
The Inequality Speech That TED Won't Show You - JonnieCache
http://roundtable.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/the-inequality-speech-that-ted-wont-show-you.php
======
RyanMcGreal
From Chris Anderson's justification for not publishing it:

> But even if the talk was rated a home run, we couldn't release it, because
> it would be unquestionably regarded as out and out political. We're in the
> middle of an election year in the US. Your argument comes down firmly on the
> side of one party.

So now it's unfairly partisan to point out that the evidence supports one
party's position but not the other's? Really?

What on earth is the point of taking an evidence-based approach to public
policy issues, if not to draw conclusions about which public policies we
should support?

~~~
OzzyB
This is what saddens me the most. We are no longer able to have _any_ real
discusion about _anything_ anymore because pretty much everything can be
stuffed into a "partisan" pigeonhole.

    
    
       -- Shrinking Middle Class == Partisan
       -- Failing Healthcare System == Partisan
       -- War on Women's Rights == Partisan
    

Now, on the face of it, sure, any of these topics can be construed as
"partisan", but I had hoped, especially with outfits like TED, that we could
get beyond that and focus on the "grey areas", the "parts in the middle", and
try to have an honest intellectual debate.

But we're not allowed that anymore, even _Intellectualism_ is partisan now
since it's "so Elitist".

Welcome to the era of Politically Correct Stagnant Decline.

~~~
shantanubala
There's also something to be said about the _novelty_ of the information that
is presented.

TED is about exciting ideas (or at least, that's what I understand them to
be).

From the talk: "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."

That is his "exciting idea" -- something that pretty much anyone who is
interested in tax reform has heard before. There was nothing groundbreaking
about it, no new information, and certainly no unique solution to the problem.
It was literally a reiteration of political talking points that have existed
for a very long time, which to be frank, is not very interesting. I even
remember Mark Cuban blogging about this very same topic a few months ago, and
this is an idea that isn't particularly _unique_.

Still, since he was invited to speak, I think his video should be part of
TED's web site, but saying that he was bringing any _new_ discussion to the
table is quite generous.

Instead of implying that its motivations were political, TED could have simply
said this: "The talk was interesting, but we had other talks we wanted to
feature first." Boom. Done. No PR headaches.

I think this is a more generous summary of Anderson's intentions from the
article: "Nick, I personally share your disgust at the growth in inequality in
the US, and would love to have found a way to give people a clearer mindset on
the issue, without stoking a tedious partisan rehash of all the arguments we
hear every day in the mainstream media."

The talk didn't present anything _new_ , so it doesn't need to be featured.

~~~
kolinko
Not all the speeches make it from the conference to the website. My TedX
speech also didn't make it :)

------
grandalf
The problem with this argument is that job creation _most definitely should
not be the goal_ of any policy.

To illustrate how silly it is to make job creation the goal, let me share with
you a very simple policy that would eliminate unemployment: Outlaw grain
combines.

Without grain combines, hundreds of thousands of workers would be needed to
pick things like wheat, corn, etc.

If you look at economic issues with the idea that employment is a goal, then
you are bound to arrive at policies that move in the direction of this absurd
idea.

Job creation != economic growth.

~~~
leot
How about the creation of _good_ jobs?

~~~
tomjen3
That would be disaster.

Good jobs are essentially highly paid office jobs with good benefits -- and
the easiest way to create more of those is to outlaw the computer, which would
mean that thousands of workers would be needed to do reports for companies,
the federal government, etc.

But it would also destroy a great source of real wealth.

~~~
rhizome
_Good jobs are essentially highly paid office jobs with good benefits_

Where do you get this? Take a look at the median-salary multiple for buying a
house 50 years ago vs. today. Used to be you could be a grunt _and_ buy a
house.

------
einhverfr
I won't nitpick the astronomy bits, but I would like to add something
historical to the discussion.

In "The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples," Herwig Wolfram asks the
question of why the Eastern Roman Empire outlasted the Western Roman Empire by
so long. The answer he comes up with is that the Western Empire had much
greater concentration of wealth in the hands of the senatorial class. This
meant that it was hard to collect taxes to pay for things like an army, and at
the time of the invasions of the Goths and Franks, the Eastern Empire was
collecting three times in taxes what the Western Empire was collecting, and
thus spending more on their army than the Western Empire was collecting in
taxes.

Without sufficient tax revenues he military machine could not sustain itself,
and when three senatorial households had a budgets that combined equalled the
entire tax revenue of the Western Empire these super-wealthy were just too
politically powerful to tax. Wolfram also suggests that this is what doomed
Ostrogothic Italy when they fought the Byzantines.

