Are the Unemployed Human Waste?

It would seem that at the very least, 46 million Americans are a waste of potential labor. What could 46 million people do, what could they build, what could they accomplish if they were paid a "living wage" to do something besides collect unemployment benefits, live off of food stamps, or receive some other type of financial assistance - and be a burden to their families and the rest of society? Instead, they've been swept under the carpet and many are no longer even being acknowledged as a number by their own government. They just miraculously disappeared...they've been ERASED.

America's Class Society in 2011

 

Today in the New York Times: "A recent article by David Wessel of The Wall Street Journal provided startling evidence of the impact of globalization. His analysis of data from the Commerce Department indicates that major multinational corporations cut their employment in the United States by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million. This is a big change from the 1990s, when those corporations added 4.4 million jobs in the United States and 2.7 million abroad."

That's over 5 million jobs gone from our shores just since the 90's; and that's 5 million people not shopping, going to the movies, buying cars and homes, and spending money in America....how many other jobs could 5 million people have created just by living and working here, rather than in China, India, or elsewhere? And with all those jobs, how much revenue could have been created and added to the extra corporate taxes paid to the U.S. Treasury? (That is, if the corporations didn't have the same tax loop-holes as GE, Boeing, and Bank of America - and actually PAID taxes to U.S. Treasury.)

Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric (GE), emphasized that his company goes abroad in search of new "markets" rather than cheap labor. “Today we go to Brazil, we go to China, we go to India, because that’s where the customers are."

Hey asshole, the customers are there because the damn jobs are there! America currently lacks about 46 million under-employed and unemployed "customers" - - - they can't afford to buy squat because you either shipped off their jobs for cheaper labor or you under-paid them here in America. Don't add insult to injury by lying, and also saying "we lacked the necessary job skills" and had to be more "mobile". China's middle-class is on the rise and is predicted to over-take America's in a few short years, and that's not by accident. It's because of lying corporate CEOs like Jeffrey Immelt.

Nancy Folbre concludes in here article Super Sad True Jobs Story : "As all businesses become more footloose, they have less incentive to support public spending on education, health, human services or social safety nets, including unemployment insurance. Un-needed as workers, the unemployed also become superfluous as consumers and burdensome as citizens. Cutting unemployment benefits (as was just accomplished in Michigan and is well under way in Florida) becomes just another means of cutting losses."

In other words, America's unemployed were tossed out with the rest of the trash while the rich get richer and paid less in taxes....then blamed the unemployed for being unemployed. Mister Immelt, go fuck yourself!

America's Class Society in 2011
Percent of workforce	Based on a 154 million work force (½ the U.S. population, rounded to the nearest million)
America has almost 15% unemployed	7 million who exhausted all UI benefits (includes about 2 million actual "99ers") 8 million still on state or extended benefits until the end of the year 8 million previously jobless and/or forced into early SS retirement or SS disability 23 million people TOTAL (Poor, most uninsured for healthcare)
America has about 15% under-employed	Another 23 million people struggling and working low-wage jobs or two "McJobs" trying to make ends meet (used to be lower-middle class, but are now lower class - "The Working Poor", also may be without healthcare)
America has about 50% who are gainfully employed	77 million who feel no sympathy or empathy, just apathy for the unemployed and poor. They had felt little pain from the Great Recession except for higher energy, food, and gasoline costs (those who had enough in-house seniority on the job and weren't laid off - and still think they're middle class*, but are lower middle class)
America has 15% earning $100,00 to $250,000 a year	23 million happy campers getting bargains on new homes and flat-screen TVs. Some may have only suffered only minor set backs in their IRAs...a mere inconvenience (doctors, lawyers, and members of congress)
America's 5% of the wealthiest individuals (see chart below)	8 million who got extended tax cuts and don't give a damn about the other 95% - the CEOs, bankers, and hedge-fund managers...the "job creators".

* More details here: Are You Middle Class?

