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The Fable of the Century
The ending is up to you
Imagine a country in which the very richest people get all the economic gains. They eventually accumulate so much of the nation’s total income and wealth that the middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going full speed. Most of the middle class’s wages keep falling and their major asset – their home – keeps shrinking in value.
Imagine that the richest people in this country use some of their vast wealth to routinely bribe politicians. They get the politicians to cut their taxes so low there’s no money to finance important public investments that the middle class depends on – such as schools and roads, or safety nets such as health care for the elderly and poor.
Imagine further that among the richest of these rich are financiers. These financiers have so much power over the rest of the economy they get average taxpayers to bail them out when their bets in the casino called the stock market go bad. They have so much power they even shred regulations intended to limit their power.
These financiers have so much power they force businesses to lay off millions of workers and to reduce the wages and benefits of millions of others, in order to maximize profits and raise share prices – all of which make the financiers even richer, because they own so many of shares of stock and run the casino.
Now, imagine that among the richest of these financiers are people called private-equity managers who buy up companies in order to squeeze even more money out of them by loading them up with debt and firing even more of their employees, and then selling the companies for a fat profit.
Although these private-equity managers don’t even risk their own money – they round up investors to buy the target companies – they nonetheless pocket 20 percent of those fat profits.
And because of a loophole in the tax laws, which they created with their political bribes, these private equity managers are allowed to treat their whopping earnings as capital gains, taxed at only 15 percent – even though they themselves made no investment and didn’t risk a dime.
Finally, imagine there is a presidential election. One party, called the Republican Party, nominates as its candidate a private-equity manager who has raked in more than $20 million a year and paid only 13.9 percent in taxes – a lower tax rate than many in the middle class.
Yes, I know it sounds far-fetched. But bear with me because the fable gets even wilder. Imagine this candidate and his party come up with a plan to cut the taxes of the rich even more – so millionaires save another $150,000 a year. And their plan cuts everything else the middle class and the poor depend on – Medicare, Medicaid, education, job-training, food stamps, Pell grants, child nutrition, even law enforcement.
What happens next?
There are two endings to this fable. You have to decide which it’s to be.
In one ending the private-equity manager candidate gets all his friends and everyone in the Wall Street casino and everyone in every executive suite of big corporations to contribute the largest wad of campaign money ever assembled – beyond your imagination.
The candidate uses the money to run continuous advertisements telling the same big lies over and over, such as “don’t tax the wealthy because they create the jobs” and “don’t tax corporations or they’ll go abroad” and “government is your enemy” and “the other party wants to turn America into a socialist state.”
And because big lies told repeatedly start sounding like the truth, the citizens of the country begin to believe them, and they elect the private equity manager president. Then he and his friends turn the country into a plutocracy (which it was starting to become anyway).
But there’s another ending. In this one, the candidacy of the private equity manager (and all the money he and his friends use to try to sell their lies) has the opposite effect. It awakens the citizens of the country to what is happening to their economy and their democracy. It ignites a movement among the citizens to take it all back.
The citizens repudiate the private equity manager and everything he stands for, and the party that nominated him. And they begin to recreate an economy that works for everyone and a democracy that’s responsive to everyone.
Just a fable, of course. But the ending is up to you.
Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; and his newest, Beyond Outrage. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
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78 Comments so far
Show AllWell, so long as you can also buy helicopters, hellfire missiles, tanks, robots, fighter jets, communications and a trained army. Otherwise, toysRus sells pop guns for a lot less than that.
While Mr. Reich's criticisms of the Republicans is honest and obvious to any progressive, his omission of implicating Democrats destroys his credibility. It's such a shame because Reich could have been a progressive force if he hadn't sold out to the corporate Democrats. He acts as if investor capitalism is purely a Republican invention. Just like the MSM, Reich frames all political decisions within the narrow scope of Democrat vs. Republican. This is how we got into such a mess in the first place!
This is how it has always been.
It will only change when the masses are in bondage................revolution.
That's why they promise the sheep "free medical care", extended benefits, forgiveness of student loans, etc..................
They are trying to buy the sheep from revolting.
How sad is the state of affairs we live in?
I liked this one, but I wish Robert had mentioned the effect of all the "war" spending. Not enough Americans are making that connection, I think. We need more authoritative voices coming out against the "wars" for the lethal and toxic money making scams for the 1% that they are.
"big lies told repeatedly start sounding like the truth" Mr Reich should have mentioned the whoppers rightwing media have been telling for 40 years now, supported by tax cut funding. It means that Romney already has a core base of Tea Party support, about 20% of the population, who are not going to let government take over their Medicare and want that Muslim out of the White House.
Reich Kills Off Obama!
