Patt Morrison for Wednesday, June 29, 2011

PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

1-3 p.m.

 

CALL-IN @ 866-893-5722, 866-893-KPCC; OR JOIN THE CONVERSATION ONLINE ON THE PATT MORRISON BLOG AT KPCC-DOT-ORG

 

 

1:06 – 1:58:30

OPEN

 

 

 

2:06 – 2:39

Who are the richest Americans? As the gap grows between richest & poorest, a look at the wealthy elite

With the top 1% of earners raking in more than 20% of personal income in the United States, income inequality has been on the rise for decades, but until recently, no one knew why. A new study of tax returns, however, reveals that historical increases in corporate executive pay have largely contributed to the widening gap, and that nearly 60% of the current top 0.1% are CEOs, managers, supervisors, or financial professionals. It’s common knowledge that capitalistic theory requires basic economic inequality, but how great is the trade-off between equity and growth, or is there a trade-off at all?

 

It hasn’t always been this way:  the share of total income going to the top 1 percent of earners, which stood at 8.9 percent in 1976, rose to 23.5 percent in 2007.  That traces the historic rise in power and wealth of corporate executives.  During that same period of time the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage declined by more than 7 percent.  Why has corporate pay at some of the largest firms quadrupled since the 1970s, and how has this affected the rest of Americans, whose paychecks haven’t increased? And in terms of inequality, has the U.S. now joined the ranks of struggling countries and banana republics?

 

Guests:

Jon Bakija, professor of economics at Williams College and coauthor of a recent study of tax returns that concluded executive and other firm managers account for the single biggest chunk of high income earners in the U.S.

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Carola Frydman, assistant professor of finances at the Sloan School of Management at MIT; author of various studies on executive compensation

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Emmanuel Saez, professor economics & director of the Center for Equitable Growth at the University of California, Berkeley

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2:41:30 – 2:58:30

Should we give corporations a tax holiday?

Some of the biggest U.S. companies operating overseas, including Cisco, Google Inc, Apple, Pfizer Inc., and Microsoft Corp. want to come back home and bring their money and jobs with them.  The only problem is repatriation comes at a price—they get hit with a 35 percent tax on profits when they return.  So now some of these companies are banning together (and spending millions) to pressure Congress to give them a one-time tax holiday.  If they get their wish, the tax rate would be reduced to 5.25 percent. The nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that a tax holiday will cost the U.S. Treasury $78.7 billion over the next decade. Is this a fair trade off for job creation and domestic investment? And will enough jobs be created to justify the tax relief?

 

Guest:

Jesse Drucker, writer, Bloomberg News

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Jonathan Serviss
Senior Producer, Patt Morrison
Southern California Public Radio
NPR Affiliate for Los Angeles
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