2010 Average CEO Pay at S&P 500 Companies
Salary - Regular payroll taxes are paid (minus deductions) on wages, but above a fixed amount of $106,800 they are not subject to any Social Security tax; only a Medicare tax of 1.45% is withheld from these wages. This is what the Republicans want to eliminate while giving more tax breaks to the rich.	$1,093,989
Bonus - Only 15% in capital gains - No Social Security, Medicare tax, or other payroll taxes.	$251,413
Stock Awards - Only 15% in capital gains - No Social Security, Medicare tax, or other payroll taxes.	$3,833,052
Option Awards - Only 15% in capital gains - No Social Security, Medicare tax, or other payroll taxes.	$2,384,871
Non-equity Incentive Plan Compensation - Only 15% in capital gains - No Social Security, Medicare tax, or other payroll taxes.	$2,397,152
Pension and Deferred Compensation Earnings - No tax until retirement.	$1,182,057
All Other Compensation (3-Martini lunches?)	$215,911
TOTAL (on average) And the GOP wants to eliminate capital gains taxes entirely.	$11,358,445

* Source: AFL-CIO analysis of pay data from 299 companies, provided by http://www.salary.com

 

Last year in 2010 Obama's JOB CZAR, General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, was paid about $1,000 for every job he eliminated at GE. He earned $21 million to lay off 21,000 of GE's workers. What did he have to do, besides just sign a company memo? And GE paid no corporate taxes. (More on GE in the video below)

According to the Federal Reserve, U.S. corporations held a record $1.93 trillion in cash on their balance sheets in 2010. But they are not investing to expand their companies, grow the real economy or create good middle-class jobs. Corporate CEOs are literally hoarding their company’s cash—except when it comes to their own paychecks.

Fortunately, the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act contains new tools to help limit runaway CEO pay.  Shareholders now have a “say-on-pay” vote on executive compensation, and companies must disclose the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay at each company.

Top Ten Tax Evaders for 2010

 

1. Bank of America took $336 billion in bailouts in 2009, but in 2010, flush with $4.4 billion in profits, it paid no taxes. Even Forbes magazine asked, how is that possible? Probably thanks to their 115 offshore tax havens. 

2. Boeing just received $35 billion from our government to build 179 airborne tankers, but despite nearly $10 billion in profits from 2008 to 2010, it too paid no taxes, again thanks to foreign tax havens. 

3. Citicorp took $476 billion from the bailout and then made monster profits in 2010, yet it paid no taxes, thanks to 427 subsidiaries in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Hong Kong. 

4. Exxon/Mobil, received huge oil subsidies from the government and earned $45 billion in 2009 but paid no taxes, again thanks to stashing profits in places like the Bahamas and Singapore. 

5. GE – $15 billion in profits last year, paid ZERO in taxes.

6. Google utilizes a technique that moves most of its income through Ireland and Netherlands to Bermuda, making its tax rate 2.3 percent. 

7. Mega Pharmaceuticals Merck earned $9 billion in profits and paid no taxes in 2010, while Pfizer (largest drug maker) owed $10 billion in taxes but found the necessary loopholes to pay no taxes, thanks to its offshore subsidiaries in places like Luxembourg and the Isle of Jersey. 

8. News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch’s media monolith that owns Fox News avoids paying American taxes through its 152 subsidiaries in tax havens from the British Virgin Islands to Hong Kong. 

9. Verizon, despite making $24.2 billion in pre-tax U.S. income, paid no taxes and actually claimed a federal refund of $1.3 billion for the last two years, again all thanks to those offshore subsidiaries. 

10. Wells Fargo, the fourth largest bank in the US, which took $107 billion in bailouts, wrote off all its losses by acquiring Wachovia, thus paying no taxes. Yet its CEO earned $5.6 million in cash for his salary and $13 million in stock.

"So where are our elected officials and loud mouth politicians on this topic? Pretty quiet, aren’t they?"
See: How Corporations Get Away with It

READ: Please Raise My Taxes - "We have this whole national debt beast, and the wealthy aren’t going to build dams and dikes." (Or do anything else for this country - not while they continue to lobby for lower taxes and out-source our jobs.)

CEOs like Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric tossed the unemployed into the damn garbage can like yesterday's rotten and smelly trash - 46 million real American human-beings of all age and sex, from all walks of life, of every race, of every level of education, and of all job experience. Just like Nancy Folbre said in her article today: "Burdensome citizens." Mister Immelt might call me human waste. I'm sure he wouldn't have any problem at all tossing 46 million Americas into the sea like Osama Bin Laden, so long as he get HIS fat paycheck.