Gap between rich and poor becomes chasm
By Greg Butterfield
Millions of workers in the United States are
suffering from want and desperation stemming from prolonged
unemployment and the longest period of sustained job cuts since
the Great Depression.
But for the super-rich who reside in Manhattan penthouses,
mansions outside Detroit and gated communities in California,
it's a different story.
Forbes magazine's annual list of the 400 richest people in
the U.S., released Sept. 18, showed that the economy is
improving, at least for them. The total net worth of the
super-rich rose 10 percent this year, to $955 billion.
Just how much richer did they get?
Microsoft Chair Bill Gates--No. 1 on the Forbes list--saw
his personal wealth swell by $3 billion to $46 billion in the
space of a single year.
Other high-tech bosses, including the heads of Yahoo,
Amazon.com, Oracle and Dell, were big winners.
Warren Buffett must be sad. The stock-market robber baron
was number two on the list, but his wealth stayed about the
same as last year--a mere $36 billion.
Five members of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton's family tied at
number four, each with a net worth of $20.5 billion.
Meanwhile, reported the Census Bureau in September, an
additional 1.3 million people fell into poverty last year,
while some 3.3 million jobs have been permanently lost since
2001, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The Forbes list is deceptive and distorted, focused as it is
on an individual's net worth instead of on the monopoly
corporations and banks, the real forces that dominate the U.S.
economy.
This individual focus also draws attention away from
powerful old-money capitalist families like the Rockefellers
and DuPonts, whose fortunes have been passed down through
generations of heirs.
But it does shed light on the growing gap between rich and
poor, and how the former are grabbing up the spoils at a time
when war and occupation, cutbacks in vital services, and high
unemployment are choking working-class families.
Masters of war: Halliburton, etc.
The New York Times confessed Sept. 16 that "The slumping
American economy has proved to be a boon to the Army's efforts
to recruit the 100,000 enlisted soldiers it says it needs this
year to fill its active duty and reserve ranks, senior Army
officials say, so far relieving concerns that the turmoil in
Iraq could crimp new enlistments."
Desperation has been the military's main recruitment tool
for nearly 30 years. Millions of youths, including a
disproportionate number of Black, Latino/a, Asian, Arab and
Native peoples, have succumbed to this economic draft after
being pro mised job training and money for education. In
reality, they become cannon fodder, defending the transnational
interests of the same corporations that exploit their families
at home.
While the Pentagon may be exaggerating its recruitment
success, the fact that the economic draft is still working
demonstrates the severity of the jobs crisis and its impact on
millions of poor and working class families. After all, U.S.
troops are dying every day in Iraq as resistance to U.S.
occupation grows. And tours of duty have been indefinitely
extended for many GIs.
But if economic desperation drives youth here to join an
occupying army, it is greed that drives the U.S. government/
Pentagon/big business axis.
On Aug. 28, the Washington Post reported that "Halliburton,
the company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, has
won contracts worth more than $1.7 billion out of Operation
Iraqi Freedom and stands to make hundreds of millions more
under a no-bid contract awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engi
neers, according to newly available documents.
"The size and scope of the government contracts awarded to
Halliburton in connection with the war in Iraq are
significantly greater than previously disclosed," the Post
continued, "and demonstrate the U.S. military's increasing
reliance on for-profit corporations to run its logistical
operations. Independent experts estimate that up to one-third
of the monthly $3.9 billion cost of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq
is going to independent contractors."
Halliburton bills itself as an "oil field services"
business. But according to the Post, the company's Kellogg,
Brown & Root subsidiary plays a major supportive role to
CIA operatives in Iraq--who are allegedly searching for
"weapons of mass destruction."The company is also building and
managing military bases. Its employees dress in Army
fatigues.
"The Halliburton contracts exceed even those won by San
Francisco's Bechtel Group," noted the Aug. 28 Washington Post
report. "The engineering firm was originally awarded an
18-month, $680-million contract for reconstruction work--a
figure U.S. officials in Baghdad have decided to boost by $350
million, the Wall Street Journal reported today."
The military contract bonanza isn't limited to Iraq. On
Sept. 19 the Washington Post reported that the Department of
Homeland Security plans to award a $100-million contract to
"explore the feasibility of outfitting commercial airliners
with electronic devices that would protect that aircraft from
missiles fired by terrorists on the ground."
That's $40 million more than the White House had previously
announced.
Since the technology in question is to be modified from
existing systems on military transport aircraft that perform
Special Forces missions, it's a sure bet the money will be
going to big military contractors--who will also be awarded
fresh gobs of cash to replenish billions of dollars worth of
missiles and other high-tech weaponry used against civilian
targets during the war in Iraq.
Meanwhile, polls show that most people in the U.S. are more
worried about unemployment and health care costs than terrorist
attacks.
Reprinted from the Oct. 2, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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