Okay. Some strange kind of biased censorship of comments going on here. I think I got the message. So long.

Reich lives in the fantasy land of the political landscape of his youth. The republic is gone, and in it's place is the grotesque facade of inverted totalitarianism or corporate fascist rule in it's fledgling days. Elections no longer have as much validity or legitimacy as the police state expressing corporate pleasure now does.

And still, none mention the relevance of race, the relevance of ethnicity, the relevance of a reversion to inter-group conflict assuring the dominant majority demographic of an entirely imaginary but powerfully sold and believed advantage in the Tea Party days ahead. So long as Democrats avoid acknowledging their own role in this dynamic, their refusal vigorously to expose and oppose the Tea Party "solution" to economic degeneration and growing inequality, and then to proclaim a change of heart and a change of policy, they have nothing useful to offer the individual citizen trying to decide how to position him/herself. Such a reformed Democratic party may not succeed, or may take a while to succeed in stemming the trend toward terribleness. But only such a Democratic Party has any chance of harbingering a healthier nation and world.

Keynes.

In addition, the acceleration of technology and its concomitant increases in productivity (ratio of output to input, units produced over units of labor) is not some genie that can be put back in the bottle. It is imperative that this be addressed by a reduction in the number of work hours in the standard week. That is, 40 needs to be reduced to 36 or 32. Unemployment issues solved.

An economic recovery where the bankers are saved and the people are left to die a slow death is insane. Ninety percent of all gains in the last 6 years have gone to top 1% and the rest going to the top 10%, remember working people don't have extra money to invest in the stock market. The good news is that the whole financial system is nothing but a ponzi scheme that going to crash yet again. Your average American has no idea about any of this and in part it is his own fault because instead of educating himself - he sits in front of the TV and watches sports and the jersey shore. Our schools have created this American because they no longer teach people to be critical thinkers, children are taught to memorize and follow rules. Hopefully, when Wall street crashes again and the money in your bank account is stolen (like in Cypress) Americans will wake up and march. YES, frank dodd has a clause that says bank savings can be confiscated and savers will have their money taken and given shares in a insolvent bank.

People in the democratic party did not come out to vote because the democratic party does not exist anymore, it died with Clinton. Obama is a sham and everyone knows it, if the democratic party hopes to ever win again it has to be a labor party not a big business party. Bill Clinton is responsible for so much damage to this country and to the democratic party it is unbelievable and most democrats think he is some kind of God. Under Clinton we got NAFTA, deregulation of Wall street, removal of Glass-Steagall, privatization of prisons, and welfare reform (basically gutted it). Clinton was and is a wolf in sheep's clothing. I will never ever ever ever be a democrat again, I want a new party that represents working people. Screw Hillary I wouldn't vote for her and I hope the republicans win everything and when everyone is starving and working to death for pennies maybe the sheeple will wake up. We the people are owned by Bankers and Billionaires. The most enslaved are those that don't know they are slaves. Welcome to Walmart - I mean America.

Strange, Reich makes no mention of the impact that extremely high levels of illegal and legal immigration have on diluting the job market and pay checks for the workers.

Education and educational funding has been seriously jeopardized to ensure a pliable, stupid population.

"Consider that in four “red” states — South Dakota, Arkansas, Alaska, and Nebraska — the same voters who sent Republicans to the Senate voted by wide margins to raisetheir state’s minimum wage."

Here is the key to understanding this paradox: when poor white voters go to the welfare office to apply for benefits they want to deal with another white face across the counter.

The Dems lost because Obama did not initiate a massive response to ISIS... did not impose strict isolation on Ebola exposed people and did not deal with the immigration problem. He stood for nothing

If the choices on the ballot are Franco or Mussolini, which is the lesser of two evils? That is how voting feels. That the electorate doesn't perceive the monsters under their corporate purchased, media created, facade-fake faces, is terrifying.

History has recent examples of where this leads. (The obvious example I leave for you to conjure and remember.)

http://nota.org

Help get "None of the Above" on the ballots nationally.

Yes, Also Sprach Der Herr Reich: Raise taxes...punish success..."spread the wealth around" (as long as the libs get to do the spreading)!

Sure! Nothing like a smart, original thought.

Robert, Robert, Robert.... STILL writing Democratic "fantasy porn"? Really? Stop acting like the Dems DON'T KNOW what they are doing? Bill Clinton got paid a BILLION dollars when he left the White House. Al Gore got 500 million. That we know of. Who knows in "offshore" fees and property they received? Please STOOP writing articles about what Democrats SHOULD DO. Because they are not going to do it. We have ever diminishing choices to fix this. Purge the party of just about everyone and choose Bernie Saunders as President or vote for some as yet unknown third party (and that is assuming of course the Military/Homeland Spying Industrial Complex let's that happen) or accepting that Malcolm X was right that it IS "the ballot or the bullet" and the ballot has failed. It is time for either government to start working or for citizens to rise up and burn it all down.

