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A Warning from 1994 of a Two-Tiered Society | Robert Reich
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- Опубліковано 20 лис 2023
- In 1994, I took a lot of heat for this speech warning that the American middle class was in danger. That was 29 years ago this week. Watch and tell me if I was wrong.
The tragedy is that three decades later those threatened by poverty still turn against each other rather than turning against the politicians who put them in this situation!
In part because of the terrible education system which has dumbed down America. Division works, divide and conquer. Too many of us fight our fellow citizens rather than the leadership bought by the donor class who are primarily greedy and not at all interested in the livelihood of the masses. We 99percenters need to find a common ground and force change by being educated voters.
Thats because every society at all times has rich and poor.
@@86Corvus But not every society has an affluent middle class.
And this is what this talk is about, how the middle class disappears and becomes poor. Even the middle class that has en entry requirement of college or university studies is going from middle class to poor. The well educated developers and engineers have a living standard today that the factory workers had at the end of the 1970s. And factories have basically closed down, creating no intermediate between under paid health and service workers, and the upper echelon that starts off with 20 million dollars in the bank and the contacts to sit in whatever company board they want to.
By design!
. In the immortal words of Lyndon Johnson, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
I’m Canadian and I worked for a Canadian owned and operated company that has been in business for 100 years. We have offices and facilities all across the country and we had always called them branches as in the were all branches of the same tree and we felt like family. One year it was announced that we had reached a billion dollars in sales for the year. The next year after we were sold to an American privately owned company and that’s when the whole thing changed. The first indication of how different things would be was when we were told to stop called our other offices branches and start calling them Profit Centres. Suddenly we were no longer a family instead we were competing with our own company for the share of the profits . It became a difficult and different place to work . That is the problem with big business in America they value profit and money above everything and their greed stops a large portion of Americans from getting ahead. They do not want to help spread the wealth
Thank you for sharing a real world comparison story.
If you hear the word, "EBITDA", run.
Same thing happened to my mom when she worked at Fleet Bank in the 90s. Bank of America went national and began consolidating. When they took over Fleet it became a miserable place to work. She was forced into an early retirement after the 08 financial crisis they had a hand in creating.
American companies are only concerned with projections for the next quarter. Who can remain motivated working with that goal?
And it’s only gotten worse. My husband and I used to work for a benefits consulting firm that was an LLC. They took care of their employees. We had excellent benefits, had wonderful raises, free food, free business classes we could schedule during the work day, etc. It was one of the top 100 businesses to work for in America. Then, they went public, and they started to eliminate things… first, free food. It was still a great company to work for, then another benefits consulting firm bought it in hopes of expanding. The cultures of the two didn’t really work together and they ended up selling it Blackstone, a private equity firm. From the beginning, all they cared about was making the company LOOK more profitable to sell it off. They didn’t care about customer service or how they treated their clients or employees. Of, course there were many layoffs, and now people are doing the jobs of ten people, and they’ve hired service centers in India to handle the phone calls. Clients are outsourcing to them, and they’re outsourcing to India. They closed every single building except one, and chose a cheaper place for corporate headquarters. My husband still works there and still enjoys the actual work. Fortunately, he now works from home, and I haven’t worked there in many years. But private equity firms have take over America, not only businesses, but housing, and nobody thinks to do anything about it. The greedy MFers just take over everything for a profit. They raise rents to the point where people can’t afford them and buy houses and leave them empty for a false sense of scarcity.
People say it’s capitalism, but capitalism does NOT have to equal greed. People can make money, lots of money, while also treating their employees and clients with respect, and without paying CEOs millions and billions of dollars more. Public companies can even increase the money to their investors when they have a solid company that is doing well. Instead, they just try and make it look as if they’re doing well, when the company is actually falling apart inside. It’s really quite pathetic and sad!
“That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
― George Carlin
The key thing in this so painfully prophetic speech is this:
"Left behind are those whose anger and whose disillusionment is easily manipulated."
Thirty years later, impoverished are at each other throats while "Golden Tier" is laughing in their gilded castles, inventing the next thing for masses to fight about and to blame. They have decades of knowledge (psychology research regarding human mind and control), they have infinite resources and the ultimate tool is in their hands, the media.
The result?
From national and border wars to racial wars, religious wars, vaccine wars, gender wars and finally identity wars, common people have been distracted from understanding that there was always only one war - rich versus poor.
Exactly! Very well said!
It can be solved with education and critical thinking and widened perspective. Unfortunately higher education has become too expensive...
You sir, were our greatest labor secretary! Thank you for continuing to shine the light of reason in labor for all to see.
I think this was the year I briefly met you, Mr. Reich. I met you at the airport and rode with you to the first Texas Lyceum in Houston. Jean Kirkpatrick was also a speaker. You are the best example I gave those I met throughout life of the trick of knowing if a person is good-hearted: watch how important and powerful people treat waitresses, shop clerks, or those working their first jobs. You engaged me in meaningful conversation, asking how I was doing, asking if I made enough money to live comfortably. I often recall that day and the hope you gave me. Thank you for your kindness.
MontanaBlue-sbw - What a wonderful experience and memory to recall and to share!
your comment made me think of our ex-primeminister John Key here in NZ Aotearoa who got in 'cheeky' trouble pulling a waitresses ponytail. Clear evidence of lack of good-heartedness.
I mistake the year; it was almost a decade earlier.
Right on point there. Something I have always lived by was the tale....You do not judge a person with his peers, because all there are equal. You don't judge them with their betters/superiors because they have no power there. You judge them with people beneath them, because they have all the power over there and there is no fear of reprisals.
When I heard the stories of Trump stiffing the contractors under him that is when I knew he was not a good person.
Remember people all power and money do is make you more of who you really are.
Cool story! Thanks for sharing!
We went from "pick a career and you will likely do ok in life " to pick a career and also make sure you are as much of a shark as the dudes on wall street in finance or be prepared to lose half to all of your retirement fund every so often. The deal used to be blue collar guys keep the lights on, the supply chain running, the roof over your head and the white collar guys were supposed to make sure the money kept flowing for everyone to make that happen and then at the end of it all we could all retire together and enjoy watching our kids do the same. They had one job and decided to get greedy about it.
Now the most common thing you hear as a young person going through college or getting into the job market is that basically every degree is worthless, unless you want to do programming and burn out after a year then get your job replaced by AI in 5 years. Oh you have a busted job in finance or banking that pays way too well for what you do? That's also probably gonna get replaced in the next decade. Of course we still hold up the overachievers as proof that you can still "make it" but everyone else is just left to wonder what the fuck they are supposed to contribute to a society that is basically run by technology and an amorphous finance sector that no one understands.
@@TheDespiser You just wrote mankind’s epitaph.
All true, though no one mentions the 'elephant in the room', aka, the gradual disappearance of those blue collar jobs mostly due to globalization, automation and the increasing demand for higher skills and education.
And that's not just in the U.S., it's happening all over the industrialized Western world, from Trump and Brexit, to the rise of authoritarian mass movements... and nobody seems to have an answer, besides 'let's just re-distribute all the money'.
I might add that the last 15yrs its pick a career that pays well. Being a History major might not get you a job that you can buy a condo, forget about a house. I think its a case of doing your homework, pick a career that pays, seek out the mid size towns with lower cost housing until you can get your feet firmly planted in the ground. And for goodness sakes Always get a prenup even if you are head over heels in love. Many a man has lost it all in mid life. Keep what you have earned until you retire.
The stats on cheating are quite high but the divorce rate is 50% and very expensive. That's why lawyers send their kids to ivy league schools.
