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The ramifications of wealth disparity: Robert Reich gets it

by on Sep. 29, 2010, under Capitalism, corporatists, economy, jobs, Politics

Robert Reich is one of my heroes. He gets it (unlike the delusional Tea Partiers who also were on National Public Radio [NPR] this morning, but more on those jokers later).

Here is a quote from his interview today on NPR. (Check out the link for the whole interview.)

“[The middle class] can’t go deeper and deeper into debt. They can’t work longer hours. They’ve exhausted all of their coping mechanisms,” he says. “And people at the top are taking home so much that they are almost inevitably going to speculate in stocks or commodities or whatever the speculative vehicles are going to be. … Unless we understand the relationship between the extraordinary concentration of income and wealth we have this in country and the failure of the economy to rebound, we are going to be destined for many, many years of high unemployment, anemic job recoveries and then periods of booms and busts that may even dwarf what we just had.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Capitalism, corporatists, economy, jobs, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • x4mr

    >Reich is brilliant. As Clinton's labor secretary he dispatched staff to learn about the copper company (Magma) when it was doing extraordinary things. I was there.Later, when I ran a training institute, then state Senator Giffords visited to learn about the place. My presentation included quotes from Reich's literature. She turned to me, "Bob's a good friend of mine."Giffords and Reich are part of the solution. They are the real thinkers that truly want to advance what it is to be human on this planet.

  • Pamela

    >x4mr– I couldn't agree more. I love Reich's blog. By continuing to make his insightful ideas public, he has done a great service to the country.

  • Jim Hannley

    >I just got to this, Pam. I agree with you and x4mr that Reich is one of those rare working class partisans who made it to the top, did not become corrupt or co-opted and remains an important force for progress in the US today. He is spot on, of course in his assertion that this ridiculous concentration of wealth and income is a huge brake on economic development and must be reversed.

  • Ellyn F

    >I heard Prof. Reich speak at one of the local union halls a few years ago, maybe during Gabby's first run. He is amazing and so on-target about labor and the economy. Gabrielle is so blessed to have him in her court.

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The Tucson Progressive

Pamela Powers Hannley writes the Tucson Progressive blog on the TucsonCitizen.com and contributes articles to the Huffington Post and Salon.com. She has had more than 30 years of experience in written, visual, and electronic communication—including freelance writing, photography, graphic design, and consulting. In addition to blogging for the Citizen, she is the Managing Editor of an international medical research journal.

Hannley has authored medical research articles, print magazine and newspaper stories, and numerous cancer prevention and self-help publications.

She has been a blogger since 2006, joined the ranks of Tucson Citizen bloggers in October 2010, and started contributing to the Huffington Post in 2011 and to Salon.com in 2012.

Hannley holds a masters’ degree in public health from The University of Arizona and a bachelors’ degree in journalism from The Ohio State University. She is a native of Amherst, Ohio but has lived in Tucson since 1981.