Saving Capitalism Page #2

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Contracts.

Bankruptcy.

And enforcement.

Let's take property.

Until the 1860s,

human beings were lawful property

in the United States.

It took years of activism and a civil war,

but Americans

finally made slavery illegal.

We'll take bankruptcy.

If you're a big business,

you can declare bankruptcy

over and over again

to protect your assets.

But if you're a student,

you can't reorganize your debt

in bankruptcy.

Or if you're a homeowner who's under water

because the market has collapsed,

you can't use bankruptcy.

It's illegal.

These rules don't come from nature.

They reflect the interests

of those with the most power.

Which means they change over time.

In the name of all those

who do the work,

pay the taxes,

raise the kids and play by the rules...

In the name of the hard-working Americans

who make up our forgotten middle class,

I proudly accept your nomination

for President of the United States.

Just about 50 years ago,

I met Bill Clinton.

I had already met Hillary Rodham.

She was an undergraduate at Wellesley.

I had been president of my class

at Dartmouth.

We were both involved

in student government.

So I knew her and I knew Bill. And I...

Even the first day of Yale Law School,

I was sitting in the cafeteria

talking to Bill Clinton,

and Hillary came up and she said,

"Bob, how are you?"

I said, "Great, Hillary.

I want to introduce to you

my friend from Oxford.

We were just at Oxford together.

Bill Clinton."

She said, "Hi, Bill."

And he said, "Hi, Hillary."

And then, 25 years ago,

Bill Clinton called me.

He wanted me to be his Secretary of Labor.

I was excited,

because maybe we could actually

make some real, real progress.

You had this pent-up demand

in the country

for something

that is very, very different,

that has a different vision.

We wanted to create the possibilities

for people who were not really yet

participating in the economy.

Because it was building

the future of the country.

It was building the capacity

of the country to not only grow,

but to bring everybody along

in that growth.

We were young.

We were the new generation.

We were the boomers.

I was gonna go down

and try to help him figure out

what to do about the economy.

In Focus this evening,

the shrinkage in America's middle class.

Even though the economy is now growing,

many of the jobs it is creating

pay poverty wages.

President Clinton

has been promising wages would rise.

But, at the Labor Department,

Secretary Robert Reich

sees the number of working poor growing.

More and more of the nation's

income and wealth were going to the top.

People in the middle - the middle class -

were under greater and greater stress.

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