Banned TED Talk: Nick Hanauer "Rich people don't create jobs" - General

[video=youtube;CKCvf8E7V1g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g[/video] I feel this is an idea that needs more exposure, considering it's not something one it likely to have promoted. I'm not stating my opinion on the matter, I'm not an economist. Hopefully any discussion on this subject will be civil.

It's a very convincing idea both conveyed through the video and other literature and videos. I think RSA Animate did a piece on it too. There are far too many people out there who see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires and white knight for the rich as a result. It's about time this misinformed worship of the privileged was ripped to shreds.

The idea has been there that rich people created jobs, but that came along with trickledown where when that worked, and businesses grew because the wealth flowed through society and created growth, thus creating jobs, because there wasn't any really automation in those days and capital wasn't able to be moved freely. At some point, yes, rich people created jobs, but it simply isn't true at this point. The biggest companies are downsizing their workforces or moving overseas, and it doesn't take into consideration the other side of rich people, which are the ones who own land, thus have no need to create jobs, add in the idea of that the traditional company doesn't really exist anymore either, everything has become so efficient and lean that they aren't what they use to be.

[QUOTE=JustExtreme;51840416]It's a very convincing idea both conveyed through the video and other literature and videos. I think RSA Animate did a piece on it too. There are far too many people out there who see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires and white knight for the rich as a result. It's about time this misinformed worship of the privileged was ripped to shreds.[/QUOTE] Someone should tell them that it requires gullible suckers or abusing our own earth to become a millionaire almost all the time.

The best thing I can come up with is a combination of a flat tax rate for all and universal basic income. The problem with UBI however, is that people will become a burden on the government's books and tempting for them to cull.

[QUOTE=ph:lxyz;51840493]flat tax rate[/QUOTE] You better praise yourself lucky that image responses aren't allowed, because that's warranting a huge NOPE.gif image.

[QUOTE=ph:lxyz;51840493]The best thing I can come up with is a combination of a flat tax rate for all and universal basic income. The problem with UBI however, is that people will become a burden on the government's books and tempting for them to cull.[/QUOTE] How in the world are we going to fund the collosal whale that is Universal Basic Income with a flat tax of all things?

Most economists know this is fairly obvious, but nobody really says "rich people don't create jobs." It's just implied, as "trickle-down economics" is a hoax and better wealth distribution leads to a much stronger economy. At least as long as it's still a mostly capitalist economy; command-based economies are doomed to have a weaker economy than they could have. [editline]18th February 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=ph:lxyz;51840493]The best thing I can come up with is a combination of a flat tax rate for all and universal basic income. The problem with UBI however, is that people will become a burden on the government's books and tempting for them to cull.[/QUOTE] Flat tax rates are a joke and don't work. They hurt the poor significantly more than the rich. Sure, the rich lose more money overall, but does that really matter for their wellbeing? The poor who are already struggling lose just a tiny bit more, making it just that much harder for them. The rich who lose 5% of their fortune are still doing just fine, they just can't afford that new Lambo, oh no. [editline]18th February 2017[/editline] Also, flat tax rates often don't take into account tax brackets, which are literally the best idea ever. Idiots often think that making more money and getting into a new tax bracket is a net loss, but that's only because they have no clue how it works. Making more money always makes more money with tax brackets.

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[QUOTE=Boilrig;51840452]The idea has been there that rich people created jobs, but that came along with trickledown where when that worked, and businesses grew because the wealth flowed through society and created growth, thus creating jobs, because there wasn't any really automation in those days and capital wasn't able to be moved freely. At some point, yes, rich people created jobs, but it simply isn't true at this point. The biggest companies are downsizing their workforces or moving overseas, and it doesn't take into consideration the other side of rich people, which are the ones who own land, thus have no need to create jobs, add in the idea of that the traditional company doesn't really exist anymore either, everything has become so efficient and lean that they aren't what they use to be.[/QUOTE] Rich people can create jobs, capital formation is a thing, but that doesn't mean rich people will make jobs or than only rich people can make jobs. Capital formation is when supply side expansion (lower interest rates/taxes) encourage private investment. A company can feel safe in borrowing money to expand their business and thus creating new jobs and whatnot. This can also apply to individuals wanting to start up a small business. What he's saying is that there's an imbalance in the Demand/Supply relationship. Businesses aren't expanding the way we want them to because they know they wont make as great returns because consumers can't buy the company's goods. Since there is little expansion there is little job growth, however some people are convinced that if you give the rich even more leeway then they'll get a bigger return on their investment and thus want to expand. The best and easiest method however would to just let money flow to the middle class in order to create a healthy market for consumption. Money shouldn't trickle down, it should move in circles. [editline]18th February 2017[/editline] Like fuck the whole point of free market economics is the supply-demand relationship the reason why communism doesn't work is because it's entirely focused on demand and trickle-down doesn't work because it's entirely focused on supply

