I started watching this but will need to finish later. I’m excited about going to your class today and it is always uplifting to see so many young people being asked to think. There are always a million excuses and blame games from the republicans but all they need to do is study other countries to see how their line of thinking fails.
I've watched this excellent documentary several times and learned something new each time. Not only is it eye-opening, it's funny, provocative and thought provoking. Even if you've seen it before, it's worth revisiting for the message today is even more relevant. Great movie!
It may be helpful to visualize where you and your family stand in relation to those who run corporate America and determine your standard of living. Get a carpenters tape measure and mark off 207 inches along your floor to represent the wealthiest person in America, according to the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List (Oct 12, 2021). Each “inch” of that total 17 ft 3 inches would represent 1,000 Million dollars, for a total wealth of 207,000 million dollars! An individual worth 1 Million dollars would be equivalent to a line only one, one thousandth of an inch wide at the very bottom, less than the thickness of a human hair. The rest of us wouldn’t even show up without the aid of a microscope. This shows at a glance why most Americans are falling behind and feel so insecure. We are invisible.
Smiled when I saw this this morning. Enlightening and entertaining! Have watched I don't know how many times, and will so again. Hoping many will watch, share and encourage others to do the same.
Grateful that you have shared this video! I am recommending it to family and friends! Your mission and wisdom as teacher, mentor, advocate, and author give me hope in these hard times. I pray for you daily.
The nature of money is for the rich to become more rich and for the poor to become poorer. Money makes money while one sleeps and the moneyless never have time to do anything other than to struggle daily. We need a more humane culture.
thank you, prof. reich... i have been reading your writings for a number of years and have learned much. i appreciate your mention of the powell memo in "saving capitalism"--that doesn't get talked about nearly enough.
also, instead of only referring to the weakening of labor unions, we need to discuss labor relations from 1960s: how management from building and construction trades organized their considerable resources to suppress wages, especially after the nixon economic shock policy deployed in 1971. a nat'l wage freeze took effect and management never took their foot off the brake after that. as you well know, since 1973, hourly wages flatlined until today.
the point is, there has been a calculated and deliberate attempt to socially engineer income inequality and voters need to know about this history in order to remedy current economic/political conditions.
Robert, I saw the film in the cinema when it was initially released. So powerful -- I'll take the opportunity to watch it again! Thank you for this and for all of your work.
Haven't watched the film yet, but will soon. I also believe a big part of the increased division is when the income difference between the CEO (or highest paid person in a business) and the lowest paid employee in the company went from a difference of (I am guessing here on the exact amount) say 40 times to 500 times. If I am correct this happened during the early 2000 when I was still working for PG&E and in the union, IBEW 1245 (Walnut Creek). I was a Shop Steward so involved in these issues but the unions were loosing their strength and membership slowly but steadily. I also went from the physical side to the clerical side of the company, which had different contracts.
Also, wages for middle class workers has not increased for years. We are way behind. We may have received wage increases but the cost of living wiped that out.
What happened to the tax write off for companies putting money back into their business?? That is why the business tax rate was so high, because there was a total write off for improving their business. Now there is low taxes on businesses and still all the write offs so they pay zero in taxes.
This may be off your subject but it came to my mind when I read your question.
Inequality of income, I believe, has been cited by quite a few authors as a leading cause of the fall of Rome. The demise of unions just sickens one. You can almost feel it in your utter bones that it has been a primary goal of the rich and Republicans since 1933. We fail to adequately acknowledge that we are in a horrible civil war in this country. And the reds are winning. Lincoln outlined the challenge and task in a little place called Gettysburg. Curt Peterson
I remember it. Good documentary. I didn't really learn anything new. It did verify that my eyes were in fact seeing what the have and are seeing.
As for the laundry list of reasons, that's a long one and possibly wasted energy.
Everything that is born, dies. From the micro to the macro. Do you know of any dominant powers in the past that are still so? History is not over and to think so is insane.
Should we make the effort, of course. But at the heart of any effort made will be the fact that the average will have to take, yes I said take, a large sum of money from those who have it. This is unlikely.
Yeah, there was the new deal and it was amazing. But FDR is dead, that world is no more and the rich took notes about it as to how to prevent that from happening again.
And while the new deal helped, the final new deal, WWII, was the thing that propelled the U.S. into economic and political dominance.
You hit the nail on the head when you explained that politicians "listen to the money" rather than their constituents. But how is that ever going to change?
.....the true message: BOTH sides of the aisle have sold average joe down the river; therefore, the masses can't expect Biden to deliver. Probably the masses only hope: a beneficent, skilled orator willing to call a spade a spade regarding our true economic whiz bang, for third party candidate. Our systems have been hijacked.
Robert, your excellent educational presentation/video from 8 years ago is still timely, and more important now than ever; clearly a masterpiece documentary of the 21st century.
Thank you for your long-enduring, long-suffering activism and due diligence for our flawed democracy.
