At last, some uplifting economic news – a sign that the economy is really starting to hum again!
Forbes magazine reports that there are 199 more billionaires this year than last. Moreover, the combined wealth of the world’s 1,210 billionaires now totals $4.5 trillion dollars, up by nearly a trillion dollars from a year ago. So, see, the economy is not stuck in the doldrums, as so many party-poopers keep saying.
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Also, with an average of $3.7 billion in their bank accounts, you can just bet that these über-rich folks will be spending like crazy, and you know what that means, don’t you? It means that their vast piles of wealth will soon begin to tinkle down on you and me – just you wait and see!
And wait. And wait. And keep waiting.
Workers in our country have been dramatically increasing their productivity since the highly-ballyhooed economic recovery began about 20 months ago, generating billions of dollars in new wealth. Yet, wages have stayed stagnant. Practically none of the increased wealth from worker productivity gains has gone to the workers. Instead, 94 percent of the money has been siphoned off by the corporate powers for such things as fattening profits at a record pace and jacking up CEO pay to exorbitant levels. Also, nearly $2 trillion of the gains have simply been stashed in the corporate vaults, rather than using it for wage hikes or new job creation.
And even the little bit of job creation that is taking place is “bottom heavy” – 40 percent of the jobs lost in the recent economic crash were higher-paying positions, but 49 percent of the new jobs are low-paying.
So we see corporations and billionaires wallowing in fabulous new wealth, while productive workers fall out of the middle class. That’s not a recovery, it’s a robbery.
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