I suspect that with the growing level of automation, we'll see a large spike in cities going the route of the City of London. You'll have guilds which will act as the organs and basis for these cities, and those living within these cities will usually be employed in order to produce products for those cities which will then be exported to other cities within a localized area. The idea behind this would be state or community level protectionism, similar to what happened through out the Midwest in the early 1900's, with groups like the Non-Partisan League and Farmers Parties, attempting to prevent big business from destroying family run businesses. Just a small example of what I'm getting at: By law in North Dakota, you are required to have a North Dakotan resident own roughly 3/4ths of a pharmacies shares and accounts. In turn this means that major companies cannot really make that many moves into the pharmacy market here without having North Dakotan managers in the companies heads. This has protected our local industries from being invaded from out-of-state competition, while also lowering prices. Ideally, systems would be more on the state level, but I suspect people will use the mass unemployment to simply keep everything within the city or neighborhood level. If anything, the future of automation is the future of state's rights. We'll see a weird admixture of capitalism, guildism, and socialism that'll brew into something in which we have yet to see outside of maybe Venice and the like.

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;51840667]Ideally, systems would be more on the state level, but I suspect people will use the mass unemployment to simply keep everything within the city or neighborhood level.[B] If anything, the future of automation is the future of state's rights.[/B] We'll see a weird admixture of capitalism, guildism, and socialism that'll brew into something in which we have yet to see outside of maybe Venice and the like.[/QUOTE] State-local regulation of commerce has nothing to do with the ability for federal law to take priority over state law, unless you're suggesting that the federal government would ban such economic policies.

TED charges $6,000 per person to attend their conferences. I have a feeling they didn't suppress this because it was "too politically controversial for the site".

Is human existence really about work for survival? Don't most people work so they can do OTHER things that are really fulfilling like having relationships, being creative and experiencing new things? Hell, I'd argue that was the whole point of why we even started civilization and agriculture: so we could stop worrying about working for survival, and could just live. Maybe it's about time the destruction of jobs was made a good thing. But yo, capitalism has incentives for work, right? I wonder what happened when people didn't have to work to survive and could work for the sake of work and living. Oh look, people were more interested in working than before, took more risks for innovation, were more charitable and compassionate towards each other, and quality of life went up. But we should stick with constant fear of starvation and homelessness, right? After all, there's no better, more humane and more desirable incentive than a constantly looming death threat.

[QUOTE=Scot;51840832]TED charges $6,000 per person to attend their conferences. I have a feeling they didn't suppress this because it was "too politically controversial for the site".[/QUOTE] Actually it kind of was. It wasn't censored per say, but out of the hundreds of TED talks delivered that year it was decided that this one was particularly mediocre. TED Curators as well as the audience found the talk to be mostly unconvincing and skeptical even though they agreed with his thesis in general, and because of this they decided it wasn't up to their quality standards to be posted on their youtube. They did however post a later one that they thought was much better. [editline]18th February 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=JustExtreme;51840932]Is human existence really about work for survival? Don't most people work so they can do OTHER things that are really fulfilling like having relationships, being creative and experiencing new things? Hell, I'd argue that was the whole point of why we even started civilization and agriculture: so we could stop worrying about working for survival, and could just live. Maybe it's about time the destruction of jobs was made a good thing. But yo, capitalism has incentives for work, right? I wonder what happened when people didn't have to work to survive and could work for the sake of work and living. Oh look, people were more interested in working than before, took more risks for innovation, were more charitable and compassionate towards each other, and quality of life went up. But we should stick with constant fear of starvation and homelessness, right? After all, there's no better, more humane and more desirable incentive than a constantly looming death threat.[/QUOTE] I'm sorry but I have literally no idea what you're talking about

[QUOTE=cdr248;51841113]Actually it kind of was. It wasn't censored per say, but out of the hundreds of TED talks delivered that year it was decided that this one was particularly mediocre. TED Curators as well as the audience found the talk to be mostly unconvincing and skeptical even though they agreed with his thesis in general, and because of this they decided it wasn't up to their quality standards to be posted on their youtube. They did however post a later one that they thought was much better.[/QUOTE] which one is the later one? you mean one by the same guy? because i love the way he talks. the presentation wasn't very dynamic, but i think he's a great orator

[QUOTE=Zukriuchen;51841220]which one is the later one? you mean one by the same guy? because i love the way he talks. the presentation wasn't very dynamic, but i think he's a great orator[/QUOTE] [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2gO4DKVpa8[/media] This one is honestly a lot better. It expands on his argument and presents his previous points in a much better way.

