The series of linked videos below highlight ideas to fix the economy, the top 11 12 points on Robert Reich‘s mind when it comes to our current economic problems. These aren’t rocket science or socialism, just some pretty hard-nosed factual recommendations; and we’d do well to follow them. They run contrary to the long debunked refrain of Reaganomics or trickle-down economics that has held sway in the US since Ronaldus Maximus was President, long before most of the people currently breathing on this planet were born.
They also run counter to most current libertarian economic theory. It is painful to say this, but most libertarian thought on the subject of economics is so woefully uneducated that I almost balk at calling them out. Doing so is not likely to be profitable based on the standard of keeping old friends. As I was crafting this article a post from a good friend on Facebook showed up, trumpeting the flat tax proposals of Libertarian darling Rand Paul.
A flat tax will do nothing to recapture the ill-gotten gains of the wealthiest Americans, the people who profited from the latest boom and bust, as well as the previous boom and bust cycles. Cycles that have grown shorter and shorter since deregulation went into effect under… Ronald Reagan, who was also influenced by libertarian ideas of his time.
Recapturing this cash and redistributing it to the vast majority of Americans through increased pay and investment in infrastructure is essential if we are going to build a functioning economy and not fuel the next cycle of boom and bust. It is the outrageous amounts of cash that allow the 1% to engage in risky stock market betting like we’ve seen since the 1980’s.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
A word about the composition of this post. Linking videos that are native on Facebook is a stupidly fiddly process, and Facebook is where I found these videos first. Consequently the text intro for each is a Facebook link, while the videos are from Youtube, giving me the ability to watch and comment on each video while it is running.
#1 is raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
There are several common misconceptions about the minimum wage. He hits most of those points in the video. The free market types who object to minimum wage laws on the basis that it interferes with employer/employee contracts, or that it could cause inflation, only see part of the bigger picture which Reich addresses in the video. Commerce relies on the majority of the population being able to afford the goods generally available to that population. That means paying the working class enough for them to live on.
#2 is to make work family friendly.
I quit my regular job to raise our second child. We could not afford to put our child into expensive daycare, and I really wanted to spend time at home with what I knew would be our last baby, having missed seeing much of our firstborn in her early years due to the demands of an architectural career in the job climate prevalent in the US. Had it been possible for me to take on outsource work at home, work from home, etc. the impact on our families’ finances would have been less drastic. Had it been possible for the Wife to spend meaningful time with the baby while still working in her tech career, I might not have had to give up architecture for a few years longer, might have enjoyed my final years in my chosen profession before being sidelined with a disability.
#3 is to expand Social Security.
As a current Social Security beneficiary, I should probably recuse myself from commenting on this video. Still, it bears mentioning that the the cap that he focuses on is far too low (because of past inflation) and that rather than set a dollar figure cap, if a higher cap is the compromise solution, there should be a median income calculation involved in determining what the cap should be. Inflation will continue. Wages will continue to rise. Upper range incomes will continue to get higher unless we re-institute confiscatory income tax (90% as it was when introduced) for high wage earners. Might as well write laws that take it into account.
#4 is to bust up Wall Street.
How I wish this one stood a chance of happening. I only do business with a bank when I’m required to; unfortunately that happens more today than it did in decades past. The reason for this is the lax rules on banks that should never have been relaxed in the first place.
Most of what is happening today is reminiscent of what occurred at the turn of the last century. One of the books I’m currently reading is The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism much of the battle the occurred then is re-occurring now. Nearly daily I get a sense of deja vu reading the news. I recognize this struggle. It is a shame that more people do not learn from history.
#5 is how to reinvent education.
This one carried no real news for me. Having gotten one child through college and working on getting the second one through high school, and being an involved parent, has left me with few delusions about the state of US schools. They are pathetic. So pathetic, in fact, that I paid for private school for my children (Montessori) until their needs weren’t met by the school. Then I took the time to make sure they went to good charter schools, magnet schools, etc. Anything except the standard schools offered to average Texans.
The objection often raised to charter schools is that they are religious in nature. While it is true that some alternative schools are religious, the schools I selected for my children have actually had less religious content (generally) than the public schools in Texas promote. Sometimes people seek alternatives for very good reasons.
#6 is to end corporate welfare.
This is an old favorite of mine. If corporations get handouts then everyone should get handouts; because the corporations demonstrably don’t need anything to continue existing. They have no physicality to maintain, being figments of law in the first place. We would be much better off handing money to every citizen rather than handing it out to corporations.
#7 is to strengthen labor unions.
