Forum Post: BREAKING: You Know That TED Talk You Weren't Supposed To See? Here It Is.
Posted 11 years ago on May 23, 2012, 4:54 p.m. EST by GirlFriday
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I guess that gut feeling that I have had for so long is right. Trickle down only works for the rich.
Hmmm...that and don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.
I have always felt that there was a strong connection between the above line and trickle down economics.
Definitely. Good post, thanks.
GF did you see these, looks like TED was not quite as bad as it looked, but getting lots of buzz now.
https://tedchris.posterous.com/131417405
and Nick agrees I think
http://www.upworthy.com/breaking-you-know-that-nick-hanauer-ted-talk-you-werent-supposed-to-see-here-it-?g=3&c=dfa1
He's right for critiquing trickle-down economics but the "feedback loop" fallacy is equally stupid. The only way you create jobs is by creating a stronger physical economy; science-driver projects are the only way to perpetually create a stronger economy.
We were posting this on twitter about a week ago. He made an appearance on The Last Word (MSNBC) about the same time. The politicians know all of this but between the businesses they run and the stocks they trade, neither side is willing to stop engorging themselves long enough to be honest about a damn thing. As much as we all enjoy knocking the right, the left has become just as hollow and meaningless. They are all corrupt and rather than do what is right, they are passing laws to terrify and/or lock up the awakening masses should they draw a line in the sand.
Another valuable TED Talk http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw
I don't disagree with most of what he says. The more money people have, the more money people spend, the more stuff is needed to be manufactured, the more jobs we have. I get that. We need to find ways to get more money into the hands of the poor and middle class.
What I don't get is the connection between taxing the rich. When the rich are taxed, that money isn't redistributed to the poor and middle class - instead it out into social programs and a lot of other stuff. It doesn't translate readily into cash for people to spend.
So what the 'super rich' need to do is raise the wages of their employees and take less in personal income for their businesses. It will pay off for them in the long run. Finding a way to do that without having to impose restrictive government regulations is tricky.
And please, spare me the "everyone should make $115,000 a year" speech..
I think it’s called synergy.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/sorry-republicans-these-are-the-facts/#comment-766916
If we decided on a perfect solution to the inequity in wealth, there would still be one fundamental problem standing in our way.
Sheep are afraid to fight with wolves. This is the root of all inequality. As long as we remain sheep, we will remain poor. When we stand up on two legs and become human beings, the wolves will flee and we will possess our fair share.
I think it's obvious that the gap between the rich and poor is too great. The question is how do we narrow it? Tax the rich at a higher rate and the the poor at a lower rate until incomes are more equitable is one solution. Any other ideas?
Remove money from politics (among other changes to campaign/elections), that would allow laws to change from tools to enrich the 1%, to tools that enrich the 99%.. More corp profits need to filter down to workers, (better pay, better pensions, better bonuses, better health coverage.). more outrage at the ridiculous level of executive pay/bonuses. manufacturing co ops can equalize pay. stronger unions would add leverage to workers when divying up profits.
I think you hit on it, after all lowering rates on the wealthy and raising them on the working class, while supporting policies that weaken unions and thereby shit income to the wealthy, get rid of anyone who refuses to raise taxes.
I don't see how taxing the rich more than the poor would have any noticeable impact on inequality.
The only solution is to allocate income democratically.
Differences in income must be limited by law to just what is necessary to get people to do difficult work and to get people to give their maximum effort.
Since everything you do in society requires money, your income determines how much political power you have and determines how much freedom you have to live the way you want.
If you have 50,000 times more income than another, you have 50,000 times more political power and freedom. A society where some have 50,000 times more political power and freedom than others is not democratic.
Raising the minimum wage to $115,000 and reducing the work week to 20 hours will not work on both counts. Multiply your minimum wage by 150 million workers. $17.25 trillion. Current GDP is only $15 trillion. The math is way off. In order to cut hours by half we would need to double productivity.
I don't say we should just raise the minimum wage to $115k and leave all other incomes the same. That would obviously cause inflation.
What I say is that we should raise the minimum wage to $115k and get the money to do that by lowering the top income to $460k. If you go through the math, it will total $14.5 trillion which was the GDP in 2010. That post is based on the 2010 economy. You can see the actual math here:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/1-replace-capitalism-with-democracy/#comment-662000
And we are reducing the work week to 20 hours by automating half of the existing jobs that we do, not by just making people work half the time. Here is a list of jobs that we can automate:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/1-replace-capitalism-with-democracy/#comment-662013
OK, the disparity in our GDP figures is due to some people working part time.
Aren't most of the jobs that can be automated already automated?
Most of the jobs we can automate have not been automated. In that post I list 75 million jobs, half the jobs we do, that can be automated.
For example, we employ more retail salespeople (4.2 million) and cashiers (3.3 million) than any other job. And those are both jobs that can be automated with existing technology.
If it was cost effective to automate those jobs it would have already been done.
There are many things that people will not buy over the internet. A car, clothing, groceries, gasoline, furniture. Small items are cheaper and faster to pick up locally.
It is cost effective to, for example, automate cashiers. That machine costs less than a cashier. You can get them for about $20k which is a lot less than a minimum wage employee.
The reason why we still have cashiers is because customers like them. If you got all self-checkout, you would likely lose customers to the store that has cashiers.
But that does not mean we cannot automate those jobs. And if we had a democratic economic system instead of a capitalist system, where the goal was freedom - producing the most wealth for the least work - automating every job would become a priority.
People would much rather have a system without cashiers where they make $115k for 20 hours than a system with cashiers where they make $30k for 40 hours.
There was a time when I'd rather go to a cashier than a automated machine based on principle. I didn't like the fact that people were losing jobs so corporations could save money by 'employing' machines.
I've recently found that in many cases I get kinder treatment and better service from a machine than I do from grumpy cashiers. I'm not saying all cashiers are mean, but in my town, it's kind of the norm. I think people are just mean in general here.
I would be grumpy if I was wasting my life as a cashier too. We don't need for anyone to do those jobs any more. Capitalism is incredibly inefficient. Using humans to be cashiers is one example of that inefficiency.
All of our production comes from labor and you cannot manage our available labor any more inefficiently than capitalism has. 18% of all available workers cannot find a full-time job. And 55% of the people who do work are being wasted by having them do pointless jobs that machines can already do. That means capitalism is wasting just under 70% of our potential labor/productivity.
There is so much cognitive dissonance in this video.
He correctly points out that the problem with our system is a few at the top consume most of the income so there is not enough income left for everyone else to spend.
But he says the solution is to tax some of that income. That is ridiculous.
A billionaire who pays a 35% tax does not at all change the fact that they are still consuming most of the income and leaving everyone else broke.
When someone gets paid $1 billion, that is $1 billion less that everyone else can make. Reducing that to $650 million with a 35% tax and sending that money to government does not change the fact that him getting paid $650 million means everyone else has to get paid $650 million less.
Nobody should get paid $1 billion because they are unfairly taking income they have not earned and do not deserve. People like this guy in the Ted video are the reason why nearly everyone in this country is broke. They UNFAIRLY take so much of the available income that there is simply not enough income left over to pay everyone else.
PAYING A TAX DOES NOT CHANGE THAT FACT.
They are forcing 97% of all workers to make a below-average income and forcing 50% of all Americans to live in poverty or close to it.
Allowing people like the guy in this Ted talk to take as much as 50,000 times or even 50 times more income than everyone else is unfair and undeserved because:
1) They don't work 50 to 50,000 times harder than everyone else.
2) They didn't earn this money from willing consumers in the market. When consumers purchase a product they are not in any way endorsing the way INCOME is allocated in the economy. Yankees fans buy Yankees tickets because they think the game is worth the ticket price. They don't buy tickets because they believe they should make $80k less at their job so that A-Rod, the Yankee third baseman, can make $25 million at his. When you pay A-Rod $25 million, that is $25 million less that every other worker can make. If consumers had a direct say on how workers were valued, no worker would ever be able to earn thousands of times more income than another worker because they would never be able to convince consumers to take a huge pay cut in order to pay their inflated salaries.
3) They shouldn't have the power to force the rest of society into poverty or financial struggle. When A-Rod takes $25 million in income, that is $25 million less the rest of the workforce can make. The top 3% take so much of the available income they leave the bottom 97% of all workers earning a below average income and the bottom 50% of all Americans in poverty or close to it.
4) There is no economic justification that requires us to pay them this amount in order for the economy to work well. The only economic reason for paying one person more than another is to get them to do difficult work and give their maximum effort. We don't need to pay people 50 to 50,000 times more income in order to get people to work hard.
5) It makes society undemocratic since their 50 to 50,000 times greater income gives them 50 to 50,000 times greater political power and freedom than everyone else.
"Tax the rich more" is not politically viable, because people don't want the government to spend money to create jobs.
Job creation without higher government spending, inflation, or trade barriers: http://jobcreationplan.blogspot.com/
Phenomenal post! Thanks for the great find!
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kind of 1984ish, very good post
I can bump from here right?
Sure. Now I can too. :D
Guess I'll lose a few more points and bump it too.