I started watching this but will need to finish later. I’m excited about going to your class today and it is always uplifting to see so many young people being asked to think. There are always a million excuses and blame games from the republicans but all they need to do is study other countries to see how their line of thinking fails.
I've watched this excellent documentary several times and learned something new each time. Not only is it eye-opening, it's funny, provocative and thought provoking. Even if you've seen it before, it's worth revisiting for the message today is even more relevant. Great movie!
It may be helpful to visualize where you and your family stand in relation to those who run corporate America and determine your standard of living. Get a carpenters tape measure and mark off 207 inches along your floor to represent the wealthiest person in America, according to the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List (Oct 12, 2021). Each “inch” of that total 17 ft 3 inches would represent 1,000 Million dollars, for a total wealth of 207,000 million dollars! An individual worth 1 Million dollars would be equivalent to a line only one, one thousandth of an inch wide at the very bottom, less than the thickness of a human hair. The rest of us wouldn’t even show up without the aid of a microscope. This shows at a glance why most Americans are falling behind and feel so insecure. We are invisible.
Smiled when I saw this this morning. Enlightening and entertaining! Have watched I don't know how many times, and will so again. Hoping many will watch, share and encourage others to do the same.
Grateful that you have shared this video! I am recommending it to family and friends! Your mission and wisdom as teacher, mentor, advocate, and author give me hope in these hard times. I pray for you daily.
The nature of money is for the rich to become more rich and for the poor to become poorer. Money makes money while one sleeps and the moneyless never have time to do anything other than to struggle daily. We need a more humane culture.
thank you, prof. reich... i have been reading your writings for a number of years and have learned much. i appreciate your mention of the powell memo in "saving capitalism"--that doesn't get talked about nearly enough.
also, instead of only referring to the weakening of labor unions, we need to discuss labor relations from 1960s: how management from building and construction trades organized their considerable resources to suppress wages, especially after the nixon economic shock policy deployed in 1971. a nat'l wage freeze took effect and management never took their foot off the brake after that. as you well know, since 1973, hourly wages flatlined until today.
the point is, there has been a calculated and deliberate attempt to socially engineer income inequality and voters need to know about this history in order to remedy current economic/political conditions.
European viewers can watch this film at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry20-e5SBmE&ab_channel=ThePremiumChannel
Robert, I saw the film in the cinema when it was initially released. So powerful -- I'll take the opportunity to watch it again! Thank you for this and for all of your work.
Haven't watched the film yet, but will soon. I also believe a big part of the increased division is when the income difference between the CEO (or highest paid person in a business) and the lowest paid employee in the company went from a difference of (I am guessing here on the exact amount) say 40 times to 500 times. If I am correct this happened during the early 2000 when I was still working for PG&E and in the union, IBEW 1245 (Walnut Creek). I was a Shop Steward so involved in these issues but the unions were loosing their strength and membership slowly but steadily. I also went from the physical side to the clerical side of the company, which had different contracts.
Also, wages for middle class workers has not increased for years. We are way behind. We may have received wage increases but the cost of living wiped that out.
What happened to the tax write off for companies putting money back into their business?? That is why the business tax rate was so high, because there was a total write off for improving their business. Now there is low taxes on businesses and still all the write offs so they pay zero in taxes.
This may be off your subject but it came to my mind when I read your question.
Inequality of income, I believe, has been cited by quite a few authors as a leading cause of the fall of Rome. The demise of unions just sickens one. You can almost feel it in your utter bones that it has been a primary goal of the rich and Republicans since 1933. We fail to adequately acknowledge that we are in a horrible civil war in this country. And the reds are winning. Lincoln outlined the challenge and task in a little place called Gettysburg. Curt Peterson
I remember it. Good documentary. I didn't really learn anything new. It did verify that my eyes were in fact seeing what the have and are seeing.
As for the laundry list of reasons, that's a long one and possibly wasted energy.
Everything that is born, dies. From the micro to the macro. Do you know of any dominant powers in the past that are still so? History is not over and to think so is insane.
Should we make the effort, of course. But at the heart of any effort made will be the fact that the average will have to take, yes I said take, a large sum of money from those who have it. This is unlikely.
Yeah, there was the new deal and it was amazing. But FDR is dead, that world is no more and the rich took notes about it as to how to prevent that from happening again.
And while the new deal helped, the final new deal, WWII, was the thing that propelled the U.S. into economic and political dominance.
You hit the nail on the head when you explained that politicians "listen to the money" rather than their constituents. But how is that ever going to change?
.....the true message: BOTH sides of the aisle have sold average joe down the river; therefore, the masses can't expect Biden to deliver. Probably the masses only hope: a beneficent, skilled orator willing to call a spade a spade regarding our true economic whiz bang, for third party candidate. Our systems have been hijacked.
Robert, your excellent educational presentation/video from 8 years ago is still timely, and more important now than ever; clearly a masterpiece documentary of the 21st century.