I won’t be giving a TED talk anytime soon. Not that I’ve been invited. Or ever expect to be invited.
But Nick Hanauer [ht: sm] was, and the TED folks decided his talk was too controversial to post.
Here’s a link to the text of his talk.
Since 1980 the share of income for the richest Americans has more than tripled while effective tax rates have declined by close to 50%.
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. . .
Significant privileges have come to capitalists like me for being perceived as “job creators” at the center of the economic universe, and the language and metaphors we use to defend the fairness of the current social and economic arrangements is telling. For instance, it is a small step from “job creator” to “The Creator”. We did not accidentally choose this language. It is only honest to admit that calling oneself a “job creator” is both an assertion about how economics works and the a claim on status and privileges.
And here’s a link to his slides.
Update
This is in response to Bruce’s comment.
Actually, I’m not sure where he got the end points. According to the BLS, while unemployment was 5.6 percent in January 1995, it was 9.9 percent in December 2009.
Here’s what the entire series looks like:
I presume the effective tax rate series is similarly stylized.
Prof.
Excellent post!
The “Job Creators” slide is apparently “stylized.” Perhaps the beginning and end points for the two lines are correct (haven’t checked), but the roughly straight lines (with faux-realistic wiggles around the trend) are imaginary: unemployment did not rise steadily between 1995 and 2009, and tax rates (even “effective”tax rates did not fall steadily.
Ever since I saw that guy on TED who did a hi-tech video of the development of a fetus and concluded it was evidence of “god” I have my doubts about the intellectual standards of TED.