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If consumers don't have the wherewithal to spend because all the money's going to the top, and the people at the top only spend a very small fraction of what they earn, then the economy is almost inevitably destined to slow.

Robert Reich

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Robert Reich
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: June 24
Economist
Former United States Secretary Of Labor
Political Scientist
Politician
University Teacher
Scranton
Pennsylvania
Robert Bernard Reich
Economy
Fraction
Small
Fractions
Almost
Inevitably
Money
Destined
Going
Earn
People
Consumers
Slow
Spend
Wherewithal

More quotes by Robert Reich

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The dirty little secret is that both houses of Congress are irrelevant. ... America's domestic policy is now being run by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve, and America's foreign policy is now being run by the International Monetary Fund [IMF]. ...when the president decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from Congress.
Robert Reich
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The Democratic Party is DEAD.
Robert Reich
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If you give up on politics, you're giving up on democracy. And if you give up on democracy, you're basically saying to the moneyed interests, the powerful people and institutions of society, take it all. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then we give up. Then we are 100 percent plutocracy.
Robert Reich
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I, from the luxury of my laptop computer, can summon extraordinary bargains on everything I want, and I can also move my savings anywhere. This ability to choose more broadly and to switch more easily is the central fact of modern economic life.
Robert Reich
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We already have an annual wealth tax on homes, the major asset of the middle class. It's called the property tax. Why not a small annual tax on the value of stocks and bonds, the major assets of the wealthy?
Robert Reich
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Liberals are concerned about the concentration of wealth because it almost inevitably leads to a concentration of power that undermines democracy.
Robert Reich
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You ask, Could we have an honest discussion about earnings insurance? I think we could, if people understood that the alternative was to build up a backlash against global capital, against free trade, against technological change.
Robert Reich
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We can't know in advance what history is going to say, but I would be utterly amazed and surprised if this entire adventure, this entire Iraqi invasion from the beginning of its inception, were not judged to be an utter failure and a terrible, terrible thing for the world.
Robert Reich
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Yale Law School was the kind of place you went if you felt you needed to go to law school, maybe, for your resume, but you really didn't want to practice law. You wanted to do public policy, or maybe go into politics.
Robert Reich
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A funny thing happened to the First Amendment on its way to the public forum. According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech and corporations are now people. But when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they’re treated as public nuisances and evicted.
Robert Reich
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We used to be so proud that our country offered far more economic opportunities than the feudal system in Great Britain, with its royal family, princesses and dukes. But social mobility in the UK is higher than in the US. Our social rift is as big as it was in the 1920s.
Robert Reich
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Terrorism itself is not the greatest danger we face.
Robert Reich
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The silent majority really is a liberal majority, even though the word liberal has taken a real beating over the last 20 years by radical conservatives.
Robert Reich
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Disney is no longer just Mickey Mouse Disney is family entertainment. And we're seeing more and more brands change into something that is far greater and broader than individual products and services.
Robert Reich
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Cynicism is the largest obstacle to social change. Cynicism is dangerous because people throw up their hands and say, Well it's not possible. Why should I even try?
Robert Reich
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The core principle is that we want an economy that works for everyone, not just for a small elite. We want equal opportunity, not equality of outcome. We want to make sure that there's upward mobility again, in our society and in our economy.
Robert Reich
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The only way to grow the economy in a way that benefits the bottom 90 percent is to change the structure of the economy. At the least, this requires stronger unions and a higher minimum wage.
Robert Reich
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Any bank that is too big to fail is too big. Period.
Robert Reich
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Those who analogize the federal budget to a family's budget must know nothing about either.
Robert Reich
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If you ever want to get a sense of your own personal failure, look at yourself trying to get across a point that nobody is listening to and the situation gets worse and worse.
Robert Reich