Doctor Butterfield’s Evil Stats

May 3, 2007 · Posted in Uncategorized

EVIDENCE OF THE CLASS WAR

–”An equitable [even] distribution of the country’s wealth would greatly harm 10% of the population, leave another 10% relatively unaffected, and overwhelmingly benefit the remaining 80%” (from data gathered by Patrick Colm Hogan in The Culture of Conformity)
–”The Labor Department ‘reports that…56,000 Americans’–well over twice the number killed in street homicides–’die every year on the job or from occupational diseases such as black lung, brown lung, asbestos and various occupationally induced cancers’ [and yet] ‘corporate violence that results in worker deaths rarely provokes criminal prosecutions…. Since the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) in 1970, 250,000 workers have died on the job…but only four people have done time for OSHA violations’” (from Patrick Colm Hogan, The Culture of Conformism)
–”Maximum prison sentence in months for causing the death of a U.S. worker by willfully violating federal safety regulations: 6″ (from Harpers Index, January 2004)
–”Maximum prison sentence in months for harassing a wild burro on federal lands: 12″ (from Harpers Index, January 2004)
–Although the poorest 50% of Americans pay a smaller percentage of their income taxes than do the richest 50%, as the Wallstreet Journal recently pointed out: “When both payroll and income taxes are considered, households with income below $50,000 per year have seen their aggregate federal tax burden increase between 1979 and 1999. Upper income households experienced a tax decrease. The top 1% of wealth holders now own nearly 40% of private wealth in this country, while the bottom 95% own about the same amount. Yet the top 1% pays less than 20% of the aggregate federal tax burden, when all taxes are considered.” (Deborah Grier, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law)
–”The richest one-quarter of 1 percent of Americans make 80 percent of the individual campaign contributions, thereby purchasing the allegiance of politicians who, when in office, pass laws that work to the benefit of the wealthy few.” (Patrick Colm Hogan in The Culture of Conformity, 7)
–”Percentage of Americans living below the poverty level who voted in the 2000 presidential election: 38″ (from Harpers Index, January 2004)
–”Percentage of Americans living at twice the poverty level who voted: 68″ (from Harpers Index, January 2004)
–”In the U.S., the lowest income quintile has lost 16 percent of its after-tax income in the seventeen years through 1994, while income of the top fifth rose 25 percent and that of the top one percent soared 72 percent….Fourteen percent of the population lives below the poverty line, up from 12 percent in 1979.” (NCLC Energy & Utility Update, v.16 no.2, Mar-Apr 1998, p. 3-7)
–”According to the UNDP, the top 20% of the world’s population benefits from 82.7% of the total world income. The bottom 20% subsists on 1.4%. (Harvard economist David Korten, LAPIS vol. 3, 1996)
–The world now has roughly 500 billionaires, and their combined wealth equals more than the annual incomes of the 3 billion poorest people (roughly half of the world’s population) combined. (See David Korten, LAPIS vol. 3, 1996, or The Ultimate Field Guide to the U.S. Economy, page 19)
–”Globalization has led to fierce competition among companies in nearly every aspect of their business-except executive pay. American companies are paying CEOs better than anywhere else in the world–and not 10 percent or 20 percent more, but 1,000 percent more and then some. According to Towers Perrin’s 1999 Worldwide Total Remuneration report, German CEOs make 13 times what the average manufacturing employee makes. In Japan, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio is just 11-to-1.”
–”In 1980 the American CEO to Worker pay ratio was 42 to 1. In 1999 the American CEO to Worker pay ratio was 475 to 1″ (Business Week)
–”Number of companies that controlled over half of all U.S. media outlets in 1983: 50″ (Harpers Index, March 2000)
–”Number that controlled over half of all U.S. media outlets last year: 6″ (Harpers Index, March 2000)
–”Ratio of Americans earning less than $22,600 to those earning more than $246,000: 40/1 (Harper’s Index, 1996)
–”Chance that a college student expects to be a millionaire by the age of 40: 1 in 2″ (Harpers Index, May 2000)
–The top 5% of all stock-owning households in the US own 94.5% of all stock held by individuals. (Doug Henwood, Wall Street)
–”The I.R.S. audited 1.36 percent of all tax returns filed by people making less than $25,000 last year, compared with 1.15 percent of returns filed by those making $100,000 or more. Since 1988, audit rates for the poor have increased by a third, from 1.03 percent, while falling 90 percent for the wealthiest Americans, from 11.4 percent.” (New York Times, April 16, 2000)
–”Estimated U.S. taxes that multinational corporations legally avoided this year by using foreign accounts: $10,100,000,000″ (Harper’s Index, 1997)
–”Fee that an anonymous family has paid Texas A&M University to clone their pet collie mix, Missy: $2,300,000″ (Harper’s Index, 1998)
–”Virtually every step forward in our history has been a liberal initiative taken over conservative opposition: civil rights; Social Security; Medicare; rural electrification; the establishment of a minimum wage; collective bargaining; the Pure Food and Drug Act; federal aid to education, including land grant colleges; guaranteed bank deposits; the Federal Reserve; the Securities and Exchange Commission; the Food and Drug Administration; the National Park Service; the National School Lunch Program; the Voting Rights Act; and the graduated income tax.” (George McGovern, “The Case for Liberalism: a Defense of the Future against the Past,” Harpers December 2002)