But you must unambiguously be on the side of working Americans against the CEOs, Wall Street moguls, and activist investors who have been profiting at the expense of the rest of America
Every time I read a post of yours I am overwhelmed by your intellect and empathy. You do not disappoint today. I had to comment because this is the essence of what needs to happen to save our country. If this problem of income inequality isn't solved the USA is doomed. My mothers Sicilian father worked in Pennsylvania as a coal miner. Luckily he eventually moved to Connecticut, where I was born. On my father's side, I have a great grandfather, grandfather, and father who worked for the New Haven railroad. Union men. The yard where my dad worked is gone. How ridiculous that something vital such as a railroad, is gone. We have sold our birthright for nothing. The excessive love of wealth is insanity. I am not a writer and it's 4:30 in the morning, but I had to take the time because this is so important. Thank you for every thing you say or write or video. Never stop. Some might find this strange but you are my hero because you speak the truth thank you. I think I'll go to sleep now. Your words are so powerful.
Yes, Robert, CEO's, etc. are to blame, but individual law makers have enabled them and the news media has been extremely lax in reminding the voters how the Eisenhower was able to build the Interstate Highway System and why people my age (born in 1940) think of the 50's as the "Golden Era" because it was good. Top tax rate was 91% I believe, then dropped to 71% by JFK, 50% by Reagan, etc. We need to overhaul the tax code entirely - income, estate and corporate.
It’s High Time for Average Middle Class Workers to Take Back Our Country
The richest Americans, major corporations and the majority of Congress, especially the Republicans, have been screwing the rest of us for decades! The best way to send them a strong message is to Unionize. They hate unions! The key to joining a union is that unions must have a strong leader or leaders who can not be bought off by the rich.
What is one of the biggest gripes the United Auto Workers have is that they can’t afford the cars that they help build. Meanwhile the CEOs and company executives and many members of Congress are able to afford the highest priced cars, homes, yachts, jets, etc….
These people wouldn’t have any of those luxury items without a skilled middle class workforce. Yet they refuse to share their wealth or pay their workers a living wage. And unless you are contributing money to members of Congress, chances are you are struggling to make ends meet because most of them don’t care about what you need to live a healthy and happy life.
It all comes down to the Old and Feeble vs Old and Evil. President Biden and his administration or the FPOTUS and his henchmen. Remember when he said “I will have only the best people”. Believe me Donald Trump is not the answer! He hates unions and doesn’t care about anyone! He is an expert @ deceiving us and has been conning the American people since he was a child! He owes most of his deceitful behavior to his father and Roy Cohn.
Unfortunately many Americans are too lazy to get on the internet and vet the FPOTUS . They are acting like The Walking Dead, easily manipulated by his lies and someday soon will come to regret that they got duped including many members of Congress. As for our Media, “Trust But Verify”!
Remember when Trump said “I will have only the best people”. Peter Navarro, former trade adviser, lashed out on Friday against women speaking out about corruption in the Trump White House and implied that women cannot be trusted to hold high-ranking jobs in the United States government.
Many former Republicans that have left the party have stated that in private many other Republicans in Congress have admitted and agree that Trump is a threat to our democracy and our country. These Congressmen and Congresswomen are spineless cowards! This will be their legacy.
Last week President Biden went to the UN to make the case for continued military and political support for Ukraine, a sovereign country. What did the Republicans do? The Republicans embarrassed our military, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, President Biden and the United States. It’s far more than Putin could have ever wished for! What a travesty the GOP has become! Their families must be so proud of them.
Speaker McCarthy denied President Zelenskyy the opportunity to address a joint session of Congress. The Republicans want to cut funding for Ukraine from the budget bill. They also want to defund the Military. Remember when the Republicans made a BFD when a Democrat, Ilhan Omar, stated in a tweet that defunding the police means removing funds given from police departments and allocating it to other segments of the community. How come the Democrats are not going after Republicans for trying to defund the Pentagon! Hold them all accountable !!! Vet and Vote for adults who swear an Oath to uphold our Constitution and our Freedoms and Rights.
