Welcome to IBM Employee News and Links

New on the Alliance@IBM Site

• The Alliance@IBM is considering an organizing campaign at IBM's delivery centers. We are beginning to get support from workers in the GDF's at Dubuque IA, Lansing MI, Fishkill NY, Boulder CO and Columbia MO. Although it is in the initial stages, we are hopeful that we can develop a network of concerned GDF workers and Alliance chapters at those locations. The ultimate goal of course is union recognition and a contract.

  But we need your help. As many of you know, the Alliance struggles to stay afloat. Our dues paying membership at 200 members is not sufficient to have an aggressive organizing campaign. That needs to change. A victory at IBM's delivery centers can have positive effects for all IBMers.

  So while you have heard this pitch before, we are once again asking you to help support the Alliance by becoming a full member at only $10 a month, or an associate member at $5 a month. There has been concern that IBM would know who you are if you join. The Alliance membership is confidential. IBM will not know if you are a member unless you tell them. The link to join is here: https://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4004/donate_page/alliance-join, Or you can go to our web site at: www.allianceibm.org There is also a paypal donate link on this web page.

  To those that are members and associate members your financial support is greatly appreciated. If you work at a GDF and want to be part of the network, contact us at ibmunionalliance@gmail.com The following is an email being sent to IBM GDF employees:

  Join the IBM GDF Worker Network at: http://www.endicottalliance.org/allianceibmglobaldelivery.htm.

  Did you know that Dubuque IBM GDF employees are paid an average of $20,000 LESS per year than GDF workers in Fishkill? Are you concerned about working conditions at your delivery center?

  Working hard and did not get a pay raise July 1st as IBM makes billions in profit? Wages in the new GDF's are much lower than other locations. GDF workers in Boulder got a 15% pay cut. Your concerns are not addressed by management. If you were "selected" to move to a GDF your choice was move or quit. IBM did not pay moving expenses. Transfers are being blocked by management. Band levels are lower. Verbal promises made by IBM become promises broken Don't you think it is time to join with your co-workers at all the GDF's to improve working conditions and wages? Isn't it time you were treated as a professional?

  Well that time is now! Make your voice heard!

  Based on information and concerns from GDF workers, the Alliance@IBM CWA Local 1701 is starting a campaign to organize GDF workers, including contractors. To do this the involvement of IBM GDF workers in the Alliance needs to increase and information gathered.

  If you work at one of IBM's GDF's in the US please contact the Alliance at: ibmunionalliance@gmail.com. Information we need from you: Name and contact info. GDF location. Job title. Employee or contractor Information will be held in confidence.

  Help build a better future for GDF workers!

  Statement of Principles: Alliance@IBM/CWA Local 1701 is an IBM employee organization that is dedicated to preserving and improving our rights and benefits at IBM. We also strive towards restoring management's respect for the individual and the value we bring to the company as employees. Our mission is to make our voice heard with IBM management, shareholders, government and the media. While our ultimate goal is collective bargaining rights with IBM, we will build our union now and challenge IBM on the many issues facing employees from off-shoring and job security to working conditions and company policy. -Alliance-

