The WAWG Blog

Results for eleven of the fourteen characteristics were down from last month.   However, two of these were down too significantly.   I suspect while recording last months results and fine tuning the search criteria, I did not properly record either the search criteria or the search results or both.

Of note, though, was the increase in the results for protection of corporate power.   Might this be due to all the recent news on profits for oil companies?   Well, that’s difficult to prove without more specific October results to compare to.   So, I will just leave it at that.

There has been lots of news on ‘excess’ profits lately, but it’s only been about Big Oil.   How evil are they compared to other companies we know?

The table at the bottom of this article ranks 31 companies and provides related financial information.   They are listed by the percentage growth in their ‘normalized income after taxes’ for the most recently reported 5 year period with the highest growth first.   The table includes the company name and their 5 year percentage growth in normalized income.   This is followed by the earnings per share, the actual normalized income after taxes, and total assets for each of the five most recent years.

The chart below displays the 5 year income growth for 30 of the 31 companies detailed in the table.   Apple Computer, at a 5,234 percent increase, is excluded from the chart to allow improved display of the remaining 30.   The company next in line and shown farthest to the left in the chart is Conoco Phillips.

Click on image for full view.

Conoco Phillips not only has relatively high earnings per share for each of the last five years, but also has a significant growth in income of 337% over the same time frame.   This income growth is not anywhere near the improvement at Apple, but it is much greater than Time Warner, next in line at 191%.   Further down the list are Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobil.   The income growth for both of them is less than one fifth that of Conoco’s.   Also, Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobil come in 10th and 12th after other well known companies like Toyota, Walgreens, and Coca-Cola.   Imperial Oil, BP, Total SA, and other oil companies appear even further down the list.

For a little more perspective, I just looked up the income growth for Johnson & Johnson.   It was 69%.   How about Hershey Foods (chocolate)?   Their income grew 76% during the last 5 years.   Home Depot comes in at 94%.   All higher than Exxon Mobil, at 52%, but still nowhere near Conoco Phillips.

To add to this, I checked the growth in my average gasoline cost for the last 5 years. I have had the same car, same home, same office for that time. After discounting for some vacation by car in 2000, the growth in my average gasoline cost for the last 5 years is 59 percent.

For a little more perspective, how do you think earnings for Saudi Aramco, who the oil companies in the chart/table buy their oil from, have grown over time.   Well, in one two year period, they grew 929% to $27.8 billion.   This is according to Saudi Aramco World : Foundations: The Introduction.   That was during the last big oil crunch in the early 70s.   In 2001, their earnings were up to $63 billion, according to International Spotlight: Saudi Arabia.   In 2004, earnings were estimated at $116 billion in Saudi Arabia Country Analysis Brief. That is a growth of 84% in three years. The same report indicated that expected earnings for 2005 are $150 billion. That’s another 30% – in one year.

So, with the exception of Conoco Phillips, shouldn’t everyone be equally upset with all companies that have seen earnings growth that is even higher than Exxon Mobil? This includes Home Depot, Johnson & Johnson, Hershey Foods, Toyota, Walgreens, Coca-Cola.

As stated earlier the table below shows earnings per share.   Notice how varied they are between companies.   One of the factors that changes this ratio is stock splits.   For example, Apple had a 2 for 1 split in the last reported year.   If that had not occurred, their EPS for the last year would have doubled to 3.30. Similarly, when a company buys their shares back and takes them out of trading, the EPS will go up.

The total assets for the companies are listed just to show their relative ‘size’.

As you all know, when our founding fathers laid down the foundation of our country, they based it on three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial.   The responsibilities of each was carefully defined to create checks and balances of one branch on each of the others.   They also established the first secular state of its time to separate/protect their new ship of state from any particular religion.

As you have watched the recent events surrounding the President’s nominations to the Supreme Court and the changes to the makeup of our judiciary branch, have you sensed that the process has a new element to it?   Does it seem that interest groups have much more to say about the nominees than the U.S. Senate?

According to a Report for Congress by the Congressional Research Service, which was last updated on March 21, 2005, “Of the 154 nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court between 1789 and 2004, 34 were not confirmed by the Senate.”   Five of the 34 were renominated later and eventually confirmed. For the 29 individuals that were never confirmed there was “a variety of reasons, including Senate opposition to the nominating President, nominee’s views, or incumbent Court; senatorial courtesy; perceived political unreliability of the nominee; perceived lack of ability; interest group opposition; and fear of altering the balance of the Court.”   This report does not include the recent withdrawal of Harriet Miers, but is does include hints to a change.

