To: Robert Reich, Former Secretary of Labor
Secretary Reich: Train Us How to Unite Americans on Moving from Income Inequality to Shared Prosp...
We are inspired by your film, "Inequality for All", to help unite Americans in a cooperative movement to spur economic reform and reverse widening income inequality. We ask that you establish and lead an “economic reality” educational program to create the informed public needed to demand genuine reform. Specifically we ask that you train average Americans like us how to effectively communicate how our country can create a larger and growing middle class that would grow the economy for the benefit of all Americans.
Why is this important?
Widening inequality--with a small number of people getting an increasing share of income and wealth—makes a mockery of equal opportunity, slows upward mobility, undermines democracy, hobbles our economy by reducing overall demand, and risks the fracture of our society. Everyone, even those at the top, would do better with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy than with a large share of an anemic one. We must restore the basic economic bargain epitomized by Henry Ford that workers are also consumers and must earn enough to buy the goods and services they can produce. There is a moral urgency and a practical one. We must act now before both our economic and political systems crumble under the weight of dissention and conflict.