Should We Abolish Billionaires? | Robert Reich

Former Secretary of Labor explains why need to reform our economy to combat inequality.

[timothypowell]

There are a lot of financial laws that need to change. First we need to go to publicly funded elections and eliminate professional lobbyists.

[fellowcitizen]

Absolutely. It doesn't serve society, civilisation, innovation, and it doesn't even serve the billionaires themselves. It just undermines effective governance, productivity, technology, philosophy and justice to have small groups or individuals exert such gravity upon states and communities.

[XRL_GUY]

I'm tired of seeing hard working people in poverty.

[jlrob]

I’m a conservative and I approve this message. The US has been lost to greed for decades. Hard to change that

[veronicatinkins]

Thank you Robert Reich for your continual efforts informing and enlightening the public, we cannot mobilize without educating the uninformed. And you do it in such a succinct way, making it easy to comprehend, brief and to the point.

[valeriestasik]

Because of my fixed income, medical expenses, small donations, mortgage interest, and real estate tax, I had no tax liability for about five years. This year, I owed taxes while the super rich and many corporations paid nothing.

[Tommy_Mac]

It's communism for the rich because they can control their tax 'fate' . Capitalism for the rest of America that plays by the rules which were enacted in the rich people's favor.

[DavinnaJo]

I appreciate the way Robert breaks down complicated economic and political topics into bite-size chunks that laypeople like me can understand. I learn so much from this channel. Thank you!

[antoniocalhau]

Thank you Robert Reich for making these videos available and help us to think about the academic problems of governance.

[TomasAWalker]

Everything you say makes complete sense, and I like that you finished with four definite means to rein in runaway capitalism. I began a losing streak in the recession of 1981-82. I had two young children and a wife and a union job. I worked for the next thirty years after losing my union job in 84. I never did get a chance to work for a union company again, and my income dive bombed, taking my benefits with it. I had to work twice the hours to make what I used to make in a regular fourty hour week. Two divorces later and by 2007 I was able to semi-retire in a rural location and was learning to accept that my entire working life was a waste as we were never able to buy a house or save any money. Then 2008. One year later, my job gone, I had to work a hard physical job for ten bucks an hour and no benefits whatsoever. I'm Canadian, so at least my medical was free. I hope you can understand, but I don't believe you will be successful in your endeavours. You got Trump and we suffer. You get rid of Trump, and he'll be back or someone more competent than him. At our age, I think our generation expected to be a lot further advanced as a people. I really dread the next twenty years of my life and what will become of my adult children and grandson. We've all been asleep at the switch.

[ihmyfriends]

the sad thing is most people assume we have functional monopoly laws

[Applecorecafe]

Everything benefits the super rich. The rest of us are just as fucked as ever. The beginning of the end was Trickle Up Economics, thanks Ron!

[KennethHaineskbh]

“Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.” Lucy Parsons

[dickgrayson]

Everything in this video has been debunked. This guy is dishonest.

[brentb]

It makes me feel good knowing some people can live lavish lifestyles without working a day in their life while I work 65-90 hours a week to live paycheck to paycheck. It's a real warm happy feeling. It feels fair.

[ubik]

Yes we should by taxing already accumulated wealth. Billionaires are the excrement of our messed up economic system, i.e. corruption of all sorts. 60% of wealth is inherited? That's sick.

[DEATHxDALER]

Want to make america great again start taxing everyone who makes over 50 million a year like they did in the 50s up to 50 mill. at the regular rate everything over 50 mill. at a 90% rate thats how we were able to build the U.S. interstate system and keep our infrastructure in tip top

[MrHyroglyph]

This all stems from:
-Corporation is a person-
-$ are votes-
(Numbers are valued, humans are chattel)

[Raykibb]

I am an attorney that has worked closely with economists on cases involving lost wages and loss of earning potential in personal injury cases. Economics is not the sexiest topic to discuss, but I could listen to Robert Reich all day.

[Helfirehydratrans]

One thing that should be illegal is, if you are a politician, you should no longer be allowed to stock trade, and if you’re a former politician, you should not be able to work for a company that you gave favouritism to during your politician because a lot of congressman go between being a corporate board member to a congress person

America is ran by corporations