Vet the candidates first then do your duty to protect our country. Vote
For more proof of how despicable Trump really is read today’s Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack about General Miley
Yes, get rid of corporate subsidies like those that go to the fossil fuel industry & industrial agriculture. Make it much more difficult for corporations to take over or merge with other corporations. Greatly increase the progressivity of our income tax system, exempting the first $50K in income & assessing a 90% tax on any income beyond 1 million dollars. Double the minimum wage. Impose wealth taxes. Tighten regulations. Include externalities like environmental or societal harm in cost. Impose triple damages for harm to the environment or society. Get the ratio of executive pay to bottom rung employee pay back down from 400:1 to its square root, 20:1.
Touché, Professor Reich. This letter hits the mark. I hope you mailed it to the White House and as an OPEN LETTER to the major newspapers of this country. You have spoken for all of us who toil day in and day out with so little to show for it at the end of the week.
America is a brainwashed society. People have been brainwashed by the media in its various forms for centuries,by the white supremeist churches and politicians. All at the behest of the elite to protect their power,control and most importantly their wealth. The USA is sleepwalking into utter disaster.
Holding the CEO's to their greed is an idea that looks so necessary but doing it is another story. When will we learn that when we all thrive, we all thrive. When we value EVERY individual as essential in our ability to survival, we all walk away with The Common Good. It is an attitude and perspective. Frances Perkins brought that to FDR's attention as the positive route to move forward from the 1929 FUBAR.
thanks once again, Bob, for what you do. Today you fired me up to send the following email to
President Biden:
Dear Mr. President, there is so much you are doing for the US and for the 99% that I am thrilled by: what you are doing in terms of creating good paying jobs, of trying to protect the environment, protect women's rights, protect civil rights, restore honor to our international standings. And I'm pleased that you are joining striking autoworkers on the picket line.
There is one more huge thing that I ask you to do, and I copy this directly from Robert Reich: "But you must unambiguously be on the side of working Americans against the CEOs, Wall Street moguls, and activist investors who have been profiting at the expense of the rest of America. ... Go on to criticize the CEOs of America’s big corporations who are now raking in more than 350 times what the average American worker is earning (in the 1950s, they took in 20 times)." You know what I mean here---please do this and historically you will be recognized as one of the greatest US presidents ever.
The power is there for the people if they elect the right president and senators and representatives in Congress and cast aside the ones who don’t believe our government is for all Americans not just for the corporations (who are designated as a person) for tax purposes and the CEO’S of them. Cast out the un right chess and the power brokers from the temple of our country
That's a great list of government policies that have caused the inequality or nation currently suffers from. But you didn't mention that unions use health insurance as a carrot to organize and keep workers in the union. I realized in the 1990s that the cost of our products includes the cost of healthcare, making it harder for us to compete in the world market with other countries who have universal coverage. Our inion workers have to compete for jobs with workers in other countries who have universal healthcare and don't require a wage package that includes the cost of healthcare. Mexico now claims to have universal healthcare and advertises for companies to relocate there because they don't have to provide the cost of healthcare. Has the US medical industrial complex become so profitable and powerful that we don't even mention it anymore? Thom Hartmann mentioned some statistics on his show recently that expose that despite the fact that we spend twice what countries with universal coverage spend, our life expectancy in the US is getting shorter while theirs is continuously getting longer. I copied Reich's list of policies in this article for my project which is nearly finished.
I agree with you about the support of labor, unions and the rest, but the deeper problem with corporate moguls and the government is willful ignorance, or deliberate avoidance, of the burning of fossil fuels. Corporations are slowing down the transition away from fossil fuels in the name of their own profits, an act which will damage workers far more in the long run than their gleeful refusal to pay a decent wage. Sadly, for the UAW and the rest of us lower in the economic hierarchy, is that we are being sold a system that is consuming the planet at a rate that is killing us. Unions and all who are potential victims of pending ecosystem collapse are also unwilling participants in that killing with our consumption patterns (promoted ceaselessly in advertising) that burns an enormous amount of fossil fuels before we even wear, use, or turn the thing on. Our transport system is the worst of the lot on this, including cars, trucks, planes, boats and ships. Yes, the UAW deserves a fair wage, but the deeper and more pressing need is for a systemic change. (I am well-aware that this is too much for most people to hear, nevertheless we need to hear it and act or there won't be anyone left to support an economy.)
