Income inequality may not end up being the primary economic challenge of these automated times, but it certainly is a glaring symptom of a lot of problems. From Suzanne McGee at the Guardian:

“Which would you think would be larger for Ford Motor, a company that last year reported revenues of $139.4b: the taxes it pays the US federal government or the compensation it pays its CEO?

If you picked option B, congratulations – you may be cynical, but you’re right. Alan Mulally, Ford’s CEO, pocketed a compensation package that totaled $23.2m while Ford itself got a US federal tax refund of $19m.

And Ford isn’t the only company to pay its CEO more than it forked over to Uncle Sam.

Seven of the country’s 30 largest corporations paid more to their CEOs than they did in taxes last year, according to a just-released study by the Center for Effective Government and the Institute for Policy Studies.

At the same time, Citigroup qualified for a $260m tax refund from the IRS, thanks to a special waiverthat enabled it to capture the full tax benefits of buying unprofitable businesses. This could be a tax gift that keeps on giving, as the bank has been on a tear to keep earning more to take full advantage of the provision.

The rift between tax burden and executive pay for big companies is ‘getting worse,’ says Scott Klinger, director of revenue and spending policies at the Center for Effective Government.”