Do You See A Pattern?

Demand for US manufactured goods fell in May, for the second month in a row. Except for February and March of this year, demand for so-called durable goods has shown little overall growth for the past year.

In 2005, CEOs earned 262 times the wage of an average worker. CEOs earned more in one day than the average worker earned in 52 weeks, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The real surprise is that the differential is only the second-highest on record.

The value of the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, is the lowest that it has been in more than half a century--that is, since Eisenhower was President.

Yesterday, the Senate rejected a measure to increase the minimum wage, which has been $5.15 per hour since 1997. The House Appropriations Committee voted against attaching an increase in the minimum wages to an appropriation bill for the State, Justice and Commerce Departments. There has not been a floor vote on the minimum wage in the House since the last increase almost a decade ago.

As Paul Krugman pointed out this week, political partisanship and economic inequality have risen and fallen in lock-step for more than a century. Inequality today is at levels not seen since the robber barons of the turn of the Twentieth Century. And look at the state of our political debate. Krugman referred to a new book, Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches, by Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal. I haven't read it, but I plan to.

Repeating what I've said before: Republicans think that the American people are stupid.