• Job Cut Reports
  • Comment 10/09/11: During Q3 contractors were required to take 5-day unpaid furlough and most were unable to collect any OT payments. This is now being repeated in Q4. Also, If anyone has news of RAs in IGS-ITD please post... -Anon-
  • Comment 10/08/11: IBM Outsourcing Services will be closing end of year. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 10/11/11: @Anonymous - IBM Outsourcing Services will be closing end of year --- Don't kid yourself, the plan is in place already and it is called the road map to 2015 as the RA's will intensify. -Plan-In-Place-and-Action-
  • Comment 10/11/11: -Plan-In-Place-and-Action- You sure hit that out of the park. IBM has had a plan in place since 1999. They are executing year after year to perfection as you can see by measuring executive bonus payouts. Some IBM employees tried to counter the plan with a plan of their own called the Alliance@IBM. Sadly so far not enough of the cannon fodder getting chewed up by IBM's plans have realized they are in a no win scenario unless they join the Alliance. Rest assured that nothing else will even slow down the IBM juggernaut. Winning to me is getting what you need and most of what you want from your employment and creating a workplace you would be happy to see your children and grandchildren working in. -Exodus2007-
  • Comment 10/12/11: S&D layoffs coming confirmed by my manager. -soon to be ex-ibmer-
  • Comment 10/13/11: There is no downside to joining the alliance. I'm glad we have some members who are highly visible, and good organizers, but I can state without a doubt that if you want to remain anonymous, you can certainly do that. I was worried about being targeted by management, but joined anyway because they have been offshoring my group so I had nothing to lose. Two years later I'm still anonymous. It's completely confidential, and now I have proof. Join up, folks. Now's the time. (And remember...never access the alliance website from your work laptop.) -Anon-
  • Comment 10/13/11: I've seen the protesters on Wall Street on the news and I know how they feel. I wish I could be there with them. They are sick and tired of fat cat greedy CEO's like Sammy ripping us off. GREED GREED GREED. It's all about GREED. All Sammy is interested in is his personal wealth and pleasing the stockholders. Expect more job cuts as Sammy continues to lay off valuable employees to make the financial quarter look good for Wall Street. -Wall Street Protester-
  • Comment 10/13/11: -Wall Street Protester- But are you here with us? You don't have to wish ,just join! Be a dues paying monthly member and actually fight back. Fight the battle on your own home front, IBM, before you try to take on all of corporate America. A victory in organising IBM will have more impact on corporate America then a hundred " Occupy" protests. Force Wall Street to the table by organising and voting union yes and you will counter that corporate greed. Camping in the park thinking your going to make a difference to a CEO who isn't even there is a waste of your time and manpower. Get involved with the union efforts and really make a difference. Just my 2 cents worth. -Exodus2007-
  • Comment 10/13/11: I too agree with the protestors on Wall Street. Sammy is all about GREED. Being RA'd by IBM, Sammy will have another 4th qtr. RA action so he can make his numbers by the end of the year. This will cause SAMMY to receive another large bonus and stock options at the end of the year. SAMMY does not give a rats a** about IBM US employees. Join the union -ANA-

News and Opinion Concerning Health Savings Accounts, Medical Costs and Health Care Reform

News and Opinion Concerning the "War on the Middle Class"

"But dependency on government has never been bad for the rich. The pretense of the laissez-faire people is that only the poor are dependent on government, while the rich take care of themselves. This argument manages to ignore all of modern history, which shows a consistent record of laissez-faire for the poor, but enormous government intervention for the rich." From Economic Justice: The American Class System, from the book Declarations of Independence by Howard Zinn.

• Wall Street Journal: Buffett Builds His Tax-the-Rich Case. By Laura Sanders and Siobhan Hughes. Excerpts: Warren Buffett is one tax-efficient billionaire. According to a letter Mr. Buffett sent to a Republican congressman on Tuesday, the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman and chief executive disclosed that he made almost $63 million last year, yet paid less than $7 million in federal income tax.

  Mr. Buffett long has urged lawmakers to raise income-tax rates on the wealthiest, arguing that his secretary paid a higher effective rate than he did last year. President Obama embraced the concept, and went along with Senate Democrats' proposal for a 5.6% surtax on those making $1 million a year or more.

  Mr. Buffett's adjusted gross income was $62,855,038 in 2010, according to the letter, while his taxable income was $39,814,784. He said he paid $15,300 in payroll tax, and $6,923,494 in federal income tax. That made for an effective tax rate of 17.4%.

  According to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group, the average tax rate for taxpayers in the middle quintile—those earning between $34,000 and $60,000 a year—is 12%, including payroll and income taxes. Those earning from $103,000 to $163,000--the top 80% to 90% of earners—pay 18.2%. Those earning from $163,000 to $211,000 pay 19.8%, and those earning from $211,000 to $533,000 pay 20.4%. ...

  "Most of Mr. Buffett's income appears to be either long-term capital gain or qualifying dividend income," said Robert Gordon, president of Twenty-First Securities in New York, a tax strategy brokerage firm. The top rate on both forms of income is only 15%. ...

