Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 2. Juli 2009
/ Time Line July 2, 2009
Version 3.5
1. Juli 2009, 3. Juli 2009
07/02/2009
U. S. on the Fourth of July: More Unequal than Ever
By Don Monkerud
In June 2009, the U.S. economy saw its second steepest decline in
27 years. New jobless claims increased, business inventories fell
and exports plunged as bad economic news persisted.
Will the once high-flying American wealth machine continue to
produce the vast inequalities of the past?
Only two years ago, Steve Forbes, CEO of Forbes magazine, declared
2007 "the richest year ever in human history." During eight years
of the Bush Administration, the 400 richest Americans, who now own
more than the bottom 150 million Americans, increased their net
worth by $700 billion. In 2005, the top one percent claimed 22
percent of the national income, while the top ten percent took half
of the total income, the largest share since 1928.
In June 2009, the Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Report estimated the
number of the world's wealthiest people declined by 15 percent, the
steepest decline in the report's 13-year history. The number of
millionaires in the U.S. fell by 19 percent to 2.5 million
people.
Analysts tell us the economy is being restructured, but how will
the disparities in wealth between the rich and the poor play
out?
"The source of wealth has changed over the past thirty years;
corporations have become the engine of inequality in the U.S.,"
says Sam Pizzigati, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy
Studies in Washington D.C. "In the past, wealth came from
ownership: Today it comes increasingly from income."
The highest incomes come from executive pay at top corporations. In
2007, the ratio of CEO pay to the average paycheck was 344 to one,
lower than the record 525 to one ratio set in 2001, but
substantial. This year's ratio is estimated to decrease to 317 to
one. In the 60s, 70s and 80s, the average ratio fluctuated between
30 and 40 to 1.
Over 40 percent of GNP comes from Fortune 500 companies. According
to the World Institute for Development Economics Research, the 500
largest conglomerates in the U.S. "control over two-thirds of the
business resources, employ two-thirds of the industrial workers,
account for 60 percent of the sales, and collect over 70 percent of
the profits."
Corporations systematically created a wealth gap over the last 30
years. In 1955, IRS records indicated the 400 richest people in the
country were worth an average $12.6 million, adjusted for
inflation. In 2006, the 400 richest increased their average to $263
million, representing an epochal shift of wealth upward in the
U.S.
In 1955, the richest tier paid an average 51.2 percent of their
income in taxes under a progressive federal income tax that
included loopholes. By 2006, the richest paid only 17.2 percent of
their income in taxes. In 1955, the proportion of federal income
from corporate taxes was 33 percent; by 2003, it decreased to 7.4
percent. Today, the top taxpayers pay the same percentage of their
incomes in taxes as those making $50,000 to $75,000, although they
doubled their share of total U.S. income.
"Over the past 30 years, the income of the top one percent,
adjusted for inflation, doubled: the top one-tenth of one percent
tripled, and the one-one-hundredth quadrupled," says Pizzigati.
"Meanwhile, the average income of the bottom 90 percent has gone
down slightly. This is a stunning transformation."
Meanwhile, wages for most Americans didn't improve from 1979 to
1998, and the median male wage in 2000 was below the 1979 level,
despite productivity increases of 44.5 percent. Between 2002 and
2004, inflation-adjusted median household income declined $1669 a
year. To make up for lost income, credit card debt soared 315
percent between 1989 and 2006, representing 138 percent of
disposable income in 2007.
According to Pizzigati, the wealth disparity is the result of
corporations squeezing more profits from workers.
"In the past corporations laid off workers because business was
bad," Pizzigati says. "But over the past few decades, downsizing
has been a corporate wealth generating strategy. Today, CEOs don't
spend their time making trying to make better products: they
maneuver to take over other companies, steal their customers and
fire their workers."
Progressive taxation used to prevent the rich from capturing a
disproportionate share of national compensation, and the labor
movement, which represented 35 percent of private sector employees
and today represents 8 percent, once served as a political force to
limit excessive executive pay. The Reagan backlash cut the top
income tax rates, and saw the creation of right-wing think tanks
that spent $30 billion over the past 30 years, propagandizing for
deregulation, privatization, and wealth worship.
Bubble economies over the past 30 years helped CEOs pump up their
income, and efforts to corral their pay are weak and ineffective.
CEO pay may fall during these economic hard times, but disparity
isn't going away. Without a strong movement for change, the wealth
gap will only increase in this downturn.
"There won't be a restructuring of the economy unless we take on
executive compensation," concludes Pizzigati. "Outrageously large
rewards give executives an incentive to behave outrageously. If we
allow these incentives to continue, we will just see more of the
reckless behavior that has driven the global economy into the
ditch."
07/02/2009
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines signs Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is the 181st State to have signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). The signing ceremony took place on 2 July 2009 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
30 of the 33 States in Latin America and the Caribbean are now Signatories to the CTBT and 28 of those have already ratified it. The three remaining non-signatories are Cuba, Dominica, and Trinidad and Tobago.
With 181 signatories, adherence to the CTBT is almost universal. To enter into force, however, the Treaty must be signed and ratified by the 44 States listed in Annex 2 to the Treaty. These States participated in the negotiations of the Treaty in 1996 and possessed nuclear power or research reactors at the time. Thirty-five of these States have ratified the Treaty, including the three nuclear weapon States France, Russian Federation and the United Kingdom. The remaining nine States are China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States.
07/02/2009
Romania has become the latest nation to be stripped of highly enriched uranium, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration announced today.
07/02/2009
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