Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Yeah, James Webb's Wall Street Journal op-ed was quite a blast of old-style concern for the little guy:

...Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.

... Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all. ...


I'm counting the days until the Journal editorial page, or some other right-wing organ, strikes back. The response won't be from a Republican -- that would be too obvious. No, a Democrat will be found -- maybe Robert Rubin or Robert Reich, or some other believer in the basic structures of the current economic order. That Democrat will harshly denounce Webb, focusing in partcular on his critique of globalization and outsourcing, and warning the new Democratic congressional majorities that questioning the status quo in this way is a "dangerous road" that must not be taken.

I don't care. If Webb is going to point out that this system isn't working for ordinary Americans, I'm with Webb. Give 'em hell, Jim.

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