Jim Webb Forms Exploratory Committee

[Faryn Balyncd]

24. Here's a link to op-ed "Class Struggle" which he sent to WSJ in 11/2006 :

(can't find it on WSJ website, but Truthout has it)

Class Struggle
By Jim Webb
The Wall Street Journal
Wednesday 15 November 2006


The most important-and unfortunately the least debated-issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all......


http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/66991:jim-webb--class-struggle

a personal memory:

8 days before Webb wrote this, in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, November 8, 2006, I remember dosing off after no longer being able to stay awake for more returns. At the time, about 3 AM, the returns & media prognosticators were predicting that Webb had not succeeded in his battle with George Allen, and that the Republicans were going to retain control of the Senate (50/50, with the tie-breaker being Dick Cheney).

When my alarm went off about 6AM, and I learned that Webb had pulled ahead, and that Webb would tip control of the Senate to Democrats, tears of joy overwhelmed me.

8 days later, Webb let the WSJ know his views on economics & Class Struggle in America.