  Republicans have been fighting a Democratic proposal to pay for President Obama's $447 billion jobs bill by imposing higher taxes on the wealthy. After Mr. Obama unveiled his plan to tax millionaires more, it became known as the "Buffett Rule," in a nod to Mr. Buffett's claims in an op-ed article that he paid taxes at a lower rate than people who worked for him.

• New York Times: In Private, Wall St. Bankers Dismiss Protesters as Unsophisticated. By Nelson D. Schwartz and Eric Dash. Excerpts: Publicly, bankers say they understand the anger at Wall Street — but believe they are misunderstood by the protesters camped on their doorstep. But when they speak privately, it is often a different story. “Most people view it as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,” said one top hedge fund manager.

  “It’s not a middle-class uprising,” adds another veteran bank executive. “It’s fringe groups. It’s people who have the time to do this.”

  As the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations have grown and spread to other cities, an open question is: Do the bankers get it? Their different worldview speaks volumes about the wide chasms that have opened over who is to blame for the continuing economic malaise and what is best for the country. ...

  “Wall Street continues to underestimate the degree of anger among citizens and voters,” said Douglas J. Elliott, a former investment banker who is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution. For the most part, bankers say that they see the protests as a reaction to the high unemployment and slow growth that has plagued the American economy since the recession and the financial crisis of 2008. Despite all the placards and chants plainly indicating otherwise, some bankers suggest that deep down, the protesters are not really all that mad at them.

• New York Times editorial: Britain’s Self-Inflicted Misery. Excerpts: For a year now, Britain’s economy has been stuck in a vicious cycle of low growth, high unemployment and fiscal austerity. But unlike Greece, which has been forced into induced recession by misguided European Union creditors, Britain has inflicted this harmful quack cure on itself. Austerity was a deliberate ideological choice by Prime Minister David Cameron’s ruling coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, elected 17 months ago. It has failed and can be expected to keep failing. But neither party is yet prepared to acknowledge that reality and change course. ...

  New figures released this week reported Britain’s highest jobless numbers in more than 15 years. Independent analysts expect unemployment — now 8.1 percent — to keep rising in the months ahead. The government has kept its promise to slash public-sector jobs — more than 100,000 have been lost in recent months. But its deficit-reduction policies have failed to revive the business confidence that was supposed to spur private-sector hiring.

  Drastic public spending cuts were the wrong deficit-reduction strategy for the weakened British economy a year ago. And they are the wrong strategy for the faltering American economy today. Britain’s unhappy experience is further evidence that radical reductions in federal spending will do little but stifle economic recovery.

  A few years of robust growth would go far toward making swollen federal deficits more manageable. But slashing government spending in an already stalled economy weakens anemic demand, leading to lost output and lost tax revenues. As revenues fall, deficit reduction requires longer, deeper spending cuts. Cut too far, too fast, and the result is not a balanced budget but a lost decade of no growth. That could now happen in Britain. And if the Republicans have their way, it could also happen here.

  Austerity is a political ideology masquerading as an economic policy. It rests on a myth, impervious to facts, that portrays all government spending as wasteful and harmful, and unnecessary to the recovery. The real world is a lot more complicated. America has no need to repeat Mr. Cameron’s failed experiment.

• New Deal 2.0: Who are the 1% and What Do They Do for a Living? By Mike Konczal. Excerpts: Inequality has fractals. Let’s go into the top 0.1% — what do they look like? Here’s the chart of the occupations of the top 0.1%, including capital gains: ... It boils down to managers, executives, and people who work in finance. From the paper: “[o]ur findings suggest that the incomes of executives, managers, supervisors, and financial professionals can account for 60 percent of the increase in the share of national income going to the top percentile of the income distribution between 1979 and 2005.”

  For fun, there are more than twice as many people listed as “Not working or deceased” than are in “arts, media, sports.” For every elite sports player who earned a place at the top of the income pyramid due to technology changes and superstar, tournament-style labor markets that broadcast him across the globe, there are two trust fund babies. ...