"Let Republicans obsess about critical race theory, immigration, and sex. You should campaign against how obscenely unfair and unequal America has become."
So obscenely unfair and unequal, America is increasingly seen as an enemy state.
I don't think Joe is that guy; Bernie is that guy. Joe is the guy who said while campaigning that "Nothing fundamentally will change." And his state (Delaware), I believe with his support, has become a mecca for credit card companies, the worst wolves of Wall Street.* Nonetheless, dismissing my concerns, Joe has done well presiding as a near-Progressive; in fact, I'm impressed and very pleased with his policies, words, and deeds. He is a good friend to most Americans. (Of course, Republicans loathe everything about him.)
You're correct, though, Bob, that this is a class war: the small, but powerful number of rich and thus powerful people against the working classes, which includes the middle classes, although many of them, especially the upper-middle class, I fear, support the rich, because they fantasize that one day they will join that inner circle. And some will: "In the U.S., 1,700 people become millionaires every day." And as common wisdom has it: That first million is the hardest to make. Most of them will only grow their wealth; well, good for them, up to a point -- what? $10 million?
If left alone, societies naturally group into haves and have-nots, royalty vs. peasants, an upper-class and a working class, as we see in Mexico. The middle class is a contrivance of government, which is a wonderful accomplishment, a wise and noble goal. Our middle class is currently badly decimated; you either move up or move down and out for good. It's America, 21st-century style.
Unions are the working person's very best friend. My dad, who worked for the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad frequently told us, his family, that "Without the union, we wouldn't have nothing," which was a fairly decent lifestyle, nothing fancy to be sure -- we lived in a small rent house with a one-car garage that had no door, but we never missed a meal, and I once counted that I had 30 shirts, two pairs of dress shoes, and one pair of sneakers. One could get by with that. Plus, after high school, before Vietnam, I was able to buy my first car, a 1956 Chevy, for $200. It was a hot rod, although you could also label it a shot rod: Its better days were behind it. (I sold it because I thought I would be killed in Vietnam, so why not settle that affair and not leave it to my parents?)
But the struggle goes on, and Bob is fighting on the front lines, and has been his whole life. He is, as is his wont, pushing the president hard, which is good: no pain, no gain; but Joe, I don't think, is ever going to be Bernie Sanders or Liz Warren. Plus, this nation has so many rabid right-wingers, to go further Left might tip us into a civil war. We're currently a tinderbox. Maybe, all things considered, FDR is not the guy we need right now; FDR got away with radical change because the nation was suffering with the Great Depression; things had to radically change; we needed a New Deal, and the nation, by and large, knew and wanted it. Too many Americans today are selfish; they won't even allow Medicare For All, living wages, or forgiveness of back-breaking college student loans. They think greed is good and that poverty is a motivator. Thus it is that Joe may be wise to act moderately and not like President Bernie would have. The risks are too great.
__________________________________________
* See Greg DeCowsky's correction in his comment below. (I got it wrong; he knows and provides the facts.) Thanks, Greg!
What also disturbs (from the point of view abroad) is how global fast-food franchises exploit prison labour, especially young detainees. They´re glassy eyed and on pharmaceutical controls -- and the teenaged are wary of certain shops where predatory incarceration has been claimed. So, not only is at least one global coffee chain guilty of paying a CEO 800 times the average worker, it apparently enjoys collusion with whatever keeps the chain of command comfortable with indentured servitude. Isn´t that what mogul operations are all about? Disgusting.
This is SUCH an accurate laying out of what’s going on today and who’s to blame. Altho very long , please take the time toread it as it’s right on the head of what’s hoing on in our country!!!!!
