{"id":4532,"date":"2015-11-17T10:38:37","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T15:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=4532"},"modified":"2016-12-20T09:39:42","modified_gmt":"2016-12-20T14:39:42","slug":"usa-our-economy-is-not-working-joseph-stiglitz-on-widening-income-inequality-the-fight-for-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=4532","title":{"rendered":"USA: Our Economy Is Not Working: Joseph Stiglitz on Widening Income Inequality & the Fight for $15"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

…. HUMAN RIGHTS ….<\/p>\n

An article and video by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now<\/a> (reprinted according to provisions of Creative Commons)<\/p>\n

The fight over income inequality gained national attention when fast-food workers walked off the job in hundreds of cities across the country on Tuesday demanding a $15-an-hour minimum wage and union rights. Some “Fight for $15” protesters rallied outside the Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee. During the debate, billionaire Donald Trump and other Republican contenders rejected calls to increase the minimum wage. We speak to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, author of the new book, “Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity.” “We\u2019re saying something is wrong with the way our economy is working,” says Stiglitz. “The fact that at the bottom, minimum wage is as low as it was 45 years ago, a half-century ago, says something. \u2026 It\u2019s not a living wage.”<\/p>\n

\"stiglitz\"
\nVideo of Stieglitz interview<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

TRANSCRIPT
\nThis is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
\nAMY GOODMAN: We turn right now to Joe Stiglitz, to the Nobel Prize-winning economist.<\/p>\n

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The fight over income inequality gained national attention when fast-food workers walked off the job in hundreds of cities across the country on Tuesday demanding a $15-an-hour minimum wage and union rights. Some “Fight for 15” protesters rallied outside the Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee. During the debate, billionaire Donald Trump and other Republican contenders rejected calls to increase the minimum wage.<\/p>\n

DONALD TRUMP: Taxes too high, wages too high, we\u2019re not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is. People have to go out, they have to work really hard, and they have to get into that upper stratum. But we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: We end today with Part 2 of my interview with the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz and his plan to address income inequality. He has written a new book called Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity. I asked him what an agenda for growth and shared prosperity would look like.<\/p>\n

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JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, it is about rewriting the rules in a fairly comprehensive way. I mean, the basic\u2014<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Who writes them?<\/p>\n

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, that has to be done by Congress, and it has to be with a lot of popular support. And in a way, we\u2019re beginning to do that. You know, the Fight for 15 movement, raising the minimum wage, that\u2019s one of the rules. But one of our points is that we need a more comprehensive agenda than just raising the minimum wage, and that if we make\u2014and the two words there, for “growth” and “shared prosperity,” so our view is that the only sustainable prosperity is shared prosperity and that one of the problems is that the way the rules have been rewritten since the beginning of Reagan has been to actually slow the American economy.<\/p>\n

And let me give you one example. When you have corporations having a very shortsighted view, paying their CEOs such outrageous monies with less money spent on investment, of course you\u2019re not going to make long-term investments that are going to result in long-term economic growth. And at the same time, there\u2019s going to be less money to pay for ordinary workers. And paying that low wages to ordinary workers, not giving them security, not giving them paid, you know, family leave, all that results in a less productive labor force. So what we\u2019ve done is we\u2019ve actually undermined investments in people, investments in the corporation, all for the sake of increasing the income of the people at the very top. So there\u2019s a really close link here between the growing inequality in our society and the weak economic performance.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: We\u2019re in the midst of an extended election year. But that goes to the issue of how we govern ourselves in this country, a very critical point. Let\u2019s talk about what underlies these elections: campaign finances. How does campaign finance reform fit into rewriting the rules of the American economy?<\/p>\n

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, it\u2019s actually absolutely essential. And, you know, the problem is that we\u2019ve gone basically from a political system with “one person, one vote” to “one dollar, one vote.” And, you know, Citizens United made that worse. So, the only way that you can combat the force of money is, you might say, people power, people coming out. And we\u2019ve seen this work. I mean, we\u2019ve seen it work in raising the minimum wage. You know, just\u2014we couldn\u2019t do it in Congress, because the gridlock there, the money there, so we\u2019ve done it in city after city\u2014Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, in New York. So, we\u2019ve actually been able to see that this kind of uprising can work, even in a political system with money making so much difference.<\/p>\n

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…. HUMAN RIGHTS …. An article and video by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now (reprinted according to provisions of Creative Commons) The fight over income inequality gained national attention when fast-food workers walked off the job in hundreds of cities across the country on Tuesday demanding a $15-an-hour minimum wage and union rights. Some “Fight for … Continue reading USA: Our Economy Is Not Working: Joseph Stiglitz on Widening Income Inequality & the Fight for $15<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,91],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-4532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","category-north-america","tag-north-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}