Reports

Despite extraordinary dependence on foreign oil, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) 2009 budget does little to find alternatives. Instead, the Bush Administration's single largest funding priority for the Energy department is to maintain a large, oversized nuclear arsenal and to build new weapons. The imperative to maintain DOE’s large and antiquated nuclear infrastructure is a major impediment to achieving a balanced and sound national energy policy.

Accepting his Nobel Peace Prize, Al Gore called on the nations of the world to mobilize to avert climate disaster “with a sense of urgency and shared resolve that has previously been seen only when nations have mobilized for war.”

This report measures in fiscal terms how far our own nation has to go to reach that goal.

There are tectonic stresses building beneath the surface of our society that threaten a global earthquake unlike any we’ve seen in recent history. Global warming is accelerating; fossil fuels are being rapidly exhausted; critical eco-systems have been severely damaged; and the income gap between rich and poor is increasing rapidly. The root cause of most of these problems can be found in the excessive power of global corporations. To solve these problems, we must bring corporations back under our control. This will be one of the greatest challenges our society faces this century.

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.

Albert Beveridge was a promising politician in his thirties when he stood up to speak in favor of war and the promotion of democracy to his peers in the U.S. Senate. A historian, Beveridge unabashedly called for the United States to remake the globe. "We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world," Beveridge proclaimed. "And we will move forward to our work, not howling out regrets like slaves whipped to their burdens but with gratitude for a task worthy of our strength and thanksgiving to Almighty God that He has marked us as His chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world."