Jim Webb: Closet Conservative Republican?

[link|http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/15/22659/378|Kos doesn't think so]:

Quoting [link|http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009246|Webb's WSJ OpEd]:

BY JIM WEBB
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

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.

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. 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.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate "reorganization." And workers' ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.

[...]

He's addressing things that need to be addressed by more than the handful of people who have thus far (Edwards, especially). Here's hoping that his recent celebrity enables him to get traction on these issues.

Cheers,
Scott.

Post #273,337 by Another Scott 11/15/06 7:09:08 AM Reply	Jim Webb: Closet Conservative Republican? [link\|http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/15/22659/378\|Kos doesn't think so]: Quoting [link\|http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009246\|Webb's WSJ OpEd]: BY JIM WEBB Wednesday, November 15, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes. 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. In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. 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. Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate "reorganization." And workers' ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants. [...] He's addressing things that need to be addressed by more than the handful of people who have thus far (Edwards, especially). Here's hoping that his recent celebrity enables him to get traction on these issues. Cheers, Scott.
Post #273,353 by inthane-chan 11/15/06 12:59:19 PM Reply	Oh, trickle-down economics worked just fine. It's just that it worked in the way the authors intended, as opposed to how they said it would work. Odoru aho ni miru aho! Onaji aho nara odoranya son son!
Post #273,382 by Ashton 11/15/06 9:49:31 PM Reply	V. nice - a keeper. Imagine - a succinct pol putting an Occam razor-slash to the spreadsheet Econ Theory of Mathematical Goodness - in a handful of complete grammatical sentences. Pity that the Bad (language) drives out the Good (is that the only useful Econ maxim - or did I miss the other one?)

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