Along the road of the past 30 years, productivity has been soaring (and technology has been a minor part of that) while wages have been flat -- thanks to de-unionization and a simple corporate decision to cut wages even when profitable. And, despite that assault on wages, the main line of concern was over outsourcing -- that is, jobs going abroad because wages in other countries were dramatically lower. We have now reached, at least in one industry, the reverse phenomena.

Count me in the group, perhaps small, that is unimpressed with the pledge by a group of billionaires to give away large parts of their fortune. Not because I oppose the idea of philanthropy. Rather, the announcement obscures a reality: very little of the money will go to challenging the root causes of the incredible robbery that has happened to the people around the globe, a robbery that most of the billionaires benefited from -- and, in fact, in one case--the case of Pete Peterson -- the donation of billionaire money will increase the robbery.