CEOs Get Huge Raises While Workers Suffer

Times are very good if you're a corporate CEO. Figures from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) show that CEO pay rose by 15% in 2011 (after an even larger raise of 28% in 2010). Those are massive pay raises -- especially since these same companies are whining about taxes and government regulations hurting their bottom line. Since 1978, corporate CEOs have seen their pay rise by a phenomenal 725%.

And how are the workers doing in these companies (the people who actually produce the product or service that makes the corporation their massive profits)? Not too good.

The Labor Department says that after inflation is figured in the workers pay actually dropped by 2% in 2011 (meaning they had less buying power than they did the year before). In fact, since 1978 workers have only seen a 5.7% growth in wages -- a figure that is more than swallowed up by inflation over that same period. Workers don't just have less buying power than they did last year, they have significantly less buying power than they did in the 1970s.

It is this kind of unfairness that has been encouraged by the failed Republican "trickle-down" economic policies (initiated by Reagan and doubled-down on by Bush II). That policy, which the Republicans are still trying to push, is destroying the middle class and turning the United States into a banana republic -- people by haves and have-nots. In fact, the wealth and income inequality in the United States is already greater than that of many third-world countries (and even greater than the inequalities seen in ancient Rome).

This is why it is mandatory to keep Romney out of the White House. He is still a true-believer in "trickle-down" economics, and his cure for our economic woes is to give even a larger share of national income to the rich. Romney would just finish the job of destroying our economy that Reagan and Bush II started.