Robert Reich Quotes - Page 2

Socialism for rich bankers and capitalism for everyone else.

True patriotism isn't cheap. It's about taking on a fair share of the burden of keeping America going.

I mean, you hear the word 'globalization' over and over and over again. Globalization, globalization, globalization. Rarely has a word gone so directly from obscurity to meaninglessness without any intervening period of coherence.

If leadership is about anything, it's about leading. Not leading people back to where they already are, because they don't need that. They're already there.

The core principle is that we want an economy that works for everyone, not just for a small elite. We want equal opportunity, not equality of outcome. We want to make sure that there's upward mobility again, in our society and in our economy.

In the life of a nation, few ideas are more dangerous than good solutions to the wrong problems.

Cutting taxes is not bad. But if you cut taxes on the wealthy, which is what they wanted to do, you're not helping people who need better schools and better infrastructure and healthcare. You're basically robbing the middle class and the poor to provide tax cuts to the rich.

I think the big problem is you have a vicious cycle of wealth and power in America that`s just gotten completely out of control and you`ve seen it in politics.

What we really need to understand here is that it`s all about power. This is where the surge is coming from for Bernie Sanders. In some ways, it`s a very different - it`s a different surge, but it`s coming out of the same sort of sense of fundamental powerlessness and anger and frustration for Donald Trump.

I think re-engineering or restructuring or downsizing or rightsizing or whatever you want to call it, it's basically firing, has gone way too far. Employees, as I've talked to them across the country, feel that they are not respected, they are not valued, they are worried about their jobs. They simply feel that the company is no longer loyal to them. Why should they be loyal to the company, they ask me. Why should I go the extra mile? Why should I care?

The Trans Pacific Partnership (and fast-track authority to whisk it through Congress without debate) is fast approaching. If you haven't seen our video about it, please watch. If you have, please share. And mobilize and organize friends and colleagues to call their senators and representatives to tell them to vote against this reprehensible deal.

The fastest growing occupation in the private sector is security guards. The fastest growing occupation in the public sector is prison guards. (1992)

Humor itself is a great disinfectant. It enables people to listen.

You and I and almost all Americans are beneficiaries of the new economy. But we are also losing parts of our lives to the new economy - aspects of our family lives, our friendships, our communities, ourselves.

America's real business leaders understand unless or until the middle class regains its footing and its faith, capitalism remains vulnerable.

The Democratic Party is DEAD.

Corporations are not people, despite what the Supreme Court says, and they don't need or deserve handouts.

In Washington, it's dog eat dog. In academia, it's exactly the opposite.

Radical conservatives want to police bedrooms.

The only way America can reduce the long-term budget deficit, maintain vital services, protect Social Security and Medicare, invest more in education and infrastructure, and not raise taxes on the working middle class is by raising taxes on the super rich.

More and more, leadership, whether it's profit or nonprofit, is about recruiting and keeping talented people. That's the biggest challenge. Yes, you've got to create systems that will enable people easily to innovate continuously; you've got to be a system-builder. But finding and keeping geeks and shrinks is the biggest challenge. That means leaders have got to be salespeople, they've got to be recruiters, and they've got to be actively able to understand and keep the talent they have. Leadership is courtship. That's what it's becoming.

Those who analogize the federal budget to a family's budget must know nothing about either.

If you give up on politics, you're giving up on democracy. And if you give up on democracy, you're basically saying to the moneyed interests, the powerful people and institutions of society, take it all. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then we give up. Then we are 100 percent plutocracy.

Globalization and free trade do spur economic growth, and they lead to lower prices on many goods.

Any bank that is too big to fail is too big. Period.