If trickle-down were going to work, it would have by now, especially given the GDP and financial markets. Reich\’s middle-out concept and his over-all assessment of our economic woes is the most common sense observations I have heard and seem well supported with history and economic data.

Highly recommended.

Being an aloof academic, Reich does not realize how silly his ideas are to practical people. He blames the wealthy and income inequality for causing recent financial collapses. On the contrary, it is government meddling and over-regulation that cause collapses. When economic and financial prudence are replaced with neo-liberal ideology, and when risk is guaranteed by the government, even a fool (but not a neo-liberal), can predict that economic and financial harm will result. When lenders are forced by government to make loans to unqualified borrowers, common sense dictates that defaults will occur. When those defaults occur, the government (taxpayers) will be forced to make good on bad "guaranteed" loans. Without government meddling, lenders would only loan money to those with demonstrated ability to repay the loans. Similarly, societal income and wealth disparities eventually force the wealthy and business owners to make price and wage concessions to the less fortunate, so they can buy products and participate in the economy. History demonstrates that, without government meddling, the marketplace adjusts wages, price, income and wealth. All of the harmful effects of which Reich speaks are CAUSED by governmental efforts to redistribute wealth, provide more resources for the "less fortunate," and remove risk from the economy. These governmental efforts must, necessarily, result in financial ruin, because they have no basis in real-world economics and human nature. None of these facts matter in the fantasy, ideological world Reich and neo-liberal academics/politicians have created for themselves. Were Reich and the neo-liberals relegated to the halls of academia, there might be little harm from their nonsense. The problem for society is that these dangerous people have now taken control of the government and media. Despite powerful evidence of their ongoing failures, neo-liberals like Reich remain hell-bent on implementing their pernicious ideologies.