Robert Reich: The rich don’t work anymore — working is for poor people

[kpete]

In reality, a large and growing share of the nation’s poor work full time — sometimes sixty or more hours a week – yet still don’t earn enough to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

It’s also commonly believed, especially among Republicans, that the rich deserve their wealth because they work harder than others.

In reality, a large and growing portion of the super-rich have never broken a sweat. Their wealth has been handed to them.

......................

That widening inequality — combined with the increasing numbers of people who work full time but are still impoverished and of others who have never worked and are fabulously wealthy — is undermining the moral foundations of American capitalism.

MORE:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/robert-reich-the-rich-dont-work-anymore-working-is-for-poor-people/

[ananda]

1. Moral foundations? Capitalism?

But I contradict myself.

(salute to Mark Twain)

[Trillo]

2. If the wealthy don't have to work,

and if our society is claimed one of equal opportunity, then why should the poor have to work?

[Yupster]

3. I guess it depends on the definition of rich

I work with wealthy people and they all work. Their kids work from early age, often in their parents' businesses.

Most of the rich I work with are business owners. Most keep working well into their seventies. Most never actually retire. They just let their kid take over more and more until they just come in once in a while, but they always keep their office.

I note Reich isn't talking about the rich, but the "super rich."

I don't know what "super rich" means so I may not know any of them. I know one guy worth between 1/2 billion and a billion and he still runs his company firmly in his mid seventies working as hard as he can.

[Taitertots]

5. "One non-billionaire works" the system is vindicated

Even though by "work" you might mean keeps an office at a corporation run by his children. The system works.

[zipplewrath]

6. In reality super rich is insanely rich

I understand your larger point, but if you want to talk about the 1%, or the 0.5% you are talking about INSANELY rich people. 100's of billions ultimately.

But really I think he is making a reference roughly to the "trust fund babies" that exist today. Look at the Bush boys. None of them are particularly "self made" or anything. Heck, W. never worked a day in his life.

[jtuck004]

7. It's the income the thieving bastards make from owning assets that no one else can that is

the problem. The rentiers who suck up opportunity from others like it was oxygen. Not that they need it, they just want more, and in so doing deny it to others. They make nothing, and take everything they can.

Years ago many business owners (not the ones in the movies the white people use to pretend they know what they are talking about) used to sweat from morning to evening, working right alongside the slaves they owned. Didn't prevent them from owning the plantation.

Today, while the chains are (mostly) gone, there are other ways to steal another's labor, such as with laws meant to make sure the economic divide stays intact...

"often in their parents' businesses." <- from above

These are old words from Malcom X and they contain a question everyone should ask themselves..

...
If the master's house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, "What's the matter, boss, we sick?" We sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself
...

Lest one thinks this only has to do with black folk, it's nothing more than the motto of the IWW...

An injury to one is an injury to all.

The people Reich is writing about, predominately rich, don't behave like that, and neither do the people who help them.

[nichomachus]

8. The dividing line is whether you have a resume or not -- or have to fill out an application

The so-called middle class, and even upper middle class, have resumes. The poor have to go and fill out applications -- or do it online now.

The "rich" don't have resumes. Do you think George Bush ever had a resume? Do you think the Bush daughters do? Do you think Chelsea Clinton has a resume?

For the rich, a job "application" is someone picking up a phone and making a call. Maybe a meeting over lunch at the country club. Maybe a good word put in in the country club locker room.

If they need a real application to satisfy HR's records, they have people to do that.

[hifiguy]

9. The truly rich don't even have resumes

but they or their parents all know the secret handshake for the club. And we ain't in it.

[nichomachus]

10. A good example

There is a super-gated country club close to where I live. It's extremely exclusive. Very well guarded. It's where Gerry and Betty Ford used to live and where the Obamas were looking for a place to buy.

A friend of mine was invited to a dinner there. The woman sitting next to him took his hand and said "Oh, my God. It's so good to see a new face. I see the same people all day - every day."

These are people who live together, play golf together, lunch together, share insider stock information together, have cocktails together, have dinner together, vacation together, send their kids to the same prep schools.

No resumes needed when Junior needs a job.

[WestSeattle2]

4. And their republican lapdogs will do everything in their power to ensure that not a bead of sweat

ever appears on their brow. Most republicans will even fan them with fig leaves and hand feed them grapes, as long as the rich continue to stick dollar bills in their g-strings.

[appalachiablue]

11. The new powerful investor class of super wealthy who think they are entitled to rule in the

21st Century global Gilded Age.

[woo me with science]

12. K&R

[woo me with science]

13. kick