The Inequality Speech That Ted Won't Show You

[Satan's Evil Twin]

http://roundtable.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/the-inequality-speech-that-ted-wont-show-you.php"'>http://roundtable.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/the-inequality-speech-that-ted-wont-show-you.php" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; ">http://roundtable.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/the-inequality-speech-that-ted-wont-show-you.php

Here's The TED Presentation About Rich People That TED Doesn't Want You To See

Grace Wyler | May 16, 2012, 6:26 PM

The National Journal reports today that TED is refusing to publish a recent talk from megarich venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, which argued that rich people actually don't create jobs, and that cutting their taxes is harmful to the middle class.

Obviously, Hanauer's position is anathema to most of his fellow billionaires. Although his talk was well-received, TED officials eventually decided that it was too "politically controversial" to post the presentation on the TED website.

Click here to see the presentation >

In an email to Business Insider this afternoon, Hanauer said that he accepts TED's right not to post his presentation, but that he disagrees with their reasoning:

"I got a sensational reaction to the talk at the conference itself, including a big standing ovation. Even the people who I spoke to who disagreed were intrigued and moved by the eco-systemic argument," Hanauer said in the email. "And many of the talks at the conference and on the TED website are similarly controversial. That's what makes them interesting."

He added: "Further, if it was too political, why have me do it in the first place? They knew months in advance what I would speak about and I gave the talk word for word. My arguments threaten an economic orthodoxy and political structure that many powerful people have a huge stake in defending. They will not go easily."

Hanauer also passed along the slides he used for his presentation, which was based off of his new book with Eric Liu, The Gardens of Democracy, A New American Vision of Citizenship, Economics and the Role of Government.

We don't know exactly how the speech went with slides, but you can read the speech here.

Click here to see the slides >Read more: http://www.businessi...5#ixzz1v91f8KBQ

Streisand effect, do your thing.

[Shift-4]

I ain't even sorry for the screwed up formatting. Broke ass board works worse than in 2002.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

I was going to complain because it sounds like a good read

[Xbox]

Just click the link.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

Out of curiousness do you ever post in Canucks Talk, General Hockey or Trade Rumours?

[Xbox]

Nope. I read occasionally.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

Ohh. Thats what I love about these boards, even if certain people have no interest in the Canucks or Hockey, the Off-Topic section brings in many new members ( And I know your a veteran )

[Xbox]

I do have an interest in Canucks. I think I only missed 1 game all last season.

[goalie13]

I read the article. It is pretty interesting. But I wonder, where does competition come into play?

As a really basic example, don't film companies get huge tax breaks as incentive to film projects in BC? If they didn't get those tax breaks, would those jobs have stayed south of the border?

I guess it isn't job creation as those jobs would have existed anyways, they just would have existed elsewhere.

[-Goose-]

I don't really understand this. I've seen a crap ton of income inequality and societal inequity talks on TED. What was so different about this guy?

[Phil_314]

I don't see what all the surprise is all about; even though taxing the rich more would help stimulate the economy it's not like the people live in such horrid conditions that people would flip out and push for radical changes, in fact many peoples' lifestyles are still relatively comfortable so there's no reason that TED should fear that this "news" would trigger some public response.

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. (SUPPLY of goods to meet the DEMAND established by customers' needs; no demands = no need for business, sounds like basic econ/ common sense to me)

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.

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 superrich 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.

Now the point BELOW is surprising to me (**EDIT: yeah I was thinking about inflation and how the rise in costs would cause the value of the salary to decrease compared to earlier)

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 $13,000 more a year. Where would the economy be if that were the case?

We've had it backward for the last 30 years. Rich business people 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.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

Now the point BELOW is surprising to me

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 $13,000 more a year. Where would the economy be if that were the case?

We've had it backward for the last 30 years. Rich business people 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.

[VICanucksfan5551]

Ohh. Thats what I love about these boards, even if certain people have no interest in the Canucks or Hockey, the Off-Topic section brings in many new members ( And I know your a veteran )

[Heretic]

Just click the link.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

May 17, 2012

TED and inequality: The real story

Today TED was subject to a story so misleading it would be funny... except it successfully launched an aggressive online campaign against us.

The National Journal alleged we had censored a talk because we considered the issue of inequality "too hot to handle." The story ignited a firestorm of outrage on Reddit, Huffington Post and elsewhere. We were accused of being cowards. We were in the pay of our corporate partners. We were the despicable puppets of the Republican party.

Here's what actually happened.

At TED this year, an attendee pitched a 3-minute audience talk on inequality. The talk tapped into a really important and timely issue. But it framed the issue in a way that was explicitly partisan. And it included a number of arguments that were unconvincing, even to those of us who supported his overall stance. The audience at TED who heard it live (and who are often accused of being overly enthusiastic about left-leaning ideas) gave it, on average, mediocre ratings.

At TED we post one talk a day on our home page. We're drawing from a pool of 250+ that we record at our own conferences each year and up to 10,000 recorded at the various TEDx events around the world, not to mention our other conference partners. Our policy is to post only talks that are truly special. And we try to steer clear of talks that are bound to descend into the same dismal partisan head-butting people can find every day elsewhere in the media.

We discussed internally and ultimately told the speaker we did not plan to post. He did not react well. He had hired a PR firm to promote the talk to MoveOn and others, and the PR firm warned us that unless we posted he would go to the press and accuse us of censoring him. We again declined and this time I wrote him and tried gently to explain in detail why I thought his talk was flawed.

So he forwarded portions of the private emails to a reporter and the National Journal duly bit on the story. And it was picked up by various other outlets.

And a non-story about a talk not being chosen, because we believed we had better ones, somehow got turned into a scandal about censorship. Which is like saying that if I call the New York Times and they turn down my request to publish an op-ed by me, they're censoring me.

For the record, pretty much everyone at TED, including me, worries a great deal about the issue of rising inequality. We've carried talks on it in the past, like this one from Richard Wilkinson. We'd carry more in the future if someone can find a way of framing the issue that is convincing and avoids being needlessly partisan in tone.

Also, for the record, we have never sought advice from any of our advertisers on what we carry editorially. To anyone who knows how TED operates, or who has observed the noncommercial look and feel of the website, the notion that we would is laughable. We only care about one thing: finding the best speakers and the best ideas we can, and sharing them with the world. For free. I've devoted the rest of my life to doing this, and honestly, it's pretty disheartening to have motives and intentions taken to task so viciously by people who simply don't know the facts.

One takeaway for us is that we're considering at some point posting the full archive from future conferences (somewhere away from the home page). Perhaps this would draw the sting from the accusations of censorship.

for starters, is the talk concerned. You can judge for yourself...

No doubt it will now, ironically, get stupendous viewing numbers and spark a magnificent debate, and then the conspiracy theorists will say the whole thing was a set-up!

OK... thanks for listening. Over and out.

http://tedchris.post...s.com/131417405

As some have pointed out, the original speech wasn't even all that provocative. I find it more likely my OP is less founded than this TED response.