  This is related to a process of financialization, something JW Mason has done a fantastic job outlining here. The “dominant ethos among managers today is that a business exists only to enrich its shareholders, including, of course, senior managers themselves,” and this is done by paying out more in dividends that is earned in profits. Think of it as our-real-economy-as-ATM-machine, cashing out wealth during the good times and then leaving workers and the rest of the real economy to deal with the aftermath. ...

  There’s good reason to focus on the top 1% instead of the top 10 or 50%. There is evidence that financial pay at this elite level is correlated with deregulation and the other legal changes that brought on the crisis. High-ranking senior corporate executives’ pay has dwarfed workers’ salaries, but is only a reward for engaging in shady financial engineering practices. These problems require a legal solution and thus they require a democratic challenge and a rethinking of how we want to structure our economy. Here’s to the 99% and Occupy Wall Street helping get us there.

• AlterNet: Maddow: U.S. Democracy Is Being Bought By a Tiny Minority (Including the Kochs). Excerpt: Last night Rachel Maddow discussed the out-of-control campaign spending by a tiny majority of wealthy Americans -- including, notably, the Koch brothers, who intend to give more than $200 million to conservative groups before the 2012 election. "Who has that kind of huge huge huge money to spend on politics these days?" Maddow asks. "And why have we given those people control of our democracy?" Very good question!

  Watch her discuss this sobering issue, with a little help from Stephen Colbert, right here:

• AlterNet: $39,000 For a Backpack? Luxury Items Flying Off the Shelves. If you wanted to sum up what people mean when they toss around phrases like “class war” and “the 99 percent” you might put it all down to this: $39,000 backpacks. Sold out. By Mary Elizabeth Williams. Excerpts: It’s been four years since the entrepreneurial Olsen sisters, Mary-Kate and Ashley, launched their luxury fashion line, the Row, and three months since they debuted their stylish and exorbitantly priced black crocodile bag. But it was the news this week that at the Paris launch of the handbag line, Ashley Olsen bragged that the backpack “was the first thing that sold off the shelf” that really took the let-them-eat-cake. Olsen added that luxury brands do well in hard times, noting that “During our last economic crisis in the U.S., the only thing that went up was Hermès,” before, in the words of Women’s Wear Daily, “returning to sip Champagne with guests including Michelle Harper and Christian Louboutin.” As a commenter on CNN observed of this news, “This is what’s wrong with America. The income inequality in this country is outrageous, we are well on our way to becoming a 3rd world country.” Or, as another more aptly expressed it, “That’s cray cray.” ...

  The rich will always be with us. There will always be big diamond rings and oversize mansions and $10 million weddings and impossibly priced accessories. Times are not equally tough on everybody, and Ashley and Mary-Kate are not the ones responsible for this economic pickle we’re now in.

  But it takes a special kind of out-of-touchness to boast, while sipping champagne, of selling out of an item that costs about as much as a year’s tuition at an Ivy League university. To blithely say, as Amanda Brooks has, that “If you were ever going to spend $39,000 on a bag, that’s the bag you should buy,” when the average American annual income is, coincidentally, $39,054.62. If you’re going to spend $39,000, you could also employ a person for a whole year! Wealth does not equal social obligation. And you can spend thousands on your purses and still be a decent, generous person. But these are not times for ostentatious displays of having, when far too many have not. And if you think the bag is so classic, you could always get it in the leather version. It’s only $3,900.

• BuzzFlash: Elizabeth Warren: "The People on Wall Street Broke This Country". Excerpts: If there is a populist change afoot making the pragmatic case to rebalance economic income in America, Elizabeth Warren is its political voice. In a nascent campaign for the Massachusetts Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy and now occupied by Republican Scott Brown, Warren has broken through the DC Democratic tacit oath to "see no evil" where it exists in the financial and corporate world. In a debate this week among Democratic hopefuls vying in the primary for the right to take on Brown, Warren put it bluntly:

  The people on Wall Street broke this country, and they did it one lousy mortgage at a time. This happened more than three years ago, and there still has been no basic accountability, and there has been no real effort to fix it.

