Saturday, June 18, 2011

Robert Reich Tells The Truth About the Economy



Leave it to one of my favorite economic professors, Robert Reich, The Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, to explain our economy in just two minutes, in this video sponsored by MoveOn.org. (My all time favorite economist is the late John Kenneth Galbraith.)

The basic point that Professor Reich is making is that there are not enough good jobs for the middle class because we allowed much of the manufacturing industry to leave America. Meanwhile, what he calls "The Super Rich" only pay 17 percent of their total income in taxes, causing massive budget deficits.

I think Professor Reich could have gone many steps beyond this, and made a six minute video. That video would have shown how costs for everything from cars to homes have increased beyond middle class incomes adjusted for inflation, and how that caused the giant wave of foreclosures.

But all this explaining of what happened is fine; we need to come up with a solution, and do it ASAP.

Stay tuned.

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