Robert Reich breaks it down for us! Here are the reasons why Sanctuary State legislation makes sense. [Read more…]
Search Results for: Robert Reich
What Good is a Union in 2017?
What is there to celebrate this Labor Day for the average American? We live in troubled times and many of us in the United States are increasingly anxious or angry as we see the American Dream slipping away right before our eyes as the middle-class shrinks and the gap between the very rich and the rest of us continues to grow.
Of course things weren’t always so discouraging for working folks and, as recently as the middle of the twentieth century, what Robert Reich has called the “great compression” helped build the American middle class to its historic zenith as people saw their wages increase, their educational and economic opportunities expand, and their political power grow as the government responded to increasing pressure from below and employers felt the need to compromise with rather than put the screws to their workforces.
While many people have a vague nostalgia for the times before the great unraveling of economic security for most Americans, many have forgotten what helped make the good old days for the middle class good: unions. [Read more…]
Trump’s Deviant Budget Celebrates Cruel Form of Individualism
By Robert Reich / RobertReich.org
For years, conservatives warned that liberals were “defining deviancy downward.” They said that by tolerating bad social behavior, liberals in effect lowered what was deemed acceptable behavior overall – allowing social norms to decline.
There was never a lot of evidence for that view, but there’s little question that Donald Trump is actively defining deviancy downward for the nation as a whole – whether it’s by lying, denigrating basic democratic values, celebrating tyrants around the world, using his office to build his family wealth, or stopping at nothing to win the presidency. [Read more…]
Repeal of the Affordable Care Act: A Moral Travesty
Robert Reich / RobertReich.org
Shame on every one of the 217 Republicans who last Thursday voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and substitute basically nothing.
Trumpcare isn’t a replacement of the Affordable Care Act. It’s a transfer from the sick and poor to the rich and healthy. [Read more…]
Trump’s Fog Machine
Robert Reich / RobertReich.org
Trump’s technique for dealing with bad news is to create enough confusion and partisanship to envelope it in dense fog.
Consider the most explosive news to come along in recent history – that the FBI has commenced an investigation of Trump aides to find out if they colluded with Russian agents to throw the election to Trump. [Read more…]
Trump’s Attack on the Press: 4 Techniques of a Tyrant
Robert Reich / RobertReich.org
Historically, tyrants have tried to control the press using 4 techniques that, worryingly, Donald Trump is already using.
1. Berate the media and turn the public against it. Trump refers to journalists as “dishonest,” “disgusting” and “scum.” When Trump lies – claiming, for example, “massive voter fraud” in the election, and that he “won in a landslide” – and the media call him on those lies, Trump claims the media is lying. Even televised satires he labels “unfunny, one-sided, and pathetic.” [Read more…]
Trump’s Seven Techniques to Control the Media
Robert Reich / RobertReich.org
Democracy depends on a free and independent press, which is why all tyrants try to squelch it. They use seven techniques that, worryingly, President-elect Donald Trump already employs.
1. Berate the media. Last week, Trump summoned two-dozen TV news anchors and executives to the twenty-fifth floor of Trump Tower to berate them for their reporting about him during the election. For twenty minutes he railed at what he called their “outrageous” and “dishonest” coverage. According to an attendee, “Trump kept saying, ‘we’re in a room of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong,’” and he called CNN a “network of liars.” He accused NBC of using unflattering pictures of him, demanding to know why they didn’t use “nicer” pictures.
Another person who attended the meeting said Trump “truly doesn’t seem to understand the First Amendment. He thinks we are supposed to say what he says and that’s it.” [Read more…]
The First 100 Day Resistance Agenda: We’re Not Going Away
By Robert Reich
Trump’s First 100 Day agenda includes repealing environmental regulations, Obamacare, and the Dodd-Frank Act, giving the rich a huge tax cut, and much worse. Here’s the First 100 Day resistance agenda [with thanks to Alan Webber]:
1. Get Democrats in the Congress and across the country to pledge to oppose Trump’s agenda. Prolong the process of approving choices, draw out hearings, stand up as sanctuary cities and states. Take a stand. Call your senator and your representative (phone calls are always better than writing). [Read more…]
The End Of The Establishment?
By Robert Reich / RobertReich.org
Step back from the campaign fray for just a moment and consider the enormity of what’s already occurred.
A 74-year-old Jew from Vermont who describes himself as a democratic socialist, who wasn’t even a Democrat until recently, has come within a whisker of beating Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucus, routed her in the New Hampshire primary, and garnered over 47 percent of the caucus-goers in Nevada, of all places.
And a 69-year-old billionaire who has never held elective office or had anything to do with the Republican Party has taken a commanding lead in the Republican primaries.
[Read more…]
“The Big Short” and Bernie’s Plan to Bust Up Wall Street
By Robert Reich / RobertReich.org
If you haven’t yet seen “The Big Short” – directed and co-written by Adam McKay, based on the non-fiction prize-winning book by Michael Lewis about the housing and credit bubble that triggered the Great Recession — I recommend you do so.
Not only is the movie an enjoyable (if that’s the right word) way to understand how the big banks screwed millions of Americans out of their homes, savings, and jobs – and then got bailed out by taxpayers. It’s also a lesson in why they’re on the way to doing all this again – and how their political power continues to erode laws designed to prevent another crisis and to shield their executives from any accountability.
Most importantly, the movie shows why Bernie Sanders’s plan to break up the biggest banks and reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act (separating investment from commercial banking) is necessary – and why Hillary Clinton’s more modest plan is inadequate. [Read more…]
The Economy in 2016: On the Edge of Recession
By Robert Reich
Economic forecasters exist to make astrologers look good, but I’ll hazard a guess. I expect the U.S. economy to sputter in 2016. That’s because the economy faces a deep structural problem: not enough demand for all the goods and services it’s capable of producing.
American consumers account for almost 70 percent of economic activity, but they won’t have enough purchasing power in 2016 to keep the economy going on more than two cylinders. Blame widening inequality. [Read more…]
What to Do About Disloyal Corporations
By Robert Reich / RobertReich.Org
Just like that, Pfizer has decided it’s no longer American. It plans to link up with Ireland’s Allergan and move its corporate headquarters from New York to Ireland.
That way it will pay less tax. Ireland’s tax rate is less than half that of United States. Ian Read, Pfizer’s chief executive, told the Wall Street Journal the higher tax rate in the United States caused Pfizer to compete “with one hand tied behind our back.”
Read said he’d tried to lobby Congress to reduce the corporate tax rate (now 35 percent) but failed, so Pfizer is leaving.
[Read more…]
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