I was a pilot at one of the largest airlines in the country. At a training event the CEO came in for a quick meet and greet, I had my almost 1-2 minute chat with him mostly because the other pilots were cowed by him. He told me to my face, “if you stay at this company more than 4 years you are costing me money, we have 5000 qualified applicants waiting to take your position”. The next 22 years were very clear to me, maximize my take home wages and don’t worry about how much it costs them. In maximizing my pay, I cost them millions in operating costs and created a sub cult of like minded captains. I shudder to think how much it costed them overall. I have since retired, and live a decent retirement, and have never bought anything from Amazon, Walmart or any of the other multi billion dollar corporations that are using their profits to fund space programs and buy locally. I buy quality used items used from Craigslist and other small vendors. Ask Marie Antoinette how the being rich thing worked out for her….fuck the rich and their lackeys I will be long dead before anything changes, and if you think it’s bad now just wait, the bottom is still a long way to go.
The jugrnaut is picking up speed all the time there will be alot falling by the way side
Dr Shiva has a movement for dealing with this. We need to subvert the dominant paradigm and that is possible. Margaret Mead said to never doubt that a small group of people can change the world cuz it's the only thing that ever has.
Of you don't know who Dr Shiva is you aren't alone.
The addiction to cheap new stuff is the new bargain the American middle class made in the early 1990s. It took many away from appreciating quality and made mass quantity the reason to “looking” rich.
You fool. The CEO told you this and yet you stayed? This is the problem with the 99%ers. You just do and don’t take the risks the 1%ers take. Cry me a river!
Wait you stayed at a company for 22 years got to retire before the age of 80 and can still afford to buy things?? On what planet are you not top 1% because both of the newer generations are looking right at people like you when they chant "eat the rich".
I started working for a small family owned but multi million dollar earning company when i was 18.
Everyone who worked there was greeted by the father and son owners every morning.
After 10 years they were forced out and bought out by a multi national multi billion dollar company and i went to work for them. The atmosphere immediately went from a family vibe to an undermining, sabotaging, back stabbing, brown nosing, vibe when our employees were mixed with the big company employees and the work was made twice as hard but a fraction of the quality of our little family owned business.
After 10 more years they sold our division out for a huge profit and i quit. I miss that little company and all my friends there.
Small business can suck too it depends on the people
@@seemev2.0phuckbootube78
Yes. I worked for a small business in the same type of work.
They also would sabotage any fellow employee that they saw as competition.
They would purposely fowl things up and then blame it on the outsiders. I think their was definitely some inbreeding going on in their employees.
I was taught professional management at college when I left school. People are not people any more they are "assets" and, or a liability. They are categorized as low grade and so on. Weak grid/ group, strong grid group, with an agenda to reduce them to weak group strong grid. You can look this up in personnel management. The larger the company, the more dead wood it will carry. The dead wood are the employees who are related to major share holders. They will do little work and live off the efforts of the weakest employees. They have an agenda to break the word up into simple task so that they can take any unskilled person off the street to do the work and replace them easily. This makes the business more efficient and reduces the power of the employees. It is the same strategy IBM adopted, which is copied. On paper that looks good and consequently increases the share value because the business can be kept running due to easily replaceable labour, but in fact, it can cost the business a lot of money. I saw this at IBM. They employ unskilled untrained people off the street via agencies. The agencies charged about three times what the workers are paid, but employing via agency reduces the liability to IBM and thus keeps their share value higher. I saw workers who had been there on two year contracts producing work quickly and efficiently being replaced with workers who did not know what they were doing. I saw thousands of pounds worth of product being scrapped because of it, all in the sake of having a dis empowered workforce and a consequent higher share value. The cost of employing was just as high because of the agency take. My friend was writing software to replace jobs at lower management level. The mangers were reduced to sitting in front of a blue screen counting batches and keeping track of the work. They had made it so they can be replaced with semi skilled. The electrical engineers were near redundant because the components were not repairable and if they failed they were just scrapped. That is the evolution. The object is that every one makes a living and is secure. So far this only applies to share holders. Now you see why 'communism comes into play, but that is an ideal. The reality of that is the same people who were running it before become senior communist and live the same while very one else does the work. That is what the book Animal farm was telling you.
IT'S YOUR PARTY AND RINOs CAUSING ALL OF THIS with your fkling REGULATION and TAXES AND BIG GOVERNMENT. stop talking like you aren't RESPONSIBLE
I worked in a same type of company with the same thing and similar happened, except the father and son are still there. Fortunately most of the trouble makers and brown nosers have left and made it a bit better.
Im thankful there are people like you Bob. You are a true Patriot of the people. Thank you so much for your service. Cheers
Just need more people to listen to his message.
tell me how he is lying@@fritzforsthoefel8031
@@fritzforsthoefel8031where's the lie fritz?
Reich lies by withholding information. He never tells you that the rich pay almost all the federal taxes he never tells you that the poor get subsidized housing food assistance cash assistance and free healthcare he never tells you that the middle class draw more ss and medicare than they pay in taxes and the average person draws out three dollars for every dollar paid in the rich pay almost all the federal taxes and get next to nothing in return
Vote out handout democrats before it's to late our debt is bigger than our entire economy meaning when our creditors cash there bonds in for cash they will be able to buy everything meaning no matter how much money you have it won't matter there won't be any thing to buy everything meaning no matter how much money you have it won't matter there won't be any thing to buy leaving our children with a bankrupt shell of a nation because of democrat handouts
"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore !"
Some of the best journalism produced in U.S. history was every interview you ever gave with Bill Moyers.
Dr. Reich, you have been our Cassandra, warning of American democracy’s fragility since the 70s. I cannot even imagine how hard it’s been on you, lugging the truth around all these years, seeing your warnings becoming our reality, staying just one step ahead of democracy’s assassins. You are not only an oracle, Sir, you are a saint. I only wish we half deserved you.
Very well written. :)
However, over half of the adults do deserve him. We have to unrig the rigging.
Pretty eerie that Mr Reich was able to prophesize the changing nature of our economy close to 30 years ago. He has always been a visionary, but it does not appear that business is taking heed to his wisdom.
neo liberal economics was always going to lead to this.
Fascist Billionaires led to what we are experiencing now.
@kanedNunable Yup, indeed, and too many still do not listen until the pain breaks them.
George Carlin and many other people predicted this as well. It wasn't a hard thing to predict.
Americans think of the, historically prosperous, 1940's & 50's when they reminisce about America's "greatness." Do you know the top-marginal tax rates during those, historically prosperous, decades?
*Historical Highest Marginal Income Tax Rates*
_"The top income tax rate reached above _*_90%_*_ from 1944 through 1963, peaking in 1944 when top taxpayers paid an income tax rate of _*_94%_*_ on their taxable income."_
SOURCE: Tax Policy Center - online 9-Feb-22
_“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”_
*- John Steinbeck*
The average working citizens of other 1st-world nations, often pity ours.
*McDonald’s Workers in Denmark Pity Us*
_“Danes love America,” Hummelgaard told me. “But there’s no admiration for the level of inequality in America, for the lack of job security, for the lack of health security, for all those things that...create a good society.”_
SOURCE: NY TIMES, by By Nicholas Kristof - May 8, 2020
Is it just coincidence that ALL the happiest nations on Earth, are also nations with some of the highest tax rates on Earth, with free medical care, ample paid time off & FAR superior education systems?
*The Happiest Countries in the World*
_"Finland leads the ranking of the world's happiest countries for the sixth year in a row, according to the 2023 World Happiness Report... score (7.80)...Denmark in second place (7.59), Iceland in third (7.53), Sweden in sixth (7.40) and Norway in seventh (7.32)"_
SOURCE: World Economic Forum, by Anna Fleck - Mar 23, 2023
_"We need to question this notion that capital only belongs to the owners when we can't achieve anything without workers. We're doing capitalism wrong, and were going to kill ourselves in the process unless we rethink it."_
*-Abigail Disney* (Disney Heir, documentary film producer, philanthropist, and social activist)
Wow, Secretary Reich! You were spot-on 29 years ago, and you're still spot-on today. Thank you for your important work.
