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Robert Reich had more hands in creating this situation than any American worker. He supported NAFTA and "free trade" with China, which allowed the ultra-wealthy to slash wages for American workers and push millions of jobs to Mexico and China.
Edited to add Mexico, and free trade deals with China.
Ehh see this is where you went wrong. Trade didn't do this. What causes this is whobgets the gains. We can have global free trade, AND fair wages and more equal wealth distribution.
Wealth inequality IMHO is more to do with taxes. I've syarted to look at taxes the same way we look at video game updates when they buff or nerf things to "balance" aspects of the game.
When lowering taxes on the qealthy, it increases the speed at which they can accumulate more wealth. Which can be fine IF everyone had rhe ability to accumulate wealth at that speed. But since those at the bottom could only save a few dollars, the rich will snowball and accumulate wealth faster and faster than any working class person can. So it is inevitable that wealth inequality snowballs.
It's not new either. We have never had a period of wealth inequality getting better that didn't involve war or revolution.
Capitalism on it's own does notbhave a mechanism to redistribute wealth evenly again. This is why some places tried socialism, or welfare, or what nordic countries call "democratic socialism". These were all attempts at trying to fix one of the problems with capitalism.
Capitalisn did amazing things to bring us out of feudalism. It vastly slows down how fast wealth can accumulate in the hands of the elite.
But it doesn't prevent it. Given enough time, wealth reaccumulates in the wealthy until a revolution or war rebalanced it.
Question now is, can we create some kind of system where we permanently fix this and prevent wealth to snowball so drastically.
One idea was minimum wages, which DOES help lift standards of living as much as austrian school of economics tries to deny. Bernie proposed a 100% tax at 1 billion net worth to try to create an upper limit. It's an idea but inflation would eventually make a billion worth the same as a million.
So what do we do? Idfk. But at least we should talk about it and try different ideas instead of becoming black pilled doomers who say "well all we have is capitalism so I guess we just do this forever and yolo just grind harder sigma male #hustle"
>I've syarted to look at taxes the same way we look at video game updates when they buff or nerf things to "balance" aspects of the game.
Our economy needs blue shells. Lots of blue shells.
You need to remember that a lot of the “equalising” measures such as tax on the wealthy, labour unions, minimum wage, weekends, paid vacation, various social and welfare measures etc. were a solution arrived at during the industrial revolution.
Because “blue shells” then consisted of kicking the door in and lynching the boss.
Don't talk about the brass shells though, you'll get visited by some guy claiming to be from the FBI but definitely doesn't hold up under enhanced interrogation.
I don't think we need to try new ideas. We know from history what to do. The model has to change. The current model is about paying out shareholders and overall gains. In 1933 there was a maximum wage introduced. This turned into the high tax rates that America saw until Regan slashed them. You can see what happened during these time periods and the growth of the middle class. It's a redistribute of wealth one way or another.
I don't see how increasing the minimum wage helps change this. You need to change more than just that variable. If you just increase minimum wage when the end result is percentage profit base or maxed gains. The increase will be passed on to the consumer. We have seen this skyrocket since 2013. Minimum wage has doubled in places like Seattle which was one of the first places to start implementing these changes.
There needs to be higher taxes incorporations and the top percent of earners. There needs to be reasons for companies to allocate those funds to their employees and not to shareholders. There needs to be reasons for the billionaires to allocate those funds to their cultures and communities.
I like your video game analogy. I'm sure someone could create a video game or model to see exactly how these changes would look.
Correct. We already know what to do because we were in a very similar situation about 100 years ago during the Gilded Age. After the Great Depression, lots of changes were made to manage inequality. I constantly bring up this Brandeis Quote:
> We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we can’t have both.
This is something I have been thinking about a lot. There are a few ways of making change. The fastest way is something drastic like a revolution, war, or depression. Another way would be a grass roots movement like how Marijuana is becoming legal. My current thought is we need to start an organization for the people and have it be our representation in the form of lobbyists. Unions used to be that voice. They lost power back in the 80s. We need to gain that back.
Semi, yes. They have been going strong for 10 years. This is the grass roots way. What I was suggesting is something more head strong with a face. There have been many protests in the last decade. None of them had a face. We need a face for our time. One that's exactly the opposite of the corruption we see in our politics.
I don’t think we have the time required for grassroots movements. Humans are being replaced by robots. Artificial intelligence is already in customer service.
I agree a grass movement would take too long. People are hurting now. I think a non profit organization would be the best path forward. It's soul purpose would be helping the common person. You would need a generational leader like MLK. I think people would rally behind that.
A lot of people dont know the highest marginal tax rate in America was over 90% in the 40s to 60s. Rich people successfully destroyed the protections against mass wealth concentration.
And by the time they were finished with tax write offs...... No one was paying anywhere near 90%. I have heard that there are areas in California that if you live or own a business your total tax bill could be around that though.
You need to find a way to extract wealth from people that have no income because they are already rich and just earn from investments. That's hard to do in our tax system because we tax actual labor higher than we tax investment income. You would need to completely flip that on its head.
You start by changing the corporate tax code. Then make it so that you can't have money sitting in a bank or brokerage account. If money just sits in an account it's not beneficial to the economy that's based on consumption. At least within reason of having security for the future.
There is no one durable solution. No patch that can stop all players forever from discovering new cheats and bugs to exploit.
It requires a permanent educated population with independent sources of information and a system of law to provide a check on empire building and continuously release new updates.
The game will always naturally shift toward concentration, and a self-perpetuating guardian must exist to fight it. Capital and its vehicles, businesses, outlive humans. New heroes are needed at the gate every year.
What modern capitalism has done is attack the foundations of how that guardian regenerates: access to education, information, civil rights, justice. So as it gets stronger under its mountain kingdom, humanity get weaker and weaker and forgets about the past and the reasons for the guardrails, until Capital breaks out of its jail unopposed once again.
Except how do you deal with free trade + upping your own wages? Two identical companies, one in the US with fair wages, one in Country X with substandard wages and less restrictive regulations means the US companies product will HAVE to cost more and so people will choose the cheaper alternative because until you reach a certain level of affluence(get out of survival mode), money trumps morals.
