The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich

Friends, I hope you’re as well as can be expected in these difficult times. A few days ago I focused on Elon Musk and his designs on Twitter. ( Here’s my post.) This morning, as I predicted, Musk put in a bid to buy the rest of Twitter and take it private. Musk’s bid of $54.20 per share is going to be hard for Twitter to resist, given Twitter’s duty to its shareholders: It’s nearly 40 percent high...

Memo to President Biden (and the Democrats) From: Robert Reich Re: Inflation Prices were 8.5 percent higher last month than they were a year ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning — the highest rate of inflation since 1981. The buying power of Americans is being squeezed more and more each day. You must explain what’s happening and put responsibility where it belongs. As America...

We begin another gut-wrenching week watching Putin’s barbarity in Ukraine. The Russian people know little about it because Putin has blocked their access to the truth, substituting propaganda and lies. Years ago, pundits assumed the Internet would open a new era of democracy, giving everyone access to the truth. But dictators like Putin and demagogues like Trump have demonstrated how naïve that as...

This morning I had coffee once again with my colleague Heather Lofthouse (who runs Inequality Media) about the events of the week — Putin, Judge Jackson, and Republicans maneuvers, as well as some personal stuff (including something I’ve never before admitted to publicly). Please feel free to join us. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to b...

Yesterday, CEOs from America’s largest oil companies appeared before a House committee probing why they’re raising prices at the pump while raking in record profits and spending huge sums buying back their shares of stock. (Last year, Chevron, Exxon, BP, and Shell spent more than $44 billion on buybacks and dividends , and plan to spend $74 billion this year — money that should be used instead to...

Today’s Office Hours discussion question: Is a windfall profits tax a good idea? How could it get the political support it needs? Would this be helpful for the Democrats in the midterms? Background: Yesterday I testified before the Senate Budget Committee about the power of American corporations — now enjoying the highest profits in 70 years — to raise their prices. And I endorsed a windfall profi...

America is on the cusp of the largest inter-generational transfer of wealth in history. As wealthy boomers expire over the next three decades, an estimated $30 trillion will go to their children. Those children will be able to live off of the income these assets generate, and then leave the bulk of them – which in the intervening years will have grown far more valuable – to their own heirs, tax-fr...

I know the conventional wisdom about midterm elections — the party in power loses big — and I’ve lived through enough midterms to know that the conventional wisdom is mostly correct. Does this make Biden and the Democrats toast when it comes to retaining control of the House and Senate? No — especially because of one huge loose cannon aimed at the Republican Party: Donald Trump. About 30 percent o...

Yesterday was a big day for American workers. I want to start with the remarkable worker victory at Amazon’s giant warehouse on Staten Island and then move to yesterday’s great jobs report — and the real danger lying within it. First, the victory. America’s wealthiest, most powerful, and fiercest anti-union corporation — with the second-largest workforce in the nation (union-busting Walmart being...

Andrew Jackson allegedly defied the Supreme Court in 1832 over a case called Worcester v. Georgia , involving Georgia's attempt to apply state laws to Cherokee lands. As the story goes, Jackson announced “John Marshall has made his decision now let him enforce it.” Whether Jackson actually said this is disputed, but it illustrates a fundamental truth about the Supreme Court: It has no power to enf...

A pandemic that hasn’t ended. Inflation that’s soaring. Putin’s war in Ukraine that could escalate into a nuclear confrontation. A climate crisis that’s worsening. Trump and his followers’ continued attacks on our democracy. I could go on. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a degree of stress I don’t remember feeling in a very long time. So here’s today’s Office Hours question: How are you st...

President Biden’s budget, which came out yesterday, proposes a new minimum tax of 20 percent on households worth more than $100 million — which the White House says will reduce federal budget deficits by $1 trillion over a decade. The tax would apply only to the top 0.01 percent -- the richest 1 percent of the richest 1 percent. Half of the expected $1 trillion in revenue would come from 704 house...

In a speech on Friday delivered from his office in the Kremlin, Putin criticized the West’s “cancel culture” which, he charged, is “canceling” Russia -- “an entire thousand-year-old country, our people.” It was the third time in recent months Putin has blasted the so-called “cancel culture.” Which is exactly what Trump, Tucker Carlson, and the GOP have blasted for several years. "The goal of cance...

