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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Subject: </th>
<td>August 1 Too Much: FDR's Debt Ceiling Battle</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Date: </th>
<td>Mon, 1 Aug 2011 14:00:56 -0400 (EDT)</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">From: </th>
<td>Editor, Too Much <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:editor@toomuchonline.org"><editor@toomuchonline.org></a></td>
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<td><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:editor@toomuchonline.org">editor@toomuchonline.org</a></td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">To: </th>
<td><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:carl@newsfromneptune.com">carl@newsfromneptune.com</a></td>
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padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px;">August 1, 2011</span></td>
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align="left" bgcolor="#127A64" height="10">THIS WEEK</td>
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<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">Twenty-five
million Americans looking for full-time jobs last month
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=f%2Bu05%2FPFa4NGH5GyqE3joZJHs8a64WOw"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">could
not</a> find them. How is the American political
system responding to this crisis? In Iowa last week, a
governor hot on halving the state taxes corporations pay
killed legislation that would have kept open Iowa’s 36
unemployment offices.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">The governor
says Iowa’s 100,000 jobless <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=hlPsh7laVqs00ppYN7CGTZJHs8a64WOw"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">don’t
need</a> local offices where they can get help finding
work and applying for unemployment benefits. He’s urging
jobless Iowans to hit their local libraries instead and
look for help on the Internet.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">America’s
rich, of course, don’t have to go online to find help.
They have legions of lawmakers intensely devoted to
their welfare, as last week’s debt ceiling debate once
again demonstrated. Congress and the White House now
agree that no “solution” to the ceiling crisis will dare
raise taxes on America’s swells. </p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">In other
words, the debt ceiling, one way or another, will
eventually rise. So will inequality. Did the debt
ceiling debate have to end this way? This week, in <em>Too
Much</em>, we peer back into history for help on the
answer.</p>
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Program on Inequality <br>
and the Common Good</a></p>
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Inequality.org</a></p>
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align="left" bgcolor="#127A64" height="10">GREED AT A
GLANCE</td>
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<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><img
moz-do-not-send="true"
src="http://www.toomuchonline.org/art_2011/christie.png"
alt="Chris Christie" align="right" border="0"
height="175" hspace="4" vspace="7" width="98">Fifty of
America’s most generous political donors — a gang that
included hedge fund billionaires Paul Tudor Jones and
Stan Druckenmiller — “hovered around speakerphones”
earlier this month, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=xQVKaGLfebLr%2BJJoG%2F4msJJHs8a64WOw"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">reports</a>
<em>Politico</em>, for a conference call designed to
convince New Jersey governor Chris Christie to run for
the 2012 GOP Presidential nod. Christie hinted he might
run — in 2016 — and impressed the deep pockets on the
call, one noted later, “with his emphasis on family and
commitment.” What else might billionaires find
attractive about Christie? The testy governor earlier
this summer vetoed a revenue bill that would have <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=TGh%2BAFKTj%2FAkG0%2FEs7KdEZJHs8a64WOw"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">subjected</a>
New Jersey's wealthiest to an additional $1,780 in state
tax on every $100,000 over $1 million in income. New
Jersey rural and suburban schools districts, with this
“millionaire's tax” kaput, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=TrrJeilY%2B%2BtcHpt8yBD6MZJHs8a64WOw"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">are now
bracing</a> for nearly half a billion dollars in state
aid cuts . . .</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">The CEO of
the world’s largest luxury retailer, the Paris-based
LVMH, only needs one word to describe the state of
today’s global luxury market: “remarkable.” LVMH chief
exec Bernard Arnault <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=C32P2HbC8vzjji%2F33Ia15r3maThdmbu%2F"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">announced</a>
last week that his luxury brand goliath — purveyor of
everything from Dom Perignon champagne to Givenchy
perfume — has registered a 22 percent hike in profits
over 2011’s first half. Sales are running particularly
strong for $17,000 Hublot watches — and LVMH is also
reporting waiting lists for its $2,100 Louis Vuitton
handbags . . .</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">The world’s
most over-the-top pleasure boat, the 530-foor gigayacht
that belongs to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, has
one missile defense system, two swimming pools, and
three helipads. Now the yacht <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=2gZ57EQVNmv%2BYNIc%2BHOCjpJHs8a64WOw"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">is
boasting</a> something really unexpected: renters.
