Many of us are familar with the TED lectures. This one was too hot for TED to post. Sorry to burst the bubble of tricke downers --libertarians and conservatives. ************* And here is the speech that accompanied it: It is astounding how significantly one idea can shape a society and its policies. Consider this one. If taxes on the rich go up, job creation will go down. This idea is an article of faith for Republicans and seldom challenged by Democrats and has shaped much of today's economic landscape. But sometimes the ideas that we know to be true are dead wrong. For thousands of years people were sure that earth was at the center of the universe. It's not, and an astronomer who still believed that it was, would do some lousy astronomy. In the same way, a policy maker who believed that the rich and businesses are "job creators" and therefore should not be taxed, would make equally bad policy. I have started or helped start, dozens of businesses and initially hired lots of people. But if no one could have afforded to buy what we had to sell, my businesses would all have failed and all those jobs would have evaporated. That's why I can say with confidence that rich people don't create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. What does lead to more employment is a "circle of life" like feedback loop between customers and businesses. And only consumers can set in motion this virtuous cycle of increasing demand and hiring. In this sense, an ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than a capitalist like me. So when businesspeople take credit for creating jobs, it's a little like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. In fact, it's the other way around. Anyone who's ever run a business knows that hiring more people is a capitalist's course of last resort, something we do only when increasing customer demand requires it. In this sense, calling ourselves job creators isn't just inaccurate, it's disingenuous. That's why our current policies are so upside down. When you have a tax system in which most of the exemptions and the lowest rates benefit the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer. Since 1980, the share of income for the richest Americans has more than tripled while effective tax rates have declined by close to 50%. If it were true that lower tax rates and more wealth for the wealthy would lead to more job creation, then today we would be drowning in jobs. And yet unemployment and under-employment is at record highs. Another reason this idea is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough super-rich Americans to power a great economy. The annual earnings of people like me are hundreds, if not thousands, of times greater than those of the median American, but we don't buy hundreds or thousands of times more stuff. My family owns three cars, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. Like everyone else, we go out to eat with friends and family only occasionally. I can't buy enough of anything to make up for the fact that millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans can't buy any new clothes or cars or enjoy any meals out. Or to make up for the decreasing consumption of the vast majority of American families that are barely squeaking by, buried by spiraling costs and trapped by stagnant or declining wages. Here's an incredible fact. If the typical American family still got today the same share of income they earned in 1980, they would earn about 25% more and have an astounding $45,000 more a year. Where would the economy be if that were the case? Significant privileges have come to capitalists like me for being perceived as "job creators" at the center of the economic universe, and the language and metaphors we use to defend the fairness of the current social and economic arrangements is telling. For instance, it is a small step from "job creator" to "The Creator". We did not accidentally choose this language. It is only honest to admit that calling oneself a "job creator" is both an assertion about how economics works and the a claim on status and privileges. The extraordinary differential between a 15% tax rate on capital gains, dividends, and carried interest for capitalists, and the 35% top marginal rate on work for ordinary Americans is a privilege that is hard to justify without just a touch of deification. We've had it backward for the last 30 years. Rich businesspeople like me don't create jobs. Rather they are a consequence of an eco-systemic feedback loop animated by middle-class consumers, and when they thrive, businesses grow and hire, and owners profit. That's why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich. So here's an idea worth spreading. In a capitalist economy, the true job creators are consumers, the middle class. And taxing the rich to make investments that grow the middle class, is the single smartest thing we can do for the middle class, the poor and the rich. Thank You. http://www.theatlantic.com/business...too-hot-for-ted/257323/#.T7a58oWUE0c.facebook OR IF YOU PREFER TO LISTEN TO THE LECTURE buzzflash.com
Flat taxes sound naively fair and the rich certainly love the idea. However, in order to create a middle class like we did prior to Reagan and the anti-government onslaught you need things like cheap subsidized tuition and cheap health care etc. that allow the middle class to be productive, yet keep their money to create consumer demand. This type of virtuous cycle cannot be done by taxing the poor and middle class at a flat rate high enough to raise enough money to provide these goods. If you tax the middle class too high in order to avoid taxing the rich, who, as the lecturer said, don't buy a thousand cars or a thousand jeans with their inceased after tax money,you don't get the benefits of high consumer spending by the vast non-rich class.
The rich people also spend an exorbitant amount on lobbying. TARP, farm aid, inflated government contracts more than make up for any tax discrepanies between the rich and the rest of the country.
I believe this is the TED lecture that was of such poor quality they wouldn't release it until they were forced to. The person who gave the lecture hired a PR firm and lawyers that twisted the truth and made it seem like the people running TED were cold heart conservatives.
the message might be right but honestly I'm not really impressed by the speech itself. I expect from from TED speeches.
The speech is really good, IMO. And it outlines how jobs are really created, which most people don't understand. I don't know if taxes really play that much of a role in it all, but if the middle class is healthy then things are always good with big business.
This chicken and egg argument is silly. You need a reason to hire someone (demand), but you also need the means to hire someone (capital). Taxes diminish the latter. <iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/W45hwmr4HBs#t=2m4s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I think trickle-down economics is as much bulls**t as the next guy, but this isn't the best speech to bring that to light. TED didn't avoid posting the lecture because it's controversial, they avoided posting it because it was of lower quality than typical TED lectures posted online. Here it is, straight from TED themselves: The point is, his talk was mediocre at best. Watch it and compare it to other TED talks on the same subject (the response from TED I linked has one such example) and you can see it wasn't really worthy or posting. Unfortunately, Mr. Hanauer got his panties in a bunch.
glynch just post the youtube link for the talk. it's not that great and it's not that enlightening. i'm all for challenging the status quo and group thought, but this talk is not good and doesn't provide answers. it is an anecdotal view of what creates and does not create jobs. ted made the correct decision to not highlight this video. <object width="560" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CKCvf8E7V1g?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CKCvf8E7V1g?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>
I would be totally on board with TED's argument if we knew more about who decides and how it's decided what to post. I've seen a lot of videos posted on TED which I thought were mediocre/poor and the crowd loved, or vice versa. I can point out several instances of poor judgement and mediocrity in this speech as well. But the key determinant is whether they've applied the same standards in weeding out this video as they have with others. If the TED people are keen on feedback, they can easily set up a standardized viewer-voting system which determines the mediocirty of videos. I think the fact that they've maintained control over what the website shows should be called out for what it is: the website shows what the owners want - which is fine, as long as its advertised as such. After all, they own it. Thanks for the article, going forward I'll certainly be more weary of the fact that some videos are released and others are not.