Global Economy

For more than a quarter century, IPS has been a leader in strengthening citizen responses to the global economy through research, writing, film, education, and coalition building. The project has produced dozens of books, articles, films, and educational materials.

Executive Excess 2012: The CEO Hands in Uncle Sam's Pocket

Cover: The CEO Hands in Uncle Sam's Pocket

Nationwide, budget cuts have axed 627,000 public service jobs just since June 2009. Schools, health clinics, fire stations, parks, and recreation facilities—virtually no public service has gone unsqueezed. Tax dollars haven’t seemed this scarce in generations.

Yet tens of billions of these scarce tax dollars are getting diverted. These tax dollars are flowing from average Americans who depend on public services to the kingpins of America’s private sector. They’re subsidizing, directly and indirectly, the mega-million paychecks that go to the top executives at our nation’s biggest banks and corporations.

Read the report and take action.

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Recent Work

Report
Mining for Profits in International Tribunals - Updated
May 9, 2013 - How transnational corporations use trade and investment treaties as powerful tools in disputes over oil, mining, and gas. / Como las empresas mineras transnacionales utilizan las reglas de los acuerdos de inversión y de comercio como poderosos instrumentos a su favor en las disputas por el petróleo, la minería y el gas. By Sarah Anderson and Manuel Perez-Rocha

Op-Ed
Pro-Austerity CEOs Rake in Taxpayer-Subsidized Pay
May 2, 2013 - Ordinary Americans who rely on government retirement benefits are actually subsidizing runaway CEO pay. By Sarah Anderson, published in The Kansas City Star and The Bradenton (FL) Herald and The Merced (CA) Sun-Star

Report
"Fix the Debt" CEOs Enjoy Taxpayer-Subsidized Pay
May 2, 2013 - A new report by IPS and Campaign for America's Future shows that America’s top CEOs are pocketing massive taxpayer subsidies at the same time they’re pushing austerity cutbacks in government programs that benefit ordinary citizens. By Sarah Anderson, Scott Klinger, Javier Rojo, published in Common Dreams and AFL-CIO and Daily Kos and Think Progress and Dow Jones and The Hill and The Huffington Post and Salon.com and Fox Business News and Marketwatch and Business Insider

Blog
Inside-outside Strategy on Wall Street Tax
April 24, 2013 - countries are already raising significant revenue from national financial transaction taxes. By Sarah Anderson

Blog
How About a Tax System for the 99 Percent?
April 17, 2013 - Feeling like taxes are more unfair than ever? By Robin Broad and John Cavanagh

Report
Corporate Tax Dodgers: 10 Companies and Their Tax Loopholes
April 15, 2013 - A new report looks at 10 U.S. corporations that have used an array of tax loopholes and corporate subsidies to slash their tax bills: Bank of America, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, FedEx, General Electric, Honeywell, Merck, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Verizon. By Sarah Anderson, Scott Klinger, Javier Rojo

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Buy This Book
- Published January 28, 2009
- ISBN 978-0-7391-3167-1
Mandate for Change: Policies and Leadership for 2009 and Beyond
By Chester Hartman

Three decades ago, conservative ideologues at The Heritage Foundation produced a primer on the Reagan Revolution entitled Mandate for Leadership, which offered an overarching philosophy against the role of government and in favor of markets.

Today, IPS has taken on the same task for the Obama administration. Mandate for Change is aimed at strengthening the new administration at a time when the need for progressive policies — and appointing progressive people to lead such efforts—is most urgent.
Buy This Book
- Published September 16, 2008
- ISBN 978-1-59451-523-1
Development Redefined: How the Market Met its Match
By Robin Broad and John Cavanagh

Rejecting the “flat worldism” of the globalists as well as the peaks and valleys of trade and aid policies over the years, Robin Broad and John Cavanagh guide us through the raging debate over the best route to development for the poorer nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

This book takes readers on a journey through the rise and fall of the one-size-fits-all model of development that richer nations began imposing on poorer ones three decades ago. That model — called the “Washington Consensus” by its backers and “neoliberalism” or “market fundamentalism” by its critics — placed enormous power in markets to solve the problems of the poor.