Abramovich is leasing his deep sea pride and joy out for
a clean $2 million a week. The move makes sense of
sorts. The ship costs Abramovich an estimated $50
million a year to maintain — on top of fuel . . .</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><img
moz-do-not-send="true"
src="http://www.toomuchonline.org/art_2011/mulva.png"
alt="Jim Mulva" align="right" border="0" height="176"
hspace="4" vspace="6" width="98">CEO pay has soared,
apologists for the executive set like to argue, because
companies have become so much larger. Many corporations
certainly have grown in size — through “mergers and
acquisitions” that enrich both the execs who
wheel-and-deal them and the Wall Street banks that
handle the paperwork. But CEO pay apologists never
finish the story. The bloated corporate giants that
frenzied “M & A” action creates typically, down the
road a few years, go on to spin off hefty chunks of
their operations in sell-offs that generate still more
fortune for their top execs. The latest winner in this
merge-and-purge shell game: ConocoPhillips CEO Jim
Mulva. Oil industry powerhouses Conoco and Phillips
Petroleum merged in 2002. The merged company is now
planning to sell off its refinery ops. The windfall for
Mulva, Footnoted.com <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=vRuCVs3ERsMy5Wk0wmPj4r3maThdmbu%2F"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">reported</a>
last week, may hit $360 million . . .</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">Apologists
for grand fortune also enjoy arguing that the wealthy
among us merit their mega millions because they take
risks. In China, the <em>Epoch Times</em> <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=jeq0Pm48euXJCsy1mCa8bJJHs8a64WOw"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">reports</a>,
getting rich may actually entail a serious bit of risk
taking. Of the 72 Chinese ultra rich who have died over
the last eight years, the paper notes, 53 have died from
“unnatural causes.” Chinese multi-millionaires, in fact,
are passing on precipitously at nearly the same rate as
Chinese police officers. Among the “unnatural causes”
behind mega millionaire passings: the death penalty.
Fourteen of China’s 53 most unfortunate holders of grand
fortunes died after convictions for offenses that ranged
from embezzlement to serial rape. Suicides claimed 17
others, homicides 15, and accidents the final seven.</p>
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<td id="tdsidetextmid" align="left" bgcolor="#F2F2F2"
valign="top">
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;">Quote
of the Week</p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;">“The $15,080 minimum wage workers
have for rent, groceries, transportation, medicine, and
everything else for the year doesn't even buy 2 pounds
of the imported caviar featured in the Forbes Cost of
Living Extremely Well Index.”<br>
<strong>Holly Sklar</strong>, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=iRA0H1wm%2BaKcbmbt%2FtCt%2BpJHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">CEOs to workers: More for me, less
for you</a>, July 25, 2011</p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;">Stat
of the Week</p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;">How adept at avoiding taxes have
America’s top CEOs become? On paper, the corporations
they lead must pay a 35 percent federal income tax on
their profits, the second-highest corporate tax rate in
the world. In real life, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=9HSyn3kaS1YhRZugsyX3SZJHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">notes</a> a new Greenlining Institute
report, major U.S. corporations are now only paying 18.4
percent of their domestic profits in tax. Of the world’s
26 major industrial nations, only two collect less in
corporate taxes, as a share of GDP, than the United
States.</p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:Enter%20e-mail%20address%20here?Subject=You+might+find+this+newsletter+of+interest%E2%80%A6&Body=I%20thought%20you%20might%20be%20interested%20in%20this%20email%20newsletter%20on%20inequality,%20entitled%20Too%20Much,%20that%20I%27m%20now%20receiving.%20You%20can%20sign%20up%20by%20clicking%20the%20%27Subscribe%27%20link%20at%20the%20top:%20http://toomuchonline.org/tmweekly.html"
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color: #127964;">Email this <em> Too Much</em> <br>
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align="left" bgcolor="#127A64" height="10">inequality by
the numbers</td>
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<td align="left" bgcolor="#F2F2F2">
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=N6Pxt4m9vExC9%2BL67PunUZJHs8a64WOw"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;"><img
moz-do-not-send="true"
src="http://www.toomuchonline.org/art_charts_2011/aug01-billionaires.png"
alt="Billionaires" border="0" height="352"
hspace="0" vspace="0" width="465"></a></p>
</td>
<td align="left" bgcolor="#F2F2F2" valign="top">
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;">Take
Action<br>
on Inequality</p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=L1FrEKOjp3O0IsBoqiojgL3maThdmbu%2F"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Common Security Clubs/Resilience
Circles</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=PNDRhKnfcw%2FLEjQnZyNqkZJHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">The Other 98%</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=tM8Uymer4%2FY9zEgbRCzYPZJHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">US Uncut</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=f%2Bu05%2FPFa4NxDTAGFjEpZ5JHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">United for a <br>
