Robert Reich

Broadcast September 28, 2001 Consumer confidence is dropping like a stone. Mass layoffs are sending chills through an America already shaken by the horror of September 11th. Last week alone, companies announced more than 100,000 layoffs, and there are signs of hundreds of thousands more to come. Worries about terrorism, coupled with growing worries about […]

New York Times I do not believe that it is politically feasible to insulate such huge funds from a governmental direction,” Alan Greenspan told the House Ways and Means Committee last week, one day after President Clinton proposed investing a portion of Social Security funds in the stock market. Mr. Greenspan was equally forthright in […]

The Wall Street Journal As America mobilizes for war, Washington must think more clearly about what it wants from American industry. K Street is ablaze with proposed subsidies, loan guarantees, tax breaks, and regulatory relief for industries termed “vital” to the anti-terrorist effort. In war-fevered Washington, politicians of all stripes may be too eager to […]

Broadcast December 14, 2001 One of the things we’re hearing a lot these days from political leaders is “We need to try to get our lives back to normal.” None of us can go back to exactly what we were doing before September 11th, of course, and no one’s suggesting we should stop grieving for […]

Broadcast November 16, 2001 We hear a lot about a stimulus package coming out of Congress, eventually. Regardless of what combination of tax cuts and spending increases finally emerges, almost everyone agrees that the government has to spur the economy right now. Alan Greenspan and company can’t do it alone. Cuts in short-term rates are […]

Broadcast December 6, 2001 For years now, many management gurus have been urging companies to give their employees a larger share of the profits. The thinking was that workers who invested in their own company would work harder because there’d be a direct connection between effort and reward. This idea came just at a time […]

Financial Times Americans are turning against free trade. To halt the protectionist tide, government must minimise the hardship and dislocation caused by foreign competition. In a recent poll, 58 per cent of Americans agreed with the statement that foreign trade was “bad for the US economy because cheap imports hurt wages”. Only 32 per cent […]

The Washington Post Suddenly, there’s a new conversation among the country’s movers and shakers, and several ambitious plans for helping the bottom half share in the nation’s prosperity: Give them, literally, a share in America. Spread capitalism by spreading capital. Consider President Clinton’s proposed “Universal Savings Accounts.” Families earning less than $40,000 would get an […]

The Wall Street Journal If you want to make a dent in the real problems of poor people around the world, don’t fund another panel of experts to do a major report on global hunger, overpopulation, global poverty, global illiteracy, child labor or ethnic strife. Don’t create a program, institute or project staffed by earnest […]