Every time I read a post of yours I am overwhelmed by your intellect and empathy. You do not disappoint today. I had to comment because this is the essence of what needs to happen to save our country. If this problem of income inequality isn't solved the USA is doomed. My mothers Sicilian father worked in Pennsylvania as a coal miner. Luckily he eventually moved to Connecticut, where I was born. On my father's side, I have a great grandfather, grandfather, and father who worked for the New Haven railroad. Union men. The yard where my dad worked is gone. How ridiculous that something vital such as a railroad, is gone. We have sold our birthright for nothing. The excessive love of wealth is insanity. I am not a writer and it's 4:30 in the morning, but I had to take the time because this is so important. Thank you for every thing you say or write or video. Never stop. Some might find this strange but you are my hero because you speak the truth thank you. I think I'll go to sleep now. Your words are so powerful.
Yes, Robert, CEO's, etc. are to blame, but individual law makers have enabled them and the news media has been extremely lax in reminding the voters how the Eisenhower was able to build the Interstate Highway System and why people my age (born in 1940) think of the 50's as the "Golden Era" because it was good. Top tax rate was 91% I believe, then dropped to 71% by JFK, 50% by Reagan, etc. We need to overhaul the tax code entirely - income, estate and corporate.
It’s High Time for Average Middle Class Workers to Take Back Our Country
The richest Americans, major corporations and the majority of Congress, especially the Republicans, have been screwing the rest of us for decades! The best way to send them a strong message is to Unionize. They hate unions! The key to joining a union is that unions must have a strong leader or leaders who can not be bought off by the rich.
What is one of the biggest gripes the United Auto Workers have is that they can’t afford the cars that they help build. Meanwhile the CEOs and company executives and many members of Congress are able to afford the highest priced cars, homes, yachts, jets, etc….
These people wouldn’t have any of those luxury items without a skilled middle class workforce. Yet they refuse to share their wealth or pay their workers a living wage. And unless you are contributing money to members of Congress, chances are you are struggling to make ends meet because most of them don’t care about what you need to live a healthy and happy life.
It all comes down to the Old and Feeble vs Old and Evil. President Biden and his administration or the FPOTUS and his henchmen. Remember when he said “I will have only the best people”. Believe me Donald Trump is not the answer! He hates unions and doesn’t care about anyone! He is an expert @ deceiving us and has been conning the American people since he was a child! He owes most of his deceitful behavior to his father and Roy Cohn.
Unfortunately many Americans are too lazy to get on the internet and vet the FPOTUS . They are acting like The Walking Dead, easily manipulated by his lies and someday soon will come to regret that they got duped including many members of Congress. As for our Media, “Trust But Verify”!
Remember when Trump said “I will have only the best people”. Peter Navarro, former trade adviser, lashed out on Friday against women speaking out about corruption in the Trump White House and implied that women cannot be trusted to hold high-ranking jobs in the United States government.
Many former Republicans that have left the party have stated that in private many other Republicans in Congress have admitted and agree that Trump is a threat to our democracy and our country. These Congressmen and Congresswomen are spineless cowards! This will be their legacy.
Last week President Biden went to the UN to make the case for continued military and political support for Ukraine, a sovereign country. What did the Republicans do? The Republicans embarrassed our military, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, President Biden and the United States. It’s far more than Putin could have ever wished for! What a travesty the GOP has become! Their families must be so proud of them.
Speaker McCarthy denied President Zelenskyy the opportunity to address a joint session of Congress. The Republicans want to cut funding for Ukraine from the budget bill. They also want to defund the Military. Remember when the Republicans made a BFD when a Democrat, Ilhan Omar, stated in a tweet that defunding the police means removing funds given from police departments and allocating it to other segments of the community. How come the Democrats are not going after Republicans for trying to defund the Pentagon! Hold them all accountable !!! Vet and Vote for adults who swear an Oath to uphold our Constitution and our Freedoms and Rights.
