All Robert Reich
Gas prices: How rising fuel costs influence lawmakersGas prices are up, and it's already prompted Republicans to pass a bill to expand offshore drilling and and force the White House to issue a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. But the hike in gas prices won't be as steep, or lasting, as some think.
Manufacturing is back, but it's not the problemThe real issue isn’t whether and how we get manufacturing back. It’s how we get good jobs and good wages back. And they aren’t at all the same thing.
Super PACs: How many billionaires does it take to buy a presidential election?Would a refusal by President Obama to endorse a super PAC really amount to unilateral disarmament? To the contrary, it would have given the president a rallying cry that nearly all Americans would get behind.
The downward mobility of the American middle class.January’s increase in hiring is good news, but most of the new jobs being created are in the lower-wage sectors of the economy. The middle class, meanwhile, is becoming poorer and poorer.
Let's fix jobs before we fix the deficitJanuary's employment report is positive, but the US job market is far from healthy.
Obama is no 'food stamp president'Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich agree that President Obama is turning America into “European-style welfare culture,” pointing to a rise in the number of citizens relying on federal aid. Here's why they have it backwards.
The biggest risk to the economy in 2012Forget the European debt crisis. Widening economic inequality is worsening here at home, and little is being done to stop it.
No Democrat should want a Gingrich nominationThe future of America is too important to accept even a small risk of a Gingrich presidency.
Gingrich's big donor and the problem with Super PACsBillionaire Sheldon Adelson has poured millions into Newt Gingrich's Super PAC–an example of what's wrong with our campaign finance system.
How can Americans compete globally?Who should have the primary responsibility for making American workers globally competitive – the private sector or government?
Romney's tax loopholeMitt Romney probably manages to pay a 15 percent tax rate by treating his generous compensation from Bain Capital as capital gains. It's a loophole that unfairly benefits high earning private-equity managers.
Romney can take risks. He's rich.Mitt Romney is casting his campaign as a defense of free enterprise, hard work, and risk-taking. Easy for him to say: the higher you go on the economic ladder, the easier it is to make money without taking any personal financial risk at all. The lower you go, the bigger the risks.
Mitt Romney and the Bain of capitalismIf Romney's opponents are going to accuse him of doing things that are bad for society during his time at Bain Capital, then they need to propose laws that would prevent such things from happening in the future. They won't.
Why good economic news can be bad for ObamaA bit of good news will make voters overly optimistic, and when they realize the economy is still in poor shape, they will blame the president
The decline of the American public goodMuch of what’s called “public” is increasingly a private good paid for by users, and the rest has become so shoddy that that those who can afford to find private alternatives.
Predicted 2012 Democratic ticket: Obama-ClintonFor the 2012 election, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton will switch places. He will become Secretary of State–a position he's coveted for years–and she will become the party's Vice Presidential candidate, reinvigorating the Democratic base.
