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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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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
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Sure
Equality
Society
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Opportunity
Core
Mobility
Everyone
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More quotes by Robert Reich

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You can't inspire people if you are going to be uninspiring.
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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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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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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I started in the law and the study of law, when it precedes the study of economics, gives you a set of foundation principles about how human beings interact. Economics is very useful, and I studied economics in graduate school. But without understanding the social and organizational context of economics, it becomes a theory without any groundwork.
Robert Reich
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I was there in Washington in the `90s. It was pretty bad then. It`s much worse now [in 2015]. And that vicious cycle is you`ve got again big corporations, executives, Wall Street, very wealthy individuals in both parties who are calling the shots.
Robert Reich
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Social change occurs when the gap between the ideals that people hold and the reality that they see every day gets too large.
Robert Reich
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Most Americans are on a downward escalator. Median wage in the United States, adjusted for inflation, keeps on dropping.
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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Radical conservatives want to police bedrooms.
Robert Reich
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We're now moving toward a radically different economy. You absolutely can't have a distribution oligopoly. The new oligopolies - and I think there will be new oligopolies - will be oligopolies of trustworthiness. Microsoft, Amazon, Schwab, and other brands will dominate psychic space, not shelf space.
Robert Reich
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There`s sort of a chilling effect on non-profits and the media and a lot of other places because the establishment is so powerful. That`s where the money is.
Robert Reich
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The only way America can reduce the long-term budget deficit, maintain vital services, protect Social Security and Medicare, invest more in education and infrastructure, and not raise taxes on the working middle class is by raising taxes on the super rich.
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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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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When the President decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from congress.
Robert Reich
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There are party leaders, big corporation, Wall Street. There are very wealthy individuals who kind of represent where the Democratic Party, the official Democratic Party was and to some extent still is.
Robert Reich
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We do not want to live in a theocracy. We should maintain that barrier and government has no business telling someone what they ought to believe or how they should conduct their private lives.
Robert Reich
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I wish it were simply a nightmare, but I think that any reasonable person watching American politics would come to the conclusion that a second Bush administration would in fact incorporate a more radicalized version of what we've seen in the first administration.
Robert Reich
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There is a crisis of public morality. Instead of policing bedrooms, we ought to be doing a better job policing boardrooms.
Robert Reich