15 “I remember” Excerpt of interview of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for the Frontline program “Poisoned Waters,” June 4, 2009.
16 “There was anger” Excerpt of interview of Will Baker for the Frontline program “Poisoned Waters,” November 20, 2008.
17 “Now or never” Richard Nixon, “Statement About the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969,” American Presidency Project, January 1, 1970, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu.
18 The Nixon White House moved Shabecoff, Fierce Green Fire, 103–10, 121–27.
19 “It exploded on the country” William Ruckelshaus interview excerpt, Frontline, “Poisoned Waters,” September 3, 2008.
20 Major new consumer organizations “56 Groups Set Up a Consumer Union,” The New York Times, April 29, 1968.
21 Nader’s network Vogel, Fluctuating Fortunes, 101–03.
22 Put Nader on its cover “Who Runs America: A National Survey,” U.S. News & World Report 76, no. 16 (April 1974).
23 Nader filed a lawsuit “G.M. Settles Nader Suit on Privacy for $425,000,” The New York Times, August 14, 1970.
24 Politicians had gotten Vogel, Fluctuating Fortunes, 40–46.
CHAPTER 4: MIDDLE-CLASS PROSPERITY
1 “Prosperity for all” Richard Nixon, quoted in Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 125.
2 “The Great Compression” Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007), 54.
3 Wage of $5 a day Henry Ford, My Life and Work (New York: Garden City Publishing, 1922), 126–27.
4 Virtuous circle keeps on generating Palley, “America’s Exhausted Paradigm.”
5 “It was an economy” Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal, 79.
6 “The job of management” Frank Abrams, quoted in Fortune, October 1951.
7 “Maximizing employment security” Steven Greenhouse, The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker (New York: Anchor Books, 2008), 74–76; Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal, 73.
8 “Caring runs in the veins” Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr., In Search of Excellence (New York: Warner Books, 1982), 238–39.
9 Trade union strength “Union Membership Trends in the United States,” Congressional Research Service, August 31, 2004, http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=key_workplace.
10 “Treaty of Detroit” Greenhouse, Big Squeeze, 74–76; Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal, 49–51.
11 “More than half the union contracts” Greenhouse, Big Squeeze, 75.
12 “Classless society” Richard Nixon, quoted in Lizabeth Cohen, Consumer’s Republic, 125.
13 But the prevailing pattern Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America, February 1, 2011, http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/charts/view/201.
14 The poorest 20 percent Economic Policy Institute, “Income Inequality,” The State of Working America, April 1, 2011, http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org.
15 The tax system reduced Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Individual Income Tax: Personal Exemptions and Lowest and Highest Bracket Tax Rates, and Tax Base for Regular Tax: Tax Years 1913–2008, http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=175910,00.html.
16 “High taxes” Robert B. Reich, Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), 37.
17 That phenomenon was so striking Claudia Goldin and Robert A. Margo, “The Great Compression: The Wage Structure in the United States at Mid-Century,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, no. 1 (1992): 1–34.
18 “Time of unprecedented prosperity” Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal, 54.
PART 2: DISMANTLING THE DREAM
1 “If you’re gonna splurge” Al Dunlap, interviews, July and August 1997, transcript, PBS, Surviving the Bottom Line, http://www.hedricksmith.com.
CHAPTER 5: THE NEW ECONOMY OF THE 1990S
1 “There’s class warfare” Ben Stein, “In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning?” The New York Times, November 26, 2006.
2 “If I were to describe” Stephen Roach, interview, July 1997, “Running with the Bulls,” transcript, PBS, Surviving the Bottom Line, January 18, 1998, http://www.hedricksmith.com.
3 Traditional CEOs such as Bob Galvin Hedrick Smith, Rethinking America (New York: Random House, 1995), 319–25.
4 Price made all that profit Michael Price, interviews, May–June 1997, transcript, PBS, Surviving the Bottom Line, http://www.hedricksmith.com.
5 Reagan, who broke the air controllers Greenhouse, Big Squeeze, 82.
6 Ghoshal cited Milton Friedman Sumantra Ghoshal, “Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices,” Academy of Management Learning & Education vol. 4, no. 1 (2005): 75–91.
7 “Undermine the very foundations” Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962 and 2002), 133.
