Noam Chomsky: Democracy & Media Part 3 - U.S. Economy, Labor Wages and Profits (1994)

November 1, 1994 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HBL25E?ie=UTF8&tag=doc06-20&link... Watch the full lecture: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/08/noam-chomsky-on-democracy-and-med...

The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and privately-held companies for which revenues are publicly available. The first Fortune 500 list was published in 1955.

Wal-Mart was the largest company on the list in 2007 and 2008. ExxonMobil was in second place in 2007 and 2008, but overtook Wal-Mart in 2009. Wal-Mart once again regained the top spot in 2010.

Although the Fortune 500 list is the most familiar one, similar gross revenue lists of the top firms range from the highest ranking Fortune 100 including the top one hundred to the broader ranking Fortune 1000 that includes the top thousand firms. While the membership on the smaller lists is somewhat stable, the ranking on the lists may change over time, depending upon revenues and often, because of mergers among firms already listed.

The original Fortune 500 was restricted to companies whose revenues were derived from manufacturing, mining, or energy exploration. At the same time, Fortune published companion "Fortune 50" lists of the 50 largest commercial banks (ranked by assets), utilities (ranked by assets), life insurance companies (ranked by assets), retailers (ranked by gross revenues) and transportation companies (ranked by revenues). These have been consolidated into one single list, so the Fortune 500 as it exists today includes companies that in previous years would have been on one of the "Fortune 50" lists.

The standard of living in the United States is one of the top 20 in the world by the standards economists use as measures of standards of living. Per capita income is high but also less evenly distributed than in most other developed countries; as a result, the United States fares particularly well in measures of average material well being that do not place weight on equality aspects.

On comprehensive measures such as the UN Human Development Index the United States is always in the top twenty, currently ranking 15th. On the Human Poverty Index the United States ranked 16th, one rank below the United Kingdom and one rank above Ireland. On the Economist's quality-of-life index the United States ranked 13th, in between Finland and Canada, scoring 7.6 out of a possible 10. The highest given score of 8.3 was applied to Ireland. This particular index takes into account a variety of socio-economic variables including GDP per capita, life expectancy, political stability, family life, community life, gender equality, and job security.

The homeownership rate is relatively high compared to other post-industrial nations. In 2005, 69% of Americans resided in their own homes, roughly the same percentage as in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Israel and Canada. Residents of the United States also enjoy a high access to consumer goods. Americans enjoy more radios per capita than any other nation and more televisions and personal computers per capita than any other large nation.

The median income is $43,318 per household ($26,000 per household member) with 42% of households having two income earners. Meanwhile, the median income of the average American age 25+ was roughly $32,000 ($39,000 if only counting those employed full-time between the ages of 25 to 64) in 2005. According to the CIA the gini index which measures income inequality (the higher the less equal the income distribution) was clocked at 45.0 in 2005, compared to 32.0 in the European Union and 28.3 in Germany. |The US has... a per capita GDP [PPP] of $42,000... The [recent] onrush of technology largely explains the gradual development of a "two-tier labor market"... Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households... The rise in GDP in 2004 and 2005 was undergirded by substantial gains in labor productivity... Long-term problems include inadequate investment in economic infrastructure, rapidly rising medical and pension costs of an aging population, sizable trade and budget deficits, and stagnation of family income in the lower economic groups. -CIA factbook on the US economy, 2005.

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[lmcdowall]

Lol, it has become so much worse since this was made.

[photonal]

Noam Chomsky for US Vice-President 2012!