May 26, 2019: Rev. Graham Calls on God to Protect President Trump - Average Workers Getting Screwed

 

5/26/19: Rev. Franklin Graham calls for a national day of prayer to protect President Trump from his enemies – such as reporters quoting the pablum and nonsense he spews, Democrats running for president, and a majority of Americans who disapprove of the job he’s doing.

 

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“In the history of our country, no president has been attacked as he has. I believe the only hope for him, and this nation, is God.” 

Rev. Franklin Graham

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On Facebook, he posts warning: 

President Trump’s enemies continue to try everything to destroy him, his family, and the presidency. In the history of our country, no president has been attacked as he has. I believe the only hope for him, and this nation, is God. This is a critical time for America. We’re on the edge of a precipice. Time is short. We need to pray for God to intervene. We need to ask God to protect, strengthen, encourage, and guide the president.

 

We know that God hears and answers prayer. He can soften hearts and change minds. He is all-powerful, and He rules over the affairs of nations.

 

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Hourly wages for the average worker…peaked in 1973. 

WELL, THEN, THANK GOD for the Trump Tax Cuts, which will not drive up the deficit, because the president says they won’t. 

Okay, that was wrong…. 

But don’t worry! According to Kevin Hassert, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, starting in 2021, companies will begin to pass along the extra money they are making to workers. Then the average American family will have an extra $4,000 to spend. 

Yes, there will be pie in the sky in 2021!

 

Meanwhile, Mr. or Ms. Average American Worker, you saw wages skyrocket last year, didn’t you! When adjusted for inflation, Mr. Carpenter and Ms. Teacher, you enjoyed a 1.2% increase in real wages. 

(So says the Bureau of Labor Statistics.) 

Using a slightly different measure, BLS statistics show average weekly earnings, adjusted for inflation, are up 1.1% in the last twelve months. In either case, the average worker is up roughly $500 this year. 

The numbers get less and less impressive the more you look. Workers saw better increases under Obama in 2013, 2014 and 2015. 

According to Pew Research, hourly wages for the average worker, adjusted for inflation, peaked in 1973, at $23.68 in 2018 dollars. That was before the union-busting heyday of Ronald Reagan, before Big Corporations learned to play the game of shifting jobs from “high wage” states (Ohio) to “low wage states” (South Carolina) and then perfected the next version of the same game. That would be shipping jobs from “high wage” countries (USA) to “low wage” countries (Sri Lanka). 

Elon Musk is handsomely paid.

 

Earning $260,735 per hour must be kind of nice. 

By comparison, let’s hear a cheer for the Top 1%, who continue to make capitalism work better and better for the Top 1%. 

CEO salaries are out for 2018, and while the average worker might wipe out his or her extra $500 with one trip to the emergency room for a child with a broken wrist, Elon Musk of Tesla, earned $2,284,044,884 in 2018. You can understand why Musk needed a tax cut, since he was earning $260,735 per hour, round the clock, even when napping or sitting on the can. 

How are some of the others in the Top 1% faring, while you spend your 1.1% -1.2% wage increase? David Zaslav of Discovery received a 207% raise this year and pulled down $129,499,005 in salary and compensation. The co-chief CEOs of Oracle, Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, did quite nicely, but Catz must be furious to see Hurd earned $108,295,023 when all he got was $108,282,333. 

You figure Catz goes home at night and starts drinking, knowing how little respected he is at work.

 

James A. Murdoch, head of Twenty-First Century Fox, received a 125% raise, to $44,415,365, which helps explain why Fox News is always thumping the drum for tax relief for the super-wealthy. 

The head of Skechers USA made $27,361,406, a salary equivalent to what 2,159 ordinary Skechers employees earned for the year. Of course, most Skechers employees are toiling away in low-wage communists states like China and Vietnam, and soon to be, in non-communist India. 

The head of Universal Health Services pulled down $23,545,839, which is why, when you call about a bill, you get an automated voice telling you what numbers to push, and then after 26 minutes on hold you get disconnected. 

The head of Boeing earned $23,392,187, meaning he got a 38% raise in 2018, despite the fact Boeing planes kept crashing. 

Walmart, CEO C. Douglas McMillon, earned $22,527,249, as much as 1,076 checkout workers. 

The CEOs of Big Pharma had a great year. The head of Merck made $20,934,504; the head of AbbVie $20,808,664; the head Johnson & Johnson $20,097,572; the head of Bristol-Myers Squib $19,379,755 and the head of Amgen $18,555,266. My personal favorite is the CEO of Eli Lilly, who earned $15,701,000. This year Eli Lilly was also one of dozens of top companies that posted profits of at least a billion dollars, and still managed to pay zero taxes to the federal government. 

The head of Wells Fargo chalked up $18,419,306 in earnings, even though the bank was sued again in March for failing to help victims of the bank’s own fraud. 

The head of Mattel was deemed to be worth $16,955,660, a salary equivalent to what 3,408 average Chinese, Brazilian and Indian workers at Mattel made. 

Sheldon Adelson, CEO of Las Vegas Sands, made $24,012,913, got a huge tax cut under the Trump Tax Plan, and kept on donating heavily to Trump and Republicans in Congress. 

Finally, we have Jeffrey C. Sprecher, who turned up dead last on the list of 200 top earners, probably prompting suicidal thoughts on his part. The head of Intercontinental Exchange earned a pittance: $14,513,403.