8 “Worst excesses” Ghoshal, “Bad Management Theories.”
9 Turn a huge profit Price, interview, Surviving the Bottom Line.
10 “The word that comes to mind” Jerry Ballas, interview, June 1997, transcript, PBS, Surviving the Bottom Line, http://www.hedricksmith.com.
11 Made $166,000 a day “Running with the Bulls,” transcript, PBS, Surviving the Bottom Line, http://www.hedricksmith.com.
12 “It’s like we thought we made money” Art Oxley, interview, July 3, 1977, transcript, PBS, Surviving the Bottom Line, http://www.hedricksmith.com.
13 “A hurt feeling” Marsha Dunlap, interview, July 2, 1977, transcript, PBS, Surviving the Bottom Line, http://www.hedricksmith.com.
14 “Why the layoffs” Jack Wahl, interview, August 1997, transcript, PBS, Surviving the Bottom Line, http://www.hedricksmith.com.
15 “We actually care” Greg Wahl, interview, August 1997, transcript, PBS, Surviving the Bottom Line, http://www.hedricksmith.com.
16 Sunbeam had been exaggerating Jonathan R. Laing, “High Noon at Sunbeam,” Barron’s, June 16, 1997.
17 Barron’s saw the downside Jonathan R. Laing, “Dangerous Games,” Barron’s, June 8, 1998.
18 Sunbeam’s stock started tumbling Jonathan R. Laing, “… And Take the Chainsaw with You!” Barron’s, June 22, 1998.
19 Sunbeam filed for bankruptcy “Despite Recovery Efforts, Sunbeam Files for Chapter 11,” The New York Times, February 7, 2001.
20 Dunlap … paid $15.5 million “Ex-Sunbeam Executives to Pay $15 Million to Settle a Lawsuit,” The New York Times, January 15, 2002; “Former Sunbeam Chief Agrees to Ban and a Fine of $500,000,” The New York Times, September 5, 2002.
21 Retire to a much larger estate Tax assessor records, Ocala, FL, http://216.255.243/135/DEFAULT.aspx?Key=2062061&YR=2011.
22 “Firing people and slashing” Henry Schacht, interview, July 1997, transcript, PBS, Surviving the Bottom Line, http://www.hedricksmith.com.
23 “The chain-saw mentality” Stephen Roach, interview, July 1997, transcript, PBS, Surviving the Bottom Line, http://www.hedricksmith.com.
24 Mitt Romney’s corporate strategies Nicholas Confessore, Christopher Drew, and Julie Creswell, “Buyout Profits Keep Flowing to Romney,” The New York Times, December 18, 2011.
25 Newsweek listed the big guns Allan Sloan, “The Hit Men,” Newsweek, February 26, 1996, http://www.newsweek.com.
26 “The gold standard” Geoffrey Colvin, “The Ultimate Manager,” Fortune, November 22, 1999; Tim Smart, “Jack Welch’s Encore,” Business Week, October 28, 1996, http://www.businessweek.com.
27 Hallmark was downsizing Greenhouse, Big Squeeze, 85–86.
28 Firing GE managers Clyde Prestowitz, The Betrayal of American Prosperity: Free Market Delusions, America’s Decline, and How We
Must Compete in the Post-Dollar Era (New York: Free Press, 2010), 193.
29 Abrasive management style Steven Flax, “The Toughest Bosses in America,” Fortune, August 6, 1984.
30 These tactics made Welch Paul Krugman, “For Richer,” The New York Times, October 20, 2002.
31 “Loyalty to a company, it’s nonsense” Janet Guyon, “Combative Chief, GE Chairman Welch, Though Much Prized, Starts to Draw Critics,” The Wall Street Journal, August 4, 1988.
32 367 times the pay Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal, 142–45.
33 Former CEO Lee Scott Reich, Supercapitalism, 108.
34 “Invisible handshake in the boardroom” Krugman, “For Richer.”
35 Board directors as their “friends” James D. Westphal, “Collaboration in the Boardroom: Behavioral and Performance Consequences of CEO-Board Social Ties,” Academy of Management Journal 42, no. 1 (1999): 7–24; update interview, October 13, 2011.