------
lukev
Too controversial? Really? This is a pretty mainstream point of view, although
perhaps not the one in political ascendancy at the moment. Hardly the stuff of
censorship.

I strongly suspect there was some other reason it wasn't posted.

~~~
PaulHoule
I dunno.

The New York Times regularly posts hand-wringing debates between "the usual
suspects" on this issues.

Everybody in these debates seems to take it for granted that taxing the rich
will hurt economic growth, but maybe just maybe there are some benefits to
equality that will make up for that.

Nobody mentions that an economy has a hypothetical failure mode (like the game
of Monopoly) where all of the money ends up in one person's hands -- and then
trading stops.

~~~
Symmetry
_Nobody mentions that an economy has a hypothetical failure mode (like the
game of Monopoly) where all of the money ends up in one person's hands -- and
then trading stops._

Huh? I'm having a really hard time imagining how this could possibly happen.
Does that person not ever need to buy anything? If they don't buy things
they're taking that money out of circulation, and if you have a central bank
targeting anything (or free banking, or most banking systems humans have
tried) the people who can make more money will make more money in order to hit
their targets. I'm pretty sure that nobody mentions that because the idea is,
well, pretty ridiculous.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The single person owns robots who perform every task he desires at a cost
lower than human subsistence wages.

Of course, even at that point the remaining humans can just form an economy
among themselves which the rich man doesn't participate in...

~~~
pjschlic
Someone having money doesn't preclude someone else in the economy from
CREATING VALUE. Hacker News is a site filled with people who understand that
it's possible to create value out of nothing. Your scenario is impossible, but
assuming someone acquired all of X currency and refused to let anyone else
have any, that currency is effectively nonexistent - currencies are only worth
what they can be exchanged for. People would trade using something else.

~~~
anigbrowl
People would, but that wouldn't alleviate the overarching economic failure of
excess concentration. Look at places like North Korea; there's an underground
economy, but virtually all economic power is vested in the state, with
dreadful effects for the population at large. Well, you say, that's not a free
society in political terms; but preservation of ownership is essentially a
political good. Indeed, it's one with a high cost for the American economy:
<http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bowles/GarrisonAmerica2007.pdf>

------
Duff
I've seen a few mentions about this fairly inane speech -- smells like
PR/astroturfing to me.

Frankly, whenever I hear the phrase "job creation" I tune out immediately,
because I know that nothing intelligent will follow that phrase ever.

People hire people to do things when they have work to do. You "create jobs"
by increasing economic activity. The problem is, business these days is all
about consolidation and labor arbitrage.

~~~
nooop
You can't just declare a speech insane without a good reason, especially if it
more or less agrees with what you state just next...

Edit: although i don't know how to read (insane vs. inane), this does not
fundamentally changes anything in context...

~~~
mjwalshe
Buy a dictionary :-)

~~~
mjwalshe
Realy Guys I give the poster who did not know the diference bwtween inane and
insane - some valid feedback instead if insulting his lack of knowledge of
english and I get voted down?

~~~
ryanmolden
Perhaps he simply misread, it happens. To assume he doesn't know the
difference and then suggest he "buy a dictionary" is a tad bit rude, which may
account for the downvotes.

------
bballdeo
yesterday's comment thread on reddit pretty much covered this:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/tqi15/too_hot_for_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/tqi15/too_hot_for_ted_income_inequality_teds_organizers/)

basically, this talk is mostly partisan and not supported by a lot of data.
this TEDtalk, on the other hand, is:

[http://blog.ted.com/2011/10/24/how-economic-inequality-
harms...](http://blog.ted.com/2011/10/24/how-economic-inequality-harms-
societies-richard-wilkinson-on-ted-com/)

~~~
timtadh
From the reddit thread (which I just read through) a TED organiser responds
[http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/tqi15/too_hot_for_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/tqi15/too_hot_for_ted_income_inequality_teds_organizers/c4p0ll4)

"TEDChris 21 points 9 hours ago

Chiming in here, as TED's Curator..

First of all, thanks for all the attention. Glad you guys care.

We do too. Income inequality is a huge issue. Most of us here at TED are
pretty passionate about it.

The trouble with this talk is that it tackled the issue in a way that was
explicitly partisan, framing it as a critique of "an article of faith" for
Republicans. TED is avowedly non-partisan. We want to share ideas in a way
that brings people together, doesn't throw sand in their faces.

We release one talk a day on our home page, and that talk is pretty much
guaranteed 50,000-100,000 views within 24 hours. Every day there are numerous
amazing talks competing for that slot. We have to make the best call we can.
Talks that aren't selected aren't being censored, any more than the NYT (or
Reddit) is censoring a story it decides isn't appropriate for its home page.

The text from this particular talk is already out there. You can make your own
judgement.

Thanks, and let the discussion continue. We're listening. "

------
davidhollander
False dilemma fallacy

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma>

You can't attribute the existence of "jobs" exclusively to "businesses" or
exclusively to "consumers", because "trade" definitionally requires the
existence of two parties.

~~~
powrtoch
I don't think this is the issue addressed in the talk though. The question he
was responding to was "does having lower taxes on the rich create jobs?". He
argues that it does not, but that lowering taxes on the lower and middle class
probably would.

It's not about putting all the blame on one side or the other, it's about the
factual question of whether a particular policy improves or worsens the job
situation.

~~~
davidhollander
He argues that position by repeatedly making the assertion that consumers
create jobs and businesses do not:

> _only consumers can set in motion this virtuous cycle of increasing demand
> and hiring._

> _the true job creators are consumers_

It's a tad nonsensical, all economic exchanges definitionally require the
existence of two parties to occur, both parties are essential regardless of
the good or service being traded. One can easily take the opposite position to
the speaker, that production precedes consumption, because in the state of
nature man must first produce and labor for his or her own survival before
surplus exists with which to trade. Either way, it's not a sufficient basis
for asserting normative proposals in regards to tax policy.

------
nextparadigms
_"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."_

Not saying I disagree, but I remember a few years ago when the economy was
booming all over the world, there was this discussion about how bad
"consumerism" is for our societies.

So which is it then? Is consumerism a bad thing because it makes us buy all
sorts of dumb things, or is it good because it enriches everyone? Or is there
another alternative?

~~~
Travis
I think it's a bit nuanced. Consumerism, from an economic perspective, can be
a fast, efficient driver of economic growth. However, it often isn't
sustainable growth (not just ecologically -- the American "Manifest Destiny"
growth wasn't sustainable because explorers hit the Pacific and ran out of
land).

In addition to the lack of sustainability (adding back in the ecological
issues), consumerism seems to drive a general cultural malaise wherein the
people try to find meaning by buying crap, rather than living fulfilling
lives.

IMO, consumerism is detrimental in the long run to people's mental health and
the environment (and it's not sustainable); however, it has been shown to be a
solid driver of economic growth.

------
jsmcgd
>That's why I can say with confidence that rich people don't create jobs, nor
do businesses, large or small.

This argument only considers half of the problem. Yes consumers are needed to
create jobs but what is needed to create consumers? Jobs. You can't be a
consumer without an income, and for the vast majority of people, you don't
have an income unless you have a job.

Therefore for failing to acknowledge this fundamental, very simple and might I
say, quite obvious fact, I think it's fair to say Nick Hanauer's reasoning is
at best weak, and at worst disingenuous.

It makes one wonder what his motivations really are. Attention seeking
contrariness? A desire to ingratiate himself with the 99%?

~~~
nooop
Yet you just made no argument for why his arguments are weak, while yours are:
jobs create consumers and consumers create jobs, but in your equation absurdly
rich people and increasing inequality does not seem to be needed...

~~~
jsmcgd
My very first sentence explains why I think his argument is weak.

I agree, I have stated no position on the absurdly rich and increasing
inequality. I think it is unnecessary to stray into this area in order to
prove or disprove whether businesses or the wealthy create jobs. Either a
business or a wealthy person can or cannot create a job regardless of the
taxation laws du jour. He has categorically stated that they cannot. I think
this is totally incorrect.

~~~
roc
> _"He has categorically stated that they cannot."_

No, he stated that they _do_ not. Businesses don't hire employees they don't
need. They _can_ , but if they try it at any appreciable scale relative to
their business, they will go _out_ of business.

It's not about what _can_ happen. It's about what _does_ happen. And what
_does_ happen, is that employers hire employees when they _need them_. Not
just because they've made money, nor just because they got to keep more of the
money they make via changes in taxation.

They _could_. But they don't. There's decades of data and research on this.
It's not really debatable. Tax cuts do not translate into jobs. It's never
happened. The increase in wealth of the wealthy does not translate into jobs.
It's never happened. Consumer demand and business expansion to meet that
demand, _does_ translate into jobs. It _always_ happens.

The question is how, or even whether you should try, to stimulate consumer
demand when unemployment is high. (And the follow-on: what problems does that
(in)action create)

------
marknutter
Well, for those who agree with the talk's sentiment, it having not made the
cut is probably the best thing that could have happened to it. Now it will
reach way more people under the false assumption that it was "censored".

------
febeling
Chris Anderson just tweeted this link to a blog post explaining the story from
his side. The taped talk is linked from there. <http://bit.ly/KU2Rmu>

------
nilsbunger
The shrinking of the middle class is something we should all be concerned
about.

But it isn't caused by tax policy: outsourcing and automation of traditional
"middle class" jobs are a much bigger force.

We really need to figure out what the middle-class jobs of the future look
like. What is above menial service job like retail, and below specialized
trades like software?

Even people with college degrees struggle to get into the middle class these
days. That should scare us all.

I have no answers to this, but I'm pretty sure tax policy isn't going to fix
it, nor would protectionism.