The minimum wage has now transformed itself to a state, not a federal issue. Those states that want a higher minimum wage can go ahead and raise it as four states have done. Same thing goes for family leave, taxes on the wealthy, etc. let the blue states implement the proposed agenda to test its validity.

I mostly agree with Prof. Reich's premise here that the Dems could have done a better job of contexting the street level Middle Class economy as being recessive ; that wealth continues to get sucked up while 95 percent of Americans are not gaining income or sharing the benefits of that wealth.

I'll add two more points. One, every Republican or teabagger running for any office this time around ran against one man ... Obama. He was on every ballot in invisible ink. The entirety of the Republican machine was out to lynch the guy, nationwide. But the Dems still had to run against all those GOP candidates independently.

Second, the Dems cannot be excused from enabling the commonwealth deficit of across the board of the purported economic recovery -because the Dems are also somewhat complicit in the rising tide drowning the middle class instead of lifting its boats. The New Economy says we don;t need lifeboats. Wealth will trickle down and everything floats on the rising tide , right ? Except we have so few boats because we believed in the unsinkability of America v.2.0. It's just like the Titanic all over again. Most of the passengers from steerage are in the cold water with a lifejacket or clinging to flotsam ,slowly freezing, while the one percent get the precious seats on the few boats by entitlement.

After all, it was Bill Clinton who signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley financial reorganization act on his way out of office, the act that repealed Glass Steagall and set up the house of cards that collapsed in September 2008. The Dems handed the keys to the kingdom to Wall Street in 1999, by default. The financial meltdown had Democratic Party aiding and abetting it to a significant extent, especially when Obama blew all his political capital on health care instead of financial regulation overhaul when he had the chance.

Only 36 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot in this 2014 election ...which is to say our future was decided by only 18 percent of us , those who chose to join the Obama lynch mob instead of electing to make economic progress and reformation . 18 percent of the electorate doing the grunt work for the one percenters ( Koch Bros. et al ) and Wall Street.

The Dems let that happen. So the next two years are more critical than they might've otherwise been in reshaping the economic-demographic message to fit the reality.

"Contexting" ? Is that what obama does on his Blackberry? "Let's see who I can con next!"

And the middle class economy is "recessive"? Hmmm....the geneticists might find that word "inappropriate," (sorry for using that tired word Jonathan Gruber so deftly uttered in his non-apology after hearing his first archived video calling Americans "Stupid"). Little did he know, there were two more videos in the pipeline which gave lie to his 'apology.'

So the Dem's are just "somewhat" complicit in the mess obama created. I suppose that's because not enough of the wealth obama vowed to spread around got spread around, right? Kinda reminds me of the argument dyed-in-the-wool commies always deploy as to why the USSR failed. There just wasn't enough communism used. Had they used it like Marx recommended, Utopia would now reign supreme."

So the Dems "let that happen." I sense you believe their Dear Leader just should've declared the election null and void and installed Single Payer.

I hope you Dems employ Mr. Gruber to assist you in "reshaping the economic-demographic message to fit the reality" of the liberal Socialist Weltanschauung. After all, he did such a good job reshaping obamacare's message. You can't miss with him on your team!

Jersey Genius--- thanks for the flameball. I am a registered Republican.

You need to work on English as a first language and read what I write as written , not filter it thru Teabonics or some other lingua.

My apologies for offending you by calling you a Dem. That is just about the worst thing I could have called you!

I am just so incensed at the dirty tricks employed by this group of thugs, when someone's words aren't as strident as mine, I jump to "inappropriate" conclusions, to again use Gruber's own word.

Please reconsider agreeing with anything Reich says. He is a demented Keynesian troll.

And I hope you re-read some of your sentences. They are not as cogent as you might think. There is an edit button.

Hey Robert, why (still) no mention of the TPP?

Now that he has a Republican Congress with which to collude, your team's leader has already come out of the closet in support of yet more ruinous "free"
trade. The TPP will offshore millions more American jobs, and in general, reduce our quality of life.

So why the continued silence, Robert, on the worst thing to happen to the middle class and the poor since NAFTA? (Remember when Obama promised to renegotiate NAFTA? The lies never end with the meatpuppet in the White House.)

Reich wants to increase taxes on corporations with high ratios of CEO pay to the pay of average workers. And yet the Democrats can't understand why so many voters fall for Republican talking points that equate Democrats with Socialists. The millions of moderate and independent minded voters who split their tickets were not dumb. They recognize that the right wing drivel against the minimum wage is no worse than the left wing drivel about executive pay in the private sector. Best not to fight partisan hacksmanship with more partisan hacksmanship, Mr. Reich.