36 “The Lake Wobegon syndrome” Paul Volcker, testimony to Joint Economic Committee, May 14, 2008, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110shrg44539/pdf/CHRG-110shrg44539.pdf.
37 “That would imply” Jay Lorsch and Rakesh Khurana, “The Pay Problem,” Harvard Magazine, May–June 2010.
38 CEO pay spirals ever upward Edward S. Woolard, Jr., quoted in Charles Elson, moderator, “What’s Wrong with Executive Compensation?” Harvard Business Review 81, no. 1 (2003): 69–77.
39 Ranked the United States thirty-first Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “An Overview of Growing Income Inequalities in OECD Countries: Main Findings,” in “Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising,” An Overview of Growing Income Inequalities in OECD Countries: Main Findings, accessed December 6, 2011, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/40/12/49170449.pdf.
40 With rare exceptions, such as Jessica Silver Greenberg and Nelson D. Schwartz, “Citigroup’s Chief Rebuffed on Pay by Shareholders,” The New York Times, April 18, 2012.
41 The number of illegally fired workers Edsall, New Politics of Inequality, 151–54.
42 Increasingly sided with business Jeffrey Rosen, “Supreme Court, Inc.,” The New York Times Magazine, March 16, 2008; Adam Liptak, “Justices Offer Receptive Ear to Business Interests,” The New York Times, December 19, 2010.
43 “Terrors” of the corporate boardroom “The Scariest S.O.B. on Wall Street,” Fortune 4, no. 11 (December 9, 1996).
44 Close-up photo of Price Ibid.
45 “The power of the financial markets” Roach, interview, transcript, Surviving the Bottom Line.
CHAPTER 6: THE STOLEN DREAM
1 “The ‘land of opportunity’ ” Sawhill, “Overview,” in Isaacs, Sawhill, and Haskins, Getting Ahead, 4, 7.
2 “America has entered” Lance Morrow, “The Temping of America,” Time, June 24, 2001.
3 “The biggest failure” “Retiring Rep. Obey Not Going Out with a Whimper,” The Washington Post, November 30, 2010.
4 “I got $1.75 an hour” Pam Scholl, interview, November 7, 2010.
5 “The early seventies” Roy Wunsch, interviews, October 27 and November 7, 2010.
6 Mike got good technical training Mike Hughes, interview, June 23, 2010.
7 “What made it difficult” Ibid., June 28, 2010.
8 “I barely stay afloat” Pam Scholl, interview, June 23, 2010.
9 Fewer jobs U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “The Employment Situation, December 2001,” January 7, 2002, http://www.bls.gov; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “The Employment Situation, September 2011,” October 7, 2011, http://www.bls.gov. BLS figures show 132.2 million nonfarm jobs in 2001 vs. 131.3 million in September 2011.
10 Winding up lower Census Bureau, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010”; “Income Slides to 1996 Levels,” The Wall Street Journal, September 4, 2011.
11 Roughly 45 percent of blacks Isaacs, “Economic Mobility of Black and White Families,” in Isaacs, Sawhill, and Haskins, Getting Ahead, 71–80.
12 The numbers of New Poor Census Bureau, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010.”
13 “Median family is in worse shape” “Soaring Poverty Casts Spotlight on ‘Lost Decade,’ ” The New York Times, September 14, 2011.
14 “This is new…. It is worse” E. S. Browning, “Oldest Baby Boomers Face Jobs Bust,” The Wall Street Journal, December 19, 2011.
15 Children born to parents Isaacs, “Economic Mobility of Families Across Generations,” in Isaacs, Sawhill, and Haskins, Getting Ahead, 19.
16 Have now surpassed us Isaacs, “International Comparisons of Economic Mobility,” in Isaacs, Sawhill, and Haskins, Getting Ahead, 37–44.
17 America is now classified as “a low-mobility country” Sawhill, “Trends in Intergenerational Mobility,” in Isaacs, Sawhill, and Haskins, Getting Ahead, 9, italics added; Thomas DeLeire and Leonard M. Lopoo, “Family Structure and the Economic Mobility of Children,” Pew Charitable Trusts, April 2010, http://www.economicmobility.org; Jason DeParle, “Harder for Americans to Rise from Economy’s Lower Rungs,” The New York Times, January 5, 2012.
