Greed at a Glance
A weekly update on avarice in America and beyond

September 4, 2006

Future historians, the UBS investment bank predicts, will look back at the early 21st century as “the golden age of profitability.” Corporate profits, says a new Commerce Department report, are now running at nearly unprecedented levels. What's fueling the profit boom? Sinking wages and salaries. Since 1970, the share of gross domestic product going to wages and salaries has shrunk 8.3 percent. If the 2006 American economic pie were divided into 1970-sized slices, with workers today receiving the same share of the nation's gross domestic product workers received in 1970, each American household would this year receive about $9,600 more in paycheck income . . .

The annual Census Bureau figures on incomes in the United States — released last week for 2005 — don't tell us much about America's upper-income set. One reason: Census statisticians don't tally income dollars over $999,999 a year. Census statisticians, on the other hand, can tell us a geat deal about how well everyone under $999,999 is doing. The short answer for 2005: not very well. The typical nonelderly U.S. household, notes a Center for Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of the new Census data, earned $2,000 less in 2005 than in 2001, a recession year. At the bottom of the income ladder, worse news. The average poor person fell $3,236 below the poverty line in 2005, the biggest such gap on record. Households in the most affluent 5 percent, by contrast, saw their 2005 incomes jump 3.1 percent, or $8,400 — and that figure, remember, ignores all income over $999,999 . . .

In Manhattan these days, as just about everywhere else in the United States, residential properties are going unsold as people wait for dipping prices to dip even deeper. And what do people who need a roof over their heads do while they're waiting? They rent. In Manhattan's most exclusive enclaves, the rush to rent is sending rental rates soaring. One eight-room penthouse “with Hudson River views” is listing for $45,000 a month, or $540,000 a year. The number of Manhattan apartments going for over $10,000 a month has surged, in just a year, by 54 percent. Landlords, meanwhile, are finding plenty of renters, even at five-digit rents. Wall Street's top five investment banks, Bloomberg news points out, paid out $20 billion in bonuses last year . . .

Architects solve problems. For the right price, any problem. The latest proof? The just-announced “transparent concrete garage,” a remarkable creation from the studio of Tapio Spellman and Christian Grou, the architects behind the Munich football stadium. Their new $211,000 garage addresses the incredibly vexing problem that faces every proud luxury car owner: How do you flaunt a fabulous car that has to sometimes sit in a garage? The Spellman and Grou answer to that riddle, designed specifically for the flashy Citroën C6, features “light-transmitting concrete with transparent sliding ‘doors’ to the sides.” Owners needing a bit of privacy can “flip a switch” to make “the polycarbonate-based LCD layers turn opaque electronically.”

Billionaires for Bush — the merry pranksters who hail each other as “brothers in bullion, sisters in stock options” — are taking to the airwaves. Their new show, Billionaire Radio, premiered Labor Day weekend on KPFK in Los Angeles, with a cast of characters that includes “Debbie Taunt,” “Ona Bentley,” and the ever-popular “Ivanna Haverdahl.” Billionaire Radio may soon be nationally syndicated. For now, if you're outside L.A., you can catch the show online at KPFK's streaming archive.

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