America's Great Divide: Robert Reich Interview FRONTLINE

[sagesnow]

[lapfog_1]

1. Every time I listen to him I wish, just once, he would admit

that HE is partly responsible for the "stagnant wages" he now claims is the tectonic force underneath our divided political system.

In the nineties, the thinking was (by him and many others in the Clinton administration) that the US should outsource much of our manufacturing jobs. That we would transition our work force to high tech and information management and call center / retail jobs. These jobs would pay better than manufacturing jobs, they would pollute less, and, because they would go to China and India, they might prevent future wars by making them and us co-dependent on each other.

What they failed to realize is that there were more honor students in India than the US has students... and that many if not most of those high tech jobs would migrate even easier than the manufacturing jobs, leaving us to scramble for retail (do you want frys with that) jobs that will never support a family or a middle class (even lower middle class) lifestyle...

And that is the Magma that is underneath the anger that powers both the far right (Tea Party now Trumpublicans) and the far right.

Robert was one of the key architects of that plan... and should take some responsibility for the consequences.

[sagesnow]

2. Thanks for the history of Reich's background.

I think Clinton and Reich probably meant well but there are always unintended consequences of political actions.

[BigmanPigman]

3. I saw him speak about 5 years ago and he did say that he wished he had

seen the writing on the wall more clearly at the time of the Clinton Admin and he would do some things differently now.

[Warpy]

4. Exactly, Reich didn't twig to the part depressed wages have been playing

until about the time Obama's first term was over. At that point, he'd seen the minimum wage depressed and depressed and neither party doing a damned thing about it while necessities like housing and health care become unaffordable and the whole justification for that policy was to keep inflation low.

Reich is correct that easy credit and doubling the number of adults in a family who worked for paychecks masked the symptoms of the disaster caused by depressed wages, they sure fooled him. That disaster is now going full bore, retail is dying because no one has any money to spend on shopping for anything but food, housing, transportation, clothing and that's about it.

I do find it hopeful that a former Third Way true believer would be saying things about the ridiculously cruel wage structure in this country. It makes me wonder if others are out there. I also know that the Orange Mobster was elected by a lot of desperate people in dirt states who wanted to lob a Molotov cocktail into the works. They just didn't expect to have it lobbed at them, which it mostly has been.

I think they've badly miscalculated, something we're used to seeing the Democrats do. They've made Obama's mistakes, but on steroids and while trying to repeal his successes. And I think enough people have noticed.