Well, not literally, but that's the phrase used when writers of soap operas decide to eliminate a character from the drama.
Reich invites us to contemplate that “among the richest of these financiers are people called private-equity managers who buy up companies in order to squeeze even more money out of them by loading them up with debt and firing even more of their employees, and then selling the companies for a fat profit.”
Reich urges us to imagine a presidential election, in which “one party, called the Republican Party, nominates as its candidate a private-equity manager who has raked in more than $20 million a year and paid only 13.9 percent in taxes – a lower tax rate than many in the middle class.”
Scary, for sure, but Reich has killed off the “other party” – the one called the Democratic Party – and has whacked its titular head, Barack Obama, who also happens to be the incumbent President of the United States, who is himself a multimillionaire, and the man who accepted more money from Wall Street’s financiers and private-equity managers in 2008 than any presidential candidate in the history of presidential elections.
Reich wants us to imagine what might happen if the diabolical Private-Equity Manager wins the election, and he and his Evil Party come up with a plan to cut the taxes of the rich even more! At this point, some cynical and inquiring minds might ask, “More than what?” Or, more particularly, “More than whom?”
But, since Reich has killed off Obama in his fable, there is no mention of the fact that just days before the scheduled expiration date, Obama extended the infamous Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich for two more years so that those fat cat financiers and private-equity managers could continue to lap up the cream.
Reich asks us to play along because the plot is beginning to sound “far-fetched” – and a good thing, too -- because, with Obama killed off and erased from the drama, there is no trace of the fact that Obama agreed to deep cuts that targeted the poor, the middle class, and students, including cuts to the low-income heating assistance program, cuts to nutrition programs for low-income women, infants, and children, cuts to assistance for the elderly, graduate school assistance, after-school programs, and cuts to community public health clinics.
Reich’s decision to kill off Obama also erases all vestiges of the Catfood Commission -- tasked with finding ingenious ways to cut and gut Social Security and Medicare -- and when that failed to yield the desired result, Obama threw those precious “entitlement” programs on the table as pawns to be sacrificed in his sought-after “Grand Bargain” with House Speaker John Boehner.
But, now for the serious dramatic tension: What happens next?
Reich gives us two endings to his fable – even though the either/or argument is a logical fallacy – and he sets up the epic, climactic, fictional battle between laughably disproportionate foes, to wit:
The Evil Private-Equity Manager versus the citizens who must “repudiate” him, and everything he stands for, and the party who nominated him -- but only after the citizens have “awakened” to what has happened to their economy and their democracy and have become “ignited” to move with determination to “take it all back.” Is Howard Dean writing this script?
So, it’s the Evil Private-Equity Manager versus the “citizens” who must defeat him and take back their economy and their democracy – but where is Barack Obama in this dénouement? Where is the Democratic Party?
D’oh! -- Reich has killed off Obama and the Democratic Party, too – he has written them out of the narrative – and one is left to wonder if his omission was an effort to be too-clever-by-half, or was it the result of subconscious wishful thinking?
This latest exercise in sophistry is the reason that Obots like Professor Reich should stick to Democratic Party hackery and leave great soap-opera script writing to the pros.
That’s why I prefer Mad Men to Reich’s puerile “Imagine” effort – if and when Matthew Weiner decides to kill off Don Draper, I will be simultaneously grief-stricken and angry as Hell. But, Reich’s decision to kill off Obama? Not so much. Good riddance!
If the ending of this fable were really up to me, I would send Barack Obama packing back to “Sweet Home Chicago” in January 2013. Why reward epic failure and multiple and serial betrayals?
Barack Obama 2012 – R.I.P. Thanks, Professor Reich! You killed him off!
PS – Vote your genuine preference and your conscience this November and reject the false choice between the “Greater Evil” versus the “More Effective Evil” -- but, most of all, don't cast your vote based on fear!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They ran Jimmy Carter and I reluctantly voted for him, they ran Walter Mondale and I reluctantly voted for him, they ran Michael Dukakis and I reluctantly voted for him, they ran Bill Clinton twice and I reluctantly voted for him, and of course Obama. The rationale is always the same--the alternative, we are told, is much worse. So said the commentariat, the elite of the liberal class, Halberstam's the Best and the Brightest. NO more, count me out.
Two BO-supporting bobbys on the same day. Jesus F. Christ!!
Exactly Reich, it is up to us and so far I don't see many who care to take the latter ending. Seems the BIG MONEY has paid the M$M to fertilize its garden so well those in that garden just sit and dawdle away the sunshine. Those members of the garden are so well fertilized and those roots so deep sucking up the fertilizer bromides that they will never come out and take back what was theirs. And especially give it to those who created this disaster and tuck them in a far away place never to be seen again. Hopefully.