I’ve never been a fan of unions; still, it is hard to argue against the positive effects that collective bargaining can bring to the employment side of the equation. Collective bargaining levels the playing field when negotiating with large employers. Unionization lead to days off, 8 hour work days, breaks for meals, extra pay for overtime, etc, etc, etc.
When capitalists spit at socialism in my presence these days, I point out the benefits that have come to the working masses due to the influence of socializing forces like unionization. If you don’t want to go back to working nude in the same place you sleep, with your children huddled around you at night for warmth because your employer is too cheap to heat the workplace (read The Bully Pulpit as mentioned previously) unions are a good thing to have.
(Putting employee representation on the board of public corporations, making corporations worker owned, would do more to fix the uneven playing field more quickly than creating an adversarial relationship between employers and employees with traditional labor unions. -ed.)
#8 is to raise the estate tax on the very wealthy.
Everyone who can work, should work. The existence of a wealthy class who feel entitled to live off of the earnings of their parents and grandparents is contrary to the ideals that the US was founded on. Contrary to the Midwestern work ethic most of us grew up with. It is hard enough for me as a disabled person who is lucky to get from the bed to the chair some days to justify not working. I can’t even fathom the thought processes of the 1% who wouldn’t dream of working for a living.
Or to quote Chris Rock ‘If poor people knew how rich the rich are, there would be riots’.
The following video isn’t one of the series I’m commenting on here, but it bears reposting.
It and the other videos in the playlist talk about this same subject, how wealth inequality is worse than it has been in almost a century, and the last time it was like this, the economy didn’t improve until after we fought the second world war. That should not be a direction we should head in this time around.
Also in that playlist is a trailer for Robert Reich‘s excellent film Inequality for All. I have viewed the film several times on Netflix and recommend it to anyone who wants to get a feel for the problems America currently faces. This as opposed to repeating trickle-down mantras in the hopes that they will self-correct and prove themselves true in the long run.
#9 is to make polluters pay US.
I can still hear the screaming raised against the carbon tax back when President Obama first took office and suggested some of these very things. Six plus years later, it is even clearer that the only solution is to do exactly what this video suggests. Make the oil companies and energy companies pay to use carbon producing fuels. Incentivize the use of green technologies. CO2 is over 400 now. We can’t keep adding it to the atmosphere. We just can’t, if we want our species to continue.
#10 End mass incarceration, now!
This is probably the biggest point of agreement with libertarian/anarchist thinking on the subject of governance and the economy. The kind of thinking I was most frequently exposed to while active in the LP of Texas for about a decade. The business of keeping prisoners has been a target of small government types for years, long before the average American or the re-emerging liberal majority took notice of it. It is a serious embarrassment that the US has 2.5 million members of its population behind bars; more than any other nation on the face of the planet.
Needless to say, as soon as the 10 were out, there was a glaring need for one more item on the list (isn’t that the way it always works?) So here is the latest one;
#11 Medicare for all.
The problem with most free market approaches to healthcare is that modern medicine is too complex. It’s ability to function, to deliver its product (if health is even a product that can be sold) is tightly linked to corporate structures that are themselves an imposition on free markets. Price gouging is a part of the calculation of every new drug introduced to the market, how much can we get away with charging for this drug? And testing and development of these drugs requires large staffs, deep pockets, wide access to the population. The only way to counter the corporate nature of modern medicine is to either subject them to public control directly (which would be socialism with all the baggage that a state-run organization brings to the table. This would stifle innovation) or to leverage the pricing of the drugs and services produced with collective bargaining. It has to be one way or the other. Neither solution is pretty, but the group purchasing option that medicare provides leaves the companies free to do what they do best, produce goods for the general public.
He swears this is the last one. Makes an even dozen.
#12 Get Money Out of Politics.
I’ve been on this bandwagon for about a year now. Maybe longer. I blogged about this subject after reading several scholarly articles on the subject of campaign finance, and reading Lawrence Lessig’s book Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress–and a Plan to Stop It which is free online now. In my article from last November, following the election, I list the various groups working to get money out of politics. If you want to get involved in politics, if you want to see any of these many points acted on and made policy, then I suggest you contact one of those groups or get involved in your local precinct for whichever flavor of the two major parties that you prefer (D or R) if you object and say “I want more choices than that” then I need to be frank with you. Including more choices than those two on ballots requires more work than even the 12 points addressed here would require. You’re welcome to engage in that struggle if you have the strength for it. Or just go vote when the time comes. If you don’t know where that is, go here.
His book Saving Capitalism should be in bookstores (if you can find one) soon. You can vote on which one of these 12 ideas will be a new campaign for Moveon to promote here. Has to be #12 for me.