I came to the same conclusion almost a decade before. In my case, it was based on my observations of conservatives at MIT, managers and executives at Northrop-Grumman (then Grumman Aerospace), and an Ivy Leaguer on a fast track there (he just retired as a VP from the company). I also based it on observation of what Reagan and his administration were doing.
The truth will set us ALL free but the truth has become a thing of the past when it comes to politics. Republicans are hell bent on living under a dictatorship with an extremely unstable leader. This is a recipe for disaster. Reaganomics was the beginning of the end for the power of the people and moved to a corporate controlled economy and the transition of wealth to the wealthy and away for the people. Now trump has made it worse ten fold.
trump has proven his instability and anyone that can’t see it is just as unstable or just plain authoritarian and stupid to think it’s better to live in a communist style regime. There’s a reason this country was founded and it was to get away from that kind of people control. Do republicans really want to live like prisoners of the state with absolutely NO RIGHTS. The constitution was written by intelligent people who wanted the country to be free and is not up for negotiation or dismissal by authoritarian ideology. Do NOT vote republican unless you want to lose all the freedoms so many died to protect! I’m independent but Sleepy Joe is the ONLY logical choice for freedom! don trump is totally crazy and isn’t and NEVER will be a decent human being. He just doesn’t have it in him. Wake up and vote him in to obscurity and prison since that’s about all we can do. Too bad about that part. He doesn’t deserve to ever try to deceive the public again. He has done enough damage to democracy (freedom!) SAME THING! There’s a lot of Republics like China ,North Korea and Russia but they aren’t democratic. Yes we’re are a republic but a democratic republic. BIG DIFFERENCE!!
It's Reich and Liberals in western countries that have created the wealth gap.
Democrats have used open immigration, high taxes, and over regulation to put slack into the labor market year after year. Which gives all the power to employers, driving down wages, and immigration drives up housing prices at the same time. To the point tens of millions of Americans don't have any money left over at the end of the month. And it's the low wages and lack of power at the bottom that allows the excesses at the top. Causing the wealth gap.
Compare that to JFK style conservative policies of using low taxes, smaller government, deregulation, and less immigration to tighten up the labor market. Which gives power back to workers. Raises wages. Allows for advancement. Allows for mobility. Allows people with bad job records or few skills to get jobs. And gives people dignity.
If Reich actually cared about lower income people, and was capable of compassion and empathy, Reich would be a Kennedy/Reagan conservative.
@@practicaliching2311
You're wrong
It's mind boggling how this degradation of society has been going on for decades and nothing has changed. Whenever there is a crisis we sit back and watch those with influence, power and money emerge with a far greater share of the pie. No wonder the upcoming generations are so restless and disillusioned. They see their parents who bought a home at a young age working in modest employment with a modest salary on one income. They hear stories of how the previous generations worked themselves through college waiting tables and pumping gas. Hard work used to pay off, as it should. Now it's just a race to the bottom. Historically I am not a Democratic supporter but I can't help but agree that everything this man said almost 30 years ago has come true. His pessimistic outlook was painfully accurate and we have done nothing about it. The truth is regardless of political affiliation the majority of the constituents who are supposed to represent the everyday citizen have long been bought and paid for by special interest groups and corporate oligarchs.
Can't even easily obtain a wife and kids now.
Republicans have been in charge for 14/20 years. And people are still voting for them? And complaining.
I have always respected Robert Reich. At the same time I did not hear one mention of the financial industry. When Clinton and the Republicans passed NAFTA and jobs began to bleed from the Country I watched the Wall Street numbers rise. They never stopped as the middle class fell.
Global competition and technology doesn't keep billionaires from sharing the wealth does it?
You were exactly right !! And they all went for profit instead of their workers!! That is why many families had to move across the country to keep some of the manufacturing jobs!! My father had to move us 2000 miles away from the rest of our extended family to keep his job! I still hate this place 40 years later. Right to work states also killed the middle class...🤬🌊🌵🌞🌊
I hear you, I remember all of the factories in our area closing or outright leaving the country. And we still don't listening. 💛💜🖤
The GRAPES OF WRATH
no you moved cause the government did nothing to protect jobs from imports. both parties are guilty and buy votes cause you like cheap prices. but look at the bright side , we have tons of illegals now to depress wages of everyone while drugs are everywhere.
@@1JoyPeacethe government let imports in so you can have cheap junk to buy votes. divided you will fall and they don't care. cheer up the stores are full of imports just for your xmass.
I was 14 when you made this speech. My life is now an example of the truth of those words. Companies don't invest in their work force anymore. Turnover is outrageous and people are treated like numbers. My parents comfortably had me and my younger sister on a single income in the '80s. By the time this video came out, they were both working overtime so we could eat a second meal each day. Now, my son and I have both accepted the reality that home ownership is far, far beyond our highest potentials in American society. As you warned us, the middle class is gone; there is a two-tiered society; and people are rightly upset about choosing between rent and food while their bosses drive BMWs and work four hour weeks. You never could have known that the Bushes would not only ignore this message, but go all-in on corporate greed when you said you look forward to working with the new Administration. Look who that trust yielded to us as the current Republican front-runner: a multiply convicted sex abuser and financial fraudster.
Amen!
Thank you for sharing your story.
Many more of us can relate to you than any of the wealthy can imagine.
What happens to you if a cancer diagnosis comes into play?
So many of us ate walking on a razors edge.
I am your peer. My parents were comfortably in the middle class with a single income. When my mom joined the work force we became upper middle class.
My brother and I are doing considerably better than so many in our peer group. Yet my husband and I can only afford to have one child. We are struggling to pay our bills. Just when I think we will be okay the treadmill just speeds up. I worry there will be no real relief unless the system is entirely overthrown or we leave the county.
I, too, was 14 when he made the speech. Just look at housing costs. In 1985, my dad bought a place in Colorado Springs, CO, for $150k. Today, the home is 'worth' $700k. Just a middle class home. The median salary for Colorado Springs is only $73k. You'd need 10x the income to buy the place.
Remember Ronnie and trickle down economy. It wasn’t even a drop.
Once again...I must thank you for sharing this. Just proves how long you've been speaking truth to us. I really just wish more people would have listened AND comprehended what you were trying to teach us!
Reich lies by withholding information from you I can name maney examples
From a hardcore Dem the "warning" has enough "irony" to build a battleship.
Robert was ahead of the game. As time went on, his words became truer.
What Mr. Reich described in 1994 began, as he said, in the 1970s.
Technology was a big factor, but it was also being driven by calculated decisions by policy minded members of the wealthiest 1%. These folks knew what they were doing. They deliberately drove us to where we are now.
Mr. Reich wasn't the only one who saw this happening. But he was one of the few who would go on camera and speak of it, directly to the American people.
@@davidmenasco5743 He was also dead wrong about NAFTA.
@@JayBee-cr8jm I have absolutely no idea what Mr. Reich said about NAFTA. But I know that it has nothing to do with anything I wrote above.
But, thanks for the (irrelevant) comment.
@@davidmenasco5743 Would you like to know what The Reich said about NAFTA?
He was very, very wrong about it. In fact, he was forced to apologize for his comments.
I don't want to damage your relationship with him. I can see that, like many racist people, you are deeply in love with him.
He still is ahead of the game. And we still are not listening.
I think we’re already there. Time to vote in politicians that support shoring up the middle class instead of vulgar, cruel, and shallow greed. Keep shining your light, Sir!🇺🇸😊🙏👍❤️🇺🇸
Robert Reich is one of the most intelligent voices in politics and a brilliant professor It is an amazing how this speech over 30 years ago is still relevant today.
He is an outright liar that likely makes a pretty good living preaching to people what they want to hear, telling them the reason they are poor and unhappy is all someone else's fault.
Blame the government and politicians, that way, the lazy fat Americans don't have to look for personal responsibility for themselves, they can blame someone else
I got chills from his last line. As always, RR is a bang-on prognosticator.
