In an interview on the ABC today, Robert Reich, author of Supercapitalism, Professor at UC Berkeley, and former Clinton Labor Secretary, said that corporate giants like Walmart were so successful as corporations that they were not only good for shareholders, but also good for consumers who want lower prices. Reich pointed out, though, that Walmart's success is at the cost of its employees. He compared the average wage paid to Walmart's workers, of around $9 an hour, to the average wage of $60 per hour paid by GM to its autoworkers in 1960's terms.

Top executives are earning vast multiples of the average worker's wages, and Reich calls this "socially unjustifiable", but says that the CEO's political clout has left politicians powerless to do anything about this.

Reich said that most shareholders were prepared to accept these multi-million dollar salaries as long as the company was increasing its profits. (He didn't mention that many corporate CEO's write their own salary deals that include huge multi-million dollar bonuses, even when they lose millions, or even billions).

Reich discussed the need for the new President (obviously presuming it will be Obama), to address the issue of obscene CEO salaries and bonuses, because the corporate sector clearly will not do so. Reich says "Let’s not tell individual companies what they can pay their top executives, but rather, lets use the tax system"  – raise the top tax rate substantially – Bush did the EXACT opposite, and gave tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.

If tax is raised, then some CEO's may go to lower-taxing countries, so International co-operation will be needed. He feels that with the new government in Australia, and progressive governments in Europe, it may soon be possible to seriously address this issue.

Reich says "democracy is handicapped" by the power that goes with money, citing the tens of thousands of highly-paid lobbyists and the 80,000 lawyers in Washington, working for corporations and lobbyists.