"The ending is up to you"...That just about says it all.
Transition Analyst
Shorter Robert Reich:
"You're on your own, suckers!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is perhaps a third alternative. Voters could elect a republican president as a display of their unhappiness with the current administration and a democrat congressional majority which would if democrats operated like republicans tie the newly elected republican president's hands.
Well, when George W. Bush was president the "democrats operated like republicans" and supported the war.
That is the problem with my senario. Democrats don't actually pretend very hard to be anything other than another arm of the republican party. It's also the major flaw in Mr. Reich's proposal.
Anthem of the new Social Revolution for America
by Citoyendavid
Let us go oh citizens of America.
The day of honesty has arrived!
Against us are tyrants.
Our fists are raised.
Our fists are raised.
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of common sense?
They come to take our rights away,
To slit the throats of patriots. We the People!
(Refrain)
Cast your votes, citizens!
Form your committees!
Let us march! Let us march!
Without the shedding of blood,
Liberty and Freedom!
This horde of social elite and scheming media,
What do they want?
Why litigate us into these shackles,
These contrived social classes?
These contrived social classes?
Americans, for us, oh what an insult!
What have they done to us!
Their issues will rule us,
Returning us to being indentured.
(Refrain)
Religious dogma sits as law.
They make laws about being in our homes.
What of these individual freedoms?
What will bring out common sense?
What will bring out common sense?
Our good nation will be chained.
Our Liberty will be broken down.
These despots would become
The masters of our Freedom!
(Refrain)
Tremble you fanatics and to you traitors.
Disgrace to your bourgeois attitude.
Tremble! Your right-wing plans,
Can you afford to pay the price?
Can you afford to pay the price?
Every citizen is ready to stop you
If some must fall, we are united and
the Republic will make more.
Our fists are raised!
Reich's little fable is such BS. He knows that in the real fable we only get a choice of black or dark grey. There will be no real change or hope for most of us anymore, because in reality we have been for a very long time living in a Corp. owned Plutocracy.
His fable is obvious BS to you, but that's because folks like you give up fighting, and just go with the flow. It seems to be more important to you to state your hopeless situation (or just shout out loud how lousy everything always will be) than look for the positives that are out there. Saying that we have already been beat, that we stand no chance anymore, is way to pathetic of an outlook to have.
I don't remember who said it, but' when the times get tough, the tough get going', is a much better, and more positive attitude to have now a days. After all, it can get better if we all work together for the good of the country and our environment.
Homes are not assets, but very expensive commodities. Homes do not produce commodities, they depreciate in value if lived in, they depreciate even faster in value if they are not lived in, they have a limited lifetime with regard to their construction materials, their furnishings and accommodations have an even more limited lifetime, and the only factor which could cause a home to appreciate in value is increased demand -- that is inflation. The idea of a home being an asset is a myth to convince the public that it has a stake in the vampire financial system, a myth that was created upon the exhaustion of the free land giveaway (otherwise known as the settling of the West) that purchased public loyalty to the government up through the year 1906.
oh, my...what a pleasant surprise you provide this thread, ClassAct...
The first part of the fable is not a fable. The second part, sadly IS A FANTASY. Judging from what BO has already done, how could anyone imagine that he is suddenly going to take his corporate money and use it to help the middle class and the poor? This is a tale of two top equity players, and plutocracy has already won. We the 99% have to push this giant boulder up a hill, like Sisyphus, and hope it doesn't roll down on us after that blood sweat and tears.
Unless we want to repeat the myth of Sisyphus, we need to stop mindlessly pushing the boulder up the slope that our cultural mythology has put before us (the ladder of success, upward mobility).
That old mountain is a volcano that is about to blow.
If we want a truly level playing field, we need to design an entirely different field. "Build it and they will come."
Read Ellen Brown's writings
A home cannot be described as a commodity surely. It is a necessity. But neither should suddenly be taken away by dredging every shred of decency and every last dime from those who were living in it. Put up mortgage rates and the house becomes an empty shell. And the once-owners live in tent villages without running water and electricity - which were once commodities and necessities. America is falling over itself and has become its own gulag where very soon, nobody will either want to be or to visit. The warning signs are all there.
Why is it that, with very few exceptions, prominent "liberals", or "progressives", such as Robert Reich, uniformly adhere to the lesser evil position implied in this miserable article? This in contrast to large numbers of people (such as those responding here), who have no trouble understanding and rejecting the good-cop bad-cop game that the 1% have been operating since the end of WW II.
There have always been, and always will be, no shortage of bad guys around grabbing power. Now, even tho polls (doubtless biased the other way) indicate that, on virtually every major issue, the American people hold good positions, we can't seem to produce more than a handful of leaders with brains, good character, and perhaps most absent, guts? One possible explanation is that potential leaders exist, but aren't getting enough support to become prominent.
