http://roundtable.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/the-inequality-speech-that-ted-wont-show-you.php

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TED, what the fuck seriously! I thought you were something special but it looks like money has corrupted you already.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/nick-hanauer-ted-talk_n_1524435.html

*politics *quality *money *equality

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Adding video to channels (Equality, Money, Politics) - requested by dystopianfuturetoday.

Here is the response from TED:

http://tedchris.posterous.com/131417405

Hope he's "rich rich" and not just "well off", because the more he's worth...the better his stance on it. Which shouldn't be, but wealthy people get idolized and their words mean just a little bit more than yours.

>> ^Zifnab:

Here is the response from TED:
http://tedchris.posterous.com/131417405


Thanks for the link Zifnab.

One sentence stands out to me,
"Also, for the record, we have never sought advice from any of our advertisers on what we carry editorially."

Seems to be very carefully worded--and begs the question,
"Have any of your advertisers ever given you unsolicited advice on what you carry editorially? And, what did you do because of this advice?"

I found this bit of the TED response disturbing... "We'd carry more [talks on inequality] in the future if someone can find a way of framing the issue that is convincing and avoids being needlessly partisan in tone."

THE ISSUE IS SO obviously partisan in real life, this response makes me think the TED heads are stupid. The republican party is a party of the rich and the corporations.

Someone please explain to me how his talk was needlessly partisan, I though it was grounded in reality.

geekpondering (Twitter) responded:


I'm not really sure how this was "needlessly partisan" at all. Unless the National Journal didn't post the entire speech, Nick Hanauer mentions the political parties by name once, saying that BOTH of them have swallowed the job creator line as an article of faith.

The other big idea in the speech, that of increasing taxes on the wealthy, was also in the Richard Wilkinson speech as a solution to inequality in America. It's too bad that people who can afford to pay $7,500 to listen to speeches gave this speech a mediocr

I'd have to agree with mediocre. His statements were true enough, but mostly obvious and nothing new.

"The audience at TED who heard it live (and who are often accused of being overly enthusiastic about left-leaning ideas)"

This from the defense for me is the most damning. They're not Left as in Chomsky, they're left as in NPR which isn't LEFT at all. They're full of shit, fuck'em.

Whether TED is being truthful or not as to why they chose not to show this, one thing's for certain. This is getting viewed about 1000x more now because of the 'banned by TED' PR campaign around it.

I agree with his views, I dislike him constantly saying how rich he is (he sounds incredibly up himself)... but I also agree that this talk doesn't really say much at all. It has no real 'punch', no 'aha' moment, nothing to really make it stand out.

Except now, with this little kerfuffle, it'll get viewed by a gazillion people.

I'm not even going to watch it.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'taxes, Ted talks, rich, jobs, Nick Hanauer' to 'taxes, Ted talks, rich, jobs, Nick Hanauer, job creators' - edited by xxovercastxx

>> ^Porksandwich:

Hope he's "rich rich" and not just "well off", because the more he's worth...the better his stance on it. Which shouldn't be, but wealthy people get idolized and their words mean just a little bit more than yours.


Wiki "In the 1990s, Hanauer was one of the first investors in Amazon.com (where he served as adviser to the board until 2000). He founded gear.com (which eventually merged with Overstock.com) and Avenue A Media (which in 2007, under the new name aQuantive, was acquired by Microsoft for $6.4 billion)."

Probably a smidge more than "well-off".

In TED's defense, the talk isn't exactly ground breaking. He's saying things we've all heard before, and isn't really adding anything new to the conversation. That said it is a 3 minute talk, you can't really go into any kind of depth in that time frame.

In Hanauer's defense, the partisan argument is BS and is rather telling. In this political climate, talking about income inequality in the US in any way that suggests the rich should pay more or doesn't outright enshrine the wealthy is automatically labeled left-wing communist propaganda trying to incite class warfare. So what else was he supposed to say?

The fact is that the rich do provide the capitol to create jobs for products that consumers demand.
That's not the problem.

If companies would jut pay all a fair salary instead of the near zero increases every year for the last 20 years, as the one graph indicates, we would not be having this discussion.

Those above get payed very well and those on the bottom get jack.



But one could argue that the reason for stagnant wages are 2 fold.
1. Woman's rights. Women entering the workforce since the 70's causing more people fighting for the same job. ( I'm not complaining about this, just saying it)
2. Global manufacturing and outsourcing and such causing jobs to move overseas.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Lower pitchforks, douse torches. Stand down. I repeat, stand down.>> ^Zifnab:

Here is the response from TED:
http://tedchris.posterous.com/131417405

>> ^manadren:

In Hanauer's defense, the partisan argument is BS and is rather telling. In this political climate, talking about income inequality in the US in any way that suggests the rich should pay more or doesn't outright enshrine the wealthy is automatically labeled left-wing communist propaganda trying to incite class warfare. So what else was he supposed to say?


The only thing you really need to incite class warfare is a massive gap between the "haves" and the "have nots", simply not talking about it will not hide the issue because most of us see it every single day.

Although I agree with the premise, the talk itself is not so good. Just saying.

It's a shame, I would've liked to see a ~20 min TED talk on this topic, done with the level of quality I've come to expect from a TED talk.

I had no idea there were 10,000 TEDx speeches recorded every year. If that's actually true they're worse than toastmasters. Seriously, prosperity doesn't need to sort through all that.

Just worked for a company for five years. Started at a salary below my pay level because the economy was rough and they were holding the cards.

After year one, got promoted to "almost" my pay level.
Year two, 2% raise, largest in my department.
Year three, no raise during a highly profitable year so the company could pay an extra 300 million dollars to their private investment firm. Was told the only other option was to lay off 3000 employees.
Year four, same thing.
Year five, 1% raise, largest in my department again, some people got zero.
Two Weeks ago, layed off with 499 other people, jobs sent to India.

Every year the company was profitable. Every year the top management raked in huge bonuses.

Any effort to raise awareness on the issue of the rampant greed and inequality in corporate America, no matter how ineloquent, is an important step.

I think he makes some really good points. Not so sure about the God complex, but what he says about the middle class resonates. And the relative tax rates stuff.

I sort of agree with TED assertion that the talk wasnt spectacular, and that it relied perhaps too much on truisms, and didnt really contribute with anything new, its basically a rich guy pleading to be taxed more.

That said, I dont understand the accusation that the talk is "Partisan". Clearly its only partisan in the context of current american politics. After all: either its true that tax breaks for the rich are creating jobs, or it isnt. What different political parties think of the matter, is irrelevant to the truth of the matter. For instance, if a global warming denier held a talk, he'd basically be pushing GOP policy, where as if someone from reality held a talk on global warming, some republicans would just accuse them of giving a "liberal hippie treehugger" talk.

As Stephen Colbert so aptly put it; "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

With TEDs logic, you could hardly give a talk on any issue relating to reality without being "partisan" then, especially when one party (Who Shall Not Be Named For Fear Of Partisanship, But Maybe You Can Guess) is half corporate propaganda tool and half superstitious, reality-denying, conspiracy-driven madhouse.

Its a bit like saying "The F-Word" really, you're technically not saying "Fuck" but we all fill in the blanks.

on one hand his talk makes perfect sense.
on the other hand is so obvious, I stopped watching after 2 minutes because I was bored as fuck.

So, I just hope TED didn't do this for the wrong reasons. I'm attending my second TEDx next week.

Yeah, the only reason you can label it a "partisan issue" is due to the Republicans taking the stance (as said above) of, "We are for the rich, if you try to raise taxes on them we'll fuck you in the ass!", so yes it's a partisan issue ONLY because the Republicans have by default made it their unified decision on the matter.

This is again why the Republicans are very quickly becoming a force of extreme evil, and I really do mean that. They already bankrupted a perfectly functioning institution that has been the LONGEST running branch of the U.S. Government without issues: the Post Office, and now it is DEAD. It will be dead sooner or later (they are already closing down main facilities if you haven't paid attention, wake up and smell the burning cinder, it's already here) and the Republicans passed the bill that they FULL WELL knew would destroy them.

They are trying to do it elsewhere, anything they can get the mitts ALL the way on, either to make this president look so bad that he can't be elected or to watch it burn so they can put up whatever corporation plutocracy bullshit they want. THEY are gone. They have left the reservation.

And, I mean that in the most kindest and sincere way possible, just as they would say it to me...

Lame talk with zero actual information. Important thing to say but terrible talk. Definitely not partisan so that point makes no sense.

From the response:
"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."

HOW THE FUCK IS THIS PARTISAN UNLESS YOU ARE THINKING OF THE SITUATION AS A CONFLICT IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU REPUBLICAN SPONSORED DOUCHEBAG

Not just uninteresting, but unbalanced. Sometimes straight-up wrong. And the cliche (Earth centered universe) he pulls out at the beginning is so sad that I don't even know what to say. He isn't busting some consensus and challenging some sacred cow: he's adding nothing to a debate that is ongoing and nuanced.

