How to End the Great Recession

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/opinion/03reich.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

by robg • 16 years ago

4 4 16 years ago

devmonk2• 16 years ago

So the "Great Recession" can be fixed with more socialism? No thanks. Hasn't anyone learned anything recently? Spreading the wealth does not help productivity. And countries that were overall poorer like India and China are making great gains because they want to work because of capitalism and the allure of wealth and climbing to the top. Taking money away from those trying to earn it will only further our economic collapse.

dsspence• 16 years ago

I don't think you read the article.

We can't support a consumerist economy when the top 1%, who don't reinvest their money necessarily, earn 23% of the wealth.

Who is taking money away from those trying to earn it? Sounded to me when Reich suggested free public education and eliminating federal payroll taxes on the first $20,000 earned, is not punishing earners.

devmonk2• 16 years ago

I did.

"The rich spend a much smaller proportion of their incomes than the rest of us."

Not from my experience.

"The rich don’t necessarily invest their earnings and savings in the American economy."

In fact, the rich fund quite a bit of investment in the American economy, and no numbers are provided to show how much they do or what percentage of American investments go towards the American economy.

"Little has been done since 2008 to widen the circle of prosperity. Health-care reform is an important step forward but it’s not nearly enough."

No backing data here. Nice throw-in of what I assume means that we need socialized healthcare. How would socialized healthcare improve the economy overall?

"Policies that generate more widely shared prosperity lead to stronger and more sustainable economic growth - and that’s good for everyone. The rich are better off with a smaller percentage of a fast-growing economy than a larger share of an economy that’s barely moving."

A.k.a. the author is saying that "spreading the wealth" (known by some as socialism) is good because it takes away money from the rich and gives it to the poor. If the author just embraced that on its own, that's fine- the author is a Socialist, and that's just an opinion. But the author argues that the poor will then spend it, which will increase revenue to companies, which will create more jobs. This is the opposite approach as the Trickle-down Economics of the Reagan era, but suffers the same problem of assuming that any group (rich, middle-class, or poor) will spend during a down economy if the government gives them money (directly via tax breaks or via various programs, etc.). The fact is no one spends during a down economy.

Instead what the government should do is to do as much as they can to be supportive of businesses of all sizes (even individuals) while working to stabilize the economy, pay down our national debt, and promote education and research. Then and only then will our economy recover.

rwl• 16 years ago

Some highlights:

* "The median male worker earns less today, adjusted for inflation, than he did 30 years ago."

* "By the late 1990s, more than 60 percent of mothers with young children worked outside the home (in 1966, only 24 percent did)."

* "By the mid-2000s, the typical male worker was putting in roughly 100 hours more each year than two decades before, and the typical female worker about 200 hours more."

* "In the late 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in about 9 percent of the nation’s total income; by 2007, the top 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total income."

* "The rich are better off with a smaller percentage of a fast-growing economy than a larger share of an economy that’s barely moving."

How to End the Great Recession

Related Stories