Well said Mr. Reich. Sad to see the labor unions struggling today to get their share of the work. I am a Union Steamfitter, retired now 5 years at the end of this month. Peace
Unions are also part of the problem. Their incessant demands for salary increases to promote mediocrity gives impetus to the companies to invest in capital equipment to replace those jobs permanently.
@@JB-yb4wn The power working people have is our labor. There needs to be a labor union for everybody. We must not be intimidated or abused by employers. "CEO PAY HAS SKYROCKED 1,322% SINCE 1978. CEO's were paid 351 times as much as a typical worker in 2020." Economic Policy Institute. We can look up statics all day long, but in the end the workers have been robbed of money and benefits. Time is now to take back what they stole. Union Strong.
@@JB-yb4wnyou’re full of shit. Get those union busting lies out of here.
@@JB-yb4wn You say that like a corporation wouldn't replace every single worker with a machine and leave everyone out to starve immediately if they could.
@@renatocorvaro6924
Oh god no! They would do that in a heartbeat!
But then who would buy their goods if nobody has a job? Those companies never think about the consequences, just the bottom line.
The myth that the winners "earned it" or are "self made" is the greatest Urban Legend ever told.
It’s worked wonders to keep the rich, filthy rich
Yes, entrepreneurs may do work in the beginning to start a company, but that is just normal work that is worth some value. Suddenly if they have 100 workers the workers begin doing far more work than that single entrepreneur and somehow the entrepreneur who usually starts doing a lot less work gets paid more than his 100 workers. Then we continue along this trend and you end up with workers doing all the work living paycheck to paycheck while a few people live lives of ultimate luxery.
“Winners” believe that stuff. They genuinely think they have earned their wealth through hard work rather than good fortune.
And then others who aren't "winners" work to sustain that myth because they want to carry the belief that, maybe, they can "earn it", too.
Wrong. They were winners. Railroads. Breakthrough industry. Families earned their wealth someway somehow through conquest. Speaking of the very wealthy only.
The republic fell, giving way to an oligarchy( It takes 100 mil dollars to become a senator ,incredible). Escaping from the grasp of a socialist dictatorship in Eastern Europe, I encountered a more complex and multi-faced beast, challenging to pinpoint due to its numerous disguises.It's presented as being for the benefit of the people, yet in reality, everything is stripped away under the guise of an American smile
I honestly think there is a (small) chance that Jonestown and Waco were actually happy places with happiness and love, and the establishment felt threatened by their models, so created a whole bunch of fake news, "inside spies," and propaganda in order to destroy them.
It can't be that hard to create a independent society that operates on true Utilitarian principles with the commonwealth goals being Utopic in nature.
If I had a ton of money, that is 100% what I'd do.
I'd modernize modern life. Instead, our leaders are TAKING US BACKWARDS.
Ruby Ridge. Never forget.
Thank you for continuing to support workers and families in this country. It has to be hard to fight this battle for almost thirty years.
Lets teach families and workers how to become financially independent
So prescient. You are always spot on. Thank you Sir!
it wasn't a warning. It was an explanation of their plan for today
My grandfather worked his backside off, saved all his life and bought houses and cars for his four children. My dad and his siblings largely squandered this, and my grandmother (whom I love dearly) passes away, the house that she own will be sold and the proceeds split between the four of them, probably to be squandered on debt. My brother and I got almost nothing to help us pay for hugely inflated houses.
We can easily point to the politicians and bureaucrats and blame them for all of this, but we can't pretend that the general public has not declined in quality since WW2.
There IS a Two Tier system of Justice. One for those with Money/Power and one for those without.
Got Money/Power? Laws Rarely apply to you.
Lack Money/Power? Laws ALWAYS Apply to you.
Dan rotenkoski Leona Helmsley Bernie Madoff would disagree
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 Oh I bet they wouldn't if they were still alive. They got too brazen and gave away the game. That's the only reason they were given slaps on the wrists. But they got off easy and still made HUGE money. Joe Blow driving a box truck wouldn't be getting a fucking pardon from the president if they did the same crimes.
@@fritzforsthoefel8031 Did your brain skip over the word "Rarely"?
The senator from Illinois when Obama got elected Martha Stewart I can name maney more lies about the rich are maney democrats live in a world of lies and jealousy fact is the rich go to jail and pay almost all the federal taxes
Do you even know the numbers of the rich that are charged or convicted or are you just making up lies about the rich
It's chilling how accurate this is nearly 30 years later.
Chilling? The United States Is RUINED and will never recover.
What’s even more chilling is how much worse our reality is compared to the prediction. The wealth gap is worse and the working class are all fighting amongst each other due to racism and political beliefs. We’re all distracted by that stuff while the ultra rich become even more rich.
RR is a fraud.
It's the same nonsense as "the haves and the have-nots" 😂 this is a tactic of Marxism. They're coming for our jobs in a different lens.
This guy hasn’t a clue. Immigration is exploitation and used as a weapon of the rich to suppress wages of the working class. Alphabet people and the promotion of their immoral ways along with pride is a sign of the lacking ‘morality’ in our society.
I'm tired of hearing about struggling middle class people. What about poor people? Who struggles more? Poverty is nobody's concern. This country is twisted even when it's trying to be nice.
You were spot on then and continue to see the future now. And a lot of us have been on the same page with you. The thing that frustrates me about that is we haven't found a way to change it yet. How do we do this and have a sustainable economy that doesn't do harm? How do we sidestep the greedy politicians and string-pullers and make them irrelevant?
Wow. This should be required in classrooms and boardrooms across the country. My dad always said "You can kick a dog only so much before it will turn on you." People will realize that money is only paper, gold and diamonds are just rocks, and you cant eat any of the three.
It holds value only while you're able to get it to use in exchange for things you can eat and use for your needs and everyday living. The problem starts when you can no longer get enough of it to even exist when it's deliberately withheld by those hoarding the stuff.
Instead in the classrooms today they teach gender identity and critical race theory
@@Trendleader863the right also use those topics as red herrings. In fact they amplified both exponentialy.
@@Trendleader863people like you are (one of the reasons to) why the working class is fractured and powerless against the bourgeoise.
the situation can only be improved by a strong, united working class.
While much of what Mr. Reich states from '94 seems to have materialized, he was and still is a part of the issues that he described. To put his politics into perspective, he was a staunch Bernie Sanders supporter while calling DeSantis a fascist. Some people may agree, while others would disagree. Additionally, he has worked under all Democrat leadership since Ford and all the way through Obama. If you wonder where the horrible NAFTA deal came from, look no further; it was he who led that disaster. Mr. Reich was also noted as the first gubernatorial candidate to support same-sex marriage and among the first to criticize Elon Musk to take over Twitter. His views in this video warns about the perils of America, but seemingly, he has perpetuated and continues to advance and inject Leftist ideology into the very fabric of the American dream. Do not let one decades old video sway you into believing that Mr. Reich is somehow a proponent to the America dream. As he stated, the American middle class can be easily manipulated, don't let it happen to you. Research first, then form your own informed conclusion.
Making sense in a calm, rational, well informed and and well spoken way.
It’s a shame that doesn’t sell in today’s world
It's Reich and Liberals in western countries that have created the wealth gap.
Democrats have used open immigration, high taxes, and over regulation to put slack into the labor market year after year. Which gives all the power to employers, driving down wages, and immigration drives up housing prices at the same time. To the point tens of millions of Americans don't have any money left over at the end of the month. And it's the low wages and lack of power at the bottom that allows the excesses at the top. Causing the wealth gap.
Compare that to JFK style conservative policies of using low taxes, smaller government, deregulation, and less immigration to tighten up the labor market. Which gives power back to workers. Raises wages. Allows for advancement. Allows for mobility. Allows people with bad job records or few skills to get jobs. And gives people dignity.
If Reich actually cared about lower income people, and was capable of compassion and empathy, Reich would be a Kennedy/Reagan conservative.
