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Dow Wow Wow

AS I'M SITTING in a Michigan airport waiting for my American Airlines flight to Chicago, a man in a uniform sits down beside me and strikes up a conversation.

 

I learn that he is actually a pilot, for American Airlines‑or more precisely American Eagle, the commuter airline of American Airlines, which like all commuters, these days is now adding jets to its fleets for flights of under two hours. This saves the parent company lots of money, I guess.

 

The pilot who has approached me is not scheduled to fly the plane I'm on. He's hoping to grab an empty seat for the flight across Lake Michigan.

 

"Do you have to pay to fly if it's a personal trip?" I asked.

 

"No," he replied. "It's about the only fringe benefit we have."

 

He then revealed that the starting pay for a pilot at American Eagle was $16,800 a year.


"What?" I asked, sure that I had misheard the figure. "Sixteen grand per year?"

 

"That's right," the captain responded. "And that's high. At Delta's commuter airline, starting pay is $15,000 for a pilot; at Continental Express, it's around $13,000."

 

"Thirteen thousand? For the captain of a commercial airliner? Are you messing with me?"

 

"No, I'm not messin' with anyone. It gets worse. That first year as a pilot, you have to pay for your own flight training and your own uniforms. After that's all deducted, you end up with about $9,000."

 

He paused so that could sink in. Then he added: "Gross.

 

"I can't believe what I'm hearing." My voice was now getting to a level where others around us began listening in.

 

"Believe it," he assured me. "One of our pilots last month went down to the welfare office and applied for food stamps. No kidding. With four kids, at his level of pay as a pilot, he was legally eligible for assistance. The front office at American found out about this and sent out a memo that said no pilot was to apply for food stamps or welfare‑even if they were eligible for it! Anyone who did apply would be let go.

 

"So now my buddy just goes down to the food bank on his way home. They don't ask for anything from you that would get back to American Airlines."

 

I thought I'd heard everything by now. But this story was beyond frightening. I did not want to get on that plane. You see, there's something about us humans and our basic animal instincts for survival‑and one of those instincts, probably traceable back to the caveman days, is: Never, ever let someone fly you up in the air who's making less than the kid at Taco Bell.

I got on the plane, but only after I convinced myself the guy must have been feeding me a line. How else could I justify risking my life like that? The following week, though, I made some calls and did some research. Much to my horror, that pilot's figures


were right. While captains who had been with these commuter airlines for a number of years were pulling in the big money ($40,000/year!), first‑year rookies in many cases were living below the poverty level.

 

I don't know about you, but I want the people taking me with them to defy nature's most powerful force‑gravity‑to be happy, content, confident, and well paid. Even on the big jets for the major airlines, the flight attendants‑another group of employees whose training may one day be critical to saving your life‑start out at somewhere between $15,000 and $17,000 a year. When I'm at 30,000 feet I do not want the minds of the pilots or the attendants to be occupied with how they're going to get the heat and lights turned back on once they get home tonight, or which Bob's Big Boy they're going to have to stick up in order to make the monthly rent. And what's the lesson for the flying public? Be nice to people on welfare‑they may be flying you to Buffalo.

 

For the first half of 2001, the pilots for Delta Connection were on strike. The greedy bastards at the union were demanding $20,000 for their pilots' starting pay. But Delta refused, and the work stoppage went on for months. You'd think that considering the booming economy‑‑especially for the well‑to‑do who fly often‑there would be little problem giving the pilots a wage that allows them to subsist on something besides dog food. (When boarding a plane, I used to do a "sniff check" to see if the pilots had been drinking; now I'll be looking for stray Kibbles or Bits as I pass by the cockpit.) After begging for scraps from the table, the Delta Connection pilots finally got their $20,000 a year.

 

These pilots‑and the rest of the public‑are being told that the economy isn't doing so well, that there's been a huge downturn, that profits are off, that the stock market has taken a beating, and that no matter how far Mr. Greenspan lowers the interest rates, nothing seems to be helping.

 

They certainly have numbers to back up their claim. An average of 403,000 Americans are filing new unemployment claims


every week. Hundreds of companies are announcing massive layoffs. Thousands of start‑ups in the new high‑tech‑dot‑com fields have gone belly‑up. Car sales are down. Retailers had a horrible Christmas. From Silicon Alley to Silicon Valley, the belts are being tightened.

 

And we've fallen for it.

 

There is no recession, my friends. No downturn. No hard times. The rich are wallowing in the loot they've accumulated in the past two decades, and now they want to make sure you don't come a‑lookin' for your piece of the pie.

