Robert B. Reich's Blog, page 109

The Two Centers of Unaccountable Power in America, and Their Consequences

There are two great centers of unaccountable power in the American political-economic system today...

What We Need Now: A National Economic Strategy For Better Jobs

Jobs are returning with depressing slowness, and most of the new jobs pay less than the jobs that...

The Quiet Closing of Washington

Conservative Republicans in our nation’s capital have managed to accomplish something they...

Economic Storm Clouds Ahead

Economic forecasters exist to make astrologers look good. But the recent jubilance is enough to make...

REFRAMING THE DEBATE: NOT THAT MOST AMERICANS HAVE BEEN LIVING...

REFRAMING THE DEBATE: NOT THAT MOST AMERICANS HAVE BEEN LIVING BEYOND OUR MEANS, BUT OUR MEANS HAVEN’T KEPT UP BECAUSE OF WIDENING INEQUALITY.

Even as the economy slowly recovers from the worst downturn since the Great Depression, government-haters and deficit-hawks are sticking to their same story: Americans have lived beyond their means and must now learn to live within them. 

The reality is quite different: The means of most Americans haven’t kept up with what the economy could and should provide. The economy is twice as large as it was three decades ago, and yet the typical American is earning about the same, adjusted for inflation. All the gains have been going to the top.

The notion that we can’t afford to invest in the education of our young, or rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, or continue to provide Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, or expand health insurance is absurd.

If the median wage had kept up with the overall economy, it would be over $90,000 today — and tax revenues would be more than adequate to cover all our needs. If the wealthy were paying the same marginal tax rate they were paying up to 1981, tax revenues would be far more.

Get it? The problem isn’t that most Americans have been living too well. The problem is we haven’t been living nearly as well as our growing economy should have allowed us to live.

Widening inequality is the culprit. If President Obama is looking for a central theme for his second term, this is it.

A Time for Harry Reid's Backbone

Don’t be sidetracked today with the news of Michelle Bachmann’s decision not to run...

Capitalist Tools (Continued)

Unable or unwilling to respond to my argument that large global corporations are now playing nations...

Beware Capitalist Tools

Forbes Magazine likes to call itself a “capitalist tool,” and routinely offers tool-like...

Lessons from the World of Tax Avoidance: How Nations Can Negotiate With Global Capital

A Senate report criticises Apple for shifting billions of dollars in profits into Irish affiliates...

Why Democrats Can't be Trusted to Control Wall Street

Who needs Republicans when Wall Street has the Democrats? With the help of congressional Democrats,...