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Title: CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...
Source:
Business Insider
URL Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/what ... re-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1
Published: Oct 20, 2011
Author: Business Insider
Post Date: 2011-10-20 08:57:22 by go65
Keywords: None
Views: 1667
Comments: 7
The "Occupy Wall Street" protests are gaining momentum, having spread from a small park in New York to marches to other cities across the country.
So far, the protests seem fueled by a collective sense that things in our economy are not fair or right. But the protesters have not done a good job of focusing their complaints—and thus have been skewered as malcontents who don't know what they stand for or want.
(An early list of "grievances" included some legitimate beefs, but was otherwise just a vague attack on "corporations." Given that these are the same corporations that employ more than 100 million Americans and make the products we all use every day, this broadside did not resonate with most Americans).
So, what are the protesters so upset about, really?
Do they have legitimate gripes?
To answer the latter question first, yes, they have very legitimate gripes.
And if America cannot figure out a way to address these gripes, the country will likely become increasingly "de-stabilized," as sociologists might say. And in that scenario, the current protests will likely be only the beginning.
The problem in a nutshell is this: Inequality in this country has hit a level that has been seen only once in the nation's history, and unemployment has reached a level that has been seen only once since the Great Depression. And, at the same time, corporate profits are at a record high.
In other words, in the never-ending tug-of-war between "labor" and "capital," there has rarely—if ever—been a time when "capital" was so clearly winning.
Image: St. Louis Fed
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Image: David Ruccio
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Image: AP
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Image: Institutional Risk Analytics
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Image: Reuters (Felix Salmon)
Image: The Big Picture
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Let's start with the obvious: Unemployment. Three years after the financial crisis, the unemployment rate is still at the highest level since the Great Depression (except for a brief blip in the early 1980s)
Jobs are scarce, so many adults have given up looking for them. Thus, a sharp decline in the "participation ratio."
And it's not like unemployment these days is a quick, painful jolt: A record percentage of unemployed people have been unemployed for longer than 6 months.
And it's not just construction workers who can't find jobs. The median duration of all unemployment is also near an all-time high.
That 9% rate, by the way, equates to 14 million Americans—people who want to work but can't find a job.
And that's just people who meet the strict criteria for "unemployed." Include people working part-time who want to work full-time, plus some people who haven't looked for a job in a while, and unemployment's at 17%
Put differently, this is the lowest percentage of Americans with jobs since the early 1980s (And the boom prior to that, by the way, was from women entering the workforce).
So that's the jobs picture. Not pretty.
And now we turn to the other side of this issue... the Americans for whom life has never been better. The OWNERS.
Corporate profits as a percent of the economy are near a record all-time high. With the exception of a brief happy period in 2007 (just before the crash), profits are higher than they've been since the 1950s. And they are VASTLY higher than they've been for most of the intervening half-century.
CEO pay is now 350X the average worker's, up from 50X from 1960-1985.
CEO pay has skyrocketed 300% since 1990. Corporate profits have doubled. Average "production worker" pay has increased 4%. The minimum wage has dropped. (All numbers adjusted for inflation).
After adjusting for inflation, average hourly earnings haven't increased in 50 years.
In short... while CEOs and shareholders have been cashing in, wages as a percent of the economy have dropped to an all-time low.
In other words, in the struggle between "labor" and "capital," capital has basically won. (This man lives in a tent city in Lakewood, New Jersey, about a hundred miles from Wall Street. He would presumably be "labor," except that he lost his job and can't find another one.)
Of course, life is great if you're in the top 1% of American wage earners. You're hauling in a bigger percentage of the country's total pre-tax income than you have at any time since the late 1920s. Your share of the national income, in fact, is almost 2X the long-term average!
And the top 0.1% in America are doing way better than the top 0.1% in other first-world countries.
In fact, income inequality has gotten so extreme here that the US now ranks 93rd in the world in "income equality." China's ahead of us. So is India. So is Iran.
And, by the way, few people would have a problem with inequality if the American Dream were still fully intact—if it were easy to work your way into that top 1%. But, unfortunately, social mobility in this country is also near an all-time low.
So what does all this mean in terms of net worth? Well, for starters, it means that the top 1% of Americans own 42% of the financial wealth in this country. The top 5%, meanwhile, own nearly 70%.
That's about 60% of the net worth of the country held by the top 5% (left chart).
And remember that huge debt problem we have—with hundreds of millions of Americans indebted up to their eyeballs? Well, the top 1% doesn't have that problem. They only own 5% of the country's debt.
And then there are taxes... It's a great time to make a boatload of money in America, because taxes on the nation's highest-earners are close to the lowest they've ever been.
The aggregate tax rate for the top 1% is lower than for the next 9%—and not much higher than it is for pretty much everyone else.
As the nation's richest people often point out, they do pay the lion's share of taxes in the country: The richest 20% pay 64% of the total taxes. (Lower bar). Of course, that's because they also make most of the money. (Top bar).
And now we come to the type of American corporation that gets—and deserves—a big share of the blame: The banks. Willie Sutton once explained that the reason he robbed banks was because "that's where the money is." The man knew what he was talking about.
Remember when we bailed out the banks? Yes, and remember the REASON we were told we had to bail out the banks? We had to bail out the banks, we were told, so that the banks could keep lending to American businesses. Without that lending, we were told, society would collapse...
So, did the banks keep lending? Um, no. Bank lending dropped sharply, and it has yet to recover.
So, what have banks been doing since 2007 if not lending money to American companies? Lending money to America's government! By buying risk-free Treasury bonds and other government-guaranteed securities.
