Robert Reich Speaking Topics

• Robert Reich Can Also Address the Following Topics:

  • The Economics of Energy
  • The Art and Practice of Change Insurgency
  • Helping Your Workforce Meet the New Competition
  • Brand and People Are All There Is

• The Global Economy and the Future of Everything National

  Corporations are headquartered anywhere, brands and franchises circle the globe, and talented employees come from all over the world. The emerging global economy offers unusual opportunities. But it also poses new hazards, and a downturn affects different markets in different ways. Even with the global slowdown, China remains one of America’s largest creditors and is becoming the manufacturing center of the world. India is fast becoming a world center for software development. These two countries will fundamentally alter the way the world does business. Meanwhile, the slow global recovery is obscuring one of the most important demographic and business trends in the world: the development of a new global middle class. This new middle class will create new tensions and difficult negotiations as they drive global economic shifts and place new demands on their governments. Robert Reich will explain these emerging forces and cover how businesses can make the most of the new opportunities while minimizing the hazards, whether the U.S. should care that China and India will displace it as the largest economy and center for high-tech development and how the new global middle class will impact global politics.

The Economic and Political Choices Facing the President and Congress

Robert Reich dissects the big economic challenges Washington policy makers are facing: hastening the recovery, creating jobs, managing the Baby Boomers’ pending retirements (Social Security and Medicare), and coping with the federal deficit. He also explains the key international challenges: improving America’s competitiveness, dealing with Europe’s debt crisis and dealing with an increasingly powerful China. With wide-sweeping knowledge and brilliant wit, Reich explains what’s really at stake, which policy choices are likely to be the most (or least) successful and how the complicated political landscape—with a Republican Congress and a President looking for a legislative legacy—will impact Washington’s ability to get things done.

The Slow Recovery and a Five-Year Look Ahead

What does the slow nature of the economic recovery mean for the future? What can the American and global economies do to expedite growth? Will the debt crisis in Europe unravel any further? Can the emerging markets pull the world economy out of the economic chasm? And what’s the economic outlook for the next five years in America and abroad? Robert Reich answers these critical questions while weaving in his perspective on global economics, finance and politics. In his informative and brilliant presentations, Reich explains what President Obama, Congress and other governments can do to spur growth; why it’s the wrong time to focus on the deficit; and how the slowdown is likely to play out over the next five years. Reich then summarizes the lessons—economic, financial, regulatory and political—likely to emerge from this latest recession and how we can avoid making the same mistakes moving forward.

Should We Worry About Widening Inequality?

In this speech, based on his award-winning documentary Inequality for All, Robert Reich explores what can be done to reverse the trend toward widening inequality in ways that improve the well-being of everyone, including the best-off members of society. He looks at the evidence in the United States and similar trends around the world; explains why it's happening; and examines the consequences for the economy and for democracy of the various choices we have for dealing with it.

Inequality for All: Bi-Partisan Solutions for America’s Economic Future

As the U.S. economy has doubled in size over the last 30 years, the gap between those at the top and those at the bottom has also increased at a staggering pace. The implications for the economic welfare of the U.S.—particularly for the middle class—are wide ranging and will have a profound effect on our collective future. In a presentation based on the documentary Inequality for All, Robert Reich places his focus on this issue by addressing a simple proposition: what is a good society and what role does the widening income gap play in the deterioration of our nation's economic health? In a paradigm-shifting, non-partisan manner, Reich shows why we all need to focus more on building up the middle class as without a strong middle class the economy cannot grow. Rather than pointing fingers at those at the top of the inequality gap, Reich shares a positive vision for how the wealthy would do better with a smaller share of a rapidly-growing economy than a large share of one that's barely growing at all—and how tackling this disparity is at the very core of getting America on the right track towards growth.