Top Robert Reich Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Robert Reich Biography

Robert Bernard Reich (/raɪʃ/; born June 24, 1946) is an American political commentator, professor, and author. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. He was Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997. He was a member of President-elect Barack Obama's economic transition advisory board.

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Robert Reich Quotes

Cynicism is the largest obstacle to social change. Cynicism is dangerous because people throw up their hands and say, "Well it's not possible. Why should I even try?"

Hands, Largest, People, Social, Trying

The largest party in America, by the way, is neither the Democrats nor the Republicans. It's the party of non-voters.

America, Atheism, Democrats, Party

There is a crisis of public morality. Instead of policing bedrooms, we ought to be doing a better job policing boardrooms.

Bedroom, Boardrooms, Crisis, Instead, Jobs, Morality

Anyone believing the TPP is good for Americans take note: The foreign subsidiaries of U. S. -based corporations could just as easily challenge any U. S. government regulation they claim unfairly diminishes their profits - say, a regulation protecting American consumers from unsafe products or unhealthy foods, investors from fraudulent securities or predatory lending, workers from unsafe working conditions, taxpayers from another bailout of Wall Street, or the environment from toxic emissions.

Bailout, Believe, Emissions, Government, Unhealthy, Wall

Being critical of the nation is a far cry from being unpatriotic or anti-American. In fact, most social criticism. . . is based on a love of America's ideals and a concern we're not living up to them.

America, Based, Criticism, Love, Political, Unpatriotic

As a top manager, you have to not just reward truth-telling, you've got to beg for it, and you've got to demand that everyone around you gives you constructive criticism, constantly. You've got to get out of the bubble, so that you can get direct feedback from everybody who's being affected.

Giving, Criticism, Feedback, Affected, Manager, Demand

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

Growth, Philosophy, Political, Prices, Spur

Cynicism is the last refuge of those who don't want to do the work of creating a better society.

Creating, Lasts, Refuge, Society, Want, Work

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.

School, Cutting, Class, Taxes, Cuts, Poor

I don't think that our problem, our jobs problem, is fundamentally a problem of trade. I think it has much more to do with the fact that we have not sufficiently educated our population. We have not got out of this great recession with adequate stimulus and adequate fiscal and monetary policies over all.

Jobs, Monetary, Population, Problem, Thinking

I think that in politics, when people want to discredit a particular position, they say, "Oh, they are liberals," or "They are conservatives; we are centrists. " Everybody wants to be a centrist.

Conservatives, Discredit, Liberals, People, Thinking, Want

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.

Continuously, Create, Easily, Leader, Mean, People

A funny thing happened to the First Amendment on its way to the public forum. According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech and corporations are now people. But when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they’re treated as public nuisances and evicted.

According, Funny Things, Nuisances, People, Real

In the early 1970s, Milton Friedman argued that corporations should not be socially responsible because they had no mandate to be; they existed to make money, not to be charitable institutions. But in the economy of the 21st century, corporations cannot be socially responsible, if social responsibility is understood to mean sacrificing profits for the sake of some perceived social good. That's because competition has become so much more intense.

Business, Institutions, Mean, Responsibility, Social

Education is not the only answer and it's certainly not the immediate solution. At best, it's a necessary, but not sufficient response to widening inequality.

Answers, Inequality, Necessary, Response, Solution, Widening

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.

Track, Watches, Video, Friends, Call, Debate

Yale Law School was the kind of place you went if you felt you needed to go to law school, maybe, for your resume, but you really didn't want to practice law. You wanted to do public policy, or maybe go into politics.

Law, Place, Practice, School, Yale

When the President decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from congress.

Decides, Declaration, Needs, President, War

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?

Ask, Business, Country, Gone, Jobs, Simply

A leader is someone who steps back from the entire system and tries to build a more collaborative, more innovative system that will work over the long term.

Back, Business, Entire, Leader, Leadership, Teamwork

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