• New York Times editorial: Protesters Against Wall Street. Excerpts: As the Occupy Wall Street protests spread from Lower Manhattan to Washington and other cities, the chattering classes keep complaining that the marchers lack a clear message and specific policy prescriptions. The message — and the solutions — should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the economy went into a recession that continues to sock the middle class while the rich have recovered and prospered. The problem is that no one in Washington has been listening.

  At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity.

  The jobless rate for college graduates under age 25 has averaged 9.6 percent over the past year; for young high school graduates, the average is 21.6 percent. Those figures do not reflect graduates who are working but in low-paying jobs that do not even require diplomas. Such poor prospects in the early years of a career portend a lifetime of diminished prospects and lower earnings — the very definition of downward mobility.

  The protests, though, are more than a youth uprising. The protesters’ own problems are only one illustration of the ways in which the economy is not working for most Americans. They are exactly right when they say that the financial sector, with regulators and elected officials in collusion, inflated and profited from a credit bubble that burst, costing millions of Americans their jobs, incomes, savings and home equity. As the bad times have endured, Americans have also lost their belief in redress and recovery.

  The initial outrage has been compounded by bailouts and by elected officials’ hunger for campaign cash from Wall Street, a toxic combination that has reaffirmed the economic and political power of banks and bankers, while ordinary Americans suffer.

  Income gains at the top would not be as worrisome as they are if the middle class and the poor were also gaining. But working-age households saw their real income decline in the first decade of this century. The recession and its aftermath have only accelerated the decline. Research shows that such extreme inequality correlates to a host of ills, including lower levels of educational attainment, poorer health and less public investment. It also skews political power, because policy almost invariably reflects the views of upper-income Americans versus those of lower-income Americans.
• truthOut: When Being Rich Makes Us Poor, People Should Occupy Wall Street. By Dean Baker. Excerpts: The Very Serious People in Washington are busy trying to find creative ways to cut Social Security and Medicare and take other benefits from middle-class and moderate-income families. The refrain here is that we just can't afford this level of generosity any more.

  There are two parts of this story that should drive the rest of us crazy. And it is difficult to determine which one is the more infuriating.

  The first is that we know that many people in this country are fabulously rich. And as Elizabeth Warren beautifully reminded us, none of them did it on their own. But Professor Warren is actually far too generous in her account.

  While some number of the wealthy may have succeeded by working hard and being smart or creative, many of the very wealthy got their money directly or indirectly through the big hand of the government tilting the playing field in their direction. Their hard work involved rigging the rules to ensure that they ended up on top.

  Nowhere is this better seen than on Wall Street, which is chock full of multimillionaires and billionaires who got to the top by taking advantage of items like "too big to fail insurance" for their banks, gambling with government insured deposits, ripping off state and local governments on pension management fees and, of course, the trillion dollars in bailouts bucks given at interest rates that were way below market levels. These people know the role of government very well, even if they pretend this is all about a free market. ...

  In short, we have an economic system that, even when it is working, has been rigged to redistribute income to rich. And we have a political system that at a time of immense economic distress is more focused on undercutting the means of support for working families than fixing the economy. It is hard to understand why everyone is not occupying Wall Street.

• Politico: The Arena. By Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Excerpts: Now that Occupy Wall Street has everyone’s attention, the question becomes how we change the system to work for all Americans, not just the top 1 percent? Here are six proposals I am working on:
  1. If a financial institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist...
  2. Put a cap on credit card interest rates to end usury...
  3. The Federal Reserve needs to provide small businesses in America with the same low-interest loans it gave to foreign banks...
  4. Stop Wall Street oil speculators from artificially increasing gasoline and heating oil prices...
  5. Demand that Wall Street invest in the job-creating productive economy, instead of gambling on worthless derivatives...
  6. Establish a Wall Street speculation fee on credit default swaps, derivatives, stock options and futures...
• New York Times op-ed: Panic of the Plutocrats. By Paul Krugman. Excerpts: It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America’s direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.

  And this reaction tells you something important — namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called “economic royalists,” not the people camping in Zuccotti Park. ...

  The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

  Last year, you may recall, a number of financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes — well, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.

