CORPORATE GREED AND PROFITS AT ALL TIME HIGH; WORKER PAY IS NOT

USA-- According to an analysis by the pay research group Equilar, compensation for top bank CEOs grew by nearly 12 percent last year. The Financial Times noted that these increases occurred despite widespread falls in profits and share prices.

We at the Voice Reporter are not quite sure how many times we have to spell this out for you.  If our middle class has no spending power, you can say goodbye to a functioning economy. And for the last time, rich corporations and wealthy people do not create jobs—a demand for goods, products and services does. Consumers with spending power are the real job creators.

The top US and European bankers, including JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit, have enjoyed double-digit annual pay rises averaging almost 12 per cent, despite widespread falls in profits and share prices. These are facts, not opinions. This is data, not conjecture.

The analysis of total pay awarded to 15 bank chiefs by Equilar, a US pay research group, shows they received an average 11.9 per cent pay rise last year to $12.8m, the second increase in a row. However, the pace of growth has slowed.

Bankers such as Brian Moynihan at Bank of America, Citigroup’s Mr Pandit and JPMorgan’s Mr Dimon enjoyed the largest gains. And, for the last 30 years, CEO pay has increased 127 times faster than worker pay.

According to a different estimate by Bloomberg News, Wall Street CEO pay grew by 20 percent last year. At the same time, worker wages grew by only 2.1 percent. And inflation adjusted wages actually declined by 0.6 percent between March 2011 and March 2012.

At the moment, in fact, wages as a percentage of the economy are near all-time lows. Consider this chart: