Reich: How Unequal Can America Get?

This man is a wonderful professor. He is crystal clear in his presentation and logic.

8 years later and if anything the separation is MUCH WORSE NOW.

So looking back to this presentation RR accurately sketched out the picture of how our society was taking shape. It also accurately depicts his projection of what was to come. All you have to do is fill in the colors.

It would be interesting to see how the graphs have proceeded the last 15 years. I live just above poverty and can not afford to help my kid or go on a vacation. I have a mountain of student debt that I will never be able to pay off. I basically live to work till I eventually die or get some health issue. I see many of the rich people in my everyday job and can tell you they do not care about fairness. People only care about what affects themselves.

I am snapped and this is class war. The working poor are the people who have been let down by the political class who are self serving and privileged. Give politicians the minimum wage.

Thank you for your time, Robert Reich! You are greatly appreciated for your efforts. I'm sure it does not get said enough. It is difficult to look around us and not be disappointed. Again, thank you for the efforts you are making to reach the minds that remain open and capable of being the change that we need.

Two years before this speech, He wrote a NYT essay, “For Richer or Poorer,” in which he showed our return to the dramatic excesses of the 1890s—1920s.

Simply the best public speech I've encountered on You Tube, and I surf the web big time. A brilliant man. I hope some of what he said sinks in and gets spread around.

Excellent speaker! sharp minded and with a superb sense of humour!

What is really important is that there were alternative paths we could have taken the past 30 years that would have created at least almost as much total growth (perhaps just as much or a little more) but the increases would have been more equally distributed. Compared to the possible alternatives we could have had, the economic policies of the past 30 years were a big mistake.

Ten years later and inequality has only gone from bad to worse, yet politicians do nothing! Bernie Sanders is the only politician who genuinely cares about fairness in the system

Any know where to get the powerpoint to the presentation or graphs? Thanks. Need for school presentation.

He predicted Trump.

"We started the class struggle, and we will win it!"                                                       Warren Buffett The investor  Warren Buffett, one of the 10 wealthiest persons in the world, has in the past voiced his opinion on whether there exists class warfare, and who is waging it. In 2005 Buffet said to CNN: "It's class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn't be." In a November 2006 interview in The New York Times, Buffett stated that "[t]here’s class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning." Although Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) led the United States as president from 1801–1809 and is considered one of the founding fathers, he died with immense amounts of debt. Regarding the interaction between social classes, he wrote:   "I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you & I, & Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor." —Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edward Carrington - January 16, 1787 With the "coup" of the creation of the Federal Reserve, in the U.S. this knowledge has been deleted from the minds of most Americans. The manipulations of the Koch brothers Network, Wall Street and Goldman & Sachs,  the Republicans, the mass media and the neo-liberal economic institutions have done a great job. ;-)

He called it in 2005, and we are living in snap break right now.

Let's see. What happened around the time wealth growth began to favor the wealthy? Oh yeah, Ronald Reagan's tax cuts. Let the wealthy keep more of their wealth and they will reward the lower classes with a "trickle" of the good life. How is that working out?

I think this lecture was 2005? How right he was, I think the 'elastic band' he speaks of is definitely on the verge of snapping.

This was shortly before the crash happened, holy lord

Not being cynical is the hardest part. We're facing a wave here. A wave of people who are so beyond reason and so quick to anger, blaming, and spouting vitriol, that they have effectively barricaded themselves preventing any sort of connection. Sadly this barrier, this refusal to participate in effective politics, only benefits those at the top. Great speech either way, very informative, and a lot of new thoughts for me. I will try to remain optimistic.

Robert Reich might be short in stature, but he is an intellectual giant.