18 Starting at the bottom Isaacs, “Economic Mobility of Families Across Generations,” in Isaacs, Sawhill, and Haskins, Getting Ahead, 19.
19 “We have moved” Sean F. Reardon, “The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations,” in Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011); “Poor Dropping Further Behind Rich in School,” The New York Times, February 10, 2012.
20 At the college level Martha J. Bailey and Susan M. Dynarski, “Gains and Gaps: Changing Inequality in U.S. College Entry and Completion,” Working Paper 17633, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2011, http://www.nber.org.
21 An important driver Study by Sabino Kornrich, Center for Advanced Studies, Juan March Institute, Madrid, and Frank F. Furstenberg, University of Pennsylvania, cited in “Poor Dropping Further Behind Rich in School,” The New York Times, February 10, 2012.
22 The quadrupling of average college tuition Will Hutton, “Log Cabin to White House? Not Any More,” The Observer, April 28, 2002, http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,706484,00.html.
23 Far less chance of rising Bhashkar Mazumder, “Fortunate Sons: New Estimates of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States Using Social Security Earnings Data,” for Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, July 6, 2004, published in The Review of Economics and Statistics 87, no. 2 (2005): 235–55.
24 Being born in the elite Janny Scott and David Leonhardt, “Class in America: Shadowy Lines That Still Divide,” The New York Times, May 15, 2005.
25 From 1948 to 1973 Lawrence Mishel, Joshua Bivens, and Heidi Shierholz, The State of Working America, 2012/2013 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), figure 4U, “Hourly Compensation for Production/Non-Supervisory Workers and Total Economy Productivity, 1948–2011”; Mishel, emails, March 29 and April 9, 2012.
26 From 1973 to 2011 Ibid. The contrast is sharper when comparing productivity growth and hourly wages only in the private sector. Over this period, private sector productivity grew by 92.6 percent while the average hourly wage rose by only 4.2 percent. This difference is dampened when figures cover the overall economy, because that data includes government workers, whose productivity is assumed not to grow while their salaries rise.
27 Hourly wages of the average Census Bureau, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010,” September 2011.
28 The living standards Phillips, Wealth and Democracy, 112, 163.
29 Corporate profits have trended upward Aviva Aron-Dine and Isaac Shapiro, “Share of National Income Going to Wages and Salaries at Record Low in 2006,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, March 29, 2007, http://www.cbpp.org.
30
Gaping inequalities in wealth and income Study by Emmanuel Saez, University of California at Berkeley, cited in “It’s the Inequality, Stupid,” Mother Jones, March–April 2011, http://www.motherjones.com.
31 The super-rich (the top 1 percent) During recession, the share of the top 1 percent fell, but with recovery that share has been moving back up toward previous highs. Emmanuel Saez, “Striking It Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States,” Pathways Magazine, Stanford Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality (Winter 2008), and updated version of same paper to include estimates for 2009 and 2010, March 7, 2012, http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2010.pdf. Also see Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, “Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998, updated,” table A-3, “Top Fractiles Income Shares (Including Capital Gains) in the United States,” http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/TabFig2010.
32 Forced to swallow cutbacks Catherine Rampell, “In Job Market Shift, Some Workers Are Left Behind,” The New York Times, May 12, 2010; Louis Uchitelle, “Unions Yield on Wage Scales to Preserve Jobs,” The New York Times, November 19, 2010; “Still On the Job, but at Half the Pay,” The New York Times, October 13, 2009.
33 Roughly 30 percent of the labor force “Employment Arrangements: Improved Outreach Could Help Ensure Proper Worker Classification,” General Accounting Office report, July 2006, http://www.gao.gov.
34 Working part-time U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “The Employment Situation, September 2011,” table A-1, October 7, 2011, http://www.bls.gov.
35 Microsoft agreed to pay $97 million Steven Greenhouse, “Technology: Temp Workers at Microsoft Win Lawsuit,” The New York Times, December 13, 2000; Mike Blain, “Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Appeal of Microsoft ‘Permatemp’ Settlement,” WashTech News, November 13, 2002, http://archive.washtech.org.
36 To get around the ruling Ibid.
37 Several million male dropouts U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Employment Situation, September 2011.”
Who Stole the American Dream? Page 47
