Reich: "How To End The Recession"

[Project Grudge]

"Even though the American economy kept growing, hourly wages flattened. The median male worker earns less today, adjusted for inflation, than he did 30 years ago...

Even if nearly everyone was employed, the vast middle class still wouldn’t have enough money to buy what the economy is capable of producing....

Where have all the economic gains gone? Mostly to the top. The economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty examined tax returns from 1913 to 2008. They discovered an interesting pattern. In the late 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in about 9 percent of the nation’s total income; by 2007, the top 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total income.

It’s no coincidence that the last time income was this concentrated was in 1928...

THE Great Depression and its aftermath demonstrate that there is only one way back to full recovery: through more widely shared prosperity. In the 1930s, the American economy was completely restructured. New Deal measures — Social Security, a 40-hour work week with time-and-a-half overtime, unemployment insurance, the right to form unions and bargain collectively, the minimum wage — leveled the playing field."

How To End The Recession -Robert Reich, New York Times

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He goes onto to list a few policy ideas that would go about adding jobs and raising wages, like "exempting the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes and paying for it with a payroll tax on incomes over $250,000."

This argument perfectly articulates why the progressive philosophy works. It's really only because half the population becomes the victim of propaganda by the rich few (Murdoch comes to mind) who don't care; they have theirs.

Democrats should put Reich's image on television and other media more. People need to hear this.

[Trajan]

1. Trajan has been preaching 'Wages' for years here ...

It's all about the wages ....

No money to spend ? .... No economic system to expand ...

Wages = Stimulus ....

The fucking idiots took a reasonably successful economic picture prior to Reagan, and year by year, decade by decade, destroyed it by implementing long term wage suppression policies .... Anti-Union, Anti-Raise, Anti-Benefits, Anti-Pension policies that destroyed the backbone of a vibrant consumer economy, and a chance at a 'good life' for millions of families ....

They strangled the economic baby in it's cradle by denying it milk ...

We have not heard enough about wages ...

Wanna end the recession ? .... Boost wages ....

[Sherman A1]

3. +1, Agreed & Well Said!

And there seems no way back with the current political climate....:argh:

[inna]

10. Wage and labor suppression is a deliberate policy.

Works great for Capital, sucks for everybody else.

[leveymg]

2. 5th rec for progressive taxation. Not a new idea, but a good and necessary one.

[AndyA]

4. It's too bad we don't have a leader with the intelligence and courage to make this happen.

And a Congress that works for the people to make it reality.

All of them will tell us how important it is to fund wars, but they'll allow people to die in the streets, lose their homes, and go without health care, all to protect corporations.

Great government we have. Self-serving, and no longer representative.

[another saigon]

6. I am beginning to believe

that leader's "intelligence" was highly over rated.

[SammyWinstonJack]

11. Highly overrated or he just doesn't give a $hit what happens to the 'lesser' of us.

[dhpgetsit]

7. It's about Congress.

Reich's analysis of the root cause of the problem is right on, and it's up to Congress to implement solutions.

[Project Grudge]

12. It IS about Congress

That's why there seems to be so little enthusiasm on our side with the upcoming election. It's either vote Republican or Republican LITE; there's no left or center anymore.

[ShamelessHussy]

16. not just congress, the admin has the bully pulpit, arguably the most powerful perch in the land

just wish it was used more for main st vs. wall st

:argh:

[bulloney]

5. We keep going back to that 30-year benchmark when wages began stagnating.

It was the year St. Ronnie was elected president and that mindset of trickle-down economics, obscene deficit spending and letting the military industrial complex genie out of the bottle has never really left our federal policies since.

And yet, the middle class who have been victims of that trend will argue that the Republicans will improve their standard of living because they will cut their taxes. Never mind the debt and the ensuing cuts in various safety net programs. Never mind that the lion's share of those cuts will go to the people who need them the least.

I have a neighbor who's a retired worker from a local Ford engine plant. Watches Faux Snooze all the time. Supports Republican candidates and spouts conservative rhetoric all the time. Finally, when he said the wrong thing to me on his political beliefs, I had to ask him if he's enjoying his retirement, because had the Republicans had any say, his pension would not exist and neither would his Social Security and Medicare. He never did directly answer my question.

I guess he's got a bad case of "I've got mine" syndrome.

[Javaman]

8. Over the last 10 years, I got 3 raises, while the owners of the place I worked for

got raises every year, plus bonuses.

any wonder why we worker bees are pissed off?

[ShamelessHussy]

17. unfortunately i am making less than what i was in the 90s

weTHEpeople need real change, i am fed up with the banksters robing us, with the only consequence being more bonuses.

the future comedians are gonna have lots of fun with that one :shakes-head:

[RagAss]

24. Not pissed off enough.

[Stinky The Clown]

9. I am absolutely amazed that people can't understand this.

Lots of the people who can't understand this call themselves Democrats. More than a few of the people who can't see this post right here on DU.

[ShamelessHussy]

18. I'm not considering the wall to wall propaganda saying the opposite

his message proves that a tree falling in an empty forest does not make a sound.

before our airwaves were captured by the elite, you used to always hear the other side of the story, when discussing social and financial issues, but now it is almost always from the elite's perspective.

i am more surprised when this kinda message gets any play at all.

[deacon]

25. From losing 650k jobs/month to adding 100k/month. Vote the GOP into extinction.

That will solve our economic problems.

[WillyT]

13. Big K & R !!!

:kick:

[earth mom]

14. K & R! nt

[kentuck]

15. Why isn't this guy advising the President??

Why did Clinton get rid of him? Did he resign as Secretary of Labor on his own?

Regardless, he is making as much sense as anyone in this economy.

[ShamelessHussy]

19. same reason folks like nader, and others with the peoples interests are ignored

it doesn't benefit the ruling class. and since he who has the gold, makes the rules, those voices are pushed out.

[JVS]

20. This is nothing that a 1917 style orgy of violence and social restructuring couldn't solve.

[RagAss]

23. Certainly starting to look that way.

[xchrom]

21. Kick

[B Calm]

22. Fair Trade Tariffs would bring back American manufacturing jobs

faster than anything!

If it costs one dollar in labor costs to make a product in the US and ten cents to make the same product in lets say China, then there should be a ninety cent tariff if they want to sell that product in the USA.

Protecting American manufacturing jobs should be top priority. But. . . try to tell that to Cheap Labor Cons who love Free Trade.