And, remarkably, they've also been collecting interest on money they are NOT lending—the "excess reserves" they have at the Fed. Back in the financial crisis, the Fed decided to help bail out the banks by paying them interest on this money that they're not lending. And they're happily still collecting it. (It's AWESOME to be a bank.)
Meanwhile, of course, the banks are able to borrow money FOR FREE. Because the Fed has slashed rates to basically zero. And the banks have slashed the rates they pay on deposits to basically zero. So they can have all the money they want—for nearly free!
When you can borrow money for nothing, and lend it back to the government risk-free for a few percentage points, you can COIN MONEY. And the banks are doing that. According to IRA, the "net interest margin" made by US banks in the first six months of this year is $211 Billion. Nice!
And that has helped produce $58 billion of profit in the first six months of the year.
And it has helped generate near-record financial sector profits—while the rest of the country struggles with its 9% unemployment rate.
And these profits are getting back toward a record as a percentage of all corporate profits.
And those profits, of course, are AFTER the banks have paid their bankers. And it's still great to be a banker. The average banker in New York City made $361,330 in 2010. Not bad!
This average Wall Street salary was 6X the average private-sector salary (which, in turn, is actually lower than the average government salary, but that's a different issue).
So it REALLY doesn't suck to be a banker.
And so, in conclusion, we'll end with another look at the "money shot"—the one overarching reason the Wall Street protesters are so upset: Wages as a percent of the economy. Again, it's basically the lowest it has ever been.
So now you know what the protesters are upset about!
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#1. To: war, skip intro, jwpegler, godwinson, brian s, lucysmom, nolu chan (#0)
sorry for the capitalist eric style post, but i thought there's a lot of good info in here.
Tagline for sale - inquire within
Here is the part the GOP is starting to get... See, 30+ or so years ago the Reagonomics ideology took hold (Reaganomics as a catch all phrase of an idea like "Obamacare") where they GOP said that if we deregulate and move away from the FDR era thinking (less taxes, less govt, free businesses from oversight) the free market will boom and the incomes for all will rise. The GOP said that "Yes, the rich will get richer , but the rest will get richer also". So Americans - by and large - bought the idea. "Let's give it a whirl", they said. Rich started to get richer but it was not clear if the average American below the 1% was seeing any benefit. Data was not conclusive and by the 90s Reaganomics was showing failure to the middle class. Clinton gets elected but he continues more of the deregulation, and it coincides with bubble economy due to computer and internet technologies. So it seemed by the 90s the so called Reagonomic principals won. But, the Clinton era bubble masked the fact that the underlying structure of the economy was not sound. Even though the economy was booming, it was really not trickling down to the 99% at all. They were living off cheap credit to mask the income stagnation and decline. Then the economy crashed once and for all. It was a tsunami of a crash that wiped out the old infrastructure of the economy where few thing it will rise up again (jobs and industries are gone for good, probably never to return). So the GOP has to understand that the people were OK with the rich getting richer as long as they saw the "trickle down" as well. But that "trickle down" is not happening and as the data shows, never did happen. That lack of "trickle down" from the top 1% is a deal breaker and the GOP is afraid of the shift their polls tell them is happening, the rich are false gods who did not provide jobs in return for the worship to them granted by the GOP party priests and the 99% of the peasants that prayed at the feet of false idols and when the faithful find they have worshipped false gods the blowback will be apocalyptic. Revelation 6:5-6 When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”
"This is what economic policy in the West has become--a tool of the wealthy used to enrich themselves by spreading poverty among the rest of the population." Paul Craig Roberts
In other words, in the never-ending tug-of-war between "labor" and "capital," there has rarely—if ever—been a time when "capital" was so clearly winning. In a nutshell: Washingtonian Whores/Politicians - aka our "representatives" - have sold out American know-how, industry, and our entire economy to China, Mexico, and other Third World near slave-labor states. The day we agreed to give China "Most Favored Nation" trade status, adopted NAFTA, and engaged in one-way trade agreements with Third Worlders were the kiss of death for the American economy. IN A NUTSHELL, Ross Perot called it 20 years ago. Listen up again:
Why aren't the OWS Commie-pods marching at the epicenter of the economic treason - WASHINGTON, DC? *crickets* Cowardly Commie POS's. Just like YOU.
The day we agreed to give China "Most Favored Nation" trade status, adopted NAFTA, and engaged in one-way trade agreements with Third Worlders were the kiss of death for the American economy. hmmm, maybe there are ares where we can agree.
Tagline for sale - inquire within
The day we agreed to give China "Most Favored Nation" trade status, adopted NAFTA, and engaged in one-way trade agreements with Third Worlders were the kiss of death for the American economy. hmmm, maybe there are ares where we can agree. I'll agree with that too. Get rid of NAFTA etc. Practice economic nationalism.
Occasionally, you give me hope. Now if only you can remove the partisan blinders and see the corruption and agenda of h0bama and the Dems. They are continuing to undermine American business and industry by encouraging FOREIGN factory investment (as recently in Korea, Brazil, and Mexico.)
#2. To: go65, war, skip intro, jwpegler, brian s, lucysmom, nolu chan (#1)
#3. To: go65 (#0)
The problem in a nutshell is this: Inequality... [blah, blah, blah] corporate profits are at a record high.
#4. To: go65, LF's House Commies (#0)
#5. To: Liberator (#3)
Washingtonian Whores/Politicians - aka our "representatives" - have sold out American know-how, industry, and our entire economy to China, Mexico, and other Third World near slave-labor states.
#6. To: go65 (#5)
Washingtonian Whores/Politicians - aka our "representatives" - have sold out American know-how, industry, and our entire economy to China, Mexico, and other Third World near slave-labor states.
#7. To: go65 (#5)
hmmm, maybe there are ares where we can agree.
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