The Chinese economy "overheats." Economies are like cars sometimes, crashing, overheating, being driven ...
It's still a stupid economy. Bushonomics, ain't working. Energy policy and war carried out in secrecy. A sprawling black budget.
Wealth Concentration, Back to the Future:
Top 1% Share of Total Household Wealth, 1922-98
1922 36.7%
1929 44.2%
1933 33.3%
1939 36.4%
1945 29.8%
1949 27.1%
1953 31.2%
1962 31.8%
1965 34.4%
1969 31.1%
1972 29.1%
1976 19.9%
1979 20.5%
1981 24.8%
1983 30.9%
1986 31.9%
1989 35.7%
1992 37.2%
1995 38.5%
1998 38.1%
Who Benefited from the Stock Market Boom?
Distribution of Household Stock Market Gains, 1989-98, by Wealth Class
Top 1% 34.8%
Next 9% 37.7%
Next 10 % 14.0%
Bottom 80% 13.6%
Source: Mishel, Bernstein, and Boushey, The State of Working America 2002-03 (Cornell University Press: 2002), p. 291.
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Page 75 * Updated 2/18/04
Transnational Corporations: Large, and Getting Larger
Of the world's 100 largest economies in 2001, 47 are nations, and 53 are corporations.
Source: Institute for Policy Studies, 2004.
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Page 77 * Updated 2/10/04
The Republic of Wal-Mart?
With $245 billion in 2002 sales, Wal-Mart is the 19th largest economy in the world. It is larger than the economies of 190 countries, including Sweden ($230 billion), Austria ($203 billion), and Norway ($189 billion).
Source: Hoover's online (we used FY 2003 data because the fiscal year ends in January.) World Bank Development Indicators (PDF file)
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In 2003, 12.9 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, down from 13.3 percent in 2002, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of
Labor Statistics reported today. The number of persons belonging to a union fell by 369,000 over the year to 15.8 million in 2003.
The union membership rate has steadily declined from a high of 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
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Page 115 * Updated 12/5/02
The Minimum Wage and the Living Wage, 1968-2002
In 2002, the living wage was $8.70 an hour, and the minimum wage was $5.15 an hour. The minimum wage was 59% of the living wage.
Source: Living wage determined by dividing $18,100 (HHS poverty level for family of four) by 2080 hours (52 weeks X 40 hours).
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/Economic_Apartheid_Data.html#p53
The giant sucking sound is equity being pulled from our neighborhoods, out of your pocket and into the hands of the filthy rich who now battle it out for control of the nation's purse strings.