Bush and Congress serve super-rich

At trillion-dollar cost to taxpayers

   With voters' attention focused on the “war against terror,” Washington budget-busters have been busy raiding the treasury. The House and Senate voted last week to permanently eliminate federal taxes on inherited wealth – an act that if given final Congressional approval, will cost the U.S. government $740 billion (or three-quarters of a trillion dollars!) during the next 20 years.

   Foes of the estate tax call it a “death tax” and claim it unfairly prevents families from leaving small farms and businesses to their children.

   Others counter that the tax applies only to the richest 2 percent of estates; the remaining 98 percent of estates worth less than $675,00 (or $1.35 million for couples) are already exempt from the federal inheritance tax. In 1998, for example, more than half the estate taxes collected came from only 2,898 estates worth $5 million or more.

   Bush and Congress targeted 52 percent of last year's tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent of the U.S. population. Now, with federal deficits projected at $100 billion a year for the next 10 years, they are delivering another $740 billion treat to the super-rich.

   The trillion-dollar question: Who will get stuck with the tab?

Boeing gives top fighter work to South Korea

   First came the good news: a $4.2 billion sale of F-15s to South Korea that will keep Boeing's St. Louis assembly line open a few more years, at least.

   Then came the bad news: Boeing had won the contract by giving South Korea all current and future work producing F-15 wings, forward fuselage sections and other parts and components: a $3.6 billion "offset" that will create some 30,000 aerospace jobs on the tiny Asian peninsula. And when other countries order F-15s from Boeing, South Korea will build the wings and front fuselage sections for those airplanes, too.

   Once again, major questions about the survival of the U.S. aerospace industry are raging thanks to an "offset," a form of industrial extortion that says, "I'll buy your airplanes if you give me the following jobs and technologies." China, South Korea and Indonesia have built entire aerospace industries on technologies wrung from the U.S. through "offsets."

   In this case, Boeing sold 40 fighters worth $4.2 billion by giving up $3.6 billion worth of work. Boeing "saved" 1,000 U.S. jobs by creating 30,000 new aerospace jobs in South Korea and by selling off technologies developed with billions of U.S. tax dollars.

   Now the bar has been raised this high, what will the next country looking for airplanes demand from Boeing or Lockheed Martin? 

Global progress reported against child labor

   A new report says progress is being made against a terrible and persistent global problem: the 186 million children trapped in dangerous industrial and agricultural jobs, slavery, military service, prostitution and other forms of exploitation.

   These "intolerable violation of rights of individual children" impoverish whole societies by keeping young people out of school and by promoting low-wage, labor-intensive production, explains the International Labor Organizations' report "A Future Without Child Labour."

   Despite all the publicity about children in factories producing shoes, toys and other products, most child labor occurs in agriculture and in a massive "unregulated informal economy" that includes domestic work and home-based sweatshops where families labor produce for piecework, the ILO reported.

   The report also details the growing cooperation between national governments, labor unions and employers to eradicate child labor, and sets forth plans for future ILO action.

To view the full report on the Internet, go to: http://www.ilo.org/public 

Korean autoworkers prepared to strike

   A huge strike wave looms over South Korean auto plants, as militant young unionists demand a larger share of the industry profits. Union members at Hyundai Motor are demanding a 12 percent raise in base salary (a raise of roughly $104 a month) plus 30 percent of the company’s profits to be distributed as bonuses among the work force.

   The union’s proposal would give 30 percent of the profits to shareholders, 30 percent to the workers and 40 percent to management – an amount that should be adequate when added to Hyundai’s 2001 retained earnings, union officials said.

   Strikes over low wages and long hours also loom at South Korean automakers Kia Motors and Ssangyong Motors.