Reich is an ivory tower academic - the poster boy for misguided solutions who never saw a tax or regulation he didn't like. Raise taxes on corporations? Is that the solution in the country with the highest corporate tax rate? Hostility to the bourgeosie IS a fundamental precept of the Communist Manifesto. Government control of wages is the lefties' favorite arrow in their quill of top down control of the market. As to minimum wage, what is the minimum wage in South Dakota. Nowhere near the $20 an hour McDonalds workers are paid...not because obama says so, but because the free market prices the labor of unskilled workers at the level of the market. If the market in Detroit does not support $10.10 minimum wage, one of two things will happen. The worker will not be employed, or the business will have to raise prices on their product or service. In Detroit, that is as good as signing the business's death warrant.. how many jobs will that cost?

It didn't have anything to do with voting machines switching votes like the machines in my district that they didn't use??

Reich and the President really are saying the same thing. But behind the failure to reach out to inform and motivate middle and low income voters is media that is owned and controlled by conservatives. Additionally, media outlets are the beneficiaries of both legal and dark money that funds messages of hatred, fear and lies. Economically distressed people don't vote because they are too busy surviving and too vulnerable to voter suppression tactics.

Is this the same Robert Reich that predicted Hillary Clinton would be Obama's 2012 running mate?

Couldn´t be more in accord with Mr. Reich. Same thing is happening in Europe, and, just like Republicans in the USA, people keep on voting the Popular parties that continue to depauper those who vote them.....and those who don´t. Surely enough, the small apex of the pyramid get richer as the ever growing base get poorer. In spite of all right winger´s preachings the inequality gap continues to grow exponentially while the praises to the lord from the good (wealthy) christians resound louder. What a strange world this is.

As transition director, Sec. Reich, can you tell us why this administration failed to pass a tax policy and budget reflecting its party's economic agenda and its campaign promises, like the previous 2 administrations did? Who took reconciliation off the table, and why? Along with passing a stimulus half of the size needed, I think this is the reason we have median income dropping six years later. We need a complete narrative that explains this failure. What we have had for the last six years is mostly a continuation of Bush policies (via Continuing Resolutions), with a negative fiscal policy cancelled out by the Fed's Monetary policy in a way that funnels money to the rich instead of growing Total Demand. Four years ago I saw a top liberal economist, Paul Krugman, fail to explain fiscal policy to Joe Scarborough, who condemned him for saying deficits didn't matter when he had said they did matter back in the Bush administration. All he needed to do was to cite the explanation of Macroeconomics that is in the Bible - Joseph and the Pharaoh's Dream from Genesis. There are times of good years and there are times of bad years: If you tax and save (build store cities or balance the budget) in the good years, you can survive and prosper through the bad years (deficit spending as stimulus to grow total demand). Clinton followed this, and the country prospered. Bush and Obama have blown this, and the people are rebelling because they are not prospering.

Reassuring in this tumultuous, ever-changing world that the Keynesians are alive and well. I still can't understand how spreading wealth already created by the private sector and confiscated by government - first amplified by the printing press, then spread around wisely as only govt. in its infinite wisdom could do - somehow creates demand? I guess it's like taking food from daughter Debbie, give to son Dan, then taking credit for Debbie's robust appetite.

Water seeks it's own level. Take that and apply it to the wage issue.

Fact. Manufacturing and selling products to other countries is the way to provide jobs and to balance the trade deficit.

Fact. The trade deficit has been out of balance for decades. More dollars are leaving the country, and more products are coming into the country than the other way around. We are being sucked dry.

Fact. A huge number of manufacturing jobs have moved overseas due to very low wages and less regulations. I'm not saying that is a good thing. It's just fact.

Fact. The top 1% would have no problem supplying jobs in the USA but with the higher wages here they simply can't compete. There are some niches where the higher wages in the USA don't matter and products can be built here, but they are small niches.

Fact. The education system in other countries, such as India and China, have been turning out highly educated students. Those workers can compete on product design and quality. We no longer have the edge.

Fact. We are living as if none of the above statements mattered. We are living way beyond our means. The average house size is much larger than two decades ago. We are purchasing new cars at a very high rate. We have RVs, boats, second homes, expensive sports equipment, and more. Out standard of living is out of balance with our manufacturing base and job security.

Fact. As water seeks it's own level so does this world economy. The standard of living in other developing countries has to rise to meet ours, and unfortunately the standard of living in the USA must fall to meet theirs.

Fact. Raising the minimum wage is 100% contrary to what is needed to assist in effecting this balance in the world economy.

Fact. Further regulating large companies, increasing taxes on large companies, increasing taxes on the 1%, and increasing regulations are all 100% contrary to what is needed to assist in effecting this balance in the world economy.

But you can ignore all of this and plod down the path that Robert Reich proposes, and further accelerate the demise of the USA economy. Your standard of living is going to decrease whether you like it or not. I'd rather see it done as a soft landing than a crash.