Fair Economy</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=dK%2Br5babne4fyf0EneLIVZJHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Wealth for the <br>
Common Good</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="sectionheader" style="font-family: Verdana,
Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;
font-weight: normal; text-transform: uppercase;
letter-spacing: 1px; color: #FFFFFF;" colspan="2"
align="left" bgcolor="#127A64" height="10">IN FOCUS</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bordercolor="0" align="left" bgcolor="#ffffff">
<p class="storyhead2" style="margin-bottom: 8px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 18px; line-height: 16px;
margin-top: 4px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; color: #000;">Doing Debt Ceiling Battle the
FDR Way</p>
<p class="booktitle" style="margin-bottom: 8px; font-size:
11px; margin-top: 4px; line-height: 16px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #009966;
background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;"><strong>At
times of national fiscal crisis, President Franklin
Roosevelt ever so firmly believed, you don't give the
awesomely affluent a free pass. You pound them — and
then you pound them some more.</strong></p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">Against a
Congress where zealously rich people-friendly
conservatives hold the upper hand, how much can a
President of the United States committed to greater
equality realistically hope to accomplish?</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">The answer
from today’s White House: not much. Advocacy for
equality has to take a backseat, Obama administration
insiders insist, once fanatical friends of the fortunate
in Congress recklessly put at risk our nation’s full
faith and credit.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">But history
offers another alternative. Back in 1943, halfway
through World War II, a President of the United States
confronted a debt ceiling crisis eerily similar to our
own. That President, Franklin Roosevelt, faced a
congressional opposition to inconveniencing the rich —
with higher taxes — every bit as rabid as ours.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">FDR's
choice, in the face of this opposition? He doubled down
on equality.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><strong>Roosevelt’s
debt ceiling battle</strong> actually began in the
months right after Pearl Harbor. The nation needed
dollars — and lots of them — to wage and win the new
war. FDR wanted those dollars raised as equitably as
possible.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">That would
require, FDR and his New Dealers believed, a steeply
graduated income tax, with tax rates on income in the
top income brackets much higher than rates on income in
the bottom brackets.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">How high
should the top rates go? All the way, FDR proposed, to
100 percent. At a time of “grave national danger,” the
President told Congress in April 1942, “no American
citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid
his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year,“ an income just
shy of $350,000 in today’s dollars.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><strong>The
year before</strong>, gun executive Carl Swebilius had
pulled in $243,204 after taxes, the equivalent of over
$3.7 million today. Steel exec Eugene Grace had grabbed
$522,537, over $8 million today, in 1941 salary. But
conservatives in Congress looked the other way. They
never gave FDR’s plan any love.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">Four months
later, Roosevelt would try again. In his Labor Day
message, FDR repeated his $25,000 “supertax” income cap
call. Again Congress ignored him.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">FDR would
not back down. In early October, the President flexed
his authority under the newly enacted Emergency Price
Control Act and issued an executive order that limited
top corporate salaries to $25,000 after taxes, a move,
he pronounced, needed “to correct gross inequities and
to provide for greater equality in contributing to the
war effort.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><strong>America’s
wealthiest</strong>, New Dealers explained afterwards
to the press, “should be willing to get along on more
than $2,000 a month while marines endure tortures on
Guadalcanal Island for $60 a month and room and board.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">FDR’s
executive order would infuriate conservatives. They saw
red, literally. The “only logical stopping place for
this movement,” fumed Princeton economist Harley Lutz,
would be “a completely communistic equalization of
incomes.” FDR’s salary cap, roared New Bedford publisher
Basil Brewer, just might “lose the war.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">In Congress,
meanwhile, lawmakers vowed to kill FDR’s executive order
by any legislative means necessary. Roosevelt, in
response, simply kept pushing. In January 1943, he
reminded Congress that “the receipt of very large net
incomes from any source constitutes a gross inequity
undermining national unity” and asked lawmakers to make
taxes on America’s highest incomes “fully effective.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><strong>Roosevelt
also asked Congress</strong>, in his 1943 budget
message, to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.
Conservatives indicated they would — if the ceiling bill
included a rider that repealed the President’s $25,000
salary cap executive order.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">Lawmakers
would not go along with a debt ceiling hike, California
Republican Bertrand Gearhart told reporters, until FDR's
“thoroughly un-American” salary cap, “fraught with such
disaster to the Republic, is wiped from the books.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">At this
point, no “realistic” observer could have faulted FDR if
he simply threw in the towel. The 1942 mid-term
elections the previous November, after all, had
significantly strengthened the congressional
conservative camp, in large part because millions of New
Deal voters — soldiers overseas and workers who had
migrated far from home for wartime factory work —
couldn’t vote.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><strong>But
FDR threw in nothing</strong>. To reporters and
Congress, he reiterated his support for the $25,000
salary cap. Of course, the President added, he would
“rescind” his cap in an instant if Congress passed
legislation that limited all individual after-tax
income, not just salary, to $25,000.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">And if
Congress couldn’t see fit to go that far, the President
helpfully suggested, he hoped lawmakers would enact
“steeply graduated rates” that brought taxes on
top-bracket income up to the 90 percent neighborhood.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">Eventually,
both the House and Senate would pass the debt ceiling
bill — with the salary cap repeal rider attached. Most
Democrats went along, noting, as Senator Alben Barkley
put it, “the importance of increasing the debt limit.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><strong>Roosevelt
well understood</strong> that importance, too. He
would let the higher debt ceiling bill become law,
without his signature. But FDR quickly signaled no
surrender in his continuing battle to make sure that
“not a single war millionaire will be created in this
country as a result of the war disaster.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">Congress,
Roosevelt pointed out, “had authorized the drafting of
men into the armed forces at $600 a year regardless of
what they had earned in civilian life,” but, with the
salary cap repeal, had “refused to reduce the salary of
a man not drafted no matter how high his income might
be.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">The
President, to be sure, had definitely lost the debt
ceiling battle over his executive salary cap, as he no
doubt knew he would. But sometimes a President can win
by “losing.” FDR did not prevail on the salary cap. He
did prevail in his far broader struggle to shape the
wartime finance debate.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><strong>Roosevelt's
relentless</strong> campaign to cap top incomes kept
that debate focused on taxing the rich. Conservatives
didn’t want to do that taxing. They wanted a national
sales tax instead, as do many conservatives <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ZKwqvcw970i0p3qC%2BqBtc73maThdmbu%2F"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">today</a>.
But FDR’s aggressive advocacy for equity never let that
regressive sales tax notion get traction.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">The war
revenue debate would be fought on Roosevelt's terms —
not on whether to tax the rich, but on how much. And, in
the end, that “how much” would turn out to be quite a
great deal. By the war's end, America’s wealthy would be
paying taxes on income over $200,000 at a 94 percent
statutory rate.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">Americans
making over $250,000 in 1944 — over $3.2 million today —
paid 69 percent of their <em>total</em> incomes in
federal income tax, after exploiting every tax loophole
they could find. In 2007, by contrast, America’s 400
highest earners <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=k2KbfuWR722iya2ieJhKi5JHs8a64WOw"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">paid
just 18.1 percent</a> of their total incomes, after
loopholes, in federal tax.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><strong>None
of the debt ceiling “deals”</strong> that House and
Senate leaders advanced last week asked any of these top
400 — or any other rich Americans — to pay a penny more
in taxes than they do now. In the 2011 debt ceiling
struggle, inequality has clearly triumphed.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">So what
ought we learn, amid this triumph for greed, from FDR’s
debt ceiling battle? Maybe this: We really can have a
more equal America. We just need to fight for it.</p>
</td>
<td align="left" bgcolor="#F2F2F2" valign="top">
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;">New
Wisdom<br>
on Wealth</p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;">Rachel Brown, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=qQRIjPqmyxZ%2B9C37WvUI1pJHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Charity CEOs: Are They Being Paid Too
Much?</a> <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em>, July 26,
2011. Museum of Modern Art CEO Glenn Lowry took home
$2.4 million last year — and America's rich still get
tax breaks for the donations they give him.</p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;">Mark Anderson, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FSKR%2BKRerOLtBYazfTl965JHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Income and taxes</a>, <em>Bangor
Daily News</em>, July 27, 2011. A University of Maine
economist rips the bogus argument that taxes on “small”
businessmen making over $250,000 undermine job creation.</p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;">Bartlett Naylor, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=6IAwoA30jax8e8B5ILCD3pJHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Measuring CEO pay: more than gore</a>,
CitizenVox, July 28, 2011. An excellent summary of the
new <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=I6yXbSPJ6g9dYnkMqYmb6pJHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">AFL-CIO report</a> that explains why
the ratio of CEO to worker pay should matter to
investors.</p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;">Joe Nocera, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=N%2FxW2bzhFl6WKFBvmtGBlpJHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">The Madoff Trustee’s Bad Day</a>, <em>New
York Times</em>, July 29, 2011. JPMorgan Chase CEO
Jamie Dixon, who made $17 million last year, is smiling
