Corporate profits keep on soaring, while American workers continue to struggle, with too many jobless and many of those fortunate to have work confronted with stagnant and even dropping wages. Meanwhile, Washington remains polarized by an ideological debate more detached by the day from the struggles of the dwindling middle-class.

While the recession lingers for many families, happy days are here again for U.S. corporations. At this point in 2011 earnings at companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index are the highest in four years, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. It is not translating into jobs or better salaries for American workers, however.

The gains are coming from expansion of international operations, the ability to squeeze more from each worker (increased worker productivity, in the corporate parlance), and success in preventing salary hikes from eating into profits.

General Electric Co., for example, reported a 21 percent increase in earnings, but saw U.S. revenue in its core industrial business shrink by 3.4 percent. Its international industrial revenue soared 23 percent. Collectively, U.S. multinational corporations cut their workforces at home by 2.9 million during the first decade of the 2000s, while increasing them overseas by 2.4 million.

During that lost decade median real annual income of U.S. households declined by $2,600, or 5 percent, economic data shows. One has to go back to the Great Depression to find such stagnation. Unions continued in decline, particularly in the private sector. Organized labor has historically pushed wages up for both union and non-union workers. Though often making less, Americans produced far more, with real output per hour of work in the nonfarm business sector growing by nearly 30 percent over the decade.

Meanwhile, the richest 1 percent of Americans, those making $380,000 or more, showed a 33 percent income growth over the last 20 years, according to the IRS, while enjoying their lowest taxes in generations due to the Bush tax cuts.

Corporate reluctance to invest in the U.S. is understandable given Washington's lack of lucidity. Clearly Congress must do something to address the long-term entitlement obligations for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which could bankrupt the nation.

But equally important is having a plan to improve the country's infrastructure, deteriorating by the day, reform its educational system that continues to fall behind the nation's competitors, and provide a stable and simplified tax system that business can count on, but which demands more of richer Americans.

The compromise appears obvious, Democrats sacrificing on entitlements, Republicans on tax policy, and everyone working together on the shorter term investments in infrastructure and education. Yet the two major political parties have taken to their ideological mountain tops, unwilling or unable to compromise for the good of their country.

While the debate over the debt ceiling is the most alarming example of political paralysis, the failure of Congress to authorize the continued operation of the Federal Aviation Administration might be the most ludicrous. Work this week on critical modernization projects at airports around the country stopped, idling thousands of laborers. Uncollected airline taxes will cost the government $200 million per week.

The main obstacle to allowing the FAA to operate normally is insistence by House Republicans for changes to make it more difficult for airline and railroad workers to unionize. Given the nation's serious problems, shutting down a federal agency to make things more difficult for unions is the highest priority?

These are strange days indeed.