Robert Reich bashes rich people again – despite earning $242k for teaching one class

Robert Reich, a liberal economist and former Labor Secretary in the Clinton Administration, is out again with another blog post criticizing current and future business leaders for not doing what they can to improve the middle class – of course, he always refuses to mention the Federal Reserve and the expanding role of the federal government.

In a blog post for AlterNet – which was initially published in the Harvard Business Review – entitled “Robert Reich Calls Out Harvard Business School for Its Role in Widening Inequality,” Reich wrote that without a strong middle class then American consumers won’t have the purchasing power to keep corporations profitable and consistent demand for goods and services.

He warned that if the wealth gap continues to widen then it will incite “political and social instability” because of the “pay gap between CEOs and ordinary workers that’s gone from 20-to-1 fifty years ago to almost 300-to-1 today.”

“Can an enterprise be truly successful in a society becoming ever more divided between a few highly successful people at the top and a far larger number who are not thriving?” asked Reich, who served on the economic advisory board of then-President-elect Barack Obama in 2008.

Essentially, Reich reiterates what he said in his 2013 documentary “Inequality for All,” which highlights income inequality, the economic collapse and the Occupy Movement that engulfed numerous American and Canadian cities for a few months.

Hypocrisy?

The big question that must be asked is: is Reich being hypocritical in his arguments? Reich made headlines when he took a job as a public policy professor at the taxpayer-funded University of California, Berkeley. His occupation consists of teaching one course in the fall and is able to command a salary of $242,613 in 2013, or $20,217 per month, which is a lot more than the average worker.

For a man who preaches income inequality but taking nearly a quarter of a million dollars (provided by the taxpayers and students) for teaching a few hours a year isn’t really being consistent in his message.

Again, for some reason or another, he completely negates the U.S. central bank when it comes to income inequality, wealth gaps and purchasing power for all Americans.