@@practicaliching2311 um, yeah… nope
@@practicaliching2311 Supply-side economics (a/k/a “Reaganomics”) was the main driver of the current wealth gap. BTW you should tell Trump that he should stop hiring illegal immigrants to work in his hotels
@@gregbors8364 What substantive evidence do you you have that Ronald Reagan's policies had any effect on creating the wealth gap. That isn't backed up by the IRS data. In fact IRS data prices just the opposite, that reductions in tax rates overwhelmingly helps lower income people. The top earners had their share of the tax burden go up 3% after the Reagan tax cuts.
Executive pay went up much faster than blue collar pay after women started serving in board rooms in the late 1970's and the culture in the Board room changed. Reagan had nothing to do with that.
I hear this argument all the time that Reagan caused stratifications of incomes, always without any supporting evidence. Because there isn't any.
Take-home pay rose for all income groups in the 1980s, and real median family income rose by nearly $8,000 (in today’s dollars) during the Reagan years. Real median family income climbed from $60,597 in 1981 to $68,299 in 1989, following steep declines during the Carter presidency. Tens of millions of Americans moved up the income scale in the 1980s; 86% of households in the poorest income quintile in 1980 had moved to a higher quintile by 1990."
@@practicaliching2311if you think Reagan was even competent you need to go back to class dude.
Or google project star wars
Robert Reich nailed it in 1994, and it has only gotten worse since then, in terms of wages not keeping up with the cost of living.
“We have met the enemy, and he is us!”. -Pogo-.We have no one to blame but for ourselves, for the shrinking of the middle class, with the landslide electoral victory of Reagan in 1980, we are all waiting for the “Trickle Down Economics” of Reaganomics!
This was an extraordinary speech. He made not an observation but a prediction. I retired four years ago and I am blessed and have all I need, but my younger co-workers had two and some three jobs to be able to cover their expenses. These were recently graduates from universities and if they wanted a decent car they would seek extra work just to pay it. It's so sad, unjust and dangerous health wise. The worst part is I don't see much hope for them. Many were not planning to have children. Unbelievable.
Dr. Reich, you're a national treasure ❤ Thank you for your acute observation skills and your intelligent, wise analysis.
California is the perfect example of his “two tiered society”. Due to taxes and regulations the average housing price in California is 15 times the average household income. No one with what would have been considered a “middle class job” just a decade or two ago can now afford to buy a house. You have the incredibly rich in California that live in their gated communities completely away from the “riff raff” they prefer to pretend don’t exist other than to serve them. (And housing isn’t that expensive due to “desirability” - homes aren’t selling in California. More homes were sold in just the Houston area of Texas alone last year than the entire state of California. It’s all due to taxes and construction regulation). And people like Robert Reich see that as a model for the nation. They WANT a two tiered system - a ruling class and an under class. They have never, in the history of our nation, really supported this whole “self rule of the people” experiment.
The middle class’s problem is all the jobs that they worked are now outsourced to another country.
Literally nothing has changed. My God that is depressing
Actually it's become worse as the GOP has continued giving the wealthy more tax breaks and placed the burdens of building federal reserves on the middle class.
Came to say something like this. The problems Robert was outlining here are still with us today, but have been vastly expanded by corporate consolidation, shareholder greed, not giving consideration to all stakeholders, and so much profiteering that our chances of correcting our capitalist system has been intentionally taken by the richest among us. They take and take, then rig things so they can take some more, eventually leaving us with the bill.
Yes, it has. This speech was before the internet was mainstream and sped this up at light speed.
Who is going to change it......politicians? lol
It's way worse lol
Well said and well predicted. Unfortunately in the darker side of human nature the majority chose immediate self gratification over the greater good for our civilization, our economy, our country and even over the greater good of their own company (corporation).
True prophets are always ignored, damned or killed. False prophets are praised and paid wonderfully.
Mr Reich is right and we are better off because of his insights. In a democracy we can do something with this knowledge but are there enough of us interested? This is a crucial turning point in history that has to be dealt with now. Thank you Mr Reich.
Yes! Are tge enough interested? Great question.
The problem was that many Americans refused to listen to people like him and Bob Perrot.
Not to mention that they outsourced almost all the manufacturing so we’re consumers instead of producers
Unfortunately corporate greed took over, people stopped paying attention to politics well enough to vote responsibly and here we are.
we, (the collective we) gave them the pass..we still revere Reagan today. Remarkable isn't it? Yet, here we are...so much of the indoctrination still ingrained. Hopefully enough of us have come out of our complacency enough this time next year. We're waking but still far from woke. The other side feels no need to hide it anymore. It's fascism front and center, it is them vs us right now, bottom line, they've been showing 1930's German tactics since trump took office, it's not like many haven't been screaming about it since 2017, because they have. We need to outvote them by even bigger numbers next year or we may not see any semblance of decency or democracy here again for a very long time, we will soon be another Russia. Our only shot at the real changes we need, and no one denies, there are many, is to keep democrats in power, then keep up the pressure on THEM to begin implement changes that put us on the path. Maybe we should have actual qualifications that need to be met before one can run for elected office. I mean when you need more education to be a manager at a retail store than a US congressional representative how did that ever make any sense? It must stop being about money, district shopping, and allowing false and misleading information if not outright lies during campaigns and terms. It's ridiculous that lying is perfectly acceptable from authorities with power over all our lives with decisions they make and policy they pass into law. And they don't even need a HS diploma, a GED will do, have the right optics, get the right backing, or like empty g, have family money, pick your district, choose your optics, lie, incite hate and rage one's way into that kind of position of power, seems like all that's need is parroting the GOP rhetoric and as long as they win...it almost doesn't matter how dumb or pathetic or disgusting they are. Align yourself with racist groups and it's all okay with these indoctrinated hate filled folks, because these politicians show they hate the same people. And look they've always been here, they were just validated by a truly dumb, but successful conman who happened to be arguably the most powerful leader of the "free" world, they took that and RAN with it, they were ripe, and that needs to be accepted this all stems from their belief system, they will die holding onto it, many already have. Demographics, education, system change and a couple of generations and hopefully that belief system wil, have substancially died out. All we can do is at least open the path and level the playing field more by getting rid of the bulk of the crazies, in this lifetime. Fingers crossed. 😉
Absolutely
Union greed nearly put gm out of business for good
Populism + cult of personality + highly dissatisfied working class frequently results in a dictator taking rule, who is supported by the very people that populist leader manipulates with false promises and hateful political rhetoric. This has been the rule over all of human history. And it is repeating again here in America with Trump. Mr. Reich has always been spot on which is understanding an predictions as we have seen. More recently, he has fiercely warned about Trump seeking to break American democracy by subverting our elections process and destroying the foundational checks and balances that have keep this democracy working for 250 years. Will the American voters listen to Mr. Reich this time?
@@fritzforsthoefel8031Liar.
We all knew it was coming, but as selfish individuals, we thought we would end up on the winning side. What we really lost was class solidarity. Everyone became a sellout. Betraying your community, country, planet, and future generations was incentivized.
Who did you sell out
Well said
@@fireofhislove3395 the ones who didnt sell-out put their heads in the sand about the future, caught up in the shiny new technologies and higher quality entertainment, merely being consumers...
@@fireofhislove3395 Everyone. The second you decide that you're the only person in society that matters, you've betrayed and sold out everyone.
@@kaijuultimax9407 How much did you sell society out for?
Mr. Reich, I’m amazed that you identified this many moons ago. Excellent podcast, and thanks for sharing. 💙🧘🏼♂️
Message from the Netherlands. You was a visionair. I forgot the name from the Greece mythology. It was a person who had a gift to predicting the future
I'm an older Millennial (12 when this video was made). I've been working for the same company for 20 years now, I'm one of the lucky few to have a pension. After Covid, my company took in Gen-Z kids like crazy, as well as out-of-state contractors (neither have pensions). The light duty jobs are only available to new hires, when they should be given to people like me who have put in my time. There is no loyalty anymore. Companies treat us just like the government does, as a number, not a person.