Vet the candidates first then do your duty to protect our country. Vote
For more proof of how despicable Trump really is read today’s Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack about General Miley
Yes, get rid of corporate subsidies like those that go to the fossil fuel industry & industrial agriculture. Make it much more difficult for corporations to take over or merge with other corporations. Greatly increase the progressivity of our income tax system, exempting the first $50K in income & assessing a 90% tax on any income beyond 1 million dollars. Double the minimum wage. Impose wealth taxes. Tighten regulations. Include externalities like environmental or societal harm in cost. Impose triple damages for harm to the environment or society. Get the ratio of executive pay to bottom rung employee pay back down from 400:1 to its square root, 20:1.
Touché, Professor Reich. This letter hits the mark. I hope you mailed it to the White House and as an OPEN LETTER to the major newspapers of this country. You have spoken for all of us who toil day in and day out with so little to show for it at the end of the week.
I greatly appreciate this.
Your friend in MD,
Anne
🌻💙🙏
America is a brainwashed society. People have been brainwashed by the media in its various forms for centuries,by the white supremeist churches and politicians. All at the behest of the elite to protect their power,control and most importantly their wealth. The USA is sleepwalking into utter disaster.
Holding the CEO's to their greed is an idea that looks so necessary but doing it is another story. When will we learn that when we all thrive, we all thrive. When we value EVERY individual as essential in our ability to survival, we all walk away with The Common Good. It is an attitude and perspective. Frances Perkins brought that to FDR's attention as the positive route to move forward from the 1929 FUBAR.
thanks once again, Bob, for what you do. Today you fired me up to send the following email to
President Biden:
Dear Mr. President, there is so much you are doing for the US and for the 99% that I am thrilled by: what you are doing in terms of creating good paying jobs, of trying to protect the environment, protect women's rights, protect civil rights, restore honor to our international standings. And I'm pleased that you are joining striking autoworkers on the picket line.
There is one more huge thing that I ask you to do, and I copy this directly from Robert Reich: "But you must unambiguously be on the side of working Americans against the CEOs, Wall Street moguls, and activist investors who have been profiting at the expense of the rest of America. ... Go on to criticize the CEOs of America’s big corporations who are now raking in more than 350 times what the average American worker is earning (in the 1950s, they took in 20 times)." You know what I mean here---please do this and historically you will be recognized as one of the greatest US presidents ever.
The power is there for the people if they elect the right president and senators and representatives in Congress and cast aside the ones who don’t believe our government is for all Americans not just for the corporations (who are designated as a person) for tax purposes and the CEO’S of them. Cast out the un right chess and the power brokers from the temple of our country
That's a great list of government policies that have caused the inequality or nation currently suffers from. But you didn't mention that unions use health insurance as a carrot to organize and keep workers in the union. I realized in the 1990s that the cost of our products includes the cost of healthcare, making it harder for us to compete in the world market with other countries who have universal coverage. Our inion workers have to compete for jobs with workers in other countries who have universal healthcare and don't require a wage package that includes the cost of healthcare. Mexico now claims to have universal healthcare and advertises for companies to relocate there because they don't have to provide the cost of healthcare. Has the US medical industrial complex become so profitable and powerful that we don't even mention it anymore? Thom Hartmann mentioned some statistics on his show recently that expose that despite the fact that we spend twice what countries with universal coverage spend, our life expectancy in the US is getting shorter while theirs is continuously getting longer. I copied Reich's list of policies in this article for my project which is nearly finished.
Biden would greatly benefit from a consult with FDR.
I agree with you about the support of labor, unions and the rest, but the deeper problem with corporate moguls and the government is willful ignorance, or deliberate avoidance, of the burning of fossil fuels. Corporations are slowing down the transition away from fossil fuels in the name of their own profits, an act which will damage workers far more in the long run than their gleeful refusal to pay a decent wage. Sadly, for the UAW and the rest of us lower in the economic hierarchy, is that we are being sold a system that is consuming the planet at a rate that is killing us. Unions and all who are potential victims of pending ecosystem collapse are also unwilling participants in that killing with our consumption patterns (promoted ceaselessly in advertising) that burns an enormous amount of fossil fuels before we even wear, use, or turn the thing on. Our transport system is the worst of the lot on this, including cars, trucks, planes, boats and ships. Yes, the UAW deserves a fair wage, but the deeper and more pressing need is for a systemic change. (I am well-aware that this is too much for most people to hear, nevertheless we need to hear it and act or there won't be anyone left to support an economy.)