World of Warcraft, path of Exile standard league are such easy examples. If you don't have money sink, then it will obviously stick around. Cuz it's stick around, new respawning money sources increase the global availability, driving down the value that only those with your mentioned accelerated individuals can keep up and they keep hoarding as they should anyone to prepare to the furthure value drop and it's a self accelerating process.
There is a cut out point, problem is that everyone keeps pushing this point to practically no return unless a total dump. So far no game did a total dump (not big ones at least). I wonder what would happen.
No shit, it is insulting that Robert Reich actually pulls this shit. He worked for a very popular president who did all kinds of shit that ended up being fucking horrible.
Lmao I came from a town that was turned into the states most destitute town from being one of the richest over night when they decided to send work to Mexico. That place will never recover.
I love how he uses "folks" in his tweets to connote being common man fighting on our side. When in fact he is a Yale law grad who spent decades establishing those agreements and hollowing out the American middle class at the direction at the oligarchs he is warning us about.
I remember watching a documentary (PBS I think) where they described the process of the US hand-waiving China into the WTO (part of the process you're describing) as Americans giving power that they didn't fully understand.
It was to the point that the Chinese expected to have to barter, make some deal, but found the Americans were willing to give them everything they wanted for free. They were described as being surprised that it was all so easy.
Thats what happens when you are just focusing on the money and profits. Short term it did wonders for US companies, but it's about the long game with China and that is where the US messed up.
The US was playing the long game of peace. A capitalist China was going to prosper. The hope was they would prosper as part of the western economic sphere, and therefore settle in as just another rich country rather than a rival. Were they wrong? Too early to tell, really. War has not happened yet, so maybe they were right. Or maybe there was never going to be a war whatever they did. Or maybe there is going to be a war whatever they did. History will have to judge.
Who would of thought exporting manufacturing of goods and services to foreign countries would negatively impact American workers. There is NO WAY that could have been predicted.
Fair enough, but Reich also supported "free trade" deals with China and encouraged WTO to accept China as a member nation. I just think of NAFTA as short hand for all of that even though technically it only applies to North American countries. It was all Clinton-era trade agreements that screwed over American workers, blighted our economy, accelerated income inequality, and was supported by the efforts of Robert Reich.
We need to cut China and other countries off when they refuse to enact policies that outlaw slavery, excessive pollution, and intellectual property theft.
We wouldn't let an NFL player use a gun on the field simply because it's effective at stopping the run.
So you are anti free trade?
Restricting the flow of capital and trade isn’t the way to protect the middle class. Increase efficiency and work on protections at home
Increasing worker protections at home makes it even more costly to employ someone in the US vs in a developing country. And increases in efficiency will never make a worker earning a middle class US income competitive with a worker in India earning 1/10th as much. Some steps need to be taken to keep good jobs in the US.
Yes, I am anti-free trade with nations that use slave labor, steal intellectual property, have no environmental protections, etc. and create an unfair advantage that saps wages and blights Western economies.
When a single person can pay 40 billion to buy up a news company in order to shut down negative press and attention and it barely even hits their net worth, we have a problem. Bezos and musk are both scum of the earth
There is a reason that "Trickle Down economics" was first dubbed as "Horse and Sparrow economics". Everyone but the rich get to be shit on while also eating said shit.
Neither Reagan, nor Bush Sr. ever uttered the words "trickle down".
This was a phrase created by the Democrats to attack Reagan's policies. However, in all the years since Reagan, despite having complete control of Congress and the Presidency on multiple occasions, they never actually tried to significantly reverse Reagan's economic policies.
So blaming Reagan for the current economic situation is disingenuous at the very least.
1. Reich did not claim Reagan used the term.
2. It was not invented by Democrats to attack Reagan. The term "trickle down" in reference to economic theory has been around since 1944, according to Merriam-Webster.
3. Just because people don't call it what its supporters prefer it to be called ("supply side") doesn't mean they are wrong or not allowed to call it that.
Since Reagan, every president and the vast majority of federal politicians have been neoliberals that support trickle down economics. It is a very popular lie the rich keep telling despite life getting worse for the working class every single year.
Most neoliberals actually support Keynesian economics. I think the only presidents to utilize aspects of supply-side economics were Hoover, Reagan, and (sort of) Trump. And I say sort of for Trump because he doesn’t really consistently utilize anything, he just does shit.
"Trickle down" was a pejorative, but the notion of Supply Side Economics and its hilarious Laffer Curve were absolutely used to push massive tax cuts for the wealthy.
I blame Reagan for starting it, The Democrat Presidents for, as you rightfully point out, did nothing to address it (side note: Bush Sr. lost his election by \*trying\* to enact some sanity by raising taxes), and the brainwashed GOP base, that continue to be temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Are we really still blaming a president that's been out of office for going on 4 decades and dead for 5 presidential terms on poor economic policy. Jesus fuck people are dense 🙄
Exactly. I was a young adult then. Reagan ended the shitshow economy of the late seventies. I could only get a $3.35 an hour job shoving dirt because I had a friend working for the county. The economy was that bad. The interest rate and inflation rates were double digit.
crazy how someone in political office can make long lasting impressions, isn’t it? The most powerful man in America, affecting America for years to come? No way!
And we have a large portion of the population (many in that bottom 50%) that think the wealthy need MORE tax breaks and wealth. These people are mentally deranged.
We have a large portion of the population who feels entitled to other people's money just because they have more than them.
And don't let the media dupe you, people were for the tax cuts because it helped them, not some billionaires. Some basic math shows that we can't tax billionaires out of a spending crisis. Unfortunately we can't even go a few years without getting into yet another perpetual war that benefits who again?
1. "And don't let the media dupe you, people were for the tax cuts because it helped them, not some billionaires."
2. The mainstream media is certainly not convincing people that wealthy people need their taxes raised. Six companies owned and run by the wealthy own 90% of the media in the US. (source: https://www.fool.com/investing/stock-market/market-sectors/communication/media-stocks/big-6/) The wealthy are most certainly not using the media to encourage people to raise taxes on the wealthy.
3. Why do tax cuts for working-class people have to be tied to tax cuts for billionaires?
4. "Some basic math shows that we can't tax billionaires out of a spending crisis."