We live in a country that does nothing about corporations taking the single family houses off the market, driving up housing prices. We have no universal health care system, like every other developed country (for profit healthcare should be abolished). The middle class is disappearing. Nobody wants to have kids anymore. When are we the people going to stand up and say, enough is enough?
I'll never understand why Americans continue to allow themselves to be conned by private healthcare and insurance. Socialised universal healthcare is absolutely not socialism.
Most of the universal systems not only have their own issues…… the majority are ganging on by a thread.
It’s just not a sustainable system unless everyone is willing to play their part
I don't want to sound judgemental, but I HATE Gen-Z getting to come in and get the old-man, retirement jobs that us Millennials should get (the Boomers are mostly all gone).@@Texarmageddon
Universal Healthcare is plenty sustainable as long as people care about sustaining it. But the American people are mostly a bunch of selfish pricks who don't want to pay taxes, and then have the audacity to wonder why education sucks, Healthcare is so expensive, the border isn't secured and our roads and bridges are falling apart. You either have moron Republicans who don't understand how economics work, or you have moron Democrats who are so worried about offending anybody that they haven't gotten anything done since Obama stopped penning executive orders like they were lunch orders. Gods help you if your third party, because the entire electoral system is rigged against you no matter how good your ideas are. We are in a country that has been divided by selfish, borderline senile, out of touch, elderly assholes, who walk around like god kings on earth, rigging the system for everybody like them, and they'll refuse to give it up until we take it from them and put them in a retirement home where they belong. Stop letting them divide us like some emotionally immature parent who plays squabbling siblings off of each other, and maybe we can compromise and actually get something done.
@@Texarmageddon NHS in UK has been sustainable since 1948 matey - of course there are issue - it's a large complex organisation and the UK's larger employer. Chronic and deliberate underfunding by the Conservative government has contributed massively to its problems however.
The United States has aways been a two tier siciety. The founders represented the wealth hierarchy, the oligarchy of the time. Today the oligarchy controls government policies no differently than in 1778. Bought elections and politicians fill federal, state, and local governments.
I am so glad that I'm not the only one who has read up on the REAL history of the United States (not just the one taught in public schools whereby the founders have been raised up to some kind of benevolent God-like status). This system was never formatted with the little people in mind. We're all supposed to just work our asses off for a pittance and feel thankful that the greater men are taking care of everything else for us.
you are so right, as a society and country we have had several opportunities to become more equitable like the: labor movement, civil rights movements, and tech advancements, but in each case, the oligarchy was able to counter the revolution; and in most cases, with some help from the very victims, the movements were trying to help.
Capitalism is fundamentally a two tiered system.
If that was true why would the rich allow themselves to be taxed so much
So it goes
8:15 - "there WILL BE NO COMPROMISE on our dedication to this mission" (speaking in reference to rebuilding the middle class). Nothing changed Robert... just more words. Words, words....words. Still more words today.
Nothing changed? How about lower price insulin, trying to lower credit card late fees, the banks are fighting this, airline fee disclosure, airlines are fighting this, entertainment ticket price gouging, trying to fight this too! Just words? I think naught! But it’s hard to fight against all the big money! The corruption! 🤬
You were spot on Sir. Sadly. It's really a shame what has happened to this country.
My pops was a grocery store manager in the 70's to 80's...
He had a pension plan built up from all the years of outstanding service...
About 5 years to retirement the corporation sold to another corporation and he was demoted and the pension was no longer available.
The American Dream was/is the American Nightmare.
Every single time I hear about somebody getting done dirty like that the pencil that is usually in my hand snaps in half. I've been going through a lot of pencils the last few years. I am so sorry for your Pop.
@@colinlarson9656 Thanks for agreeing with me and sharing your frustration!
How horrible! That should be illegal!
Devastating. The worst thing is, that there are several examples of that...
@@colinlarson9656yeah. This is why I hate America. Down with the USA.
One of the first things the new American owners of the company I work for did was to send a lady to give a safety talk (because safety first). She told us that whenever we are thinking about work place safety we should imagine our children working here. So and older colleague replied: they are! And a few of us are so fortunate they even get to work with their grandkids for the last couple of years. She couldn't believe it.
Later a new HR boss was introduced who openly declared that if you work more than a couple of years for the same company something is wrong with you.
And then the CEO of the company that owned us, held a cost saving work shop in the most expansive hotel in town.
Bunch of clowns.
Its only “wasteful” when spent on the employees.
That's funny, "They do!" And I bet simultaneously everyone listened to the briefing either ignoring it or thinking, "Well, this is dumb". 😂 "In my day we just slapped mud on it, but whatever you say. Boss."
predicting wealth inequality is a safe bet .. any one can do it.. look in the year 2050 there will be men with guns oppressing those with out. there will be racist and elitist cops.. the rich will lord there wealth over the poor and there will be hunger
Damn! Im hearing that safety first line at my job too. That really means we really don’t want to get sued so let’s cover our backsides.
Yeah, but those idiot clowns are the ones raking in all the money and screwing the rest of us over. 😢
Almost 30 years later and the American population still hasn't risen up in anger enough to force the average American company to fix the problems this guy talks about.
My middle class has been stolen out from under me. 😢😢
I’ve been working since the late 1980s. Nearly every year when it comes to pay reviews, companies would say the same thing “it’s tough times, here’s your 2% increase or bonus”. Sometimes it was nothing or a redundancy.
Look at how our wages have stagnated over the years compared to inflation. They want us as slaves. A new form of slavery. Time to resist. Time to say “we’ve had enough!”.
Yep, as Klaus Schwab likes to say..."you'll own NOTHING and be happy!"
As long as sportsball is on tv and McDonald’s is open the tax cattle will do nothing.
@@Hotboi1 Bread and Cirucuses has been around ever since people formed kingdoms and nations.
You can't just print trillions of dollars and expect wages to keep up. You should have rallied against big government spending and Omnibus bills.
@@arbogast4950yes true, inflation a tax you dont vote for, but it’s also FractionaI Reserve Bnking. &The Fed itself/income tax is straight debt slavery. All the migrants come from countries under debt slavery regimes to the lMF/WB/BlS/Etc.
All the wars & crises are shows-induced.
Professor Robert Reich is a icon! I post his messages continually to spread his wisdom. He is extremely smart and able. Knows what he is talking about.
And yet we continue to print money to send overseas. It doesn’t resonate well with the majority of Americans who like me are just one missed paycheck from financial ruin. I’ll admit it, I feel some hatred for the people that always have new cars and the newest things. I’ve worked hard since I was 15 and have absolutely nothing to my name but a car and some debt. Our country has failed us.
If only we the people stuck together against our real enemies we would be unstoppable.
This is not just the US but is happening across the world in every country where the greed of a few has been rewarded, instead of curtailed by governments.
Home ownership is nothing more than a dream for many people in full time employment in most countries unless you’re lucky enough to have wealthy parents.
I’m Canadian and too often have blamed our eagerness to follow the lead of the USA. I didn’t realize the greedy policies have been implemented further afield.
Well in Norway the government gets richer and richer and people poorer and poorer
Of course this happens all over the world. The predators have seen a trick that benefits them the most, and get rewarded for it too, without fearing prison. So in many countries robbers copy each other. Hence Trump like populists rise too. For lying to an anxious people is a great trick too.
We are still a feudal society, just like the Middle Ages. We work for the men who live in the castles, inside the moats, and they take a large percentage of the fruits of our labor for themselves.
@@mikemondano3624
Soundly Stated.
Nicely done sir. This one struck a nerve for me: "The best companies in this country...are treating their workers as assets to be developed, nurtured, trained, rather than as costs to be cut"
I've often felt like a cost rather than an asset, and the contrast is stark. Thank you for pointing it out so succinctly.
