Robert Reich
Recent Articles
There's No Big Binge in Half a Point
Robert ReichDec 19, 2001LA Times Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on Wednesday did exactly what he needed to do by dropping short-term interest rates another half-point, but it's not enough. The Great Economic Slowdown of 2001 (let's not call it a recession quite yet) came on partly because Greenspan raised short-term interest rates too high, starting in June 1999 and continuing through five more rate increases. Now he's backtracking, and interest rates are going back below where they were when he started. That should give the economy a needed boost. Not surprisingly, on word of the rate cut, the stock market reversed direction and scored one of its largest one-day rallies ever. But can the rally be sustained? And what's the outlook beyond the immediate euphoria? Notably, two-thirds of the recent economic slowdown has been because of a dramatic drop in capital spending. At the start of last year, American businesses were buying new equipment (much of it high-tech) at an annual rate 20% above the year...
Your Job is Change
Robert ReichDec 19, 2001Fast Company The Web changes everything -- including change. And it's not just the Web. Digital technologies, wireless technologies, the Human Genome Project, complexity theory, and the emergence of new science have all changed how we think about change: why change has to happen in companies, how change happens, and, most important, who makes change happen. Power has shifted from inside to outside, from corporate planners to aggressive buyers. Now all customers, all clients, all investors, have a huge array of choices -- and can switch to something better instantly. Change today happens suddenly, unexpectedly, unpredictably. It occurs in companies the way that we see it occur in biological systems or in technological breakthroughs: Change is sudden, nonlinear, and constant. Its amplitude and direction can't be forecast. Killer apps can come from anywhere; new competitors are lurking everywhere. Markets emerge, flourish, inspire imitators, breed competitors, and disappear seemingly...
The Butcher Is Back
Robert ReichDec 19, 2001Broadcast August 24, 2001 The butcher metaphors of modern management are back: cutting out the fat, slicing to the bone, getting leaner and meaner. Well, all this butchering may slow the slide of stock prices, but it's not a way to build long-term competitive strengths. The fact is, the key competitive assets of most companies these days is their people, not their machines or plants or even their patents, but their employees. Their employees' intellectual capital, knowledge about the companies' products, services and technologies. Their employees social capital, relations they built up over the years with clients and customers. And inside the company, relationships among employees who've become a team. And beyond the intellectual and social capital is what might be called trust capital, the sense among employees that the company will be there for them when times are tough, so that employees are willing to go the extra mile, make that extra commitment because they feel loyal to the...
Don't Democrats Believe in Democracy?
Robert ReichDec 19, 2001The Wall Street Journal If I had my way there would be laws restricting cigarettes and handguns. But Congress won't even pass halfway measures. Cigarette companies have admitted they produce death sticks, yet Congress won't lift a finger to stub them out. Teenage boys continue to shoot up high schools, yet Congress won't pass stricter gun controls. The politically potent cigarette and gun industries have got what they wanted: no action. Almost makes you lose faith in democracy, doesn't it? Apparently that's exactly what's happened to the Clinton administration. Fed up with trying to move legislation, the White House is launching lawsuits to succeed where legislation failed. The strategy may work, but at the cost of making our frail democracy even weaker. The Justice Department is going after the tobacco companies with a law designed to fight mobsters--the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations chapter of the Organized Crime Control Act. Justice alleges that the tobacco...
A "C" To Success
Robert ReichDec 19, 2001(Broadcast 5/24/01) When President Bush recently addressed Yale s graduating seniors, he gave a hearty "well done" to those who got straight A s, but consoled the C students by telling them that they, too, could be president of the United States. Apparently, he was referring to his own less than stellar academic performance as a Yale undergraduate. A C-average as the key to success? Actually the President was on to something. Studies show that students who graduate from college with straight-A s have less chance of becoming chief executives of anything, and also are less likely to become rich later in life, than are students with more modest grades. A recruiter from a major investment bank told me recently he no longer even bothers to interview straight-A students from Ivy League universities, because -- he says -- they ve spent their whole lives jumping obediently through every hoop placed in front of them. He wants young people who are out to beat the system -- who are innovative...