 

The wealthy are doing everything they can to convince you that you'd better not be asking for your share, because‑well, suddenly, there's not enough to go around! Night after night, the media they own tell you one sad story after another, about the latest Internet company that went down, or mutual fund that lost everything, or NASDAQ investor who went belly‑up. Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost over 300 points. Lucent Technologies announced another fifteen thousand layoffs. The merger between United and U.S. Airways is off, General Motors is killing off Oldsmobile, and there are now reports that even your personal 401K is not safe. Pretty scary stuff, eh?

 

Oh, it's all true. They wouldn't lie to you. At least not about these puny details they use to manipulate your fears.

 

But what about the bigger lie? The one about how horrible the larger world economy is today? I mean, on one level, it appears to be true. If you're middle class or lower, you have every right to be fearful. Why? Because those on top are even more afraid. They're scared silly that you're going to want to participate in the party they've been having. They're afraid you're going to say, "OK, you got your yachts and your homes in the south of France‑now what about me? How 'bout a little something for me so I can get a new garage door?" The only thing bigger than this fear of theirs is their astonishment that none of you have demanded a raise, or a vacation, or a co‑paid visit to the dentist,


or any share in the excessive wealth that's been generated in the past ten years. Can it really be that you're content to spend four nights a week wondering who wants to be a millionaire, but never actually answer "ME!"? The corporate poobahs have been waiting for you to drop the other shoe.

 

Yes, those in charge know it's inevitable: one day you're going to want your share. And because that must never happen, the long knives are drawn‑and they've decided to perform a preemptive strike in the hope that you'll never even think of eyeing their piles of cash.

 

So that's why they're laying you off, or pleading poverty. That's why they've removed the free coffee pot‑not because they can't afford the coffee but because they need to fuck with your mind. They need you in a constant state of stress, suspicion, and fear. YOU COULD BE NEXT! Forget about the Maxwell House‑save yourselves! The bosses must be sitting back having one of the biggest laughs of their lives.

 

Now how do I know all this, you ask? Well, you see, I walk among them. I live on the island of Manhattan, a three‑mile‑wide strip of land that is luxury home and corporate suite to America's elite. Much of the suffering you experience as an American emanates from this piece of platinum real estate nestled between two polluted rivers. Those who run your lives live in my neighborhood. I walk the streets with them each day. I see their children being raised by Haitian immigrants, and I watch them pass by the Invisible Men who clean the grouting on the marble floors without saying a word, always in a hurry to get to wherever they're going‑most likely to reduce your insurance benefits or put your workplace on the chopping block. They are fit, coifed, and hungry to make a killing‑and the next body they drop could be yours!

 

I listen to them talk about how well they've done‑the new home in the Berkshires, the trip they just took to Easter Island. They couldn't be happier.


When I first moved into my building, it was occupied by artists and playwrights and half the cast of Saturday Night Live and some senior citizens. Now it's pretty much just us, one of the Rangers, and my crazy friend Barry, the cinematographer; everyone else, it seems, is either rich enough to do without a job, or busy reaping huge profits from the various properties they own in poor neighborhoods, or living off some trust fund, or working on Wall Street, or from another country (here in New York overseeing the family's foreign investments). The Fortune 500 corporations are their bread and butter. And I'm here to tell you, they're loaded, and they're not cutting back one bit for themselves.

 

If you don't want to take my word alone, then let me offer you some neutral, objective statistics about just how well those at the top are doing:

 

*From 1979 until now, the richest I percent in the country have seen their wages increase by 157 percent; those of you in the bottom 20 percent are actually making $100 less a year (adjusted for inflation) than you were at the dawn of the Reagan era.

 

*The world's richest two hundred companies have seen their profits grow by 362.4 percent since 1983; their combined sales are now higher than the combined gross domestic product of all but ten nations on earth.

 

*Since the recent mergers of the top four U.S. oil companies, their profits have soared by 146 percent during what we were told was an "energy crisis."

 

*In the most recent year for which there are figures, forty-four of the top eighty‑two companies in the United States did not pay the standard rate of 35 percent in taxes


that corporations are expected to pay. In fact, 17 percent of them paid NO taxes at all‑and seven of those, including General Motors, played the tax code like a harp, juggling business expenses and tax credits until the government actually owed them millions of dollars!

 

*Another 1,279 corporations with assets of $250 million or more also paid NO taxes and reported "no income" for 1995 (the most recent year for which statistics were available).

 

We are getting bilked in so many ways that listing them all might get me charged with inciting a riot. But who cares? Mercedes Benz, which has continually refused to meet American mileage and pollution standards, was being fined for its lawbreaking when it came up with an ingenious plan. For the years 1988 and 1989, the company deducted from their taxes the $65 million it had paid in fines as "ordinary expenses incurred... in carrying on its trade or business." That means that you and I paid $65 million so that a bunch of rich people could drive around in big, fancy cars and ruin our lungs. Fortunately, the IRS was on to this scam and denied their claim.