On the actual subject: there's lots of jobs that are difficult to create. If everyone in your neighborhood wants an iPhone, Bob just can't start making them in his garage. It requires a concentration of capital to begin this kind of production.

One possible source for that concentration is "some rich guy", and many businesses are indeed started that way. It's not crazy or wrong to say that over-taxing rich people could have economic harms through this kind of mechanism. It's a ridiculous false dichotomy to say that it's only the consumers that are the key to business development.

Overall: I agree with the dude that the tax system in the US should be more progressive, but you can't just hand-wave away the other side of an argument. That difference is part of what distinguishes "a speech at a political rally" from "a speech at TED".

What a bandwagon.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

>> ^Zifnab:
Here is the response from TED:
http://tedchris.posterous.com/131417405

Thanks for the link Zifnab.
One sentence stands out to me,
"Also, for the record, we have never sought advice from any of our advertisers on what we carry editorially."
Seems to be very carefully worded--and begs the question,
"Have any of your advertisers ever given you unsolicited advice on what you carry editorially? And, what did you do because of this advice?"

Sounds birthery and tea-partyish. How should he have worded it? If you knew how TED works, you'd realize how paranoid this statement sounds. One of the few times I've disagreed with you, BL, but this sounds too conspiratorial for you.

What caused me discomfort far more acute - because it was mental, not bodily - were the illustrations of the bestiality, the futility, the insanity of war and of the system that produced war as surely as land uncultivated produces noxious weeds: these were now forced on my notice every day.


The first cart of dead that I saw, legs sticking out stiffly, heads lolling on shoulders, all the poor bodies shovelled into a pit and covered with quicklime, made me wonder what the owners had been doing when they were called up, crammed into uniforms, and told to kill, maim, mutilate other men like themselves, with whom they had no quarrel. All of them had left behind many who would be grieved, perhaps beggared, by their taking off. And all to no purpose, for nothing.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWstretcher.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jfyfe.htm

some things are always go hand in hand, like rich and being better off. who wants to give that up...

Bad TED talk. Poor loser. Spoiled rich kid. Hired a PR firm to promote his bad TED talk.

His family owns (and he is now CEO of) Pacific Coast Feather Company, which has yearly profits in the hundreds of millions, and sources most of its products from China.

Even if I were to agree TED made a mistake on this, and I don't. 1 "mistake" vs the all the amazing, free, ad free, incredible, inspirational talks that they have shared, that I have learned from and enjoyed over the years, outweigh this one by...infinity.

So, give them the benefit of the doubt and let 'em go.

worth reading a blog on the denial by TED
http://crooksandliars.com/kenneth-quinnell/teds-chris-anderson-offers-tepid-

From JMZERO:

One possible source for that concentration is "some rich guy", and many businesses are indeed started that way. It's not crazy or wrong to say that over-taxing rich people could have economic harms through this kind of mechanism. It's a ridiculous false dichotomy to say that it's only the consumers that are the key to business development.


Here's what I don't get in this argument... How does raising the income tax (taxing money taken home and spent on whatever you want) harm business investments and their economic benefits when any money spent on them are TAX DEDUCTIBLE? I would think that a higher income tax would encourage "some rich guy" to invest his money in his business rather than taking home the money and paying the higher tax.

No?

Here's what I don't get in this argument... How does raising the income tax (taxing money taken home and spent on whatever you want) harm business investments and their economic benefits when any money spent on them are TAX DEDUCTIBLE? I would think that a higher income tax would encourage "some rich guy" to invest his money in his business rather than taking home the money and paying the higher tax.


To be clear: I'm not saying it's right (it's mostly not), I'm saying it's not self-evidently crazy. I.e. if you're going to argue against it, you should talk about why it's wrong, or - better yet - show empirical evidence against the idea. That would be a TED talk.

See, now I think it's interesting from another angle. What sense of crazy entitlement must you have, that your TED talk doesn't get chosen, and the conclusion you draw is "TED has become corrupt and was paid off by my enemies"?

If that's something he thought TED was capable of, why did he want to be featured?

I think the obvious, logical conclusion is that his talk didn't measure up. For him to draw another conclusion says more about him, than about TED.

I found the talk fairly mediocre, but it didn't come across at all partisan. I think its kinda of telling that they also believe a talk about contraceptives to also be "controversial". I dont think these issues are inherently political, but they are often made a political issue. They may as well censor almost any talk about climate change as needlessly partisan too (didn't Al Gore give a fucking TED talk? Was that not also partisan?)

Still, I am inclined to mostly believe their response. I think they were fucking retarded to ever suggest it was because it was partisan or controversial though.