's richest and poorest residents. In Mississippi, the nation's poorest state, they found dramatic income-related differences, with rich voters twice as likely as poor to vote Republican.
What do you mean by "cannot earm more than their employees? Do you have a link to this law?
Check out their tax law - excess is taxed
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