As Putin’s war shakes up the world economy, the Fed last week raised interest rates by a quarter point and penciled in six more increases by the end of the year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell says he’s ready to do whatever it takes to bring inflation down, including following the example of his predecessor Paul Volcker, who increased interest rates to 20 percent in 1981. Volcker’s rate rise triggered a...

Joe Biden is in Europe today, consulting with NATO allies about how to ratchet up the pressure on Putin. I’ve been mulling how we might respond to Putin’s war not just by ratcheting up pressure but also by doing something positive for the world. As Europe and America cope with the energy problems resulting from the war, it strikes me that this is the perfect time to face the climate crisis and con...

Has it been six months already ? I hadn’t intended to write every day but with so much going on in the world, I had no choice. One of my hopes when I began this newsletter six months ago was that you’d find sustenance here, particularly during these difficult times. The past six months have been grueling. I’ve felt the same anxieties many of you have felt, spilling over into some sleepless nights....

Here’s the paradox: The higher you rise in any hierarchy, your decisions are likely to have larger and larger consequences. Yet the higher you rise, the harder it is to get accurate feedback about your decisions. I’ve worked with several presidents. All have made big blunders. I’ve also known and written about CEOs of big corporations who have made terrible mistakes. In every case, they had flawed...

This morning I had coffee with my colleague Heather Lofthouse, who runs Inequality Media. We talked about generational change (boomers; millennials, and today’s children), and the idea of progress. Feel free to pull up a chair. I’ve enjoyed experimenting with this Substack newsletter — including sending you my written posts, drawings, and audio recordings, and exchanging comments with you. Would y...

Okay, I’m going to go out on a limb today and suggest something that would have seemed utter nonsense as late as a month ago: I’m seeing the stirrings in Washington of a new era of … I’m not sure what to call it. “Unity” is way too strong. “Bipartisanship” is premature. “ De -partisanship” is too clunky. But something new seems to be happening, and Vladimir Putin is responsible. Don’t get me wrong...

Welcome to Wednesday, friends. Biden’s advisers are saying that the crisis in Ukraine presents a chance for a reset — Biden’s best opportunity to restore his standing before the November midterms. But what’s the message for the reset? Despite falling coronavirus positivity rates, a bipartisan infrastructure package, and rising employment numbers — and even foreign policy leadership — Biden’s appro...

Hello friends, and welcome to Tuesday. This morning I filled my car with gas costing over five dollars a gallon. My car is a Mini Cooper that I bought years ago, partly because it wasn’t a gas guzzler. Now it’s guzzling dollars. But when I consider what’s happening in Ukraine, I say what the hell. It’s a small sacrifice. Yet guess who’s making no sacrifice at all — in fact, who’s reaping a giant w...

It’s like watching a three-hundred-pound bully beat up a kid half his size, for no reason — bloodying the poor kid, pulverizing him. Yet you don’t dare try to stop the mayhem because the bully has a gun that he’ll use on you if you intervene. You look for police, but there are none. You round up your friends, who join you in shouting at the bully. But he pays no attention. They threaten that if he...

I used to believe several things about the twenty-first century that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s election in 2016 have shown me are false. I assumed: Nationalism is disappearing . I expected globalization would blur borders, create economic interdependence among nations and regions, and extend a modern consumer and artistic culture worldwide. I was wrong. Both Putin and Trump ha...

Among the most heartrending casualties in Ukraine are the children. So far, a million of them have fled the nation. Many are on their own, without parents or relatives to protect them. The 6 million who remain in Ukraine are in grave danger of being maimed or killed. Yesterday Ukraine accused Russia of bombing a children’s hospital. Of all the victims of war, children are the most innocent. If the...

I’m becoming increasingly worried that a growing segment of the American public is pushing for a war with Russia. Needless to say, that would be suicidal. This morning I saw an open open letter to the Biden administration signed by a group of 27 foreign policy heavyweights, calling for a limited no-fly zone over Ukraine — “starting with protection for humanitarian corridors that were agreed upon i...