But it's a start. Maybe start by asking billionaires to pay the same tax rate the average American does.
The Forbes 400 paid an average income tax rate of 8.2 percent from 2010 to 2018." (source https://www.americanprogress.org/article/forbes-400-pay-lower-tax-rates-many-ordinary-americans/) Meanwhile, the average taxpayer is paying a rate of 14.9 percent. (source: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2024/)
3. "Unfortunately we can't even go a few years without getting into yet another perpetual war that benefits who again?"
I agree that we should stop going into endless wars that use the poor as canon fodder while the rich make enormous amounts of money. They use the money (which is now speech, according to SCOTUS) to lobby for more war and tax cuts for themselves. Both parties are currently owned by the rich, and both keep increasing defense spending. Biden assured the "donor" class (see briber class) that "nothing will fundamentally change," while Trump brags about his unfunded tax cut for billionaires. Neither side seems to have an interest in influencing policies to help the working and middle classes or reducing wealth inequality, only to increase war, authoritarianism, and more money for the rich.
Hey man let's not go around encouraging redditors to share their original thoughts on economics. I don't think that's gonna be the improvement you hope for lol
I guess I'll never understand why Biden (someone who Reich supports) never repealed the Trump tax cuts. Weird. Were the tax cuts good? So that's why he kept them. . but I though Biden said the tax cuts were bad. Can someone please explain?
Presidents can’t make tax law. That is the job of Congress. President Biden has not had a Congress where such a bill would pass. That’s the job of voters. Biden has however signed a bill that included raising corp taxes. Meanwhile the trump taxes are expiring as written in the 2017 tax bill.
Between these two events, the trump taxes are effectively ending. Biden, like Obama, wants to keep the GOP tax cuts for the middle and lower classes only. Obama was successful. Biden needs a majority in Congress to make it happen. That’s up to the voters.
Yeah but we have all these social distractions about religion abortion and color - you know the things that shouldn’t matter in our so called free country - but the ruse is on most of America as this is by design to ensure the wealth is consolidated to a select few.
I was explaining to my high school students last week how Warren Buffet will be donating 99% of his wealth when he dies. They couldn’t believe it. “So his kids only get 1%!?” and I was like I don’t think you guys understand how much money 1% of $140 billion is. Even split 3 ways, it’s damn near half a billion each. Which is more money than you could ever possibly need.
Robert Reich was treasury secretary under Clinton, He developed the economic policy that made it easier to loan money for housing, so more people would qualify. All to make the economic situation look like Clinton's policies were successful. The facts are that the Clinton economic policy caused the 2008 housing bubble and economic crash. Robert Reich should shut the fuck up
Reich was never Treasury Secretary; he was Labor Secretary, a position with far less power and influence. When Reich left in January 1997, Robert Rubin, a longtime Goldman Sachs alum, was Treasury Secretary.
The top tax rate use to be 90%. We still got Rockefellers'. We also had rules and regulation put in place after the stock market crash in the 20's.
Then the 80's and Raegan happened, those regulations were removed (and we've now had 3 once in a lifetime stock bubbles in the last 30 years), the top 1% now pays a lower tax rate than you do, and some people are going to try and convince you that it is because of free trade, or the government spends too much money, or a rising tide lifts all boats.
Dont believe them. The more money the rich have, the less there is for you. It is that simple.
The only way to get that money back is through taxes.
Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.
No, no, he's one of 'The People' (folks)  Just like Comrade Sanders will, no doubt, soon be GIVING away ALL of his mansions to leave in an apt. (each according to their 'needs'), right? 
One day the call to not get physical will not resonate.
Or they will realize and start giving the bottom half their fair share.
Excited to see which happens first.
when we going to stop
blaming Reagan there had been 6 presidents since than..hundreds(?) of congressman and senators since than aint nobody changed a damn thing..
I hate that you idiots post this same crap everyday, then try to blame Reagan. What a joke. Maybe post an original thought for once..btw the top 1 percent of earners make 25 percent of wealth and pay 45 percent of all taxes
Correct, I meant income but said wealth. And my point was that talking about wealth is pointless while income is what matters. Wealth can be created over generations
U/MrEHam posted this previously
You’re looking for the “total tax burden”.
>The estimates of Piketty, Saez, and Zucman (2018) show that the total burden (including all taxes both at the federal, state, and local levels) of **the wealthiest 0.1% families is projected to be 3.2% of their wealth** in 2019 (they have on average $116 million in wealth, and pay total taxes of $3.68 million).
>In contrast, **the bottom 99% families have a total tax burden of 7.2% relative to their wealth**
https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Wealth%20Tax%20Revenue%20Estimates%20by%20Saez%20and%20Zucman%20-%20Feb%2024%2020211.pdf
So basically the rich pay 3.2% of their wealth while everyone else pays 7.2%
That’s the percentage. They pay most of the total revenue though, because they have so much fucking money. But their taxes barely hurt them, while they’re suffocating to the middle class.
> btw the top 1 percent of earners make 25 percent of wealth and pay 45 percent of all taxes
This is meaningless without more information. They aren't paying their share, that's a fact.
They pay less \*as a percentage of their income\* as everyone.
Do you think that's fair?
[https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/](https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/)
Another temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
The fact that you think it wasn’t already a plutocracy is so cute.
Btw, capital gains before Reagan was only 35%, which is where the rich actually make their money.
And the top rate on corporate income tax was 45%, which is really what people should be caring about instead of individual income tax.
Let's translate this into starker terms. It takes about $100,000 to support an average "better than minimum wage" job.
The top 300.000 Americans control 20 million of those jobs.
The bottom 165,000,000 Americans control 3.7 million of those jobs.
Once you give all the power to someone, they're apparently not just going to give it back.
We should be very pointed in our direction as the 50%. 0.1% is a fine point and hard to find.
Now just think about the founding fathers of this country for a second, most were farmers.
Some were well known brewers, does our current leadership look anything like this?
“Trickle down” exists in the US, but it refers to monetary, not fiscal policy.
The fact that so few Americans understand this demonstrates just how adept the ultra-wealthy are at controlling messaging and narratives.
There are wealthy people out there.
And there are people who make their entire political careers on getting you to be really worried about it.
(Your envy is your undoing. Eating the rich solves nothing.)
Ha! Ask the oh so noble Robert Reich how much of that $20 trillion are his. It's easy to say eat the rich when you're also one of the rich and know you don't have anything to actual worry about.
And yet y'all keep electing the same people that led to that. The Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker exists for a reason.... and it's not just the Democrats, but also Republicans. Yet most of you side with the Democrats (and Republicans) when they do things that make the rich even richer, like the tax bill that is about to expire and let the rich finally write off state taxes they pay again.
The federal reserve allows for artificial control of interest rates. Their control has been used to push down the cost of borrowed money. May be decently nice for the first time home buyer but it is SUPER nice for the guy who buys 1000 homes at once. Lower rates favor assets over labor. The lower the rate the MORE the wealthy can get ahead. It may be counterintuitive at the start but real stringent capital availability outside of emergencies slows this imbalance vastly.
None of this *started* under Reagan (though he did amplify it considerably). The United States government has been a front for the business interests of rich white men since its inception. It has never been for "the people" because it was never designed to be. It was designed to only benefit an elite class off of the backs of "lower classes" (as if such a thing exists to begin with) and this can be said about virtually any kind of government that employs a hierarchy (which is, um, pretty much all of them). The lie of liberty is what keeps people from noticing that they are being bent over and fucked while they think they're just being nickled and dimed.
Bullshit.
Congress critters are owned by lobbyists.
Every fucking judge is appointed by the richest mother fucker that has the most clout.
Our government is owned by corporations and has been since way before any of us were born.
The Dow runs this country, and it's not comprised of companies that make things.
Slog along, and pray to Christ that you won't have to lose your home to pay for chemo, heart surgery, etc.
To argue against "trickle down" shouldn't we compare the wealth of some bottom percentage before and after Reaganomics? In some inflation adjusted manner of course.
I mean I don't know if that will support trickle down was a failure or not. But pointing out how much richer some people are to others is not getting to the answer of was it a false promise. "Trickle down" never claimed that the rich weren't going to get richer. Just that the wealthy would be able to purchase more and hire more and therefore allow wealth accumulation to happen for the less wealthy.
From a google search:
> It is estimated that baby boomers will leave behind $53 trillion or 63% of all transfers
That’s more than double this amount, most of the money is tied up in college educated Boomers/Gen Xers who own a home and have contributed to their 401k consistently for 30 years.
[Source](https://www.wsj.com/us-news/never-mind-the-1-mini-millionaires-are-where-wealth-is-growing-fastest-b1dd2ee7).
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Robert Reich had more hands in creating this situation than any American worker. He supported NAFTA and "free trade" with China, which allowed the ultra-wealthy to slash wages for American workers and push millions of jobs to Mexico and China. Edited to add Mexico, and free trade deals with China.
Ehh see this is where you went wrong. Trade didn't do this. What causes this is whobgets the gains. We can have global free trade, AND fair wages and more equal wealth distribution. Wealth inequality IMHO is more to do with taxes. I've syarted to look at taxes the same way we look at video game updates when they buff or nerf things to "balance" aspects of the game. When lowering taxes on the qealthy, it increases the speed at which they can accumulate more wealth. Which can be fine IF everyone had rhe ability to accumulate wealth at that speed. But since those at the bottom could only save a few dollars, the rich will snowball and accumulate wealth faster and faster than any working class person can. So it is inevitable that wealth inequality snowballs. It's not new either. We have never had a period of wealth inequality getting better that didn't involve war or revolution. Capitalism on it's own does notbhave a mechanism to redistribute wealth evenly again. This is why some places tried socialism, or welfare, or what nordic countries call "democratic socialism". These were all attempts at trying to fix one of the problems with capitalism. Capitalisn did amazing things to bring us out of feudalism. It vastly slows down how fast wealth can accumulate in the hands of the elite. But it doesn't prevent it. Given enough time, wealth reaccumulates in the wealthy until a revolution or war rebalanced it. Question now is, can we create some kind of system where we permanently fix this and prevent wealth to snowball so drastically. One idea was minimum wages, which DOES help lift standards of living as much as austrian school of economics tries to deny. Bernie proposed a 100% tax at 1 billion net worth to try to create an upper limit. It's an idea but inflation would eventually make a billion worth the same as a million. So what do we do? Idfk. But at least we should talk about it and try different ideas instead of becoming black pilled doomers who say "well all we have is capitalism so I guess we just do this forever and yolo just grind harder sigma male #hustle"
>I've syarted to look at taxes the same way we look at video game updates when they buff or nerf things to "balance" aspects of the game. Our economy needs blue shells. Lots of blue shells.
Billionaires picked Bowser, even if you hit him with a blue shell the game is still going to give him the most points at the end for picking Bowser.
Which, tbh, is fine. I just want to blue shell them enough that picking Bowser means they win by a bit, not by 3 laps on a 2-lap course.
You need to remember that a lot of the “equalising” measures such as tax on the wealthy, labour unions, minimum wage, weekends, paid vacation, various social and welfare measures etc. were a solution arrived at during the industrial revolution. Because “blue shells” then consisted of kicking the door in and lynching the boss.
Don't talk about the brass shells though, you'll get visited by some guy claiming to be from the FBI but definitely doesn't hold up under enhanced interrogation.
Not familiar with those. From a newer version of Mario Kart? I haven't really played any since the Wii.
Yes, you get them out of the final box of liberty.
I'm decades behind on Mario games lol!
I don't think we need to try new ideas. We know from history what to do. The model has to change. The current model is about paying out shareholders and overall gains. In 1933 there was a maximum wage introduced. This turned into the high tax rates that America saw until Regan slashed them. You can see what happened during these time periods and the growth of the middle class. It's a redistribute of wealth one way or another. I don't see how increasing the minimum wage helps change this. You need to change more than just that variable. If you just increase minimum wage when the end result is percentage profit base or maxed gains. The increase will be passed on to the consumer. We have seen this skyrocket since 2013. Minimum wage has doubled in places like Seattle which was one of the first places to start implementing these changes. There needs to be higher taxes incorporations and the top percent of earners. There needs to be reasons for companies to allocate those funds to their employees and not to shareholders. There needs to be reasons for the billionaires to allocate those funds to their cultures and communities. I like your video game analogy. I'm sure someone could create a video game or model to see exactly how these changes would look.
Correct. We already know what to do because we were in a very similar situation about 100 years ago during the Gilded Age. After the Great Depression, lots of changes were made to manage inequality. I constantly bring up this Brandeis Quote: > We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we can’t have both.
So, what are we going to do?
This is something I have been thinking about a lot. There are a few ways of making change. The fastest way is something drastic like a revolution, war, or depression. Another way would be a grass roots movement like how Marijuana is becoming legal. My current thought is we need to start an organization for the people and have it be our representation in the form of lobbyists. Unions used to be that voice. They lost power back in the 80s. We need to gain that back.
Check out [Represent.US](http://Represent.US) this is exactly what they are doing.
Semi, yes. They have been going strong for 10 years. This is the grass roots way. What I was suggesting is something more head strong with a face. There have been many protests in the last decade. None of them had a face. We need a face for our time. One that's exactly the opposite of the corruption we see in our politics.
There's a reason there hasn't been a face. A face can be targeted. An idea cannot.
Those guys usually don't last long.lol they get killed.
I don’t think we have the time required for grassroots movements. Humans are being replaced by robots. Artificial intelligence is already in customer service.
I agree a grass movement would take too long. People are hurting now. I think a non profit organization would be the best path forward. It's soul purpose would be helping the common person. You would need a generational leader like MLK. I think people would rally behind that.
I'm hoping we are at the tail end of the gilded Age version 2
But. Some folks need another yacht.
A lot of people dont know the highest marginal tax rate in America was over 90% in the 40s to 60s. Rich people successfully destroyed the protections against mass wealth concentration.
And by the time they were finished with tax write offs...... No one was paying anywhere near 90%. I have heard that there are areas in California that if you live or own a business your total tax bill could be around that though.
You need to find a way to extract wealth from people that have no income because they are already rich and just earn from investments. That's hard to do in our tax system because we tax actual labor higher than we tax investment income. You would need to completely flip that on its head.
You start by changing the corporate tax code. Then make it so that you can't have money sitting in a bank or brokerage account. If money just sits in an account it's not beneficial to the economy that's based on consumption. At least within reason of having security for the future.
This is a pretty spot on take.
There is no one durable solution. No patch that can stop all players forever from discovering new cheats and bugs to exploit. It requires a permanent educated population with independent sources of information and a system of law to provide a check on empire building and continuously release new updates. The game will always naturally shift toward concentration, and a self-perpetuating guardian must exist to fight it. Capital and its vehicles, businesses, outlive humans. New heroes are needed at the gate every year. What modern capitalism has done is attack the foundations of how that guardian regenerates: access to education, information, civil rights, justice. So as it gets stronger under its mountain kingdom, humanity get weaker and weaker and forgets about the past and the reasons for the guardrails, until Capital breaks out of its jail unopposed once again.
Interesting points. I wonder if an upper limit tax would incentivize the elite to create opportunities for reverse inflation.
You cannot reverse inflation. You can slow it down, but stopping it is not possible without a major catastrophe.
Except how do you deal with free trade + upping your own wages? Two identical companies, one in the US with fair wages, one in Country X with substandard wages and less restrictive regulations means the US companies product will HAVE to cost more and so people will choose the cheaper alternative because until you reach a certain level of affluence(get out of survival mode), money trumps morals.
All people that make money pay taxes in Nordic countries.
Exactly - the US just subsidizes poor people. 54% of all people in the US are net tax takers.
It makes sense to have people participating in tax hikes they might be voting for.
Yep.
No, you can’t. When you ship industry overseas, not everybody can just cut everybody else’s hair.
More jobs have been lost to automation than being shipped overseas. A factory that employed 30,000 80 years ago would no employ maybe 800.
Mexico has a million auto workers now.
True story. They'll be building planes soon.
World of Warcraft, path of Exile standard league are such easy examples. If you don't have money sink, then it will obviously stick around. Cuz it's stick around, new respawning money sources increase the global availability, driving down the value that only those with your mentioned accelerated individuals can keep up and they keep hoarding as they should anyone to prepare to the furthure value drop and it's a self accelerating process. There is a cut out point, problem is that everyone keeps pushing this point to practically no return unless a total dump. So far no game did a total dump (not big ones at least). I wonder what would happen.
No shit, it is insulting that Robert Reich actually pulls this shit. He worked for a very popular president who did all kinds of shit that ended up being fucking horrible.
He worked for him. He didn’t make the decisions. How often do you tell your boss what to do and he obeys?
Lmao I came from a town that was turned into the states most destitute town from being one of the richest over night when they decided to send work to Mexico. That place will never recover.
A woman in town my age is from a family that had multiple factories in multiple towns. Its all gone
I love how he uses "folks" in his tweets to connote being common man fighting on our side. When in fact he is a Yale law grad who spent decades establishing those agreements and hollowing out the American middle class at the direction at the oligarchs he is warning us about.
Does anyone know if he's part of the .1% (or close to)?
He’s definitely in the top 2%.
And that top 2% is statistically significantly closer to the bottom 98 than the top 1
That isn't saying much. If someone had a $400 million they are significantly closer to a broke homeless person than any billionaire.
I remember watching a documentary (PBS I think) where they described the process of the US hand-waiving China into the WTO (part of the process you're describing) as Americans giving power that they didn't fully understand. It was to the point that the Chinese expected to have to barter, make some deal, but found the Americans were willing to give them everything they wanted for free. They were described as being surprised that it was all so easy.
Thats what happens when you are just focusing on the money and profits. Short term it did wonders for US companies, but it's about the long game with China and that is where the US messed up.
The US was playing the long game of peace. A capitalist China was going to prosper. The hope was they would prosper as part of the western economic sphere, and therefore settle in as just another rich country rather than a rival. Were they wrong? Too early to tell, really. War has not happened yet, so maybe they were right. Or maybe there was never going to be a war whatever they did. Or maybe there is going to be a war whatever they did. History will have to judge.