  And then there’s the campaign of character assassination against Elizabeth Warren, the financial reformer now running for the Senate in Massachusetts. Not long ago a YouTube video of Ms. Warren making an eloquent, down-to-earth case for taxes on the rich went viral. Nothing about what she said was radical — it was no more than a modern riff on Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous dictum that “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”

  But listening to the reliable defenders of the wealthy, you’d think that Ms. Warren was the second coming of Leon Trotsky. George Will declared that she has a “collectivist agenda,” that she believes that “individualism is a chimera.” And Rush Limbaugh called her “a parasite who hates her host. Willing to destroy the host while she sucks the life out of it.”

  What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

  Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.]

  This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.

  So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.

• The Huffington Post: Wall Street Protests. By Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Excerpts: If this country is to break out of the horrendous recession and create the millions of jobs we desperately need, if we are going to create a modicum of financial stability for the future, there is no question but that the American people are going to have to take a very hard look at Wall Street and demand fundamental reforms. I hope these protests are the beginning of that process.

  Let us never forget that as a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street, this country was plunged into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes and life savings as the middle class underwent an unprecedented collapse. Sadly, despite all the suffering caused by Wall Street, there is no reason to believe that the major financial institutions have changed their ways, or that future financial disasters and bailouts will not happen again.

  More than three years ago, Congress rewarded Wall Street with the biggest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world. Simultaneously but unknown to the American people at the time, the Federal Reserve provided an even larger bailout. The details of what the Fed did were kept secret until a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that I sponsored required the Government Accountability Office to audit the Fed's lending programs during the financial crisis.

  As a result of this audit, the American people have learned that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in low-interest loans to every major financial institution in this country, huge foreign banks, multi-national corporations, and some of the wealthiest people in the world. ...

  Now that the middle class is collapsing and a record-breaking 46 million Americans are living in poverty, the Federal Reserve has failed to act with the same sense of urgency to make sure that small businesses receive the affordable loans needed to put millions of Americans back to work and prevent millions of Americans from losing their homes.

  As a result, Wall Street is back to making record-breaking profits, handing out record-breaking compensation packages, and taking the same risks that caused the financial crisis in the first place. Meanwhile, 25 million Americans are unemployed or under-employed; middle class families are making $3,600 less than they did 10 years ago; the foreclosure rate is still breaking new records; and the American people are still paying over $3.40 for a gallon of gas.

  The financial crisis and the jobs crisis have demonstrated to the American people that we now have a government that is of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent and for the 1 percent, as Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz eloquently articulated. The rest of the 99 percent are, more or less, on their own. We now have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major, advanced country on Earth. The top 1 percent earn more income than the bottom 50 percent, and the richest 400 Americans own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.

• New Deal 2.0: How the Top One Percent Ripped Off the Bottom 99 Percent. By Jon Rynn. Excerpts: Underlying this greater and greater inequality is a shift of wealth from manufacturing to the top 1 percent and the financial sector. Over the past 40 years, the sectors of the economy that grew in output share grew very little in employment share — making more money but paying it to a small group of people. The sectors of the economy that grew in employment share did not grow in output share, meaning that a growing number of workers had to share in a smaller pot of profits. From 1969 to 2007, the richest 1 percent has grabbed 15 percent more of the income of the United States, to a total of about 24 percent. Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector has lost a similar 15 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). This has led to a downward shift in income for the bottom 99 percent. ...

  Counter to conservative ideology, the economic role of the government has actually gone down — at least when measured, as I have been doing here, by value-added data, which eliminates the effect of transfer payments. From 1968 to 2009, the share of employment for the federal government decreased from 9.7 percent to 3.8 percent, and its GDP share went from 6.9 percent to 4.3 percent, while for the state and local governments the employment share rose from 11.7 percent to 14.4 percent and GDP share went from 7.6 percent to 9.3 percent. So much for “big government.” FIRE’s share of GDP is at 21.5 percent, while government at all levels is at 13.6 percent. Sounds like “big finance” to me!

