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

Blog
House Hearing on Tax Havens: Possible "Purple" Issue?
June 13, 2013 - Tax havens could be something that the right and left agree on in Congress. Meanwhile U.S. multinational corporations continue to lobby for bigger, better tax haven loopholes. By Scott Klinger

Op-Ed
It's Time Corporations Flew Old Glory Instead of the Jolly Roger
June 12, 2013 - Instead of gaming the tax system to boost corporate profits, American business leaders need to start investing more in this nation. By Scott Klinger

Report
New Report: Corporate Pirates of the Caribbean
June 12, 2013 - A new report looks at pro-austerity CEOs who seek to widen tax haven loopholes. By Sarah Anderson, Scott Klinger, Javier Rojo, published in Marketwatch and Politico and The Huffington Post and Daily Kos and Truthout and AFL-CIO and Common Dreams

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

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Download
- Released August 29, 2007
Executive Excess 2007
By Sarah Anderson, John Cavanagh, Chuck Collins, Mike Lapham, Sam Pizzigati

Back around 1980, big-time corporate CEOs in the United States took home just over 40 times the pay of average American workers. Today’s average American CEO from a Fortune 500 company makes 364 times an average worker’s pay and over 70 times the pay of a four-star Army general. Another example of this growing leadership pay gap: Last year, the top 20 earners in the most lucrative corner of America’s business sector, the private equity and hedge fund world, pocketed 680 times more in rewards for their labors than the nation’s 20 highest-paid leaders of nonprofit institutions pocketed for theirs.

Most Americans, over recent years, have become aware that business leaders make enormously more than the workers they employ. The gap between business leaders and other leaders in our society has received considerably less attention. This report, our 14th annual examination of executive excess, seeks to remedy that situation.
Download
- Released April 10, 2007
Selfish Interest
By Sarah Anderson, John Cavanagh, Chuck Collins, Charlie Cray, Sam Pizzigati

Does CEO pay in the United States need fixing? The 160 corporate CEOs who make up the Business Roundtable — the nation’s single most influential business lobbying group — don’t think so. The Business Roundtable is currently leading the corporate charge against congressional efforts to legislate new checks on executive compensation. This report shows just how much they personally stand to lose from real compensation reform.
Download
- Released April 1, 2007
Challenging Corporate Investor Rule
By Sarah Anderson and Sara Grusky

In Spanish: Desafiar el poder corporative de los inversionistas

This report examines how global corporations have increased their power through rules and institutions designed to provide unprecedented and sweeping protections to private foreign investors. These increasingly controversial protections are promoted by the World Bank and other international financial institutions, codified by bilateral investment treaties and free trade agreements, and enforced through international arbitration tribunals. Civil society groups – including labor, environmental and human rights groups -- have been harshly critical of these rules, charging that they elevate the narrow interests of global corporations above social and environmental goals. They have been joined by an increasing number of legislators around the world, including in the United States, who have attacked these measures as fundamentally undemocratic. And now, new political leaders, particularly in South America, are beginning to explore ways of challenging these excessive investor protections and putting forth proposals for more just trade and investment regimes.

Co-published by Food and Water Watch.

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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.

December 2, 2012

The Liberty (TX) Vindicator features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report
Beware of wealthy CEOs who are lecturing the rest of us about tightening our belts.

While America's CEOs are fretting about the government's so-called "fiscal cliff," millions of American workers face a financial disaster that gets much less media attention. There's a half-trillion-dollar deficit in the nation's worker retirement benefits.
December 1, 2012

The Albany Tribune features article “A Pension Deficit Disorder”
Visit the publisher's website • See the article
December 1, 2012

The Examiner features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report
A new report released last week by the Institute for Policy Studies examines CEOs of public companies who have endorsed the “Fix the Debt” campaign. The report, “Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts,” finds that these CEOs, while calling for ordinary Americans to take cuts in Social Security and Medicare, are sitting on an average of $9 million each in retirement funds. Maybe even more surprising, most are also running large deficits in their own employees’ pension funds.