[QUOTE=Van-man;51840459]Someone should tell them that it requires gullible suckers or abusing our own earth to become a millionaire almost all the time.[/QUOTE] or uhh just create a really successful business without doing anybody any harm

[QUOTE=NotMeh;51841384]or uhh just create a really successful business without doing anybody any harm[/QUOTE] But 99% of the time you'll be out-competed by the guy who can run the same business more efficiently at the cost of doing harm

People really gotta stop treating the rich as though they're your friend or some sort of deity. They aren't, most don't give a fuck about you. And yet so many Americans are caught in this bullshit, [I]abusive[/I] relationship with the rich, where the rich are blatantly working against you while telling you sweet lies about how they're helping you, and people believe it. They lie that they create jobs, they lie that low taxes for them will bring prosperity, they lie that they care about you or this country, and they lie that you can become one of them. Because the system relies on the majority not being rich, you haven't even taken a step towards becoming rich in any fashion, and they don't want you to. Having more rich guys doesn't benefit them in the way they want. If anything, I think any of them would jump at the chance to be one of [I]5[/I] rich guys, or the [I]one[/I] rich guy, because that means there'd be less rich guys taking wealth and owning companies, so they would be the richest and most powerful and own everything. And they'd tell you this will bring prosperity and create jobs and make you wealthy while they did it. They're in the business of helping themselves, not you, not America. So it sort of disgusts me when I see some southern guy who works as a fucking construction worker advocate for these assholes and excuse their misdoings out of a genuine belief that they will [I]help[/I] him, and that he'll ever reach their level. By definition, any rich guy has more than enough money. More than any person needs to live a comfortable life. And he has more than enough money by an order of magnitude. They have plenty to work with. Any ~trickle down~ that would have happened should have happened, and it hasn't. And it won't, because the rich would rather hoard it and any more you're willing to sacrifice to them. Try to skim even a little off the top to help everyone else and they'll hiss and growl at you like a cat.

[QUOTE=cdr248;51841274] This one is honestly a lot better. It expands on his argument and presents his previous points in a much better way.[/QUOTE] I sent this to a hardcore middle-class republican in my family and I could actively hear his discomfort from cognitive dissonance over the phone when we talked afterwards. This is the success story, the staunch capitalist, fundamentally disagreeing with everything my relative believes economically. Thank you for posting this video. Maybe I won't get chain emails about the evils of "socialist minimum wage increase!" anymore.

[QUOTE=bitches;51840829]State-local regulation of commerce has nothing to do with the ability for federal law to take priority over state law, unless you're suggesting that the federal government would ban such economic policies.[/QUOTE] I'm suggesting that states and cities will attempt to become far more protectionist with their local economies, and we may see even some form of tariffs being enacted between each state in order to protect their financial backbones. The reason being that with automation, many lower-level jobs will be lost, and people will be forced to rely on the crafts and arts, in the likes of furniture, local produce makers, local production of specialty meats, ect. With this stuff occurring, it's very likely that the states will start putting regulations on exportation of specialty items from their states, in order to encourage a higher price markup outside of the state. The best example I really can give is something similar to how the EU's culture laws work. Where you cannot run a commercial enterprise for certain products, unless your company resides and works in the region it hails from.

[QUOTE=cdr248;51841113]Actually it kind of was. It wasn't censored per say, but out of the hundreds of TED talks delivered that year it was decided that this one was particularly mediocre. TED Curators as well as the audience found the talk to be mostly unconvincing and skeptical even though they agreed with his thesis in general, and because of this they decided it wasn't up to their quality standards to be posted on their youtube. They did however post a later one that they thought was much better. [editline]18th February 2017[/editline] I'm sorry but I have literally no idea what you're talking about[/QUOTE] I was having some kind of tangentially related ponder-rant or something by the looks of it. Apologies for any confusion caused.

Potentially misinformed or ignorant viewpoint. Of course rich people alone don't create jobs. It's the Chief Executive Officers who need particular skillsets in their organization. Store brand owners who need clerks, janitors, security and more for their estabilishments, for example. CEOs just tend to be, more often than not, rich enough to pay all those people. So more accurately, rich people create MOST jobs. Not all of them.

[QUOTE=Nitro836;51848752]Potentially misinformed or ignorant viewpoint. Of course rich people alone don't create jobs. It's the Chief Executive Officers who need particular skillsets in their organization. Store brand owners who need clerks, janitors, security and more for their estabilishments, for example. CEOs just tend to be, more often than not, rich enough to pay all those people. So more accurately, rich people create MOST jobs. Not all of them.[/QUOTE] But CEOs don't pay employees out of their own wallet? They often aren't the owner of the company.

[QUOTE=Nitro836;51848752]Potentially misinformed or ignorant viewpoint.[/QUOTE] The video's or yours?

[QUOTE=StrawberryClock;51849446]The video's or yours?[/QUOTE] Mine.

I thought this was a no-shit kind of thing unless you're an economic conservative. A lot of the money just gets funneled out into bank accounts and sat on. And Wall Street spends too much time thinking up risky ways to make money that don't eventually lead to some kind of tangible thing or product.

I like to pretend this is my own original thought (but probably someone somewhere instilled this thought in me), but I've always found that it made logical sense that you don't want too much money to go towards the top - sure, rich people can hire people and open new businesses, but opening a business meets demand to a much higher degree than it creates it. Rich people logically almost always spend less of their paycheck than do poor people, because they're much further away from the minimum spending limit for bare subsistence. It seems to me that the money will be spent more effectively by the poor, because in general you want money to be used in order to create growth. Listening to the second video posted, this guy makes a lot of sense to me.

Why do tax brackets exist in the United States rather than some sort of logarithmic scale?