Reclaiming Our Way promoting the well-being of African American children & families

Was this TED Talk Banned? Nick Hanauer “Rich people don’t create jobs”

Check out another TED Talk - except this one didn't make it to primetime.  I wonder why?

Read on, and then watch the video.

From a 2012 TIME article...

Their slogan is “ideas worth spreading.” But the folks at TED – the Technology Entertainment and Design nonprofit behind the TED Talks, beloved by geeks and others interested in novel new ideas – evidently think that some ideas are better left unspread. At least when the ideas in question challenge the conventional wisdom that rich enterpreneurs are the number one job creators.

This past March, millionaire tech investor and entrepreneur Nick Hanauer – one of the early backers of Amazon.com – gave a talk at a TED conference in which, among other things, suggested that middle-class consumers, not rich people, are the real job creators – and that because of this rich people should be paying more in taxes. Though the talk drew applause from conference attendees at the time, TED Talk curator Chris Anderson decided it wasn’t worth sharing with the wider world, and refused to post it on TED’s website.

His explanation? The talk was “too political” to be posted during an election year, and that “a lot of business managers and entrepreneurs would feel insulted” by some of Hanauer’s arguments. This seems more than a tad disingenuous, since TED generally doesn’t shy away from controversial ideas, and is sometimes so “political” that it invites actual politicians to talk at its conferences.

From Nick Hanauer's unpublished TED Talk...

Consider that for thousands of years humans believed that the Earth was the center of the universe. It's not. And an astronomer who still believes that it was, can do some pretty terrible astronomy. Likewise, a policymaker who believes that the rich are job creators, and therefore should not be taxed, will do equally terrible policy.

Ultimately, businesses need people to buy their product. When there are no people to buy the product, there is no need for people to create or sell the product. When there's no need for this, businesses have no reason to hire people.

Moreover, as it is currently, the money people are spending on goods and services is being kept by the increasingly rich business and corporate executives (and their investors of course), with the decreasing numbers of workers who create and sell the product receiving less and less income. Meanwhile, the people doing the work are working harder and longer hours with less and less pay for their work.

Get wise, people. While you continue to watch Scandal and other mindless television shows, there are many advocates and policymakers working hard to undermine the livelihood and life experiences of our children and their children yet unborn. Watch whatever you want to watch; that's not my point. The point is that we need to better understand what's happening around us, and do the hard work of making this country, and the world for that matter, the kind of country and world we want and expect it to be. We need to spend less time numbing ourselves to the stress and pain of the daily grind, and spend more time actively working to create a present and future that is worthy of the term "civilization" or "humanity".