“The Fix the Debt CEOs are trying to persuade policymakers and the public that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are necessary to avoid economic ruin,” said report co-author Sarah Anderson. “A better way to strengthen our economy would be to raise revenues through fair taxation of the wealthy and Wall Street, eliminating subsidies for polluters, and cutting military spending.”
November 30, 2012

Common Dreams features report “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report
Incredulous that Wall Street investment bankers and billionaire CEOs have descended on Washington in the midst of ongoing budget talks to tell Americans that they should "lower their expectations" when it comes to the security of their retirement and future health care, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor Thursday to call out the audacity of corporate-minded millionaires and billionaires, calling them the new "face of class warfare" in the United States.

. . . as a recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies aimed to show, the 'Fix the Debt' campaign, which has raised $60 million to lobby for a debt deal that "would reduce corporate taxes and shift costs onto the poor and elderly," is really just a Trojan horse designed to use an invented debt crisis to achieve long-held agenda goals.

The CEOs involved in the group, including Blankfein, are trying to "pass themselves off as noble leaders who are willing to compromise in order the save America from financial ruin,” explain co-authors of the report Scott Klinger and Sarah Anderson. But the reality is that these CEOs are "leveraging the 'Fiscal Cliff'" in order to push age old attempts to avoid paying taxes at the expense of those in need, they say.

. . . “Think about the arrogance of these guys on Wall Street who were bailed out by the middle class of this country when their greed and recklessness nearly destroyed the financial system and now they come to Capitol Hill to lecture Congress and the American people about the need to cut programs for working families,” [Sanders] said.
November 29, 2012

Thom Hartmann Show features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report
[A]s the Institute for Policy Studies discovered, there's good reason why these CEOs want to target social safety nets like Social Security...it's because they don't need them. They're all sitting on massive retirement assets, averaging over $9 million each.
November 28, 2012

Blue Table Talk features article “A Pension Deficit Disorder”
Visit the publisher's website • See the article
November 28, 2012

The Nation features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report
That’s not exactly “shared sacrifice.” A report from the Institute for Policy Studies notes that the 63 CEOs behind “Fix the Debt” would reap $134 billion in tax windfalls for their companies just from a territorial tax system alone.
November 28, 2012

New Jersey Newsroom features report “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report
[A]ccording to the Institute for Policy Studies, their ideas of change also include massive tax breaks for themselves and their corporations. They are lobbying for a “territorial tax system” which means that they would not have to pay federal taxes on any money they earned overseas and brought back into the U.S. This would amount to $134 billion bonus for these companies.
November 28, 2012

New Jersey Newsroom
Visit the publisher's website
The CEO Fiscal Leadership Council is made up of 63 companies, including heavy weights such as GE, Boeing, Honeywell and Goldman Sachs. In particular, they advocate changes that would “reform the tax code and cut low-priority spending,” and "keep debt under control over the long-term by focusing on the long-term growth of entitlement programs."

However, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, their ideas of change also include massive tax breaks for themselves and their corporations. . . .

The companies want the government to cut spending – but here the message is decidedly mixed. While advocating cuts in entitlement spending, Boeing has paid its lobbyists $12 million since last January to fight proposed cuts to defense and aerospace spending.
November 28, 2012

The Nation features report “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks”
Visit the publisher's website • See the report
That’s not exactly “shared sacrifice.” A report from the Institute for Policy Studies notes that the 63 CEOs behind “Fix the Debt” would reap $134 billion in tax windfalls for their companies just from a territorial tax system alone. That naturally would increase, not decrease, the deficit, so somebody’s got to pay—hence the Very Serious pleas to “reform” Medicare and Social Security.

“These CEOs paint a stark picture of hypocrisy,” said Scott Klinger, co-author of that IPS report, in a statement. “They’re simply taking advantage of the so-called ‘fiscal cliff’ to push the same old agenda of more corporate tax breaks while shifting costs onto the poor and elderly.”

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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

The Liberty (TX) Vindicator features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”

The Albany Tribune features article “A Pension Deficit Disorder”

The Examiner features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”

Common Dreams features report “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks”

Thom Hartmann Show features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”

Blue Table Talk features article “A Pension Deficit Disorder”

The Nation features report “A Pension Deficit Disorder: The Massive CEO Retirement Funds and Underfunded Worker Pensions at Firms Pushing Social Security Cuts”

New Jersey Newsroom features report “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks”

New Jersey Newsroom

The Nation features report “The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks”

Project Staff

Associate Fellows

Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging

Trade Agreements and Financial Crisis