after a federal court ruled that Wall Street's finest
can't be sued for enabling the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scam.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="sectionheader" style="font-family: Verdana,
Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;
font-weight: normal; text-transform: uppercase;
letter-spacing: 1px; color: #FFFFFF;" colspan="2"
align="left" bgcolor="#127A64" height="10">In Review</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" bgcolor="#ffffff">
<p class="storyhead2" style="margin-bottom: 8px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 18px; line-height: 16px;
margin-top: 4px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; color: #000;">The Wealth Gap's Great
Recession Surge</p>
<p class="booktitle" style="margin-bottom: 8px; font-size:
11px; margin-top: 4px; line-height: 16px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #009966;
background-color: #ffffff; padding: 0px;">Rakesh
Kochhar, Richard Fry, and Paul Taylor, <strong>Wealth
Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks,
Hispanics. </strong>Pew Research Center, July 26,
2011.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">Has the
Great Recession been an equal opportunity destroyer? Or
have some Americans survived the nation’s worst economic
downturn since the 1930s significantly better than
others?</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">A <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=NcLKDUScxGu8j9qARCglQJJHs8a64WOw"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">new
report</a> from the Pew Research Center, based on
extensive Census Bureau survey work in 2005 and 2009,
resolves these questions — on two fronts.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">The first:
ethnicity. The Pew data show that the Great Recession
has widened the wealth gap substantially between white
and black and white and Hispanic households.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><strong>In
2005, the typical</strong> white household held seven
times more wealth than the typical Hispanic household
and 11 times more than the typical African American
household. In 2009, these gaps stood around twice as
wide, 18 times between white and Hispanic households, 20
times between white and black.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">The primary
source of these growing wealth gaps between white and
minority households? The collapse of the housing bubble.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">Minority
households get much more of their net worth from the
equity they hold in their homes than white households.
Geography exacerbates the gap: Hispanic families reside
disproportionately in the states — California, Florida,
Nevada, and Arizona — that have seen home values sink
the fastest.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><strong>But
the new <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=fZFEvTCuQ2W6pVl%2FSQsCb73maThdmbu%2F"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">Pew
report</a></strong> tells another story as well. The
Great Recession hasn't just widened the wealth gap <em>between</em>
ethnic groups. The recession, the Pew researchers note,
has widened the gap <em>within</em> each ethnic group —
grown that gap “in favor of the wealthiest within each
racial and ethnic group.”</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">The richest
top 10 percent of white households have increased their
share of white household wealth, from 49 to 56 percent.
For the richest 10 percent of black, Hispanic, and Asian
households, even heftier increases.</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">How much of
that increasing wealth share for the top 10 percent have
the really rich — households in the top 1 percent —
grabbed?</p>
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; color:
#000; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px;">The Pew
report can’t help us here, since Census surveys don't
effectively track wealth at America's economic summit.
The best data on wealth at the top come from the Federal
Reserve’s triennial <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=e1GD8s44pNYEvGzQkEyb45JHs8a64WOw"
style="color: #127964; text-decoration: none;">Survey
of Consumer Finances</a>. The next of these studies,
covering 2010, won't be out until next winter.</p>
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<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;"> </p>
<p class="sidehead" style="margin-bottom: 6px;
font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;
margin-top: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #127964; margin-left: 4px;">Inequality
Links</p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Jz5W8xBgzx20p3qC%2BqBtc73maThdmbu%2F"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Inequality.org</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=OTCRMGr%2FwwdcgfCTNOUykL3maThdmbu%2F"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">The Equality Trust</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Wealth for the <br>
Common Good</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">New Economy <br>
Working Group</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Class Action</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
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margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=r9%2BW1ijQAiLImVmWjMFSSJJHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Mind the Gap</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
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margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=60RhbE1ByuwKomX1R33tWZJHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Tax Justice <br>
Network</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">High Pay<br>
Commission</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 14px; font-family:
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
margin-left: 4px;"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=aG1UHNlv0evP9uVRFEaQNZJHs8a64WOw"
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Us Against <br>
Greed</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
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Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Make Wall<br>
Street Pay</a></p>
<p class="sidetext" style="margin-bottom: 6px; font-size:
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Verdana, Arial, Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;
color: #127964;">Patriotic Millionaires<br>
for Fiscal Strength</a></p>
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