Robert Reich on foreign corporations funding American campaigns and "think tanks"
"The New York Times reports this morning that more than a dozen prominent Washington think tanks have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign sources in recent years while pushing U.S. government to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities. But the Times misses the really big story about foreign influence in Washington: Global corporations owned and run largely or partially by non-Americans that since the Supreme Court’s shameful “Citizen’s United” decision have been pouring unlimited sums into election campaigns" more at link: https://www.facebook.com/RBReich?fref=nf
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orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)pipoman
(16,038 posts)
pleinair
(171 posts)Reich's position on income equality has been steadfast. He is vocally pro-worker and pro-union
pipoman
(16,038 posts)He spoke with his actions as Secretary of Labor. ..he hates (US) labor and unions...
elleng
(130,980 posts)pipoman
(16,038 posts)
newthinking
(3,982 posts)He definitely bought the neoliberal mantra of NAFTA = American Prosperity, but he seems to have climbed out of the haze.
pipoman
(16,038 posts)Out of both sides of his face...
newthinking
(3,982 posts)pleinair
(171 posts)Isn't there a chance that Reich's thinking has evolved since he was in the Clinton administration? I do see where he has espoused anti-labor opinions before, as pipoman rightly points out. However his current voice is more progressive, and I appreciate Reich speaking out on these issues with the authority of a former Secretary of Labor
pipoman
(16,038 posts)And compete with 3rd world, dirt floor living labor.
pleinair
(171 posts)elleng
(130,980 posts)Anyone with a nickel's worth of sense should recognize where Robert Reich's mind and heart are, and help his efforts to inform the public about important social matters.
pleinair
(171 posts)Reich didn't get much of a chance to promote his own beliefs, especially with a Republican congress. I appreciate his voice right now and consider him to be a valuable progressive ally.
pipoman
(16,038 posts)He is, to this day, unapologetic for the lies he espoused.
pleinair
(171 posts)But thanks for the link to the Gerald McEntee essay--a really good old lefty.
pipoman
(16,038 posts)Where has he admitted NAFTA has not had the effects he promised? He hasn't. He states over and over that US labor just has to get globally competitive. 90% of labor opposed NAFTA yet nary word from the Sec. Of Labor in opposition. ..no actions and words...no remorse or contrition to this day...
elleng
(130,980 posts)'He is, to this day, unapologetic for the lies he espoused.'
pipoman
(16,038 posts)The lies dismissing US labor's universal opposition to NAFTA with bullshit lies of how much labor would benefit. He knew it was bullshit when he espoused it, he was just paying for his privilege.
elleng
(130,980 posts)His position on unions now:
'Wealthy Americans would do better with smaller shares of a rapidly-growing economy than with the large shares they now possess of an economy that's barely moving.
If they were rational, the wealthy would support public investments in education and job-training, a world-class infrastructure (transportation, water and sewage, energy, internet), and basic research -- all of which would make the American workforce more productive.
If they were rational they'd even support labor unions -- which have proven the best means of giving working people a fair share in the nation's prosperity.
But labor unions are almost extinct.
The decline of labor unions in America tracks exactly the decline in the bottom 90 percent's share of total earnings, and shrinkage of the middle class.
In the 1950s, when the U.S. economy was growing faster than 3 percent a year, more than a third of all working people belonged to a union. That gave them enough bargaining clout to get wages that allowed them to buy what the economy was capable of producing.
Since the late 1970s, unions have eroded -- as has the purchasing power of most Americans, and not coincidentally, the average annual growth of the economy.
Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that as of 2012 only 6.6 percent of workers in the private sector were unionized. (That's down from 6.9 percent in 2011.) That's the lowest rate of unionization in almost a century.
What's to blame? Partly globalization and technological change. Globalization sent many unionized manufacturing plants abroad.
Manufacturing is starting to return to America but it's returning without many jobs. The old assembly line has been replaced by robotics and numerically-controlled machine tools. . .
Other nations subject to the same forces have far higher levels of unionization than America. 28 percent ofCanada's workforce is unionized, as is more than 25 percent of Britain's, and almost 20 percent of Germany's.
Unions are almost extinct in America because we've chosen to make them extinct.
Unlike other rich nations, our labor laws allow employers to replace striking workers. We've also made it exceedingly difficult for workers to organize, and we barely penalized companies that violate labor laws. (A worker who's illegally fired for trying to organize a union may, if lucky, get the job back along with back pay -- after years of legal haggling.)
Republicans, in particular, have set out to kill off unions. Union membership dropped 13 percent last year in Wisconsin, which in 2011 curbed the collective bargaining rights of many public employees. And it fell 18 percent last year in Indiana, which last February enacted a right-to-work law (allowing employees at unionized workplaces to get all the benefits of unionization without paying for them). Last month Michigan enacted a similar law.'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/union-membership-rate_b_2572819.html
elleng
(130,980 posts)and wrote 'Locked in the Cabinet' about his experience in the Clinton administration.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)As regard his long-term stance on trade agreements, He has clearly and consistently stood for the agreements, but has just as clearly made the point that labor and environmental standards should have been included. Maybe he didn't fight hard enough for those provisions. I dunno. In any case, it does seem that the consequences wouldn't have been quite as disastrous had substantial regulations in these realms been made. But of course the Big Money Guys would have none of that. Personally, I think that without such provisions, the treaties should never have been enacted. The interests of the common people were sacrificed in ways that are beyond minor reformist actions.
I think that the most charitable reading of Reich's earlier positions was that he underestimated the power of greed.
In any case, he has come out clearly against TPP.
