Thanks for this summary of US economic history pre- and post-Reaganomics. The difference that the values and vision of each President makes to every household in the Nation is made clear. Hopefully, a new generation of American citizens will comprehend the difference between slick image-making and genuine know-how in presidential leadership--between an exploiter and a genuine promoter of the Common Good.
May we soon pass an amendment to reverse Citizens United which has contributed significantly to the decline in our democracy as well. And thanks for this excellent article!
Thank you for this crystal clear explanation. It's like the choral part of Beethoven's 9th. Bring the people together to sing and celebrate a good life, a life they can control, a decent, safe life and place us in relation to the economy as it returns to serve us and not the mega-rich and their CEOs.
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. You have described so cogently the philosophy and the historical proof that President Biden’s policies will return America to a position of strength in every aspect. The human frailties of hatred, racism, I can only win if you lose, self-interest and a social construct in which corruption is never punished are enormous hurdles for the President. They are the imponderables. But Biden’s eye is on the prize and America will be more powerful, more resilient and more humanistic as a result of his leadership.
I have always felt that 1980, with the election of Reagan, was the turning point for the rEpublican party going to war with the American middle class. Reagan laid the foundtion fiscally, culturally and socially for the cesspool in which our democracy now finds itself and in which cesspool that same rEpublicrite party seems to frolic endlessly.
Dr. Reich, this is your very best piece yet. Wow. Just Wow.
Now all we have to do is figure out how to reach a public that has indeed forgotten, or never learned the lessons of 1929– 1980. Before we – baby boomers leave – we need to focus on the young (ages 5 to 45).
Near as I can tell, the question we need to answer is this. What makes everyone and the country richer? Money sitting in rich men’s bank accounts? Or money circulating in the economy?
When I raise this question in conversations with young people, they conclude that money needs to work. Of their many analogies, this one was my favorite so far. Like people, money needs to work. The more money circulating “in” the economy, the harder it works. The harder money works, the more it accomplishes. Today, the amount of money sitting in rich men’s bank account, is like half of the entire labour force taking a permanent vacation on some Caribbean Island.
Whatever you call it, it is working. The proof is in the results. And please Republicans don't give me a bunch of malarkey like you have done in the past. Just sit down shut up and pay attention.
Thank you for this. I saw as a 17 year old what damage Reaganomics did to my family. I decided then that I would vote democratic and have never looked back. We need to reverse Citizens United to get the money out of politics. The hold big corporations have on this country is doing such damage. As I do my taxes this year, I promise you I am paying substantially more than some CEO’s and that makes me very unhappy.
I think “democratic capitalism” is a contradiction in terms. Capitalism is for profit, and by its very nature it encourages exploitation. I’m glad for Biden’s accomplishments, but we really need socialism, because it isn’t based on profit, which tends to keep wages down. Unions have to fight that. Capitalism favors, not individual freedom, but free enterprise for the few. It’s what’s trying to privatize our Medicare, leaving less money to spend on healthcare and more money to go for profit. It also promotes fossil fuels and war, because existing fossil fuel companies are looking to hold into their profits, and weapons manufacturers are seeking to increase their wealth. It promotes cigarette smoking with all its ills, so that cigarette companies can keep making billions while putting people in the ground. We are not free as long as corporations run the show.
The new element in our post 1990s world order is the expansion of world markets. China became the world’s producer of manufactured goods. They invested their profits in American debt which was backstopped by our agricultural efficiency and our knowledge economy. The hope of such a framework was world peace. Each nation needed the other to succeed. The new order was symbiotic. But cheaper goods meant an implosion on US labor markets that created the discontent Trump so successfully exploits . And explosion in world trade fed increased market liquidity which spawned the derivatives market that an unregulated Wall Street manipulated to satisfy greed rather than healthy growth. The failure of regulation lead to the 2008 crisis which was met with Government backstopping of bank counterparties notably AIG and other insurance companies. That backstop destroyed the traditional function of bond markets with zero interest rates. Equities became the only option for a return on investment and stock markets soared, fueled by the liquidity central banks provided. COVID led to another explosion in liquidity and perhaps fueled the creation of the crypto currency market whose purpose is to launder criminal gains from drugs and kleptocrats. This the state of our world economy. COVID contracted world trade and Putin’s war aggravated the contraction even more, creating a new inflation caused by scarcity of supply. Global warming’s acceleration threatens future prosperity even more. Can central banks hold the system together? Will our politics elect politicians with the skills to create real growth that satisfies the needs of the majority of the world’s desperately poor people. Will our politics allow international agreements which are the only hope of reversing the climate crisis ? This is an age of existential challenge that surpasses previous epochs.
