Robert Reich: New Year's Predictions

[LongTomH]

Robert Reich's latest op-ed at Huffington Post: Robert Reich: New Year's Predictions

What will happen to the US economy in 2011? If you're referring to profits of big corporations and Wall Street, next year is likely to be a good one. But if you're referring to average American workers, far from good.

The two American economies -- the Big Money economy and the Average Working Family economy -- will continue to diverge. Corporate profits will continue to rise, as will the stock market. But typical wages will go nowhere, joblessness will remain high, the ranks of the long-term unemployed will continue to rise, the housing recovery will remain stalled, and consumer confidence will sag.

The big disconnect between corporate profits and jobs is likely to continue because America's big businesses are depending less and less on U.S. sales and U.S. workers. Their big profits are coming from two sources: (1) growing sales in China, India, and other fast-growing countries, and (2) slimmed-down US payrolls.

In a typical recovery, profits lead to more hiring. That's because in a typical recovery, American consumers head back to the malls -- and their buying justifies more hires. Not this time. All the hype about Christmas sales over the last few weeks masked the fact that American consumers demanded bargain-basement prices. And the price-cutting dramatically reduced sellers' margins. In short, profits aren't coming from American consumers -- and profits won't be coming from American consumers in 2011.

In other words, we will continue on the downhill slide we're already on. Reich does hold out hope though; he believes that:

At some point, perhaps, the disconnect between America's two economies will become so big and so obvious it can no longer be ignored. Progressives, enlightened Tea Partiers, Independents, organized labor, minorities, and the young form a new progressive movement designed to reconnect America.

I can agree with everything in the above paragraph, except the bit about the 'enlightened Tea Partiers' being part of a progressive movement. 'Enlightened Tea Partiers' is as much an oxymoron as 'Business Ethics' or 'Military Intelligence.'

[molly77]

1. "Enlightened tea partiers"

I think progressives and the far right have more in common than with their respective parties. Racism is a hurdle that may come down facing the prospect of hunger and homelessness in our own families and neighborhoods.The US cannot continue in the way that it is going. Internet plays a big part in change.

[jwirr]

2. I like Reich. And I think he is right. We are on our own. We need to

start building our nation back from the ground up. Each of us doing what we can in our own local communities. We need to form groups interested in this and let the word out that we exist. Here in our community we have organizations of master gardeners, bee keepers and probably other things. I am going to look into them.

[bvar22]

3. The Owners of the Two Dominant Political Parties...

...and their tools in The Media work very hard to keep us separated and misdirected so that they may continue with the Power Sharing Status Quo.
How much has really "changed"?
.
.
.
.

When the Working Class and the Poor realize we have more in common with each other than we have in common with the Elite Leaders of BOTH Political Parties,
THEN we can FORCE "Change".
And, YES...THAT includes segments of the Tea Party.


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone