Class War and the October Surprise

By Joe Sims
Did you know that executive pay in the US is today 400 times more than the average worker? Did you know that that a CEO makes more in one day than the average worker makes in a year? By way of comparison Japan's ratio of CEO-to-worker pay is 10 to 1. 30 years ago in the US it was 20 to 1.

These numbers are being placed before the public by Senator Jim Webb of Virginia today as the Senate debates the Bush rescue package. Add to this Bernie Sanders figures spoken also on the Senate floor that today the top one-tenth of 1 percent make more than the bottom 50 percent of the population.

Were you aware that Henry Paulson is trying to ramrod a $700 billion rescue package for these capitalist CEOs that working people will have to pay for, but these same bankers are objecting to ANY LIMIT on their pay as part of the package? Paulson claims the bankers will back out of the package.

Not only that but Paulson is demanding decision making without review: the Treasury secretary would be able to operate in the stock market without review by any person, court or official.

It seems the US is on the verge of a financial dictatorship of banking capital. (By the way, Paulson is a former leader of Goldman Sachs).

Now you have it: the OCTOBER SURPRISE! If you don't vote for it and the economy goes belly up, guess what? Blame the oppostion. By the way, the Republicans did the same thing 6 years ago, with the Iraq war when the authorization of force resolution was forced down Congress’s throat before an election.

These are the same banks whose predatory lending practices led to the biggest loss of the wealth in Black and Latino wealth in US history as a result of the foreclosures.

It's starting to get heavy.