• Wall Street Journal: Bleak News for Americans' Income. Pay Fell 7% in Last Decade and Economists Say It Won't Catch Up Before 2021; Even College Graduates See Salaries Slide. By Phil Izzo. Excerpts: Americans' incomes have dropped since 2000 and they aren't expected to make up the lost ground before 2021, according to economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey.

  From 2000 to 2010, median income in the U.S. declined 7% after adjusting for inflation, according to Census data. That marks the worst 10-year performance in records going back to 1967. On average, the economists expect inflation-adjusted incomes to rise over the next decade, but the 5% projected gain isn't enough to reach prerecession levels.

  "Standards of living in the U.S. will continue to decline as we deleverage and emerging markets take over as the growth engine of the global economy," says Julia Coronado of BNP Paribas.

  Though the majority of the 50 economists surveyed-not all of whom answer every question-say the current generation of college graduates will have a higher standard of living than their parents, a third of respondents think it will be lower. College graduates have generally fared better in the U.S., and they currently have a 4.2% unemployment rate compared to 9.1% for the entire work force. But a college degree hasn't been enough to ensure wage gains from 2000 through 2010. According to Census Bureau data, only advanced degree holders managed to record increases in earnings over that period.

• Miami Herald: Young protesters inspire seniors. By Tony Fransetta. Excerpts: By the time we reach our golden years, daily issues can seem overwhelming. However, with age comes wisdom, and many seniors in Florida know that we cannot afford to slow down or disengage. We must remain involved in world events and the struggles our children and grandchildren undertake for a better future.

  The demonstrations on Wall Street over the past three weeks by our country’s young people are educating the public on the excessive greed of Wall Street, the outcomes of bailouts with our tax dollars, and the endless problems Wall Street continues to cause for working America. The actions of the anti-Wall Street protesters are inspiring actions across the country and attracting broad-based backing from labor unions and community organizations.

  We told our children and grandchildren to go to school and get a good education. For what? America is failing these generations. Where are the jobs? Overseas. Where is the capital? In offshore accounts.

  It is clear that our enemies are not only on Wall Street, but are also the members of Congress funded by that top 2 percent. These politicians claim that the super-rich and largest corporations are “job creators” and shouldn’t be asked to pay their fair share. We don’t buy it. The only jobs created by them are in China, Mexico, India, Cambodia, and elsewhere.

  Our children and grandchildren cannot find dignified work, let alone hope to retire with dignity under the current system. We must remain determined not just to create good jobs, but to protect the programs like Medicare and Social Security that have allowed Americans to retire with dignity.

  However, too many of our elected officials are more concerned with their own elections than about speaking out on behalf of the people they represent in this critical and heartbreaking time. At least some real courage these days is coming from young people piecing together who’s responsible for the mess we’re in and speaking out against Wall Street greed and those who do Wall Street’s bidding. We need to join the effort to help our children and give courage to our elected representatives to stand up for America’s future. Visiting and calling our elected representatives is absolutely necessary. But more than that, it is time to join our young people in the streets. It’s time to demand a fairer economy and good jobs that will allow future generations to work and retire with dignity.

• The Smirking Chimp: Decline and Renewal. By Peter G. Cohen. Excerpts: For the last thirty years regulations have been eliminated and policies have been changed from helping the public to helping those paying for campaigns and lobbyists. As a result, the wealth created by greater efficiencies has been directed to those at the top, while real income for workers has remained stagnant. This situation is maintained by the continuing export of jobs to nations where labor is cheaper and lacking legal protection. Free trade has been paid for with the suffering of our unemployed workers and their families.

  By destroying the American middle class the largest corporations have also destroyed the Great American Market. With demand for goods in decline, business becomes cautious and economic stagnation results.

  We have tried unregulated markets and they have led the the criminal abuses of the mortgage and financial industries. We have tried free trade and it has led to the export of jobs and failed in all of its promised benefits, except the enrichment of international corporations. We have tried cutting back on labor and environmental regulations with the result that the air and water are dirtier, jobs are more dangerous and right-wing lobbyists are now seeking to destroy regulation altogether. Properly regulated markets increase competition, function more efficiently and reduce abuse.