 

Halliburton, the oil company, set up a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands in the early nineties. Problem is, there is no oil in the Cayman Islands. Nor are there any oil refineries or distribution centers. So what was that Halliburton subsidiary doing there? Evidently the government was suspicious. From 1996 until 1998,

fourteen separate tax actions were filed against Halliburton enti­ties. In one case, the government contended that Halliburton used these subs to avoid $38 million in taxes. Most of these cases have been resolved.

 

They aren't the only ones interested in defrauding the federal government. A half‑dozen major U.S. insurance companies now call Bermuda their "headquarters," including insurance giants Chubb, Hartford, Kemper, Liberty Mutual, and others. Accen


ture, which used to be known as Andersen Consulting, recently "moved" its company to Bermuda in order to avoid paying taxes. It's really just a paper move‑they still have all their offices around the country, and everyone shows up to work every day doing what they always did for Andersen. It's just their "headquarters" that have moved. Wouldn't you love to wake up tomorrow and declare that you've "moved" yourself to Fiji, even though you still have to look at Topeka outside your window?

 

Forbes magazine estimates that corporate tax shelters cost us average Americans over $10 billion dollars a year (and we have to make up the difference, by paying more taxes or by losing services). Next time you can't afford to fix the furnace or replace the computer, you can thank all those fat cats who've got you repeating the line "the economy isn't doing too well right now."

 

Instead of collecting this money that's being stolen from us, how is the IRSspending its time these days? They've decided to go after you. That's right. They've thrown up the white flag; they're surrendering their efforts to get the rich to pay their taxes. Their new policy is to focus on squeezing those who make the least. According to the General Accounting Office, those who earn less than $25,000 a year have seen their IRS audits double‑while those earning over $100,000 have seen their audits drop by over 2 5 percent.

 

What does this mean on the balance sheet? It's resulted in a drop of 2 6 percent in the amount of taxes corporations pay, while you, the average American, have seen your taxes go up by at least 13 percent. In the 1950s, taxes from corporations made up 27 percent of the revenues for the federal government; today that number has dropped to less than 10 percent. Who has made up the difference? You and your second job.

 

Part of the reason you're hearing so much about how bad the economy is these days is that many of those who are getting their pink slips are the friends and family of those reporting the bad news. Unlike the massive layoffs of the eighties, which were all but ignored by those who went to good colleges and made good


money, the layoff massacres today are mostly white‑collar and professional. Lay off a few hundred thousand of these people, and you're gonna hear about it. Why? Well, because it's... it's... it's SO UNFAIR! I mean, these high‑tech guys paid their dues! They played by the rules, gave their heart and soul and first marriage to the company. They were there for every company retreat, never missed a late‑night "think session," attended every charity event the chairman and his friends threw. And then one day... "Bob, this is an employment counselor we've hired to help you with your transition, which we'd like to make as easy for you as possible. Please hand me your keys, and this gentleman with the badge and gun will escort you to your cubicle so you can collect your personal belongings and leave the building in the next twelve minutes."

 

There is no downturn. Are businesses earning less than last year? Absolutely. How could they not? The nineties saw these corporations post surreal, over‑the‑top profits, a once‑in‑a‑lifetime bonanza that had nothing to do with reality. Compare any year's figures to those, and you're comparing apples and windfalls. There was a headline the other day that said GM's profits were down 73 percent from last year. That sounds bad‑but last year was nothing short of a profit orgy. Even with that 73 percent drop, GM will still pocket over $800 Million profit in the first half of 2001.

 

Are dot‑coms folding left and night? Of course they are! Big deal. That's what happens with any new, revolutionary invention‑‑a ton of entrepreneurs hop on board to find their fortune, and in the end only the mediocre but ruthless few are still standing. It's called C‑A‑P‑1‑T‑A‑L‑I‑S‑M. In 1919, twenty years after the invention of the automobile, there were 108 automobile manufacturers in the United States. Ten years later the number had whittled down to the Big 44 U.S. auto companies. By the end of the fifties it had dropped to 8, and today we have a grand total of 2‑1/2 U.S. car manufacturers. That's the way it works in our system. You don't like it, you can move to... to... um... damn, where do you move to these days?

 

Oh, of course‑Bermuda!


Four




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INTRODUCTION | A Very American Coup | Secretary of Commerce‑Don Evans | Secretary of State‑Colin Powell | National Security Adviser‑‑Condoleezza Rice | How To Stage the Countercoup | An Open Letter to "President" George W. Bush | George, are you able to read and write on an adult level? | Hire only black people. | Don't buy a handgun. |


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