I'm going to stray away from my typical religious intolerance theme today but keep the topic here in the United States. Since 2008, maybe even a bit before that, the United States and other countries have been in a recession, the worst since the Depression of the 1920s and 1930s. I saw a mind boggling statistic the other day at the end of the documentary "Waiting for Superman". This statistic stated that the salary of a CEO is 317 times greater than that of a regular employee. Think about this; according to the US Census, the average household income in the United States for 2009 was $49,777 with married households having the largest average income at $71,830. Now, if we take just an employee with a salary of $30,000, the average CEO would have a salary of $9.5 million a year. If you look at the larger picture, not just at Everyday Joe getting screwed, the larger salaries of executives correlates with the globalization of these corporations, also known as outsourcing. Corporations tell the public that they cannot afford to pay American workers salaries, that is because they are busy padding the pockets of their executives who sit in their ivory towers lighting their cigars with $100 bills. If just the CEO were to take a pay cut to $3 million a year, that would put $6.5 million back into the company allowing the company to pay for 217 employees with a salary of $30,000 annually (granted it would not be an even trade because some money would need to be used for benefits, still it is a significant amount of employees). This would stimulate the global economy. More Americans would be off of unemployment, less tax money would be needed to support welfare along with public health care, there would be fewer foreclosures because people would have income. Ask yourself, do executives truly deserve the outrageous salaries they are getting? What is it that they do that warrants such a high pay out? Is it the fact that they outsource jobs to India, China, Indonesia and other parts of the world saving their stockholders money? Look at the home front; there will come a point where so many Americans are unemployed due to outsourcing that they will not be able to buy the product your corporation produces, and with the $5 a week salary you pay outsources, they won't be able to purchase your products either. So, executives, are you looking for short term or long term gain with the strategy you're implementing. We know you're looking out for #1, but are you looking out for the well being of the American, and global, economy?
I know what I'm about to say is against the free market. We don't need anymore government bailout funding to stimulate the economy. If Republicans are looking at cutting spending and wanting to cut spending on public projects such as Medicare, Medicade and unemployment benefits, put the pressure on companies to hire American workers. I know it is these same people the contributed to your campaigns, but if you truly want to help America with the deficit that it has created, don't just cut the program spending without giving people another option to make up for what is being lost. Some people have been unemployed for more than 2 years simply because there are very few jobs out there to be had. States are running out of money providing unemployment benefits. The true stimulation is job creation and Republicans are against government projects to create jobs, so the only other option is the private sector. This is your time to step up and do what's right for your country.
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