Corporate America has the power to transform the quality of life for its employees and the people of this country. They have failed to do so because of their greed. They give exorbitant bonuses, stock options, and the like to their CEOs and executives, even when their companies are losing money. This is done at the expense of their faithful employees who make everything possible for the company.
At a time when health insurance and retirement benefits are being reduced for the average worker, (some benefits are being eliminated) CEOs and executives are still receiving their exorbitant bonuses and stock options. All the while corporate America enjoys the advantage of loop holes in federal tax laws that allows them to pay less tax than the average American.
They also enjoy corporate welfare from the federal government under the disguise of need. If CEOs and Executives were given bonuses and stock options at a ratio that can be related to their average worker's salary, the excess they are now being paid could be diverted to a health insurance fund for their employees. That would alleviate the reduction in health coverage employees are experiencing. But, of course, greed gets in the way.
It is also corporate America that spends millions of dollars to hire lobbyists, some have their own lobbyists within their company. Their purpose is to influence Congress and State Legislatures so they can receive special treatment while the average American, when contacting their representatives, receive either a standard reply or none at all.
It is time for Congress and State Legislatures to show lobbyists the door and treat them like the average American. Corporate America and their lobbyists have destroyed the checks and balances that were created to take care of the average person's business. Their greed has corrupted our system and something must be done to change it.
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In the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Japanese were making a full frontal assault on our industries and congress kept passing laws favoring the foreign companies, the American companies started fleeing overseas with government assistance, while the American companies were closing factories and rewarding their CEOs with multi-million dollar bonuses. While other industrialized countries pay their CEOs 20-30 times what their average worker makes on the shop floor, American companies paid their CEOs 500-600 times what their workers were making. Ross Perot, then a member of the GM board, made this profound but true comment on that sad fact, "In times of war, you feed the troops first."
Ross Perot was fiercely against the NAFTA, which was signed into law by Bill Clinton. The American public has soured on the NAFTA and we don't understand why some politicians, Hillary Clinton in general, are fighting so hard to pass a free trade agreement with Peru. Didn't we learn anything from the NAFTA? Americans can't compete against third world country wages. We can't live on pennies an hour.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071122_was_ross_perot_right/
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