"Let Republicans obsess about critical race theory, immigration, and sex. You should campaign against how obscenely unfair and unequal America has become."
So obscenely unfair and unequal, America is increasingly seen as an enemy state.
"You should campaign against corporate greed."
I don't think Joe is that guy; Bernie is that guy. Joe is the guy who said while campaigning that "Nothing fundamentally will change." And his state (Delaware), I believe with his support, has become a mecca for credit card companies, the worst wolves of Wall Street.* Nonetheless, dismissing my concerns, Joe has done well presiding as a near-Progressive; in fact, I'm impressed and very pleased with his policies, words, and deeds. He is a good friend to most Americans. (Of course, Republicans loathe everything about him.)
You're correct, though, Bob, that this is a class war: the small, but powerful number of rich and thus powerful people against the working classes, which includes the middle classes, although many of them, especially the upper-middle class, I fear, support the rich, because they fantasize that one day they will join that inner circle. And some will: "In the U.S., 1,700 people become millionaires every day." And as common wisdom has it: That first million is the hardest to make. Most of them will only grow their wealth; well, good for them, up to a point -- what? $10 million?
If left alone, societies naturally group into haves and have-nots, royalty vs. peasants, an upper-class and a working class, as we see in Mexico. The middle class is a contrivance of government, which is a wonderful accomplishment, a wise and noble goal. Our middle class is currently badly decimated; you either move up or move down and out for good. It's America, 21st-century style.
Unions are the working person's very best friend. My dad, who worked for the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad frequently told us, his family, that "Without the union, we wouldn't have nothing," which was a fairly decent lifestyle, nothing fancy to be sure -- we lived in a small rent house with a one-car garage that had no door, but we never missed a meal, and I once counted that I had 30 shirts, two pairs of dress shoes, and one pair of sneakers. One could get by with that. Plus, after high school, before Vietnam, I was able to buy my first car, a 1956 Chevy, for $200. It was a hot rod, although you could also label it a shot rod: Its better days were behind it. (I sold it because I thought I would be killed in Vietnam, so why not settle that affair and not leave it to my parents?)
But the struggle goes on, and Bob is fighting on the front lines, and has been his whole life. He is, as is his wont, pushing the president hard, which is good: no pain, no gain; but Joe, I don't think, is ever going to be Bernie Sanders or Liz Warren. Plus, this nation has so many rabid right-wingers, to go further Left might tip us into a civil war. We're currently a tinderbox. Maybe, all things considered, FDR is not the guy we need right now; FDR got away with radical change because the nation was suffering with the Great Depression; things had to radically change; we needed a New Deal, and the nation, by and large, knew and wanted it. Too many Americans today are selfish; they won't even allow Medicare For All, living wages, or forgiveness of back-breaking college student loans. They think greed is good and that poverty is a motivator. Thus it is that Joe may be wise to act moderately and not like President Bernie would have. The risks are too great.
__________________________________________
* See Greg DeCowsky's correction in his comment below. (I got it wrong; he knows and provides the facts.) Thanks, Greg!
It´s evil, evil, evil.
What also disturbs (from the point of view abroad) is how global fast-food franchises exploit prison labour, especially young detainees. They´re glassy eyed and on pharmaceutical controls -- and the teenaged are wary of certain shops where predatory incarceration has been claimed. So, not only is at least one global coffee chain guilty of paying a CEO 800 times the average worker, it apparently enjoys collusion with whatever keeps the chain of command comfortable with indentured servitude. Isn´t that what mogul operations are all about? Disgusting.
This is SUCH an accurate laying out of what’s going on today and who’s to blame. Altho very long , please take the time toread it as it’s right on the head of what’s hoing on in our country!!!!!