8 years ago
10
The Great U-Turn
Do you recall a time in America when the income of a single school teacher or baker or salesman or mechanic was enough to buy a home, have two cars, and raise a family? My father (who just celebrated his 100th birthday) earned enough for the rest of us to live comfortably. We weren’t rich but never felt poor, and our standard of living rose steadily through the 1950s and 1960s.
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http://robertreich.org
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Can it? Hilary's not going to reverse it.
True. You need an alternative.
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I feel like the author said nothing of value. He threw some statistics around, and then ended with an idealistic call to action that proposed no actual solutions. He didn't say: here's three ways we can practically remember the old system, and here's 3 practical ways we can begin to achieve economic growth/stability in the 21st century. Over all, I feel like this was not a very useful article.
If you follow his blog you'll see he recently posted not three but twelve detailed steps for turning our nation's economic future back around with accompanying videos. We have a prescription for recovery, but we lack the political will to follow it. This post was a reminder of why we should find it again.
ah. well, my bad. I didn't bother reading anything else, but I should have investigated further. Thank you for the correction.
spaceghoti already said it well, but I just want to point out that Robert Reich is awesome. He is one of my favorite economists.
This is still going on, teachers who worked during that era and haven't retired yet are still pulling those salaries. The couple down the street from my mom were both teachers until they retired 2 years ago. At the end their combined income was over $200k/year, and they're pulling ~$110k/year combined in pension. I hardly believed it, but my state has a transparency site that allows you to see all publicly funded salaries and pensions and it checks out.