Reich: How Unequal Can America Get ?

Robert Reich, a visiting professor at the UC, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy and former U.S. Secretary of Labor talks about the inequality of income, wealth and opportunity in the United States and asks his audience to speculate on what will happen if these trends continue. Series: "Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley" [5/2005] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 9521]

Category:

Education

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• Robert
• Reich
• inequality
• of
• income
• economy

[Sonicalex0]

Current political corruption will make snap back nearly unachievable.

While the heavy American patriotism will make the robber band more robust, but if it does break, the consequences will be that much more worse.

[ChowMein09]

@FnordPerfect 10% is hardly a majority. The real question is whether it's unequal or not, and it incontrovertibly is.

[FnordPerfect]

The point Reich makes about the unequal increase of wealth at about 9:00 does not really work out. In fact, it is actually exactly the other way around, and this can be proven using the very data he uses to make his point: He says that in 1962, the top 1% had a net worth of 5.2 M$ while the next 9% had 0.5 M$, whereas in 2001 they had 13 and 1.8 M$, respectively. Now if we look at the math, this comes down to a 360% increase in wealth for the 9%, yet a mere 240% increase for the top 1%.

[sha370z]

what out housing you will alway be poor .and the people that have a home are under water

and late on payments .the banks took back millions of homes already

[DerrickDurden]

@MadeInQorea Well your point would be valid if wealth was completely constant and never increased but that is simply untrue, total wealth can grow and that is caused when the production possibility frontier is pushed outwards by increases in technology and education. How do we get a better educated work force? Make colleges more affordable by either subsidizing them to the point of being free or increase the amount of money available for people to go to school. Wealth is not a quantitative #.

[DemonicToilet]

@DemonicToilet 38:30

[MadeInQorea]

well although that ONE PERCENT has like ALOT of money, if distributed evenly to the 99%, not much will change... i agree that it is unequal but as number of people grows, amount of money to go around diminishes. amount of money printed should go according to # of people in the US, and not on how much we owe other ppl or whatever. let the rich have their money, they feel guilty in the end anyways.

[DemonicToilet]

i got to remember I left off at 28:00

[mimjack]

Oh Snap!

[flawns]

@MrKirner It's your progressiveism and you use it when you need it