The repot states, “Observers of the Supreme Court confirmation process have suggested that interest group opposition has not only grown, but has also been effective in preventing confirmations.   The impact of interest group opposition relative to other factors is a matter of continuing study.”   This statement referenced a footnote to a 1998 paper in The American Journal of Political Science, vol. 42, April 1998, by Jack Wright , called “Lobbying for Justice: Organized Interests, Supreme Court Nominations, and the United States Senate.” (Unfortunately, this document is not generally available to the public.   I have contacted the author and am waiting for a reply.)

Again, I ask.   Does it seem that interest groups have much more to say about the nominees than the U.S. Senate?

In Why Miers Withdrew as Supreme Court Nominee, NPR reports, “Such opposition from within the conservative movement was all but unheard of before Miers was nominated.”   In this same story, former nominee to the Supreme Court, Robert Bork, was reported to say, “With a single stroke — the nomination of Harriet Miers — the president has damaged the prospects for reform of a left-leaning and imperialistic Supreme Court, taken the heart out of a rising generation of constitutional scholars, and widened the fissures within the conservative movement.”

So, are outside influences growing?   Are steps being taken by the The Fourth Branch that could result in major changes to our ship of state that our founding fathers carefully crafted?   Remember, back then theocracies were an external threat to the nation and the norm for imperialistic nations.   Now what was an external threat has become a threat from within.   A threat our forefathers were trying to escape.

This threat is a lobby of self appointed ‘representatives’, referred to elsewhere as the American Taliban.   It is growing and contributing to the reduction of the separation of church and state, in not just one but two ways – a very conservative Supreme Court and a restructured government where they are The Fourth Branch?

In Torture – Why Are We Legalizing It?, I stated “The only difference between what the President is proposing and what the terrorists have done is that they broadcast it to the world, while he hides it from the world.”

Well, according to one article at CNN.com, “The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe.”   CNN also stated, “It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA’s covert actions.”

In a related article CNN.com reported, “A man once considered a top al Qaeda operative escaped from a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan and cannot testify against the soldier who allegedly mistreated him.”

No sooner has the news of the Michael Brown’s hurricane relief disaster disappeared from the news, than history is about to repeat itself.

Michael Brown was appointed by President Bush as one of thousands of cronies.   “Brownie” had no applicable experience in disaster recovery and was quickly replaced after his poor performance in the Katrina recovery effort with Vice Admiral Thad Allen from the Coast Guard.   Vice Adm Allen knew about disasters – he had related experience.   Soon, even though it was a mistake to put someone in charge without related experience, it appears that President Bush still has plenty of cronies to appoint.   (I guess the Vice Adm forgot to send in his check?)

According to an article on page A7 of the November 2, 2005, Houston Chronicle by Alexis Grant, Donald Powell will be replacing the Vice Adm “by the end of the year.”   Check out Mr. Powell’s qualifications.   Like “Brownie” being a crony is ranked higher as a job requirement than experience.   In fact, according to Alexis Grant, Powell became a member of a group referred to as the Pioneers after “he raised at least $100,000 for the presidential campaign” for President Bush.

It’s a good thing the hurricane season is about over – but will there be a sense of deja vu all over again after the first hurricane hits America next year.

Yes, oil companies have seen an increase in their profits, but I’m more concerned about another company with high earnings.   Not only has this company made $2.54/share in the last year, it has rewarded its CEO with $12.5 million in compensation (not counting stock options) and $100,000 to cover personal use of the corporate jet, while it has also developed a plan to adjust its employee benefits.   (I used to work for such a company and we engineers organized a union to have some effect on our benefits.)
 
What company is this?   Wal-Mart, who closed one of their Canadian stores after the workers voted in union representation.
 
Here is some of what their VP of benefits suggests (see attached company memo) according to The New York Times:
 
“hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart”
 
“reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits”
 
“all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)”
 
“Ms. Chambers proposed that employees pay more for their spouse’s health insurance.   She called for cutting 401(k) contributions to 3 percent of wages from 4 percent and cutting company-paid life insurance policies to $12,000 from the current level, equal to an employee’s annual earnings.”
 
“Ms. Chambers’s memo voiced concern that workers were staying with the company longer, pushing up wage costs, although she stopped short of calling for efforts to push out more senior workers.”
 
I have no doubt that the benefits at the high profit oil companies are much better than those at Wal-Mart.
 
For more on Wal-Mart’s profits vs. employee benefits:

Wal-Mart forfeits soul to low prices
By LOREN STEFFY

Wal-Mart memo sparks criticism

Then there is the new Wal-Mart DVD.

Keep an eye on the federal budget and where the money goes.   The money in the chart below is based on Congressional appropriation bills that are signed by the President.   It shows how your taxes plus your investments in the government plus the money we borrow from many nations is distributed.