~~~
danielweber
Economists know a lot about how to _create wealth._ They know very little
about _creating jobs_.

Jobs are temporary inefficiencies and a lot of economic growth comes when you
get rid of them. We've automated most of our farming, but we don't have 90%
unemployment because all the farm jobs went away.

One thing is how fast technology grows related to how fast workers can adapt.
'Race Against The Machine' is a thesis that technology is now growing so fast
workers can't keep up. I don't know if I buy it, but it's something to keep in
mind.

~~~
andrewla
I don't know if your statement about economists is intending to be a factual
statement of economists' view of the state of economic science, or your
opinion on what modern economic theories are good at. It's not clear to me
personally, to be frank, that economics know a lot about how to create wealth
either.

That said, this is not an acknowledged weakness -- Keynes' _magnum opus_ was
_The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money_ , which spells out in
great detail how these things are related. The core of this theory is still
widely held in economic circles, which is why the mandate of the Federal
Reserve keeps shifting from "controlling inflation" to "maximizing employment"
-- because this is thought to be something that is controllable through
manipulation of interest and money.

------
dudeguy999
I was under the impression that the rich pay a much greater share of income
tax than when their rates were higher. Can someone check me on this?

~~~
jtbigwoo
Technically that's correct, but it's a red herring. The top 1% currently take
a little over 20% of the total income in the country and pay about 40% of
federal income taxes. From the end of WW II to the 1980's, the top 1% took
between about 8% and 12% of the total income in the country and their share of
the tax burden was lower. The federal tax base was also much wider since there
were far fewer tax credits available to average people and there weren't any
common refundable tax credits.

------
sathishmanohar
If less taxes for rich should create more jobs, then, why is there more
unemployment than ever, while we have lesser tax for rich than ever?

I can't understand what is wrong with this question? Its based of real world
data, right?

~~~
danielweber
The short answer is that "making jobs" is a complete mystery to most
economists. Aside from the government directly hiring people to bury jars full
of money, no one knows how to make it happen.

It doesn't stop politicians of all stripes from pretending that they have the
magic answer, and that the politicians from the other party are a bunch of
nincompoops.

------
seanp2k2
Gee, you mean to say that what we've been doing is the wrong thing? Funny,
because all the rich greedy people seem to be loving it.

Greed will be the downfall of western civilization. This message will not
reach those with the power to fix it. It's their death, they know it, and
they're just in a race to bleed the USA out and run. Or maybe I'm giving rich
people too much credit and they're really just greedy idiots who don't see the
consequences of their actions. In any case, we're screwed.

------
azylman
This is the most important part of the talk:

"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."

This is what some people fail to understand and it boggles my mind.

~~~
anigbrowl
To which the standard debate-derailing answer is 'raise taxes, and nobody will
be able to buy private goods, therefore more taxes are bad.' A great many tax
objectors have convinced themselves that they are already groaning under a
massive tax burden.

I agree with them in one respect: there are too _many_ taxes, fees, levies
etc. People overestimate the amount of tax tax they pay in many cases, but
they see so many government charges (whether federal, state or local) that
they feel they're being nickel-and-dimed to death.

------
grampajoe
TED can't show this because they're supported by advertisers, which means
they'll never really be free to spread ideas if they go against the will of
these companies: <http://conferences.ted.com/TED2012/sponsors.php>

------
neuro
Americans tax payers are a trampoline for globalizing these corporations
through subsidizing their R&D, bailing them out and soldiering their resources
abroad. These corporations have global consumers now, the health of the
American consumer isn’t a priority.

------
Irishsteve
Not particularly interesting. Just someones opinion, the masses won't push for
any major change around any possible wealth divide (if it exists or not). No
one goes for extremes

------
cullen
Sigh... This thread, again?

~~~
_delirium
I had missed the previous one; for anyone else likewise having done so, here
it is: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3983598>

------
penetrator
time for an OpenTED