You and your party have done this. The King has no clothes.
The book 1984 warned us and Ted Kaczynski
“The Una-Bomber” warned us.
You were and are correct sir! We’re developing an unwanted class that has little to no role in a high tech Fascist society.. FYI, Robert, went grad school at RIT!
Fantastic video! Man I wish more listened to you in the 90s. Thank you for standing up for the people!
And also if more people had listened to Ross Perot
40 million Americans below the poverty line, 18 million homeless....2022.
When I earned my MBA I became a big fan of Robert Reich. When someone actually gives a damn about his fellow men and women, it gets my attention in our often mean-spirited and greedy Capitalist society. I wish I could work for Mr. Reich. I would rather use my MBA skills and writing skills for something good for this world, or at least America.
If only more people would wake up and realize that if you can predict 30 years ago what our society would be like today.....what you are predicting today will be the way things are 30 years from now, unless we make the changes you advocate for.
Robert Reich really is an American hero. He’s been trying to support the workers in this country his whole career when he can could have sold out a long time ago
He endorsed Bernie Sanders for president who while advocating for a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage was paying his campaign staff less than that when he was called out on that he did pay the fifteen but fired some of his staff citing increased cost Sanders also in the seventies said no one should have more than a million dollars in today's dollars about six million guess what according to Sanders tax releases when he ran for president is worth more than that laws for thee and not for me is Sanders motto
Robert Reich never tells you that the top five percent pay over half the federal taxes and the average person draws out three dollars for every dollar paid in medicare taxes he never tells you that the top ten percent pay over seventy percent of the federal taxes he never tells you that the poor get subsidized housing food assistance cash assistance and free healthcare Reich is good at hiring things from you vote out handout democrats before it's to late our childrens future depend on it
@@fritzforsthoefel8031Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
Sanders isn't perfect. Surprise surprise!!! So what, sit around waiting for the perfect politician to emerge?
You pick the best of the available and viable choices and work to make them better. Or, run yourself.
That's how representative democracy works.
If you just sit the whole thing out because you thought somebody was perfect, but OH MY they're not, you're leaving the door open for fascists to walk right through. Which, if you haven't noticed, is exactly what they're doing.
Unfortunately, an unsuccessful one.
@fritzforsthoefel8031 This is not entirely true. The Sanders campaign was paying its workers a salary that amounted to 15 dollars an hour for a 40 hr work week. The issue was that a lot of them were working over 40 hrs. So they resolved the issue by taking them off salary pay and just paying them hourly.
And ironically, HE was not one of those ledt behind. Instead, he made his career on making sure his theory came to fruition.
Yeah, my older brother has eaten a lot of crow for not understanding this sooner. He didn't like a lot of things about Reagan, but thought his policies would be great for the country. I warned him that the middle class would be eroded, and that, combined with the witch's brew of the GOP/evangelical alliance would lead us to a very bad place. It took Trump to make him realize just how wrong he was back then.
Bs....reason was against the ultimate big business of communism of which guys like Reich promoted. What we have now is big businesses pushing agendas thru paid off politicians that's called the deep state and trump is their biggest threat.
Ah, an ever common stooge buying into the literal political circus that is the two party system. Keep droning on and on about the GOP, apparently, fucking everything up while the Dems had majorities and Presidential spots multiple times and only increased spending which resulted in a higher deficit and lowered the value of the dollar due to overproduction of money via request with the FR. Oh yeah, they could have also reversed all the "evil GOP/evangelical alliance" stuff, but WEIRDLY ENOUGH, never did!
No sir. Economic inequality has grown much worse just as you warned us. You speak for so many. Thank you posting this!
Work ethic is also declined.
@@dr.emilschaffhausen4683You really don't have much comprehension, do you? It was explained quite clearly what causes the resentment and overall loss in motivation.
Yeah, it’s crazy. These companies treat employees like trash but the workers don’t put in 100%! Can you believe it?!
If work ethic has declined I can't blame people.too much seeing how they've been lied to for generations, exploited for increasingly shrinking wages and benefits, and keep losing rights while their futures are swept away for illegal foreigners, endless wars, and automation while nihilism and deadly numbing narcotics/alcohol are pushed as a pancea.
@@DriedUpSquidthere goes capitalist for u
Doesnt get more poignant than this. Unfortunately, this aged like fine wine. Sorry state of affairs we're in.
A healthy functioning government is the only protection citizens have from predatory capitalist exploitation. Unleashing it 50 years ago caused a global brushfire as financialized capitalism destroyed everything in its path with fraudulent financial products and services.
"World poverty is viewed as a solution, not a problem. The World Bank and IMF think of poverty as low-priced labor, creating a competitive advantage for countries that produce labor-intensive goods. So poverty/austerity is an economic solution that’s built into their models." ~ Michael Hudson
"For revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy America reigns without a rival."
-Frederick Douglass
"Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased."
Adam Smith
"In politics, once the majority realize something is true, it has been true for a long time."
You don't wake up and something has changed. You wake up and realize something changed years ago. You realize you're through the grey area. You realize, you're through the period where it could have been debated, through the period where it could have been reversed. The Thing Is True Now, and has been for years.
I swear the 90s were a grey area. Not too bad but technology did go up a lot....
and that was before the party had the power of social media censorship to sway the public opinion in the direction they wanted! We live in the information age and everyone is an idiot!
Yep. The good ole Hegelian Dialectic weaponized.
This is like the frog in boiling water analogy, turn up the heat very slowly and the frog does not notice.
This started over 100 years ago when leftwing nuts infiltrated our government installed a central bank and hijacked education
Unfortunately the only thing that will start changing the minds is FEAR
I believe that if we want this game to continue we have to flip the table, pick up the pieces and reset the board.🇺🇸✝️
As heartbreaking as it is to actually be living through the worst case scenarios described by young Reich in this 1994 address, the documentarian in me enjoyed seeing and hearing one of my heroes in his youth. Wonderful that this clip still exists.
Wonderful that the clip still exists?
Lol! It was 1994 not 1894.
I agree with you. And yes, so glad that tape is still around!
@@homomorphic Your comment makes you sound like a jerk.
@@homomorphic Sounds like you might be surprised how things get lost or destroyed despite our best intentions. And whether it was created at the dawn or humanity or 5 years ago. I'm very glad the recording still exists.
Hero? His policies and his crony friends policies led to this
Look up "Lump of labor fallacy". Jobs are being outsourced because of regulations and the wealth divide is happening because the middle class are being taxed to give the rich subsidies.
As honest Abe said I’m his Gettysburg address, “ A government of the people, by the people, and for the people” this is what America needs to correct course.
For all of the issues with Clinton's Administration, he did name some pretty good secretaries to his cabinet! Robert is leading the good fight and has been consistent in his messaging for years now!
I think he also is very right that the corporations have broken the social contract that made America a prosperous country. The American social contract was that if you work hard you will be rewarded with prosperity and if you keep to the rules of the law you will be protected and looked after.
Today working hard is actually something that is punished in the system and playing by the rules will get you screwed over.
Meanwhile, Clinton gave away the store and now the planet is on fire.
@@MrMarinus18I can attest to that personally
Having Integrity has become a crime in this society and in particular in the job force…
Robert's boss, Bill Clinton, was the last president who balanced the federal budget. A fact you won't see mentioned on Fox News.
Issues with Clinton's administration??? Compared to trumps administration! YOU HAVE to be Joking! The Clinton administration payed off the National debt and had a SURPLUS, with a GREAT economy!
Listening to talks like this and even ones from Dr King are borderline depressing. All these decades later and the struggles are literally the same. How have we made virtually no progress?
You're dating is wrong. These were mostly all the same issues & political arguments we had at the beginning of the 20th century.
