Goldman Sachs bonuses vrs. Worst Decade in Modern Times

I ran across these to references back-to-back, and they annoyed me so much I felt the need to share:

"Goldman Sachs bonuses: $23 billion"
"The Worst Decade in Modern Times"

Goldman, the beneficiary of taxpayer dollars as part of TARP, is paying out the largest bonuses in its history. And,

Because most employee compensation is a deductible expense under tax laws, Goldman Sachs, which is technically taxed at a top corporate rate of 39 percent, will save about $9 billion in federal income taxes on the bonuses it pays out for 2009

Meanwhile, in the world that We The People inhabit:

The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times, a sharp reversal from a long period of prosperity that is leading economists and policymakers to fundamentally rethink the underpinnings of the nation's growth

There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent.

Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 - and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009. The Aughts were the first decade of falling median incomes since figures were first compiled in the 1960s.

And the net worth of American households - the value of their houses, retirement funds and other assets minus debts - has also declined when adjusted for inflation, compared with sharp gains in every previous decade since data were initially collected in the 1950s...

Are you pissed off yet? Face it, the vast majority of us live in a world where our economic power is slipping away. Our generation will NOT be better off than prior generations. And it is happening because of systemic looting and pillaging at the top levels. Corporations are hugely successful, yet jobs are moved overseas to cut expenses. You see, we cost too much. We are encouraged to buy, buy, buy, but our earning power is slipping. The only ones getting rich are those who are rigging the game against the rest of us. We have no say in whether or not our job remains on-shore. We get almost no input on the way corporate taxes are structured. We - as a collective whole - are too busy rooting through the dregs to see that those wielding the slop bucket are fatter than ever. We are told The Story and we buy into it, convinced that we are lucky just to have a job.

We Are Being Held Down in a deliberate and far-reaching way. Wake up. Get mad. Get Active. DO something about it. Educate yourself. Know from whom you are buying and consider why you are buying it. Where does the dollar you spend end up? As an anecdotal aside, I recall a conversation I had with a coworker, a dedicated American car purchaser. I mentioned that I was looking at either a Mitsubishi or a Dodge, similar cars. She banged her hand on the table and said, "Buy the Dodge!" I pointed out that, in fact, the Dodge was made in Japan by Japanese workers, but the final sales dollars went to the American CEO who made (at that time) some 300 times what the line workers were making. The Mits, on the other hand, was assembled in the US, by American union workers, and the final sales dollars went to the Japanese CEO who made only 48 times what the line workers made. Who did she want me to feed: The American Workers, or the grossly overpaid suit? Knowledge is power, dear readers.