DID YOU KNOW?

America first?

The US was declared the "most competitive" industrial nation by business leaders at the International Institute for Management Development, ranking just ahead of Singapore and Japan. Other top ten countries included Hong Kong and Malaysia.

"Competitive" is a business buzzword, meaning: low wages, few worker benefits, and intense deregulation. Here are some facts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to show the nature of American "competitiveness":

• American workers put in more working hours in an average year (1,847) than their British (1,622), French (1,619), Swedish (1,569), and German (1,419) comrades.

• German workers labor an average of 30.6 hours a week, with no reduction in pay. American workers labor an average of 39.5 hours a week, an increase from the previous average of 38.3 hours a week.

• American workers have the least number of paid holidays and vacation, averaging 23 days per year, constrasted with Japan (25), Britain (31), France (35), Italy (40), and Germany (42).

• The average American CEO's income is 150 times more than that of the average shop floor worker.

  Sabotaging international law, American-style

  The US endlessly invokes "international law" even as it violates it unilaterally. We created the United Nations as a means of preserving peace in the wake of the destruction caused by two world wars. However, the US has failed to pay its dues (now we owe some $960 billion -- more than anyone else) to the UN, preventing it from carrying out its duties.

  This is because what the US does abroad IS a violation of international law and of human rights -- we lend military and financial aid to the bloodiest and most ruthless fascist regimes in the world in the effort to force "stability" on a suffering world. The US has taken steps to ensure that the UN is NEVER able to carry out its peacekeeping function.

• Number of people employed by the UN: 53,589
  
• Number of people employed at Disney World and Disney Land: 50,000

• Total budget of the UN ins 1995-96 (two-year budget): $18.2 billion
  
• Revenue of a single US arms manufacturer (Lockheed Martin) in 1995: $19.4 billion

• UN peacekeeping expenditures in 1995: $3.6 billion
  
• World military spending in 1995: $767.0 billion

• Number of UN peacekeepers per 150,000 people in the world: 1
  
• Number of soldiers in national armies per 150,000 people inthe world: 650

• US contribution to the UN budget, per capita: $7
  
• Norwegian contribution to the UN budget, per capita: $65

• Number of US troops serving in UN peacekeeping operations in 1994: 965
  
• Number of US troops serving in international missions under US comand in 1994: 86,451

• Cost of the 1992 Earth Summit: $10 million
  
• Cost of the 1994 Paris Air Show and Weapons Exhibition (US portion): $12 million

  Fat cats

  The rich really ARE getting richer, just as the poor are getting poorer. This is the economic "miracle" touted by capitalists and ignored by the media as an unpleasant reality. We are seeing the explosive growth of power of capital around the world, led by the US. This power comes at the expense of working people everywhere.

• Number of billionaires in 1989 (one billionaire is equal to one thousand millionaires): 157
  
• Number of billionaires in 1994: 358

• How many of the world's richest people equals $762 billion in collective wealth: 358
  
• How many of the world's poorest people equals $762 billion in combined income: 2,400,000,000

• Portion of global income giong to the richest fifth of the population: 83%
  
• Portion of global income going to the poorest fifth of the population: 1%
  (What that means is that if you have 100 people, and 100 seats in an auditorium, the 20 richest people have 83 of the seats, and the 20 poorest people get to "split" 1 seat)

• Billionaires in Mexico in 1988: 2
  
• Billionaires in Mexico in 1995: 24

• Combined income of the poorest 17 million Mexicans last year: $6.6 billion
  
• Wealth of the richest single Mexican: $6.6 billion

• Ratio of income of the richest fifth to the poorest fifth of the US population in 1970: 4 to 1
  
• Same ratio in 1993: 13 to 1

• Combined Research and Development expenditures of GM, Ford, Hitachi, Siemens, Matsushita, IBM, and Daimler-Benz Corporations in 1993: $31.8 billion
  
• Military Research and Development expenditures of the US in 1993: $43.5 billion

• GDP of Israel in 1992: $69.8 billion
  
• GDP of Exxon in 1992: $103.5 billion

• GDP of Egypt in 1992: $33.6 billion
  
• GDP of Philip Morris in 1992: $50.2 billion

  Laissez-faire? Lazy-unfair, more like it!

  I've mentioned elsewhere how coporate wealthfare is what should really be targeted (consisting of some $448 billion doled out to the corporations and the wealthy at taxpayer expense); here are some examples of wealthfare in action:

• Recoverable mineral value of the McCoy/Cove gold deposit in Nevada, which a Canadian company, Echo Bay Mines, plans to mine: $1,448,600,000
  
• Amount the US government will charge Echo bay for the rights to extract and sell this gold, even though the land belongs to the US people: $3,305

• Recoverable mineral value of the Mount Emmons molybdenum deposit in Colorado, for which the Cyprus-Amex company has applied: $2,999,200,000
  
• Amount the US government will charge Cyprus-Amex for the rights to extract and keep this wealth, even though the land belongs to the US people: $1,000

• Amount paid by the world's governments to subsidize their fishing industries in one year, creating the incentive to deplete the stocks: $54 billion
  
• Amount paid by the fishing industries themselves: $27 billion

• Amount the US government paid to manage publicly owned land used by cattle ranchers for grazing livestock in 1994: $105 million
  
• Amount paid by ranchers for the use of this land, at the rate of $1.61 per month per cow: $29 million

• Amount the US government spent in 1994 on building and maintaining roads through national forests for the use of timber companies: $100 million
  
• Amount of this cost paid by the timber companies: $0