Speaking on behalf of the masses who have been shut out of the public discussion for years: The poor, and those who grasp why unrelieved poverty is a critical issue, voted for Obama in hopes that he could launch a legitimate public discussion about our poverty crisis. He tried, Dems and libs aren't interested. For the past 6 yrs, they've waved the Middle Class Only banner (with a pat on the head to the working poor). Out here in the real world, not everyone can work, and there aren't jobs for all who need one. We shipped out a huge share of working class jobs since the 1980s, wiped out poverty relief in the 1990s. We have a poverty crisis. Dem candidates explicitly stated that the represent middle class workers. There aren't enough middle class Dems alone to win elections.

Some good Ideas here, I would tweak a few things. One thing is I would pay a million plus dollars to congress people, I know it sounds counter intuitive, my line of thinking is that if people in government are not needy than they will not go looking for graft.

How would that change Darrell Issa? Or John "Bombs Away" McCain? Or John Kerry, for that matter?

As much as I dislike those two they have a right to be there, the people in they're districts and states obviously approve of the job they are doing. It's up to those people to vote them out.

It is simple how they do it, by the way. They create the money out of thin air then borrow at the Federal Reserve discount window the amount necessary to meet the reserve requirement. The interest paid at the discount window is less than the interest paid on the bonds. If YOU were a large bank, you'd be a fool not to take the free money.

It wasn't apparent to me that the fix was in until the meeting hastily called by Hank Paulson to pitch TARP to the two contenders, McCain and Obama. Both immediately abandoned their campaigns and flew in when beckoned. First one to support TARP (the last great raping by the Bush Administration of the Treasury) was going to win the election. Guess who supported it first?

[edit: this is my own personal paranoid conspiracy theory]

Some Americans voted for progressive legislation then turned around and voted for men that are damned to undo it.

Some Americans love war and the 1% so much that they voted men that idolize these few billionaires into office then blame Obama for where we're at.

Some Americans are so racist that they would vote against anything Obama does simply because he is black.

When will the 99% wake up??

This is a matter that's been on my mind for some time, so please do not take the following for a personal attack.

The concept 99% is such an over-simplification as to be misleading and confounding. A common wag is: How can so many people be voting against their own interests? Against their own beliefs - as deep as they run, assuming they have any beliefs (as opposed to values) at all.
I’m impressed that many people are in fact not voting against their own interests, though they may know full well that the country is ‘on the wrong track’. They do not want to upset the applecart, though most of the apples are rotten. Personal circumstance has them ranging from just barely getting by, to fairly comfortable; the heavy majority of these are content to leave well enough alone, for fear that substantial or radical change will put them on the street. This in the teeth of the fact that the incremental, insidious changes of the past (say) 30 years have accomplished the very thing (unto others) they presently fear. Investors are risk-averse, and they and we are all invested in our culture and society, like it or not.
The conclusion, then, is that we on the hard left should abandon the presumptuous thought that we are speaking for or even aligned with the 99%. I doubt we can lay claim to even 9%.

You weren't funny when you were stealing Richard Pryor's act and you're not relevant stating your opinions about politics now. Bye Argle. XD

There is NO REASON that they didn't take the ball and run with it after Obama winning 2 terms! It shows the leadership of the Dems below Obama! Embarrassing. And, sometimes I think, I left the Republican Party for a bunch of WIMPS?

Yes, all true, but until Democrats grow some "balls" and act like the true Americans they are and voice it loud and clear, nothing will change! The last election, all the knuckleheads should OOL, REID, PELOSI, SCHWARTZ, AND A FEW MORE! Instead, they are LEADERS AGAIN! For the love of GOD?????

"Leaders again?" They never stopped leading. Leading us out of a
recession... leading us out of two lied about wars... leading us out of
areal estate bubble that happened while Bush was donkey in Chief...
leading us out of the wall street fiasco that was brainstormed by the
New World Order.

You Republicans are evil James and you trying to deny that you're a racist Republican doesn't fool anyone.

Seriously? If you aren't doing well in the current economy you vote for the party that tells you to give money to the richest 10%? I refuse to believe Americans are that stupid.

Why do poor white people vote Republican and against their own children's best interests?

Wages have been flat for 30 years.

You keep forgetting to include stopping rigged trade deals that outsource more good paying American jobs. You need to deal with the fact that you promoted NAFTA which was the start of this. Just blame it on Bob Rubin and move on. But we HAVE to stop the TTP and the TTIP.

Two many Americans believe George Wallace's line that "there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two parties." And people who would benefit by Democrats' being in power believe it the most. An analysis of voting patterns in Elkhart County< IN shows the lowest turnouts in poverty-stricken precincts, and the highest in the wealthier ones.

http://ontheslowtrain.blogs...