Liberal/progressive college professor Robert Reich reportedly will receive a $200,000-plus payday for teaching just one course in the fall semester.
Reich, a Democrat and former U.S. Secretary of Labor in the Bill Clinton administration and an economic advisor to Barack Obama, is teaching one course called “Public Policy Leadership and Management” at the University of California, Berkeley, which is a public (i.e., taxpayer-funded) institution. A big fan of the Occupy movement, Reich has a law degree from Yale but is not a trained economist at least in the academic sense.
A familiar figure on the cable news talk show circuit, Rich has made a career in education and through his published works as a foe of income inequality. In the trailer for the film, Inequality for All , Reich states that “of all developed nations, the United States has the most unequal distribution of income, and we’re surging to greater inequality.”
Commenting on his cushy gig , The Daily Caller notes that “In a nutshell, Reich, whose hefty $242,613 yearly income puts him in the top four percent of all Americans, argues that income gains over the last three decades have gone to the top one percent of all earners, meaning he just missed out and making income inequality an issue that threatens the American social fabric.”
When factoring in other income from his book and movie royalties and public speaking appearances, Reich is probably a member of the one percent after all, said Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute: “It’s definitely hypocritical. And not only does he earn that salary, but I’m sure he pulls in a lot of money from consulting and from giving speeches. But he’s obviously in the top 1 or 2 percent, so if he really thinks that society mismeasures these things, then why isn’t he giving some of his money away?”
Interestingly enough, in a recent blog entry , Reich declared that “What someone is paid has little or no relationship to what their work is worth to society.”
Reich is scheduled to teach four courses in the Spring 2015 semester, however, according to EAG News .
As The Inqusitr previously reported , another income inequality activist and so-proclaimed champion of the poor makes more than $200,000 a year for teaching one course at the University of North Carolina School of Law.
Based on divorce filings, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, whose movies chronicle the evils of capitalism, has a $50 million fortune and owns nine homes.
If she runs for president, Hillary Clinton apparently plans to make income inequality a cornerstone of her campaign. The Clintons reportedly have a net worth of $100 million to $200 million, much of it from $200,000 a pop speechmaking before corporate groups. Millionaire U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who some see as an even more liberal alternative to Hillary Clinton for the Democrats in 2016, reportedly received $350,000 to teach one course at Harvard, it was reported during her 2012 campaign against then-Senator Scott Brown.
Given these examples, is it fair to wonder if income inequality activism is a good and possibly hypocritical way to get rich?
[image credit: Mike Edrington]