The Biggest Economic Lies We’re Told | Robert Reich

How amazing would it be if this was broadcast on every TV station and every other platform everywhere? I wish!

Some economists have projected that both the U.S. and parts of Europe could slip into a recession for a portion of 2023. A global recession, defined as a contraction in annual global per capita income, is more rare because China and emerging markets often grow faster than more developed economies. Essentially the world economy is considered to be in recession if economic growth falls behind population growth.

As a visitor to your wonderful country I was struck by the level of homelessness, the poor state of the infrastructure and just the amount everything is run down. Away from cities the roads are in decay and the phone systems old. Houses are in disrepair. Shops are closing down. These are not signs of a healthy economy. Many of the Americans I talk to work long hours, yet receive very few benefits from those hours. Healthcare is extremely expensive, public transport is old, even petrol is twice the cost of my native Australia. How many hours does an average person need to work to pay off an average house? How old is the average car in America? Are people happy or are they working too many hours and keeping themselves busy so they don’t think about their situation too much?

I am thankful that my father decided to move us to the Philippines after he retired. We were not well-off when we were in California and I always see tiredness and sadness in mom's eyes, worrying to meet ends. Here, in this developing country, we are thriving and happy actually. And now, I am graduating and becoming a medical technologist.

As an high school economics teacher, much of what I try to show my students over the course was brilliantly summarized here. Great video Mr. Reich.

You have explained why I am so stressed. My rent went up. My food bill went up a lot too. My auto insurance is going up, my laundry bill and my gasoline costs have gone up. My Social Security went up too but only 8.7% and not nearly as much as everything else went up. I had to ask for charity to pay my utility bills last month and I'm looking into which food pantry will help me meet my special dietary needs. My landlord is upgrading a huge apartment complex to avoid rent control. He also took away my utility allowance of $98 for each of the next 6 months and kept it even though I pay my utilities to the utility company. The housing authority allowed it because his permissible rent increase of 10% was less than the utility allowance. So he kept the utility allowance and raised my rent $79. The system is rigged against the poor and then we are told this is the richest country in the history of the world. It is, but not for you and me. We are struggling to survive in a harsh world that only provides for the elite 1% of our population. So, when are we going to demand fundamental change? Nobody will change anything unless we demand it.

So many of us feel we don't have the education to decipher all this. Thank you Robert for explaining. 😊

I have recently ‘discovered’ Mr. Reich. Soaking in his wisdom and explanations now. Thank you so much, Mr. Reich, that you truly care! This is a rare trait these days.

"Go to the kitchen tables of America." I bet if we all took one night a week to share a meal with a new family in our communities and talked about our economic anxieties, we'd learn what the common plight of the American family is pretty quickly. We need to band together on this one. Something is not right in America. It starts at the top, but it can be fixed if everyone at the bottom comes together and demands better from our government and the companies that bought our legislators.

"The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members" (attributed to Mahatma Gandhi)

I love the way you inform us. You are a highly significant being to our world!! Thank you so very much for all you teach and do!!

Robert Reich’s potential is limitless. I achieved success with the easy steps below.

I've been saying exactly this for years! A better measure for the economy: what %age: Work more than one job? Rely on social assistance? Have to drop out of school to support their family? Can afford to complete post-secondary education? Have assets exceeding their debts? Heck, even crime rate would be a better measure of the economy than what we use now.

It's not just corporations, it's their stockholders too. IF any individual stockholder cared even a little bit about climate, the environment, healthcare, fairness, etc. they would insist that the corporation be a good citizen of the country in which they live and work and not be out to rake the rest of the country over the coals. How bad would it be if they took a $99 dividend (ex.) instead of $100 IF it would mean the corporations would clean up their pollution, pay their lowest tier workers a decent salary (instead of giving another airplane or yacht to its CEO and green their businesses. But greed is rampant.

I was thinking recently about my first salary, how my then company car cost about the same as my salary, how I bought my first house @ 3 x my salary, how little petrol cost. Now, despite a 'successful; professional skills, wide ranging experience, a senior role, my salary doesn't buy much more than it did when I was starting out. Whether comparing the price of fuel, houses, cars, it doesn't go as far as first appears. Those starting out really are worse off than I was years ago. The other thing is that there are lots of new taxes, fees, charges to pay, quietly draining our resources, even ou savings are quietly being eroded by hidden taxes.

Very practical revealatiions. Lots of learning from the professor. Immensely benefitted, by watching your podcasts, in life and in career. 🙏🏻👍🏻

I live in Canada and lived in Toronto for about 16 years. In Toronto today, for a small 1 bedroom apartment, it is, on average, over $2,400 a month, which is over $28,800 a year. The minimum wage in recent years was boosted to $14 an hour and then climbed to $15, which works out to $31,200 per year. This leaves a minimum wage worker with $2400 to live on for a year, which is $200 a month, and that is before taxes. Ontario used to have rent controls, and the Canadian government built affordable housing (which has been restarted). Now the rent control only matters if you stay in your apartment because once you leave it, the landlord can charge the "market rate" (whatever they can get). The market rate is inflated because there is a shortage of affordable housing, and rental housing in general, currently available or being constructed, as companies would rather build condos and sell them right away. At the same time, nimbyist zoning laws in many areas prevent apartment buildings from being constructed and houses from being converted to duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes. As a result, you have a shortage of rental housing; this, along with weak rent controls, causes highly inflated rents. So, as of 2023, a minimum wage worker can't even live in Toronto, Canada, and that is with a decent minimum wage.

I am so thankful for Robert Reich's videos...The majority of the media (which is mostly center right) seem to think the American worker is getting away with something by getting the increased wages and greater "work from home" flexibility we've seen over the last couple of years, but the actual reality is far from it.

"Forget trickle-down economics... it's trickle-on!" EXACTLY

Thankyou Mr Reich! I really appreciate you trying to get your vital information out here, so that we can make use of and disseminate it!!*