Now if we can get those people who ignorantly support republicans as if they are members of that special, elitist, capitalist club to "wise the hell up" we may see better days for all. And not just better days for the 'real money' that has corrupted the system.
Robert Reich, this contribution toward a 'greater good' is important. Thank you.
“The economy that collapsed in 1929 was the consequence of decisions that had organized the market for a monied elite — allowing nearly unlimited borrowing, encouraging people to gamble on Wall Street, suppressing labor unions, holding down wages, and permitting the Street to take huge risks with other people’s money.”
Communist governments saw their populations as one thing: workers, of whom much was demanded, and little given (“From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs,” wrote Karl Marx in 1875).
In short, the people were screwed.
Governments promoting free-market economies for the benefit of the rich and corporations saw their populations as two things: workers AND consumers.
As such, the people were screwed twice — three times if one cares to view falling into debt to keep up with the Joneses — since the same free-marketeers believed, and still believe, that workers should be paid the absolute minimum the traffic will bear, with few or no worker or consumer protections, ability to bargain collectively, health care, pensions or retirement funds (manifested in their incessant lies that Social Security and Medicare are “entitlements.” They are NOT, they are not gifts from the government, but merely deferred salary that people earned during their working lives).
Free-marketeers believe that workers should be left to fend for themselves (what possibly confers more freedom than THAT?) which, in short, is actually the closest equivalent to slavery achievable in a modern, technological society.
Thank you for this! Perhaps YOU should be giving the State of the Union Address!
Your comments also need to reach a wider audience and I humbly suggest that you submit this as a contributing author on the progressive website: Daily Kos (Dailykos.com)
Totally agree with everything you say here. Your description and explanation is spot on. No wonder life has been so demoralizing for me for so long - since Reagan. And now he is lionized more than ever but he opened the door to devastation for most of us, many of whom worked our “fingers to the bone” only to end up impoverished, in ill health from obscene working conditions, and watching our children die in despair.
Thanks for this summary of US economic history pre- and post-Reaganomics. The difference that the values and vision of each President makes to every household in the Nation is made clear. Hopefully, a new generation of American citizens will comprehend the difference between slick image-making and genuine know-how in presidential leadership--between an exploiter and a genuine promoter of the Common Good.
May we soon pass an amendment to reverse Citizens United which has contributed significantly to the decline in our democracy as well. And thanks for this excellent article!
Thank you for this crystal clear explanation. It's like the choral part of Beethoven's 9th. Bring the people together to sing and celebrate a good life, a life they can control, a decent, safe life and place us in relation to the economy as it returns to serve us and not the mega-rich and their CEOs.
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. You have described so cogently the philosophy and the historical proof that President Biden’s policies will return America to a position of strength in every aspect. The human frailties of hatred, racism, I can only win if you lose, self-interest and a social construct in which corruption is never punished are enormous hurdles for the President. They are the imponderables. But Biden’s eye is on the prize and America will be more powerful, more resilient and more humanistic as a result of his leadership.
I have always felt that 1980, with the election of Reagan, was the turning point for the rEpublican party going to war with the American middle class. Reagan laid the foundtion fiscally, culturally and socially for the cesspool in which our democracy now finds itself and in which cesspool that same rEpublicrite party seems to frolic endlessly.
Dr. Reich, this is your very best piece yet. Wow. Just Wow.
Now all we have to do is figure out how to reach a public that has indeed forgotten, or never learned the lessons of 1929– 1980. Before we – baby boomers leave – we need to focus on the young (ages 5 to 45).
Near as I can tell, the question we need to answer is this. What makes everyone and the country richer? Money sitting in rich men’s bank accounts? Or money circulating in the economy?
When I raise this question in conversations with young people, they conclude that money needs to work. Of their many analogies, this one was my favorite so far. Like people, money needs to work. The more money circulating “in” the economy, the harder it works. The harder money works, the more it accomplishes. Today, the amount of money sitting in rich men’s bank account, is like half of the entire labour force taking a permanent vacation on some Caribbean Island.
Have a good day folks.
Whatever you call it, it is working. The proof is in the results. And please Republicans don't give me a bunch of malarkey like you have done in the past. Just sit down shut up and pay attention.
