I don’t usually blog about my political opinions but I have to deliver my rant today!.
Every morning when I open the half and half for my coffee I am frustrated with the latest version of poor quality bottle caps that are increasing hard to get back on the container. As packaging of many food items degrade, the amounts in those containers is less but costs more! The same thing is happening with juice, milk, coffee, toilet paper and so on.
“For years the standard bottle of cold-pressed juice has been 16 or 17 ounces (often times “16 oz” bottles are actually 16.7), but lately you may have noticed a trend – the bottles are getting smaller, and coming in at around 12 oz / 350 ml.” Charlie Wetlander, goodnature.com
“In the never ending saga of products shrinking in size as a means to pass on a sneaky price increase to consumers, we offer these three new ones thanks to our eagle-eyed readers.”
Are you as outraged about the deterioration of American products as I am? Is there any question that we are being ripped off by corporate America across the range of issues from product decline to pay inequality?
Coinciding with this price disparity, is the spiraling wage gap between CEOs and workers.
Jason Wingard wrote,
“Three decades ago, the average CEO earned 58 times what the average worker did; today, they earn 200 times what their workers do. “
“Leaders should consider that — and all of the aforementioned factors — when examining their executive compensation packages. As Abigail Disney pointedly said to Congress last year: “This is not just a question of what is moral or what is right. There’s an important economic case to be made for addressing inequality across the spectrum. In tolerating such extreme unfairness, we have begun to cannibalize the very people that make this economy thrive.”
So, what is Congress doing about the wage gap?
Martin Levine writes: “Earlier this month, the struggle to reduce US economic inequality took one modest step forward. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), chair of the US Senate Budget Committee, introduced the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act, which seeks to curb runaway executive compensation, an accomplishment that eluded reformers during the Great Recession a decade ago.”
Janet Nguyen wrote: https://www.marketplace.org/2021/05/20/what-if-the-u-s-had-a-national-maximum-wage/
Pizzigati thinks individual tax rates can be considered a form of maximum wage, too. He said that in 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt called for a 100% tax on incomes above $25,000, which would equal about $400,000 now, adjusting for inflation.
Pizzigati said Roosevelt wasn’t able to achieve that, but he noted that the marginal tax rate reached 94% during World War II and remained around 90% for the next 20 years.
When it comes to reducing inequality, the debate often leads back to using taxes to achieve this goal. There’s a reason “Tax the rich” has become a familiar rallying cry.
Biden Touts Huge Infrastructure Plan
What is President Biden doing? The main thrust of his proposal, to raise the minimum wage of workers, seems to be defeated and he’s pushing the Gender Gap.
He’s supporting unions in their struggle to raise incomes and worker compensation. However, progressives are pushing for more, particularly taxing the rich and redistributing it the poor and disadvantaged. Senator Warren proposes a wealth tax: 2% on households worth $50M; !% surtax on households worth $1B+ and would raise $3 trillion.
Biden”s PRO Act is stuck in the Senate right now.
https://fortune.com/2021/03/19/bernie-sanders-ceo-pay-disparity-corporate-tax/
Biden plans a huge infrastructure plan that would be financed by increased corporate taxes..
https://kdminer.com/news/2021/apr/01/biden-touts-huge-infrastructure-plan-win-future/
“It’s not a plan that tinkers around the edges,” Biden said. “It’s a once-in-a-generation investment in America unlike anything we’ve seen or done since we built the interstate highway system and the space race decades ago. In fact, it’s the largest American jobs investment since World War II. It will create millions of jobs, good-paying jobs.”
President Biden, written By JONATHAN LEMIRE, KEVIN FREKING and ZEKE MILLER, Associated Press
So, we’re back to what else is Congress doing?
According to Jessica Smith
·Chief Political Correspondent
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and several Democratic lawmakers re-introduced legislation on Wednesday that would raise taxes on companies that pay their CEOs more than 50 times the pay of a median worker. Sanders unveiled the bill hours before leading a Senate Budget Committee hearing focused on income and wealth inequality.
“Corporate executives have padded their pockets with hefty paychecks and over-the-top compensation packages, while American workers, who helped generate record corporate profits, have hardly seen their wages budge,” said Sen. Warren in a press release. “We need to take dramatic steps to address wealth inequality in this country and discouraging massive executive payouts is a good place to start.”
Sanders, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, introduced the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act
“The bill, which Sanders said could raise as much as $150 billion over 10 years, would also work to reduce growing income inequality.”
We need to actively support this legislation! I’m with Berkley Bedell!
“I ran a business. I know a CEO doesn’t need to make 1,000 times more than his workers.”
Berkley Bedell, Opinion contributor
Turtlemoon Impressions 
There is a strong will within the Democratic Party to even the playing field, but the Republicans won’t let it happen. And a great portion of America still foolishly dreams of Kardashian-like riches for themselves and doesn’t want to tax the rich in case they win the lottery some day. “Get real” isn’t popular these days.
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Yes! The need to secure the ego is strong in many! Fear of losing what they have and how they perceive themselves as “successful” determines their behaviors and roles they play out. It’s so strong, they can’t allow reality that exists in the actual world they live in, to seep into the reality as they want it to be. It’s hard (usually impossible) to cut through that kind of fear! I see it in my own family and it breaks my heart.
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