Via
Business Insider: "As the war over income inequality wages on,
super-rich Seattle entrepreneur Nick Hanauer has been raising the
hackles of his fellow 1-percenters, espousing the contrarian argument
that rich people don't actually create jobs. The position is
controversial — so much so that TED is refusing to post a talk that
Hanauer gave on the subject. National Journal reports today that TED
officials decided not to put Hanauer's March 1 speech up online after
deeming his remarks "too politically controversial" for the site...".
This banned TED talk goes some way to explain the disenchantment of middle America with the reality of the policies of Americas' political and economic elites. Nick Hanauers talk exposes the vacuousness of the economic neo-liberal lie. The focus of this rage and disenchantment can be seen in the current round of presidential elections which is turning out to be both dangerous and unpredictable.
3 comments:
Controversial indeed. Nevertheless very interesting.
Not so extreme in the Netherlands however. A company is taxed at 20 – 25 %. But if the owner wants to use the net profit to consume there is an extra 25 % tax. That makes the overall tax about 44 %. The highest income tax bracket is 52%.
Income inequality is definitely lower than in the US. Because of the above?
The unemployment rate is however 6.8 % versus about 5 % in the USA. Higher instead of lower. How come? There should me more to it I think.
Wasn't the talk banned back in 2012? That aside, what he says about ultimately it's the middle class who create jobs through our desire for consumption is correct, businesses only get to survive if there are consumers at the end of the line.
We all get angry when we hear about XXXX corp paying no UK tax, but you could argue then that the goal should be to lower the tax for everyone - cutting out some of the massive waste and inefficiency inherent in our public services might be a good place to start.
Example - what clown in the council signed off £6,000 of tax payers money for this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-36362448
I think there are two extremes - Cold War Eastern Bloc centralized type wasteful inefficient economies and what's termed Extreme Free Market economies. Somewhere on the graph between these extremes there is a point where an economic system can provide goods and services for everyone while also protecting the environment. In practical terms this means that the extremes of wealth are removed while still providing room for competition and reward for effort, AND, I don't really think it's rocket science. It just takes a sense of justice, human decency, compassion and the political will to make the necessary changes.
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