Thank you for this. I saw as a 17 year old what damage Reaganomics did to my family. I decided then that I would vote democratic and have never looked back. We need to reverse Citizens United to get the money out of politics. The hold big corporations have on this country is doing such damage. As I do my taxes this year, I promise you I am paying substantially more than some CEO’s and that makes me very unhappy.
thank you for the reminder that things were better for the working class in america.
I think “democratic capitalism” is a contradiction in terms. Capitalism is for profit, and by its very nature it encourages exploitation. I’m glad for Biden’s accomplishments, but we really need socialism, because it isn’t based on profit, which tends to keep wages down. Unions have to fight that. Capitalism favors, not individual freedom, but free enterprise for the few. It’s what’s trying to privatize our Medicare, leaving less money to spend on healthcare and more money to go for profit. It also promotes fossil fuels and war, because existing fossil fuel companies are looking to hold into their profits, and weapons manufacturers are seeking to increase their wealth. It promotes cigarette smoking with all its ills, so that cigarette companies can keep making billions while putting people in the ground. We are not free as long as corporations run the show.
The new element in our post 1990s world order is the expansion of world markets. China became the world’s producer of manufactured goods. They invested their profits in American debt which was backstopped by our agricultural efficiency and our knowledge economy. The hope of such a framework was world peace. Each nation needed the other to succeed. The new order was symbiotic. But cheaper goods meant an implosion on US labor markets that created the discontent Trump so successfully exploits . And explosion in world trade fed increased market liquidity which spawned the derivatives market that an unregulated Wall Street manipulated to satisfy greed rather than healthy growth. The failure of regulation lead to the 2008 crisis which was met with Government backstopping of bank counterparties notably AIG and other insurance companies. That backstop destroyed the traditional function of bond markets with zero interest rates. Equities became the only option for a return on investment and stock markets soared, fueled by the liquidity central banks provided. COVID led to another explosion in liquidity and perhaps fueled the creation of the crypto currency market whose purpose is to launder criminal gains from drugs and kleptocrats. This the state of our world economy. COVID contracted world trade and Putin’s war aggravated the contraction even more, creating a new inflation caused by scarcity of supply. Global warming’s acceleration threatens future prosperity even more. Can central banks hold the system together? Will our politics elect politicians with the skills to create real growth that satisfies the needs of the majority of the world’s desperately poor people. Will our politics allow international agreements which are the only hope of reversing the climate crisis ? This is an age of existential challenge that surpasses previous epochs.
Now if we can get those people who ignorantly support republicans as if they are members of that special, elitist, capitalist club to "wise the hell up" we may see better days for all. And not just better days for the 'real money' that has corrupted the system.
Robert Reich, this contribution toward a 'greater good' is important. Thank you.
Shout it out folks!
Thanks for telling it like it is.
“The economy that collapsed in 1929 was the consequence of decisions that had organized the market for a monied elite — allowing nearly unlimited borrowing, encouraging people to gamble on Wall Street, suppressing labor unions, holding down wages, and permitting the Street to take huge risks with other people’s money.”
Communist governments saw their populations as one thing: workers, of whom much was demanded, and little given (“From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs,” wrote Karl Marx in 1875).
In short, the people were screwed.
Governments promoting free-market economies for the benefit of the rich and corporations saw their populations as two things: workers AND consumers.
As such, the people were screwed twice — three times if one cares to view falling into debt to keep up with the Joneses — since the same free-marketeers believed, and still believe, that workers should be paid the absolute minimum the traffic will bear, with few or no worker or consumer protections, ability to bargain collectively, health care, pensions or retirement funds (manifested in their incessant lies that Social Security and Medicare are “entitlements.” They are NOT, they are not gifts from the government, but merely deferred salary that people earned during their working lives).
Free-marketeers believe that workers should be left to fend for themselves (what possibly confers more freedom than THAT?) which, in short, is actually the closest equivalent to slavery achievable in a modern, technological society.
Thank you for this! Perhaps YOU should be giving the State of the Union Address!
Your comments also need to reach a wider audience and I humbly suggest that you submit this as a contributing author on the progressive website: Daily Kos (Dailykos.com)
Totally agree with everything you say here. Your description and explanation is spot on. No wonder life has been so demoralizing for me for so long - since Reagan. And now he is lionized more than ever but he opened the door to devastation for most of us, many of whom worked our “fingers to the bone” only to end up impoverished, in ill health from obscene working conditions, and watching our children die in despair.