It is amazing that so many decent people are willing to vote for murderers, enemies of freedom, war mongers, stooges of the wealthy elite, because they are afraid that marginally worse people might be elected. How could those fooled by Obama in 2008 even think of voting for him again? Each seems to hold two contradictory views. One is that, if they don't vote for the lesser evil, then this will cause the greater evil to be elected. The other is that their vote for a third party candidate that supports their views would be meaningless.
If most people ignored election polls and simply voted only for candidates that they were in substantial agreement with, such as Green Party candidates, we could turn things around real fast. Check out a more detailed argument along these lines. http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/articles/twoParty.html
You know, I am skeptical of people serving as advisors and mouthpieces for past presidents as such, but I am hoping robert reich is at least trying to make up for serving under yuck reagan just as I feel bill moyers once was press secretary for lbj not a much better president than raygun. Moyers has, by his interviews of people who are trying to deal with the crap the 2 parties are handing out recently and these days used himself for better that probably covering for lbj as do the press secretaries all along . If what reich has to say uncovers or reveals what past jerks in chief have said and done I want to here it. But it does behoove me to be wary of a reich or others as to any intentions towards turning me back to some fallacious wrong ideas. To me, that is part and parcel of what it means about being responsible in a democracy.
If the nomination of Rmoney and everything he stands for weren't so tragic, it would be outright funny. I am positive future historians writing about America will give the era beginning with Bush seizing the White House in 2000 some wonderfully colorful, albeit highly appropriate, name, The Elephant Coup, The GOP Capitivity. The Renaissance of Feudalism? Whatever it finally is, it will capture the state of bondage America's citizens are now in..
The Process of C.H.A.O.S.
Citizens Helping Atone Our System
World*Peace + Global*Healing
Open*Letter,
<+> First a few Facts, borne out through HISTORY...
No political system, religious doctrine nor scientific endeavor has ever created global peace, security and prosperity.
These systems do NOT change from within and working in the system can NOT create effective, radical change.
"Doing the same thing the same way, and expecting a different result is insane"
-Albert Einstein-
Only changing the methods in which The*People interact with the system will alter the outcome.
This can only be accomplished by direct empowerment of The*People.
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
-Abe Lincoln-
<+> Now a few Questions:
1# Given the personal ability to implement a process to create global peace, security and prosperity would you be interested in having that power ?
2# Do you work for your living, maintain a budget, home, vehicle and help provide for those you care for and love ?
3# Also do you agree it is your individual right to direct the capital of your labor to serve the best interest of you and your families future ?
4# And... Do you believe that your ability to accomplish all these tasks for yourself out performs your local, city, state and federal government ?
If you answered YES to all four of these questions, then you may agree that representative government generally fails at, or does a less effective job of maintaining a budget, creating peace, security and general prosperity for the world...
Then you do as an individual.
After all you don't send your kids out to steal fuel from your neighbors or make trouble in general, and you expect to pay for services rendered at a fair market value, return credit due at reasonable rates and follow through on contracts and promises made.
If so, we are in agreement with these premises and it seems logical to say that if 65% of your tax contribution was allocated to areas of funding of Your*Choice it would be used more effectively toward creating the world you envision, rather than a global reality contrary to the best interest of you and others.
Therefore rational thinking says the concept of... iDC, Individual Directed Capitalization which grants you as an individual the power and control to select how 65% of your tax contribution is used by government, would over time create a People's Budget developing both immediate and long term change and the best overall situation for your community, humanity and the planet in general.
While... The remaining 35% being directed by representative government would balance out any emergency or underfunded area that arose and also create the requirement for responsible allocation and sustainable reserve funds in all areas of government spending.
The first immediate effect of this process is that transparency and oversight,
By +The People is created, corporations would be compelled to shift their lobbying power and funding directly into benefitting all communities in order to create a positive situation and outcome for themselves and, For +The People.
And... Government Representatives would have to return to working in the best interest, Of +The People, not corporate masters who buy their votes.
"More powerful than the march of mighty armies, is an idea who's time has come"
-Victor Hugo-
iDC + Individual Directed Capitalization
A single action to change everything, a single step to create,
World +4+ Peace + Power +2+ The*People + N.O.W.
Unite the C.H.A.O.S.
At this pointI think the only way for this country to change course is to discredit the "conservatives" completely. Let them win the election and let everything go to hell. Then out of the ashes, a government of the people by the people can rise because the bipartisan Corporatocracy that we have been seen to be incompetent at running the country.
Voting for Obama is just slowing down the painful ripping off of the bandaid.