If I were an American soldier captured by terrorists, how do you think I would feel when my captors quoted the Golden Rule and told me that my own Commander-in-Chief had justified what they were about to do to me?   The terrorist tells me, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.   Since President Bush has authorized our mistreatment by his CIA, he has also authorized us to treat you inhumanly.”

Why is the President trying to lower this nation to the level of the terrorists?   The only difference between what the President is proposing and what the terrorists have done is that they broadcast it to the world, while he hides it from the world.

In case you haven’t heard or seen the news concerning a meeting on Oct 20, 2005, where The New York Times reported, “C.I.A. Director, Porter J. Goss, urged Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who wrote the amendment [against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment], to support an exemption for the agency, arguing that the president needed maximum flexibility in dealing with the global war on terrorism, said two government officials who were briefed on the meeting. ”

For more on authorizing the recent attempt at expanding our nation’s authority to abuse human rights:

Bush seeks to exempt CIA from bill barring abuse of detainees

W. House Looks To Weaken Abuse Ban | October 25, 2005 19:30:05

U.S.: License to Abuse Would Put CIA Above the Law ”

Again I ask, why is this happening? It’s because torture is the easy way out.   Maybe if we had a leader capable of considering the more difficult and more complex options, or someone willing to accept the idea that there are options, we could actually make some serious progress.   But the harder solutions take time and some of us don’t have the patience.

Even the war on Iraq was an easy way out after the President became impatient with the difficulties of finding OBL in Afghanistan.

What most citizens know about the separation of church and state will not help with this informative questionnaire.   If you just want to see the answers, there is a link at the bottom of the page.

In Secure Borders, Open Doors, the Migration Policy Institute MPI “discusses reforms to the entire [visa] system through which foreigners travel to and seek entry into the United States.   It investigates changes to the visa issuance process and to the infrastructure that supports that function at the Departments of State and Homeland Security.   It then discusses how well the new post-September 11 policies, mechanisms, and procedures advance the stated goals of the visa program: Secure Borders, Open Doors.”

The MPI report finds that “the basic legislative framework” for determining who can be admitted to the USA and “the legal structure of the visa process” have not changed in any meaningful way.   For example, after a visa is granted, the holder can still travel to the USA where an inspector provides the final approval or denial of entry.   However, administratively the process has “changed substantially.”   The visa process has become “much more security conscious.”   But at what cost?

On pages 17 and 18, the report states, “In fact, US businesses claim that shifts in visa policy have hurt their ability to remain competitive in the global marketplace.”   In addition, “The US travel and tourism industry has also seen the number of foreign visitors for pleasure entering the United States plummet by over 10 million (from 30.5 million to 20.1 million) from 2000 to 2003, representing an estimated $22.5 billion dollars in lost revenues.   While many of these industries gained ground in 2004, visa issuances have not returned to pre-September 11 levels.”

In addition to the losses from fewer foreign visitors, there is the impact on the USA’s ability to remain competitive in the global marketplace.   Page 17 of the report also states, “This assertion seems to be supported in a recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report that finds a substantial drop in foreign direct investment in the United States from $72 billion in 2002 to $40 billion in 2003.   While there is no widely-recognized methodology to estimate the proportion of this drop that may be attributable to US visa policy changes, the National Foreign Trade Council claims that visa delays alone may have cost US exporters $30.7 billion in lost contracts.   Firms doing business with the Middle East have been particularly hard hit, losing an estimated $1.5 billion per year in contracts, tuition, and tourism from the region.”

Then there is the effect on student visas – a valuable resource for American business.   “It is entirely possible that this new perception of visa policies may be deterring exactly those people that they are intended to deter—“known” potential terrorists.   It is even clearer, however, that they also deter many persons from whom the United States has traditionally benefited—top students and scientists, business persons, artists, visitors, and other individuals for whom seeking a US visa is no longer an attractive option.   The extent and long-term implications of some of these losses must not be underestimated.   Leading universities abroad have benefited so greatly by the lessened interest in studying at US universities that the five largest European Union Member States—France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom—agreed on July 5, 2005, in Evian France, to increase “considerably” the number of top students receiving scholarships under the Erasmus Mundus program and open the program to doctoral students.”

We may be administratively ‘pumping up’ our border security, but will the indirect long term costs cited by MPI have a greater impact than the terrorists could have hoped for?   They don’t need to bomb the USA again to cause us harm, the new visa policies are doing that for them.   (Does your foot hurt?   Mine does.)

In a related article, Visa Policy Costing Economy Billions, William Fisher reviews this study and related information.