@@MrChristianDT sure. That just means the continued existence of these issues is even more ridiculous
January 1944 Second Bill of Rights warned of this on a longer scale too.
I had occasion to make a statement similar to your warning, though a bit more pointed, to Ken Fisher possibly a decade ago, and his response was “WE’re not in the business of social engineering …”. My comment in turn was that we’d all better be ready to take refuge in gated communities with guards, as America will one day be in for its own Bastille Day.
I entered the workforce full time as a young man right around 1980. Within a few years, I began to notice how corporate greed was taking hold. Temporary, contract employment with no benefits began replacing good paying jobs as employees were being treated as liabilities instead of assets. Now, after a "lifetime" of working, I'm fast approaching my retirement.. I want to emphasize here that this whole issue of corporate greed has lasted virtually my entire working life and there's still no end in sight. The middle class is a wreck and still nothing is being done because the wealthy now own every one of our politicians. Citizen's United was the final blow. We get ripped off on healthcare costs, heating costs, gasoline costs, college costs, food costs and everything else you can think of. Going forward, I see no light at the end of the tunnel for future generations. As right wing billionaires continue to expand their ownership of the media so they can continue dumbing down the populous, our globe continues to warm, violence continues to spread across our nation and more people join the ranks of the homeless. Just look at our politicians and you get a picture of the trash living in our nation. This is not my America anymore.
Amen!
Regan trickle down. I graduated with a bachelor's and couldn't find a job in govt. I ended up in banking.
It's Reich and Liberals in western countries that have created the wealth gap.
Companies wouldn't have been able to do that without the permanent slack liberals put into the labor market with high taxes, over regulation and immigration.
Democrats have used open immigration, high taxes, and over regulation to put slack into the labor market year after year. Which gives all the power to employers, driving down wages, and immigration drives up housing prices at the same time. To the point tens of millions of Americans don't have any money left over at the end of the month. And it's the low wages and lack of power at the bottom that allows the excesses at the top. Causing the wealth gap.
Compare that to JFK style conservative policies of using low taxes, smaller government, deregulation, and less immigration to tighten up the labor market. Which gives power back to workers. Raises wages. Allows for advancement. Allows for mobility. Allows people with bad job records or few skills to get jobs. And gives people dignity.
If Reich actually cared about lower income people, and was capable of compassion and empathy, Reich would be a Kennedy/Reagan conservative
@@sharonrynne2242Neither Ronald Reagan nor anyone in the Reagan Administration before they left office ever used the term trickle down.
Nobody imposed "trickle down" There is no such thing as trickle down economics. It's a boogyman term liberals use because they can't defeat John F. Kennedy's theory that lower taxes help lower and middle income people and spur economic growth and balance budgets.
From Thomas Sowell.........
........"Moreover, the reasons for proposing such tax cuts are often verbally transformed from those of the advocates- namely, changing economic behavior in ways that generate more output, income and resulting higher tax revenues- to a very different theory attributed to the advocates by the opponents, namely “the trickle-down theory.” No such theory has been found in even the most voluminous and learned histories of economic theories, including J.A. Schumpeter’s monumental 1,260-page History of Economic Analysis. Yet this non-existent theory[*] has become the object of denunciations from the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post to the political arena. It has been attacked by Professor Paul Krugman of Princeton and Professor Peter Corning of Stanford, among others, and similar attacks have been repeated as far away as India. "It is a classic example of arguing against a caricature instead of confronting the argument actually made."
.............Thomas
Sowell, "Trickle Down Theory" and "Tax Cuts for the Rich"
@@practicaliching2311 ok , so there is no "trickle down" per you. We have repeatedly tried the trickle down tax cuts for those who need it the least since Reagan. Well , here we are. Now what ?
It is like we are STILL LIVING THAT WAY----and I make $22.00 An hour and thought that I was totally secured.
Every day I think about the impending crisis of when huge majority of Americans end up going homeless....or insane.
Well you can always vet out your anger on those rich folks by joining a dystopian wealth redistribution gang.
@@JB-yb4wn Hmmmm. Or becoming an Andrew Tate-style drop-shipping MLM scumbab
$22/hr was good money when Robert made this speech but, $22/hr is the new $12/hr. I make $36/hr and I can't afford to buy a house. I thought at 48 I would be well into a mortgage by now. Nope, still renting.
Americans think of the, historically prosperous, 1940's & 50's when they reminisce about America's "greatness." Do you know the top-marginal tax rates during those, historically prosperous, decades?
*Historical Highest Marginal Income Tax Rates*
_"The top income tax rate reached above _*_90%_*_ from 1944 through 1963, peaking in 1944 when top taxpayers paid an income tax rate of _*_94%_*_ on their taxable income."_
SOURCE: Tax Policy Center - online 9-Feb-22
_“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”_
*- John Steinbeck*
The average working citizens of other 1st-world nations, often pity ours.
*McDonald’s Workers in Denmark Pity Us*
_“Danes love America,” Hummelgaard told me. “But there’s no admiration for the level of inequality in America, for the lack of job security, for the lack of health security, for all those things that...create a good society.”_
SOURCE: NY TIMES, by By Nicholas Kristof - May 8, 2020
Is it just coincidence that ALL the happiest nations on Earth, are also nations with some of the highest tax rates on Earth, with free medical care, ample paid time off & FAR superior education systems?
*The Happiest Countries in the World*
_"Finland leads the ranking of the world's happiest countries for the sixth year in a row, according to the 2023 World Happiness Report... score (7.80)...Denmark in second place (7.59), Iceland in third (7.53), Sweden in sixth (7.40) and Norway in seventh (7.32)"_
SOURCE: World Economic Forum, by Anna Fleck - Mar 23, 2023
_"We need to question this notion that capital only belongs to the owners when we can't achieve anything without workers. We're doing capitalism wrong, and were going to kill ourselves in the process unless we rethink it."_
*-Abigail Disney* (Disney Heir, documentary film producer, philanthropist, and social activist)
@@n.h.moreno
Yes, that is certainly another form of wealth distribution. 🤣
He is only calling out the symptoms of the disease. This is not prophecy. He started to call out the issue in the beginning but like all government officials he dodged. Nixon closing the gold window was the catalyst for the imbalance.
This is one of the most brilliant men in America. I wonder what the country would be like if he (or someone like him) ever ran for and became president.
If only you were heeded back then. Depressing. It's only getting worse
Robert Reich nailed our current societal problems 30 years ago. He was absolutely correct...Unfortunately, we've learned nothing since then.
look at any failed civilization, they put women in key positions and invited foreign invaders as guests every time and the same group of -ism producers caused the collapse every time, there's more than a few examples over the last couple thousand years y
We did learn but so did the corps. They learned if they change laws and behavior with only money in mind they can damn us all.
Lol. If you live in post 1960s america then you have never known the american dream. How could you? You were born into a militarized gun grabbing establishment that had successfully turned our rights into privileges. The drug war was a violation of the 4th amendment and the posse Comitatus act. All the gun control, qualified immunity, etc. Its been a 2 tier society for decades before 1994.
The elites said you’re right man, and there’s nothing anyone will do about it
it's because the "education" system is working perfectly
Companies have not spent money developing their workers, demanding that the workers pay for their education and training, particularly through college. Workers are not asserts but costs to be replaced either when burned out or too expensive to keep. I spent years, as a manager, and have seen what this man warned about.
Instead we've lost our middle class and American dream. You're either rich or You're living in poverty.
A shame this fell on deaf ears. The rich got exactly what they were aiming for.
Not deaf ears... Ears stuffed full with campaign contribution $
And misinformation constantly
As long as everyone below the rich and powerful are distracted with circuses and bread, they'll remain apathetic to the growing problems at best. Worst case scenario is that everyone willingly opens their wallets and sacrifice their time for the rich to take.
We happen to be in the latter.
We tried to bring it to light back then but we got labeled and dismissed as "conspiracy theorists". This plan has been in play since the early 1900's