Health insurance reform ad

Title: Why People Are Going Hungry in the Land of Plenty - A look at living wages
Source: Alternet
Date: July 4, 2009

From the article:

The U.S. government’s official poverty line in 2008 was $10,590 for a single person, $13,540 for a couple, $16,530 for a family of three, and $21,203 for a family of four. And the Census Bureau estimated that over 37 million Americans (including noncitizen residents) were living at or below these income levels. But that only hinted at the growing scale of American poverty. Economists such as Bob Pollin, codirector of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, believed many tens of million Americans more were living on incomes that, while they might meet a denuded government “minimum-wage” threshold, in reality couldn’t be expected to meet a family’s basic needs.

Pollin’s team calculated that a single person needed to earn ten dollars an hour to achieve even a semblance of economic security; and, as with the poverty line, so with this measure, which he called a “living wage,” the dollar amount would go up as the number of people in the family increased.

Golden parachutes of bankers

Title: Golden Parachutes: How the Bankers Went Down
Source: Mint
Date: 2/24/2009

From the article:

When high-ranking executives are fired from a company, for whatever reason, they don’t go to the back of the unemployment line. Instead, they typically receive compensation in the form of the “golden parachute.” Golden parachutes can include severance pay, cash bonuses, stock options or other benefits. In the case of the financial crisis and the ensuing bank failures, if it seems like these executives are being rewarded for poor performance, you may be right. Here’s a look at what some bankers made on their way down.

Corporate criminality

Title: The Case for Giving Eli Lilly the Corporate Death Penalty
Source: Alternet
Date: March 3, 2009

From the article:

If Americans are ever going to revoke the publicly granted charters of reckless, giant corporations -- well within our rights -- we might want to get the ball rolling with Lilly, whose recent actions appalled even the mainstream media. And with Lilly's chums, the Bush family, out of power, now might be the right time.

On January 15, 2009, Lilly pled guilty to charges that it had illegally marketed its blockbuster drug Zyprexa for unapproved uses to children and the elderly, two populations especially vulnerable to its dangerous side effect [cardiac arrest].

Mayor of Lansing, Michigan

Title: Disney CEO Iger's 2008 compensation: $51.1M
Source: Yahoo finance
Date: Jan 17, 2009

From the article:

The Walt Disney Co.'s chief executive, Robert Iger, received a compensation package valued at $51.1 million in fiscal 2008, up 85 percent from a year earlier

Title: Glenn Greenwald Talks To Bill Moyers About The Rule of Law
Source: Bill Moyers
Date: December 14, 2008

From the article:

What you have is a two-tiered system of justice where ordinary Americans are subjected to the most merciless criminal justice system in the world. They break the law. The full weight of the criminal justice system comes crashing down upon them. But our political class, the same elites who have imposed that incredibly harsh framework on ordinary Americans, have essentially exempted themselves and the leaders of that political class from the law.

Title: 38 More AIG Execs Get Bonuses, Some Up To $4 Million
Source: Bloomberg
Date: Dec 9, 2008

From the article:

American International Group Inc., the insurer whose bonuses and perks are under fire from U.S. lawmakers, offered cash awards to another 38 executives in a retention program with payments of as much as $4 million.

Title: Drug firms 'block cheap medicine'
Source: BBC
Date: 11/28/2008

From the article:

Drug companies are blocking or delaying the entry of cheaper generic medicines into the EU, pushing up medicine bills, the European Commission has said.

Japan Airline CEO

Title: Japan Airline's CEO Slashes his Pay Below the Pay of Pilots
Date: November 22, 2008

The opposite of the concentration of wealth:

Wall street bonuses

Title: Hard Times, But Big Wall Street Bonuses
Source: CBS News
Date: Nov 12, 2008

From the article:

For Wall Street workers still employed, there could be a hefty bonus in their checks next month.