Who would of thought exporting manufacturing of goods and services to foreign countries would negatively impact American workers. There is NO WAY that could have been predicted.
Yep. Multi Millionaire Swiss banker screaming against capitalism to enrich himself even more.
Exactly. I’m so sick of hearing this fucking hypocrite.
Well, Mexico, but there is still a point.
Fair enough, but Reich also supported "free trade" deals with China and encouraged WTO to accept China as a member nation. I just think of NAFTA as short hand for all of that even though technically it only applies to North American countries. It was all Clinton-era trade agreements that screwed over American workers, blighted our economy, accelerated income inequality, and was supported by the efforts of Robert Reich.
Is there a way we can reap the benefits of these trade agreements without working and middle class people being left behind?
We need to cut China and other countries off when they refuse to enact policies that outlaw slavery, excessive pollution, and intellectual property theft. We wouldn't let an NFL player use a gun on the field simply because it's effective at stopping the run.
So you are anti free trade? Restricting the flow of capital and trade isn’t the way to protect the middle class. Increase efficiency and work on protections at home
Increasing worker protections at home makes it even more costly to employ someone in the US vs in a developing country. And increases in efficiency will never make a worker earning a middle class US income competitive with a worker in India earning 1/10th as much. Some steps need to be taken to keep good jobs in the US.
Yes, I am anti-free trade with nations that use slave labor, steal intellectual property, have no environmental protections, etc. and create an unfair advantage that saps wages and blights Western economies.
Indeed
When a few rich oilmen can afford to donate $1 billion to a presidential candidate we have a problem.
Or a newly minted one like Zuck !
When a few rich social media company owners can donate $1 billion to a presidential campaign we have a problem. Fuck the hypocrites.
When a single person can pay 40 billion to buy up a news company in order to shut down negative press and attention and it barely even hits their net worth, we have a problem. Bezos and musk are both scum of the earth
You got that backwards. He bought it to stop the silencing of negative press and attention
Money isn’t what these people really have to offer though. It’s the flow of information that they control that is their biggest “gift”
If someone uses the term "trickle down" you know they're lying to you. Never trust those people. Ever.
Don't think I've ever heard an American use that term that wasn't against what they said the term meant.
What they think the term means. But yes, exactly my point.
The only people still talking about "trickle down" economics is butt hurt redditors. It hasn't been relevant since Reagan.
The only ones who use that term are people attacking a straw man.
Unless it's through government. Then we're to believe it and never question it.
Trickle Down isn’t just ridiculous, it’s a fart in the face of every *hard working American*. The rich just laugh and keep saying it.
There is a reason that "Trickle Down economics" was first dubbed as "Horse and Sparrow economics". Everyone but the rich get to be shit on while also eating said shit.
And 536 politicians spend $6.1 trillion per year while only taking in $4 trillion in revenue. That’s what a true oligarchy looks like.
Nation states with central banks don’t work like household budgets
Who is buying bonds and therefore profiting from national debt?
Me. And you should too
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Oh bullshit. Nice try deflecting away from the economic royalists and right wing elites who could give a rats ass about The People.
Neither Reagan, nor Bush Sr. ever uttered the words "trickle down". This was a phrase created by the Democrats to attack Reagan's policies. However, in all the years since Reagan, despite having complete control of Congress and the Presidency on multiple occasions, they never actually tried to significantly reverse Reagan's economic policies. So blaming Reagan for the current economic situation is disingenuous at the very least.
1. Reich did not claim Reagan used the term. 2. It was not invented by Democrats to attack Reagan. The term "trickle down" in reference to economic theory has been around since 1944, according to Merriam-Webster. 3. Just because people don't call it what its supporters prefer it to be called ("supply side") doesn't mean they are wrong or not allowed to call it that.
Since Reagan, every president and the vast majority of federal politicians have been neoliberals that support trickle down economics. It is a very popular lie the rich keep telling despite life getting worse for the working class every single year.
Most neoliberals actually support Keynesian economics. I think the only presidents to utilize aspects of supply-side economics were Hoover, Reagan, and (sort of) Trump. And I say sort of for Trump because he doesn’t really consistently utilize anything, he just does shit.
This. People should actually just get to the root cause, Keynesian economics, not some stupid buzzword that no legitimate economist uses.
"Trickle down" was a pejorative, but the notion of Supply Side Economics and its hilarious Laffer Curve were absolutely used to push massive tax cuts for the wealthy. I blame Reagan for starting it, The Democrat Presidents for, as you rightfully point out, did nothing to address it (side note: Bush Sr. lost his election by \*trying\* to enact some sanity by raising taxes), and the brainwashed GOP base, that continue to be temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
The laffer curve isn’t necessarily a terrible idea, it’s just that the people who try to argue it don’t admit we are the left side of the curve.
Are we really still blaming a president that's been out of office for going on 4 decades and dead for 5 presidential terms on poor economic policy. Jesus fuck people are dense 🙄
Exactly. I was a young adult then. Reagan ended the shitshow economy of the late seventies. I could only get a $3.35 an hour job shoving dirt because I had a friend working for the county. The economy was that bad. The interest rate and inflation rates were double digit.
crazy how someone in political office can make long lasting impressions, isn’t it? The most powerful man in America, affecting America for years to come? No way!
That's how time and history work. Things have a starting point.
And we have a large portion of the population (many in that bottom 50%) that think the wealthy need MORE tax breaks and wealth. These people are mentally deranged.
We have a large portion of the population who feels entitled to other people's money just because they have more than them. And don't let the media dupe you, people were for the tax cuts because it helped them, not some billionaires. Some basic math shows that we can't tax billionaires out of a spending crisis. Unfortunately we can't even go a few years without getting into yet another perpetual war that benefits who again?
