Robert Reich
Robert Reich
Robert Bernard Reichis an American political commentator, professor, and author. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth24 June 1946
CountryUnited States of America
heart years laughing
One thing I've learned from 35 years in the classroom is that people learn best when they are laughing, when they are emotionally hit, that it's both the brain and the heart.
iraq world invasion
We can't know in advance what history is going to say, but I would be utterly amazed and surprised if American invasion to Iraq from the beginning of its inception, were not judged to be an utter failure and a terrible, terrible thing for the world.
rights years america
Planned Parenthood and Human Rights Campaign they`re not really the establishment. I can`t obviously speak for Senator [Bernie] Sanders or about Planned Parenthood. But what we do see, and we`ve seen for years in America, is that the establishment, that is, the big banks and the executives and the wealthy do support a lot of non-profits and make the non-profits basically walk to the tune of the establishment.
answers inequality response
Education is not the only answer and it's certainly not the immediate solution. At best, it's a necessary, but not sufficient response to widening inequality.
people world littles
The world of politics is divided between people who are introverts - who lose a little bit of energy out of each interaction they have so that by the time the day ends, after 1,000 interactions, they're exhausted - and people like Bill Clinton who are extroverted - who get a little bit of energy from each interaction.
wall party calling-the-shots
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.
giving-up democracy might
If you give up on democracy, you might as well give up on everything.
teacher wall important
We are paying teachers who are in charge of our human capital, arguably more important than our financial capital, a very tiny fraction of what Wall Streeters are paid.
government games people
One of the things I tell my students is that if you want to understand what's been going on and also what needs to be done, you've got to get out of the blame game. Some people on the left want to blame the rich and corporations. Some people on the right want to blame the poor and government. Either of those frames of reference gets you nowhere and they aren't even truthful. You've got to understand the dynamic itself.
safe united-states harbors
The United States is a safe harbor.
growing rich economy
The rich would do better with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy then they're doing now with a large share of an economy that is barely growing at all.
listening trying want
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.
needs lines poverty
The poverty line understates the true amount of poverty because it measures it as three times the breadbasket that a family needs, but it doesn't consider all the other things that are inflating far, far faster than food prices.
thinking hands class
I am not an economic determinist. If I were, I would throw up my hands; I just would not bother. I think it's wrong to be an economic determinist. I think it's wrong to simply say, "Well, inevitably, if you're poor, you're going to get a lousy education; if you're lower-middle class, the cards are going to be stacked against you, and you'll probably never get anywhere."