According to a report from financial news agency Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, for example, has set aside $6.8 billion for bonuses, and Morgan Stanley, $6.4 billion.

Goldman bonuses

Title: Goldman Sachs ready to hand out £7bn salary and bonus package... after its £6bn bail-out
Source: Mail Online
Date: October 30, 2008

From the article:

Goldman Sachs is on course to pay its top City bankers multimillion-pound bonuses - despite asking the U.S. government for an emergency bail-out...

Each of the firm's 443 partners is on course to pocket an average Christmas bonus of more than £3million.

Executive bonuses

Title: How Washington's Bailout Will Boost Wall Street Bonuses
Source: Time
Date: October 27, 2008

From the article:

Uncle Sam has a new name on Wall Street — Sugar Daddy. Bonuses for investment bankers and traders are projected to fall by 40% this year. But analysts, compensation consultants and recruiters say the drop would be much more severe, perhaps as much as 70%, had it not been for the government's efforts to prop up the financial firms. "Year-end pay on Wall Street will be higher than it would have been had it not been for the government and mergers," says Alan Johnson, a leading compensation consultant. "You would expect it to be down much more."

Johnson predicts the average managing director at an investment bank, a title typically earned around eight years on the job, will receive a bonus of $625,000. That's down from nearly $1.1 million last year, but it is still 15 times the income of the average American household. Top bankers could receive as much as $1 million. Even a bond trader just out of business school could see his or her bank account enriched by as much as $170,000 this Christmas. "The firms have had an extremely difficult year," says Joan Zimmerman, a Wall Street career coach. "But they can't afford to lose talent either."

Title: Widening Gap between Rich and Poor: US cities now compare to African cities
Source: TPM
Date: October 23, 2008

From the article:

Another "Banana Republican" sign: According to a new UN report, as reported in The Guardian, US cities such as New York, Atlanta, New Orleans, Washington, and Miami, now rank among the world's greatest - in terms of disparity of income. We knew this gap was growing in the US. But did we know that many of our largest cities now compare to cities in Africa in terms of disparities between rich and poor? Did we realize that race was a significant factor in these disparities?

See also: Wealth gap creating a social time bomb

Zero corporate taxes

Title: Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes
Source: Reuters
Date: August 12, 2008

From the article:

Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said.

Title: 'Your company is bankrupt, you keep $480m. Is that fair?'
Source: Guardian
Date: 10/7/2008

From the article:

The chairman of the committee held up a chart suggesting that Fuld's personal remuneration totalled $480m (£276m) over eight years, including payouts of $91m in 2001 and $89m in 2005.

"Your company is now bankrupt and our country is in a state of crisis," said Waxman, a liberal from California. "You get to keep $480m. I have a very basic question: Is that fair?"

Title: Their companies went belly-up, but they walked away with a fortune
Source: MSNBC
Date: 10/1/2008

From the article:

Even as some of the nation’s biggest financial firms were hitting the skids, the CEOs who ran these companies were cashing in.

Here’s a list of chief executives who oversaw monumental failures that led the nation’s financial system to the edge but were still able to walk away with big payouts.

Title: Wall Street is burning, but these fat cats will be just fine
Source: Network World
Date: September 18, 2004

From the article:

With the failures of Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this month, reams of Wall Street IT executives are out of work or soon will be. While financial services CIOs and their staff polish their resumes and ponder what's left of their retirement savings, we thought it might be interesting to look at how much money their bosses made last year. Read on to find out what 9 Wall Street chiefs cost their companies in 2007, once their salaries, bonuses, stock awards and more are added together.

The Vanishing Republican Voter

Title: The Vanishing Republican Voter
Source: NY Times
Date: September 5, 2008

From the article:

As America becomes more unequal, it also becomes less Republican. The trends we have dismissed are ending by devouring us.

Title: T. Boone Pickens wants your water
Source: Dcexaminer.com
Date: August 26, 2008

From the article:

Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is about to make a killing by selling water he doesn’t own.