The authors have stood at the epicenter of these debates from their perches in the United Nations, the U.S. government, academia, and civil society. They guide us back in time to understand why the Washington Consensus dominated for so long, and how it devastated workers, the environment, and the poor. At the same time, they chart the rise of an “alter-globalization” movement of those adversely affected by market fundamentalism. Today, this movement is putting alternatives into action across the globe, and what constitutes development is being redefined.
Buy This Book
- Published April 1, 2005
- ISBN 978-1-56584-956-3
Field Guide to the Global Economy (Second Edition)
By Sarah Anderson, John Cavanagh, Thea Lee

This fully updated and expanded second edition of The Field Guide to the Global Economy presents the latest facts to help make sense of the rapidly changing international economy. Illustrated throughout with charts, graphs, and cartoons, the book documents new trends, including the foreign “outsourcing” of U.S. service jobs, as well as the increasing influence of mega-firms like Wal-Mart and labor union–free China on workers around the globe.

Published in conjunction with the Institute for Policy Studies, an independent research institute based in Washington, D.C., this accessible guide explains how global institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, and North American Free Trade Agreement affect communities, workers, the poor, and the environment. The book dispels the widely disseminated propaganda about current globalization policies and provides an update on the burgeoning movement that is challenging them, from Bolivian water warriors to U.S. student anti-sweatshop activists.

March 2, 2012

Common Dreams features blog “Crikey! Australia Shocks Corporate America on Trade”
Visit the publisher's website • See the blog
February 28, 2012

Georgetown Voice Vox Populi
Visit the publisher's website
The first two guest speakers of the day, Sarah Anderson of the progressive think tank the Institute for Policy Studies and Bart Naylor, a financial policy advocate at the consumer interest lobby Public Citizen, responded most directly to the Wall Street Training Bootcamp across campus. Anderson, while acknowledging that certain financial sector jobs are vitally important, asserted that Wall Street has grown entirely too large. The system of rewarding risky ventures and high-frequency computerized trades, she said, could cause another financial collapse.
February 11, 2012

Kansas City InfoZine
Visit the publisher's website
“Extreme inequality within firms is bad business,” Sarah Anderson, global economy project director for the Institute for Policy Studies, said because it lowers morale and leads to high turnover rates.
February 9, 2012

Mother Jones features article “Full Testimony to the Senate Budget Committee on Inequality, Mobility, and Opportunity”
Visit the publisher's website • See the article
February 7, 2012

International Business Times
Visit the publisher's website
Backers of the provision, naturally, disagree. In a March 2011 letter to the SEC, the Institute for Policy Studies said the requirement is needed because extreme pay differentials between CEO's and their employees can lead to lower morale, higher turnover rates, and reinforce a "celebrity CEO" culture that is not conductive to high executive performance.

"To keep their pockets stuffed, executives will nurture the hierarchies that frustrate enterprise empowerment. They will devote themselves to making their companies bigger, not better," the Institute wrote. "Corporations that lavish multiple millions on their executive superstars, even if those millions [are] mere 'peanuts' in the grand corporate scheme of things, create great fortunes for their executives. They do not create great enterprises."
January 29, 2012

The Federal Times features report “America Is Not Broke”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report
The Institute for Policy Studies puts the savings from overseas base closures as high as $184 billion over 10 years.
January 19, 2012

Time Magazine features report “Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report
"A recent report by the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington-based think tank, found that CEOs at large U.S. firms earned, on average, $10.8 million in 2010, a 28% increase from the year before, while the average worker took home $33,121, a mere 3% more. At that level, CEOs’ paychecks are 325 times bigger than their employees’...

