Tag Archives: s & p

Business/Economics, Opinion, U.S.

U.S. corporate executives continue to make bank, while the rest of us struggle

A report by Standard & Poor’s shows that while the workers of the United States continue to struggle, the corporate leaders are raking in the dough.  In fact corporate executives are making more now, than they did before the 2007 market correction.

S & P’s 500 reports that in 2010, the average yearly salary of a corporate executive was $9 million, NOT counting bonuses.  That’s a 24% increase over 2009.  Are you making that much?  Did you get a 24% raise?

The S & P’s report proves you are not making that much.  The report says the average worker got a piddly 3% increase in pay.  The average pay for those who are employed is $40,500 per year (41% earn less than the average).  That’s only one half a percent of the average salary for a CEO.

When are workers going to wake up?  Who is really doing the work that makes the corporations money?  It’s NOT the executive officers!

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Credit Rating of United States trashed, kind of

Today, April 18, Standard & Poors downgraded the long term credit rating of the U.S., to a negative rating!

“More than two years after the beginning of the recent crisis, U.S. policymakers have still not agreed on how to reverse recent fiscal deterioration or address longer-term fiscal pressures.”-Nikola Swann, Standard & Poor’s

Standard & Poor’s is one of three major agencies that evaluate government and corporate debt.  The S & P analysts think the division between Democrat and Republican law makers is too far apart for them to make any real progress in dealing with the country’s public debt.

Investors with the Dow Jones reacted by dropping the industrial average by 200 points in the first half hour of trading.

The downgrade of the U.S. follows the downgrading of Ireland’s banks, as well as several other international financing issues.   Even though S & P dropped the U.S. credit rating to “negative”, they still maintain a AAA/A-1+ rating on U.S. sovereign debt.

Long term debt, money borrowed from financial institutions, is debt that will take more than ten years to be paid back.  Sovereign debt refers to government bonds.