Robert Reich was the Secretary of Commerce during the Clinton administration and has a key understanding of the American economic scene. His simple, straightforward analyis of the current enlarging economic downturn is very easy to grasp. Wages and salaries for most Americans have all but stagnant for over a quarter-century. The income disparity in the nation is the worst its been since 1929, and we all know what happened in the years following that. Solutions for trying to get the economy going are easy to understand. The tax structure in the nation must be significantly and progressively modified, with noteworthy increases particularly for the wealthy and the largest 5000 corporations. Wages must be increased by at least 40 % if not more in a five year window to economically empower the lower-middle and lower class. And a plan must be into place to re-establish the American manufacturing industry nationwide to allow American dollars to stay in the nations, states, regions, and communities instead of flowing out of the country to places like China and India or into the bank accounts of corporations and the wealthy. The power in the workplace must move back towards a balance or in favor of the worker instead of virtually entirely in favor of the corporations. And the workplace must place an emphasis on education of it's workers children by establishing a work culture that places a premium and value on family, time, and education of the young instead of focusing exclusively on the 24/7 pursuit of sales and profits. In other words, the answer for where we are now can be found in the past, with the American economic model of the 1950s and 1960s modified to fix it in a global economic environment.Continuing the way we have in the recent decades will inevitably result in a greater collapse in the United States not only economically, but also culturally, politically, and socially.
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