"Chuck Collins, a specialist on income inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies, advocates tax reform that would hike levies on the wealthiest and end the abuse of offshore havens; new corporate rules that would enhance labor and community influence over company management; and restrictions on the ability of Big Business to fund and lobby politicians. Inequality 'is part of the natural dynamic of capitalism when there are no checks to counterbalance wealth and power,' Collins asserts."
January 3, 2012

Blog Talk Radio
Visit the publisher's website
December 15, 2011

People's Weekly World

Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies pointed out "there's a big backlash from companies" against a requirement of the Dodd-Frank securities law, which applies to all firms, to disclose their top executives' compensation as a multiple of how much they pay their average worker. The current ratio of CEO pay to average worker's pay is 325-1.
December 6, 2011

The San Antonio Express-News features article “A Main Street Jobs Agenda”
Visit the publisher's website • See the article

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IPS'er Kevin Shih takes to the street to advocate for a financial speculation tax. In many countries around the world, there is growing momentum behind proposals to place a very small tax on transactions of stock, currency, derivatives, and other financial assets. Such financial speculation taxes are one of the few available options that could generate the enormous financial resources required to pay for the continuing costs of the global financial and economic crisis, including reducing the high rate of job loss, and to achieve key development, health, education and climate change objectives in developing countries. Even at very low rates, such taxes could also discourage the type of short-term financial speculation that has little social value but poses high risks to the economy.

Learn More:

Blog
Conservative Candidate Supports Wall Street Speculation Tax
April 5, 2012 - The right-wing in France seeks popular support by getting behind a transactions tax on securities trades. By Sarah Anderson

Magazine Article
Nurses Fight for a Dose of Tax Justice
February 23, 2012 - Before there was Occupy, thousands of nurses were already taking on Wall Street to demand a financial transaction tax. By Sarah Anderson

Interview
[VIDEO] Why a Financial Transaction Tax?
January 11, 2012 - A 0.25% tax on financial transactions could raise $150 billion a year in the United States alone. By Sarah Anderson

Commentary
VIDEO: Why a Financial Transaction Tax?
December 4, 2011 - In an interview on The Real News, Sarah Anderson discusses how a tax on financial transactions could raise $150 billion a year in the US alone. By Sarah Anderson.

Commentary
Europe Taking Lead on Speculations Tax
June 30, 2011 - Out of the ashes of the 2008 financial crisis, an idea that progressives have been kicking around for decades – a financial transactions tax (FTT) – took on new life. By Sarah Anderson.

Blog
U.S. Nurses Bring Global Call to Tax Speculators to Wall Street
June 22, 2011 · National Nurses United stands with activists across the globe to bring attention to the need for a financial speculation tax. By Sarah Anderson and Marlee Blasenheim.

Magazine Article
Cut Wall Street Down to Size With a Financial Speculation Tax
June 9, 2011 · A financial speculation tax might not have stopped those greed-crazed fools, but at least Uncle Sam would've taken in about $1.1 billion on the deals. By Sarah Anderson, originally published in The Nation.

Blog
Nurses Join Call to "Tax Wall Street"
June 7, 2011 - A swarm of around a thousand nurses in scarlet scrubs descended on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in downtown Washington to call for a new economic agenda.By Sarah Anderson.

Talking Points
Seven Innovative Mechanisms of Development Finance
April 18, 2011 - As governments look for new options for public revenue stream, this table by IPS Global Economy project director Sarah Anderson shows which options can be considered, their potential revenue, and their administrative and political feasibility.By Sarah Anderson.

Talking Points
Financial Transaction Taxes and the Global South
April 8, 2011 - This downloadable pdf fact sheet answers frequently asked questions about the implications for the developing world of taxing financial speculation. By Sarah Anderson.

Blog
Europe Takes the Lead in Drive to Tax Speculators
March 10, 2011 - There are still places in the world where folks from across the political spectrum can have a rational discussion about fair taxation. By Sarah Anderson.

Article / Declaration
U.S. Groups Join Global Call to Tax Speculators
February 16, 2011 - Over 30 national organizations signed a letter urging President Obama to take action at home and abroad to stop rampant financial speculation.

Article / Op-Ed
Taxing Financial Speculation, Raising Funds for Critical Needs
February 14, 2011 - Levying a tiny tax on financial transactions could help build a healthier and more stable future. By Paul R. Epstein and Janet Redman, published in The Huffington Post.

Report / Report
Taxing the Wall Street Casino
June 17, 2010 - In the United States and many countries around the world, there is growing momentum behind proposals to place a very small tax on trades of stock, currency, derivatives, and other financial assets. By Sarah Anderson, Chuck Collins, Scott Klinger, Janet Redman, Kevin Shih.

Media / Quote
The Growing Push to Impose a Transaction Tax - NYTimes.com
Jun 17, 2010 - The Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning think tank, issued a report on Thursday promoting the benefits of such a tax.

Video / Interview
May 17, 2010 - IPS video on global day of action on financial speculation taxes:

Petition
Wealth for the Common Good petition for a financial speculation tax

Article / Column
Fighting Finance from Below
November 22, 2010 - Since the crash of 2008, writes guest columnist Sarah Anderson, global justice activists have begun to make progress in reining in the excesses of the financial industry. By Sarah Anderson

Article / Commentary
Unpopular Sarkozy Gets it Right on Financial Transactions Taxes in the G-20
November 4, 2010 - The French President is standing tough in his push to increase taxes on the financial sector. By Sarah Anderson

Article / Declaration
G-20: Take Action on Financial Transaction Taxes
October 27, 2010 - International civil society organizations urge G-20 leaders to make progress on taxing financial speculation at summit in Seoul. By Sarah Anderson, et al

Article / Op-Ed
It's Time We Taxed Financial Gambling
June 21, 2010 - A tiny tax would make purely speculative investment less profitable and encourage long-term, patient investment. By Sarah Anderson

Article / Op-Ed
Proving That Tea Partiers' Anti-Tax Extremism Isn't Even Loved by All Conservatives
June 18, 2010 - Taxing speculation could take us a long way toward reining in Wall Street. By Sarah Anderson

Article / Media Advisory
Taxing the Wall Street Casino
June 17, 2010 - Report looks at how speculation taxes might have changed the outcome of recent global financial fiascos By Sarah Anderson

Blog / Blog
Tax Wall Street to Pay for Jobs
June 17, 2010 - The Senate should be looking for ways to jumpstart the economy -- but not at the expense of those who suffered the most from the crisis. By Sarah Anderson and Kevin Shih

Article / Commentary
Reining in Wall Street: Round 1
May 27, 2010 - A May 17 rally in Washington, DC brought more than a thousand people into the streets, calling for a "financial speculation tax" as part of a broader financial reform agenda. By Sarah Anderson

Blog / Blog
Global Activists Coordinate Actions to Tax Speculators
May 20, 2010 - From Australia to Canada, activists are taking to the streets in cities around the world this week to hold the financial sector accountable for the costs of the global crisis. By Sarah Anderson

Article / Commentary
The Unfinished Business of Financial Reform
May 6, 2010 - Lawmakers will need to consider financial speculation taxes in the next round of the fight to rein in Wall Street. By Sarah Anderson

Global Economy

Executive Excess 2012: The CEO Hands in Uncle Sam's Pocket

Recent Work

Common Dreams features blog “Crikey! Australia Shocks Corporate America on Trade”

Georgetown Voice Vox Populi

Kansas City InfoZine

Mother Jones features article “Full Testimony to the Senate Budget Committee on Inequality, Mobility, and Opportunity”

International Business Times

The Federal Times features report “America Is Not Broke”

Time Magazine features report “Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging”

Blog Talk Radio

People's Weekly World

The San Antonio Express-News features article “A Main Street Jobs Agenda”

Project Staff

Associate Fellows

Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging

Trade Agreements and Financial Crisis