It's one of those things everyone should see, and it's short and to the point.
sorry about the trolls, they might not find you after they collasp this
Thanks.
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I watched this video and have a few questions?
First off he states that it's not businesses that create jobs but consumers. As he states, without consumers there would be no jobs.
So with that comment - what happens when no business produces no products and if there are no products to buy how can people survive without having a job?
Secondly he made that comment that individual income is @ 35% where investments on dividens is at 15%. While it is true that he did not say that a person who owns a business also makes an income and does pay the 35% interest rate.
Lastly, he makes the comment that the rich should be taxed more to make and use it to make the middle class grow and thrive. So, as he stated businesses don' t create jobs but yet he is saying that higher taxes taken from businesses make the middle class grow and thrive.
How would that be possible when he states that businesses aren't the ones to create jobs?
Wait a minute I think I figured it out - tax the business and take that money and give it to people who in turn will go out and spend it on his product so that he can turn around and pay taxes on it again to be taken from him to be given to people who in turn will buy his product.
Sort of a 'washing machine" cycle, isn't it.
Lets see if this will work:
Lets say I I own a business and have revenues of 1 million dollars. Half million dollars is taken away from me in taxes to be given to the middle class to make them thrive and grow.
Now instead of having 1 million dollars to work with, I now have half million dollars to work with. So I buy and sell products again with the half million dollars.
But, instead of being able to produce 1 million dollars in revenue I only have half million dollars to work with so my revenue are going to shrink, and as a result, I have to lay people off.
Now, with my half million dollars, I can make products for sale but my revenues will be less because I have less capital to work with. Meanwhile, the people buying my product are only giving me back the money I gave to the government and in return I have to give them something for it. .
Yep, that will work for sure.
obviously people must be allowed to collect pools of money
the question becomes how big of a share will be allowed
Lies are very useful, the truth not so much whoever got rich telling the truth? (maybe this guy?)
ok, you are clearly attempting to obfuscate the obvious with ridiculous suppositions and asinine questions.
first- how does a business sell ANYTHING if the people have no money to spend? See, it works both ways. The very clear point he made is that businesses only hire workers when they can sell products,. and if the working class is left with no work they can not buy, so no products sell. He talked of raising taxes on the extremely successful, to help rebuild much needed infrastructural, that helps business and people, while employing some people to keep the economy rolling.
second- whatever, if you have enough extra cash so you can invest, then you can afford to pay the taxes on your PROFITS from those investment. IMHO tax on income including capital gains, ALL income over 500k should be taxed at 90%. (and we should have a minimum income for the lowest earners, this keeps the economy going.)
lastly- again whatever, you just do more chicken-and-egg cycle-thought,. and neglect the fact that business does not, and can not, create jobs until and unless, they sell products, hence the working class needs to work,. or get paid something, if any jobs are to be created at all. stimulating the wealthy does not create work at all.
"....how does a business sell ANYTHING if the people have no money to spend?" Gee you don't have to have a degree to answer that question. Good post.
Not everyone who owns stock owns a business, why should they pay less tax than others?
It would be silly to have no business or no customers, your presnts a false question.
Yes the rich should be tax fwar more so they will not become so powerful that they control the government.
What in the hell is "NADD"?
http://www.nadd.org/
And why do you keep referencing NADD, if that stands for "National Association of Diaconate Directors"? Trying to confuse people over "NDAA"?
you brought it up not me
It is simple supply and demand. Consumers aren't spending because they don't have enough cash. They (we) are short cash because we are enslaved by loan shark level cr card debt, strangled by unfair high prices created by corp collusion, beaten down by corp union busting/pension stealing/wage depressing 1%'rs, who crashed the world financial system through dishonest mortgage practices, and greed! Hows that?. Understand yet.? Relief for the American working families will increase consumerism, therefore demand will increase, the 1% will see that the 99% have money again and they will begin the process of suckin it up again. It's what they do. it's how it works!. Lets try to pass laws that make them hire americans at living wages, stop hiding money overseas. prevent moving hq from the country, and pay a fair tax. OK.? Get on board!. face front! true believer! We need each other! Support OWS.
Since we are dealing in hypothetical's here...
You said 1 million revenue. How much of that was profit (after all expenses)?
If your profit was greater than 50% (as it should have been... since you appear to consider yourself a competent businessman)... then you still MADE money after paying half a million in taxes and whatnot...
This means you had MORE to work with for the next fiscal than you did in the past fiscal.
NOTE: Revenue and Profit are not the same thing.
NOTE: You also get small business tax credits which I don't think you are counting towards that $500k.