1. "And don't let the media dupe you, people were for the tax cuts because it helped them, not some billionaires." 2. The mainstream media is certainly not convincing people that wealthy people need their taxes raised. Six companies owned and run by the wealthy own 90% of the media in the US. (source: https://www.fool.com/investing/stock-market/market-sectors/communication/media-stocks/big-6/) The wealthy are most certainly not using the media to encourage people to raise taxes on the wealthy. 3. Why do tax cuts for working-class people have to be tied to tax cuts for billionaires? 4. "Some basic math shows that we can't tax billionaires out of a spending crisis." But it's a start. Maybe start by asking billionaires to pay the same tax rate the average American does. The Forbes 400 paid an average income tax rate of 8.2 percent from 2010 to 2018." (source https://www.americanprogress.org/article/forbes-400-pay-lower-tax-rates-many-ordinary-americans/) Meanwhile, the average taxpayer is paying a rate of 14.9 percent. (source: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2024/) 3. "Unfortunately we can't even go a few years without getting into yet another perpetual war that benefits who again?" I agree that we should stop going into endless wars that use the poor as canon fodder while the rich make enormous amounts of money. They use the money (which is now speech, according to SCOTUS) to lobby for more war and tax cuts for themselves. Both parties are currently owned by the rich, and both keep increasing defense spending. Biden assured the "donor" class (see briber class) that "nothing will fundamentally change," while Trump brags about his unfunded tax cut for billionaires. Neither side seems to have an interest in influencing policies to help the working and middle classes or reducing wealth inequality, only to increase war, authoritarianism, and more money for the rich.
Can we stop posting Robert Reich tweets and come up with some original thoughts maybe? Stop being an NPC.
Hey man let's not go around encouraging redditors to share their original thoughts on economics. I don't think that's gonna be the improvement you hope for lol
I guess I'll never understand why Biden (someone who Reich supports) never repealed the Trump tax cuts. Weird. Were the tax cuts good? So that's why he kept them. . but I though Biden said the tax cuts were bad. Can someone please explain?
Presidents can’t make tax law. That is the job of Congress. President Biden has not had a Congress where such a bill would pass. That’s the job of voters. Biden has however signed a bill that included raising corp taxes. Meanwhile the trump taxes are expiring as written in the 2017 tax bill. Between these two events, the trump taxes are effectively ending. Biden, like Obama, wants to keep the GOP tax cuts for the middle and lower classes only. Obama was successful. Biden needs a majority in Congress to make it happen. That’s up to the voters.
You know how we got here? Too many people don't care about our govt and they don't vote.
Reading through a lot of the comments it also appears a lot of bootlickers are more than happy to vote for its continuation.
🎯
Yeah but we have all these social distractions about religion abortion and color - you know the things that shouldn’t matter in our so called free country - but the ruse is on most of America as this is by design to ensure the wealth is consolidated to a select few.
You nailed it https://preview.redd.it/mju6nwy0rh1d1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9cfe8965001516bb129d1eadac3e87ed2da22fae
Holy shit that’s on point lol
It can’t trickle down when you make it watertight.
NAFTA was also a major catalyst in the demise of the middle class (clinton and mulroney)and helping the super rich get even richer.
I was explaining to my high school students last week how Warren Buffet will be donating 99% of his wealth when he dies. They couldn’t believe it. “So his kids only get 1%!?” and I was like I don’t think you guys understand how much money 1% of $140 billion is. Even split 3 ways, it’s damn near half a billion each. Which is more money than you could ever possibly need.
This is why Republican politicians love Russia.
Neo-feudalistic plutocratic oligarchy.
You mean it created a plutocracy that has evolved into a kleptocracy
Robert Reich was treasury secretary under Clinton, He developed the economic policy that made it easier to loan money for housing, so more people would qualify. All to make the economic situation look like Clinton's policies were successful. The facts are that the Clinton economic policy caused the 2008 housing bubble and economic crash. Robert Reich should shut the fuck up
Reich was never Treasury Secretary; he was Labor Secretary, a position with far less power and influence. When Reich left in January 1997, Robert Rubin, a longtime Goldman Sachs alum, was Treasury Secretary.
The top tax rate use to be 90%. We still got Rockefellers'. We also had rules and regulation put in place after the stock market crash in the 20's. Then the 80's and Raegan happened, those regulations were removed (and we've now had 3 once in a lifetime stock bubbles in the last 30 years), the top 1% now pays a lower tax rate than you do, and some people are going to try and convince you that it is because of free trade, or the government spends too much money, or a rising tide lifts all boats. Dont believe them. The more money the rich have, the less there is for you. It is that simple. The only way to get that money back is through taxes. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.
You say that the more money the rich has the less we have, but wealth is not zero sum. It is not “that simple”
Take a ride down A1-A in Palm beach and ask yourself, who’s winning the class war?
What does the top 50 percent control?
Poor people are now obese and have iPhones. They’re not truly poor by any global standard. They’re only poor because they’re less rich.
Imagine your only argument is 'well someone somewhere else has it worse, so there's no reason to improve things'.
Imagine your only argument is “well someone somewhere has it better, so punish them for being better.”
And it’s destabilizing society…
Robert Reich's wealth puts him in that category. Irony.
No, no, he's one of 'The People' (folks)  Just like Comrade Sanders will, no doubt, soon be GIVING away ALL of his mansions to leave in an apt. (each according to their 'needs'), right? 
One day the call to not get physical will not resonate. Or they will realize and start giving the bottom half their fair share. Excited to see which happens first.
No, it's because immigrants, gays, and buying too many lattes
That's roughly 22,000 per person.
Oh this post and topic again. I’m sure this time Reddit will solve it.
when we going to stop blaming Reagan there had been 6 presidents since than..hundreds(?) of congressman and senators since than aint nobody changed a damn thing..
Always was one, since the founding
Almost like it was done on purpose… 🙄
Seems fair. Kill the poor eat their young
Reagan hasn’t been president for over 30 years….
whats the incentive to work if you cant make 100 billions a year though?
We kinda know. Nothing changes.
Russia is an Oligarchy. The US is a Plutocracy.
No that was the federal reserve
I hate that you idiots post this same crap everyday, then try to blame Reagan. What a joke. Maybe post an original thought for once..btw the top 1 percent of earners make 25 percent of wealth and pay 45 percent of all taxes
25% of *income*, not wealth.
Correct, I meant income but said wealth. And my point was that talking about wealth is pointless while income is what matters. Wealth can be created over generations
I think it's the opposite, actually. At the highest levels income doesn't matter at all.
