As we segregate by income into different communities, schools in lower-income areas have fewer resources than ever.
Robert ReichRead
In America, people with lots of money can easily avoid the consequences of bad bets and big losses by cashing out at the first sign of trouble.
Interpretation
Wealth can shield individuals from the repercussions of poor financial decisions.
This quote by Robert Reich highlights the disparity in the financial landscape where affluent individuals have the means to escape the negative outcomes of their risky ventures. It underscores a critique of economic inequality, suggesting that those with significant resources can mitigate losses and evade accountability, while others cannot, raising questions about fairness and responsibility in economic practices.
In practice
In a speech discussing economic policies, one might quote this to highlight the unfair advantages of the wealthy.
As we segregate by income into different communities, schools in lower-income areas have fewer resources than ever.
What are called 'public schools' in many of America's wealthy communities aren't really 'public' at all. In effect, they're private schools, whose tuition is hidden away in the purchase price of upscale homes there, and in the corresponding property taxes.
What someone is paid has little or no relationship to what their work is worth to society.
Tax laws favor capital over labor, giving capital gains a lower rate than ordinary income. The rich get humongous mortgage interest deductions while renters get no deduction at all.
The dirty little secret is that both houses of Congress are irrelevant. ... America's domestic policy is now being run by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve, and America's foreign policy is now being run by the International Monetary Fund [IMF]. ...when the president decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from Congress.
You can't inspire people if you are going to be uninspiring.
I will not let anyone tell me we must spend more money. This crisis did not come about because we issued too little money but because we created economic growth with too much money and it was not sustainable growth.
Close the weak banks and impose serious capital requirements on the strong ones...You see, it may sound hard-hearted, but you cannot keep unsound financial institutions operating simply because they provide jobs.
The gold standard did not collapse. Governments abolished it in order to pave the way for inflation. The whole grim apparatus of oppression and coercion, policemen, customs guards, penal courts, prisons, in some countries even executioners, had to be put into action in order to destroy the gold standard.
There's nothing in Keynesian economics that would allow you to solve stagflation. But there's nothing in neoclassical economics that would allow you to solve stagflation, either.
In our high-tech, high-skilled economy where low-skilled work is being scaled back, phased out, exported, or severely under-compensated, all the right behavior in the world won't create better jobs with more pay.
Higher taxes never reduce the deficit. Governments spend whatever they take in and then whatever they can get away with.
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