Here are some relevant paras:
Even though the winners from free trade could theoretically compensate the losers and still come out ahead, they don’t. America doesn’t have a system for helping job losers find new jobs that pay about the same as the ones they’ve lost – regardless of whether the loss was because of trade or automation. There’s no national retraining system. Unemployment insurance reaches fewer than 40 percent of people who lose their jobs – a smaller percentage than when the unemployment system was designed seventy years ago. We have no national health care system to cover job losers and their families. There’s no wage insurance. Nothing. And unless or until America finds a way to help the losers, the backlash against trade is only going to grow.
Get me? The Dems shouldn’t be redebating NAFTA. They should be debating how to help Americans adapt to a new economy in which no job is safe. Okay, so back to my initial question. The answer is HRC didn’t want the Administration to move forward with NAFTA, but not because she was opposed to NAFTA as a policy. She opposed NAFTA because of its timing. She wanted her health-care plan to be voted on first. She feared that the fight over NAFTA would use up so much of the White House’s political capital that there wouldn’t be enough left when it came to pushing for health care. In retrospect, she was probably right.
http://robertreich.org/post/257309371
pipoman
(16,038 posts)Have you read about TPP? It is being advanced by Democrats using the exact same pack of lies used for NAFTA. Unapologetic 1%ers like Reich know which side their bread is buttered...
Where in the above excerpt does Reich not defend NAFTA and it's effects on US labor? The same US labor that universally opposed NAFTA and was summarily dismissed by Reich.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)It's a horrible, downright insane giveaway of governmental and labor power to the corporations.
As for NAFTA, Reich does address its effects on labor, but not in the excerpt I posted.
As I said above, NAFTA should never have been enacted, at least without strong environmental and labor provisions. Personally, I think there needs to be an international people/labor movement to counterbalance the malignant power of the corporations.
pipoman
(16,038 posts)Supported it or suggested we should withdraw. When he had the opportunity to actually be the voice of labor, he chose money and fame.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)I like a lot of what Reich has to say, but (for reasons that are interesting to speculate upon), he is still defensive of NAFTA.
pipoman
(16,038 posts)He understands the agreement, knows there are ways to get out, but has never advocated that. He claims NAFTA was a net positive because of cheap consumer goods which we had before NAFTA.
No, anyone who claims to be an advocate of labor can't deny the harmful effects of NAFTA...unless they are a narcissistic weasel justifying their own sell out for profit.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)when I take my own cognitive dissonances and inconsistencies into account. We all have blind spots, and typically those blind spots are driven by the ego's urge to avoid self-condemnation.
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)And we can only do that by getting out the vote this November 4th so that Democrats hold on to the Senate.
Justices Kennedy and Scalia, arguably the most detrimental justices on the Court for equality and democracy, are hitting 80. Justice Bader-Ginsberg, realistically, won't serve another ten years.
Three potential seats are opening in the next decade and we need to make sure that there's a Democrat in the WH and that Democrats have the majority in the Senate in order to replace them and, effectively, neuter the disastrous decisions by the Roberts' Court, Inc. - the most activist, pro-Corporate, pro-Elitist Court in my lifetime.
agree completely
JayhawkSD
(3,163 posts)She received massive campaign funding from a Mexican drug lord, and wrote a letter of recommendation for his son. Claims she did not know he was contributing to her campaign, and gave the money back to him. Was re-elected by a large majority.
The point is that American voters don't care about campaign funding. Koch brothers, Soros, criminals, major corporations... They ignore it and vote for whoever makes the most empty promises.
pleinair
(171 posts)The Fox watchers & their ilk are the ones who are easily swayed by candidates' empty promises. That's why the big money monopolizes the news media
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)Rupert didn't do it on his own, he's not the people who buy newspapers just to look at the pictures .
pleinair
(171 posts)I'm sure funding like this is more widespread than we can imagine. Thank you for your first-hand observation from San Diego.
Bill USA
(6,436 posts)pleinair
(171 posts)and it could be with a Constitutional amendment or with an act of Congress -- VERY important to get out the Democratic vote this November
pleinair
(171 posts)
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Thank you, pleinair.
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)none dare call it treason.
Teamster Jeff
(1,598 posts)elleng
(130,980 posts)'Wealthy Americans would do better with smaller shares of a rapidly-growing economy than with the large shares they now possess of an economy that's barely moving.
If they were rational, the wealthy would support public investments in education and job-training, a world-class infrastructure (transportation, water and sewage, energy, internet), and basic research -- all of which would make the American workforce more productive.
If they were rational they'd even support labor unions -- which have proven the best means of giving working people a fair share in the nation's prosperity.
But labor unions are almost extinct.
The decline of labor unions in America tracks exactly the decline in the bottom 90 percent's share of total earnings, and shrinkage of the middle class.
In the 1950s, when the U.S. economy was growing faster than 3 percent a year, more than a third of all working people belonged to a union. That gave them enough bargaining clout to get wages that allowed them to buy what the economy was capable of producing.
Since the late 1970s, unions have eroded -- as has the purchasing power of most Americans, and not coincidentally, the average annual growth of the economy.
Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that as of 2012 only 6.6 percent of workers in the private sector were unionized. (That's down from 6.9 percent in 2011.) That's the lowest rate of unionization in almost a century.
What's to blame? Partly globalization and technological change. Globalization sent many unionized manufacturing plants abroad.'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/union-membership-rate_b_2572819.html
pipoman
(16,038 posts)Pretending wealthy people "should support", not advocating we impose anything on these wealthy people. No, he's the same two faced weasel McEntee describes in his piece above...he also hasn't recanted his support for eliminating the corporate income tax. ..
