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.
We need to revise our economic thinking to give full value to our natural resources. This revised economics will stabilize both the theory and the practice of free-market capitalism. It will provide business and public policy with a powerful new tool for economic development, profitability, and the promotion of the public good.
Wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.
This is the paradox of thrift: belt-tightening causes people to lose their jobs, because other people are not buying what they produce, so their debt burden rises rather than falls.
COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.
The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics is not the claim that if the rich get richer, everyone is better off. It is the claim made by those who oppose any increase in the minimum wage that if the poor get richer, that will be bad for the economy. This is nonsense.
The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together.
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