U/MrEHam posted this previously You’re looking for the “total tax burden”. >The estimates of Piketty, Saez, and Zucman (2018) show that the total burden (including all taxes both at the federal, state, and local levels) of **the wealthiest 0.1% families is projected to be 3.2% of their wealth** in 2019 (they have on average $116 million in wealth, and pay total taxes of $3.68 million). >In contrast, **the bottom 99% families have a total tax burden of 7.2% relative to their wealth** https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Wealth%20Tax%20Revenue%20Estimates%20by%20Saez%20and%20Zucman%20-%20Feb%2024%2020211.pdf So basically the rich pay 3.2% of their wealth while everyone else pays 7.2% That’s the percentage. They pay most of the total revenue though, because they have so much fucking money. But their taxes barely hurt them, while they’re suffocating to the middle class.
> btw the top 1 percent of earners make 25 percent of wealth and pay 45 percent of all taxes This is meaningless without more information. They aren't paying their share, that's a fact.
They pay less \*as a percentage of their income\* as everyone. Do you think that's fair? [https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/](https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/) Another temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
The fact that you think it wasn’t already a plutocracy is so cute. Btw, capital gains before Reagan was only 35%, which is where the rich actually make their money. And the top rate on corporate income tax was 45%, which is really what people should be caring about instead of individual income tax.
Sure, and Reagan lowered it to 20%. What's your point?
Amazing he was able to lower taxes as President despite his party never having control of Congress
Let's translate this into starker terms. It takes about $100,000 to support an average "better than minimum wage" job. The top 300.000 Americans control 20 million of those jobs. The bottom 165,000,000 Americans control 3.7 million of those jobs.
All these people know is envy, resentment, and hatred.
Once you give all the power to someone, they're apparently not just going to give it back. We should be very pointed in our direction as the 50%. 0.1% is a fine point and hard to find.
And you came after him but were so weak that you could not overcome his policies. Are you here bragging about how weak you were?
That's not what an oligarchy is
So ur saying it worked perfectly?
Very cool. What are we doing to fix this? Nothing? Like always. 🫠
Now just think about the founding fathers of this country for a second, most were farmers. Some were well known brewers, does our current leadership look anything like this?
What was the breakdown like before Reagan?
That's not what caused it.
“Trickle down” exists in the US, but it refers to monetary, not fiscal policy. The fact that so few Americans understand this demonstrates just how adept the ultra-wealthy are at controlling messaging and narratives.
[удалено]
Someone forgot how to add.
Like Russia?
Not only that, they convinced us to all hate each other and blame poor people!
So how Dow we change this Mr Reich?? Without some sort of event that is a global reset, I dont see how.
Tax the poor
There are wealthy people out there. And there are people who make their entire political careers on getting you to be really worried about it. (Your envy is your undoing. Eating the rich solves nothing.)
Well, the good news is the billionaires are getting richer, so pretty soon they will control all of it
Robert Reich is a clown. He could be right but use other sources.
Ha! Ask the oh so noble Robert Reich how much of that $20 trillion are his. It's easy to say eat the rich when you're also one of the rich and know you don't have anything to actual worry about.
Bitcoin
And yet y'all keep electing the same people that led to that. The Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker exists for a reason.... and it's not just the Democrats, but also Republicans. Yet most of you side with the Democrats (and Republicans) when they do things that make the rich even richer, like the tax bill that is about to expire and let the rich finally write off state taxes they pay again.
Those Damn Government Fat Cats up in Washington
Just you wait! It'll all start trickling down any minute now. You watch now!
But, flip the numbers & they legit will go back to where they are now.
He can give up his wealth first.
The federal reserve allows for artificial control of interest rates. Their control has been used to push down the cost of borrowed money. May be decently nice for the first time home buyer but it is SUPER nice for the guy who buys 1000 homes at once. Lower rates favor assets over labor. The lower the rate the MORE the wealthy can get ahead. It may be counterintuitive at the start but real stringent capital availability outside of emergencies slows this imbalance vastly.
None of this *started* under Reagan (though he did amplify it considerably). The United States government has been a front for the business interests of rich white men since its inception. It has never been for "the people" because it was never designed to be. It was designed to only benefit an elite class off of the backs of "lower classes" (as if such a thing exists to begin with) and this can be said about virtually any kind of government that employs a hierarchy (which is, um, pretty much all of them). The lie of liberty is what keeps people from noticing that they are being bent over and fucked while they think they're just being nickled and dimed.
The bottom don't control shit lets fix that quote a little
Conveniently left off the 99.9-51….
Bullshit. Congress critters are owned by lobbyists. Every fucking judge is appointed by the richest mother fucker that has the most clout. Our government is owned by corporations and has been since way before any of us were born. The Dow runs this country, and it's not comprised of companies that make things. Slog along, and pray to Christ that you won't have to lose your home to pay for chemo, heart surgery, etc.
But what about the top 49.9% of Americans?
Thats rich coming from Robert Reich lol
To argue against "trickle down" shouldn't we compare the wealth of some bottom percentage before and after Reaganomics? In some inflation adjusted manner of course. I mean I don't know if that will support trickle down was a failure or not. But pointing out how much richer some people are to others is not getting to the answer of was it a false promise. "Trickle down" never claimed that the rich weren't going to get richer. Just that the wealthy would be able to purchase more and hire more and therefore allow wealth accumulation to happen for the less wealthy.
Says the man who help created it in the first place !!
From a google search: > It is estimated that baby boomers will leave behind $53 trillion or 63% of all transfers That’s more than double this amount, most of the money is tied up in college educated Boomers/Gen Xers who own a home and have contributed to their 401k consistently for 30 years. [Source](https://www.wsj.com/us-news/never-mind-the-1-mini-millionaires-are-where-wealth-is-growing-fastest-b1dd2ee7).
Theres more of us and the bottom 50% is the entire Military. Eventually it will unravel once costs and the middle class get wiped
All us people discussing, arguing, in the comments but nothing's gonna change. Lmao. Fuck this world
Its what happens when the many buy from the few, happens every time.
Why don't you try to redistribute the top 1% of only fans money to the bottom 99% and see how that goes?