111–120 of 202 posts
Yes his presentation is not up to snuff as the typical TED speaker. So a quiet YouTube release and shitstorm of trumped up controversy work out great for getting the message out:
"In a consumption driven economy, the middle class is more important than the elite class."
I watched the video after reading TED's response, and I'm skeptical of some of their claims, but I can also see why they didn't initially choose to publish it on their site. The video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx2Y5HhplI Since it's short, I'll go over it point-by-point. 1. "It is astounding how significantly one idea can shape a society and its policies. Consider this one: if taxes on the rich go up, job…
I watched the video after reading TED's response, and I'm skeptical of some of their claims, but I can also see why they didn't initially choose to publish it on their site. The video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx2Y5HhplI Since it's short, I'll go over it point-by-point. 1. "It is astounding how significantly one idea can shape a society and its policies. Consider this one: if taxes on the rich go up, job…
"And only consumers can set in motion this virtuous cycle of increasing demand and hiring." When a consumer chooses not to buy something, i.e. commerce does not take place, saving occurs. Savings means there will be money available in the future. Money available for a small business loan. Money available to buy shares in a company, freeing up capital from the person you bought the shares from. That capital could actu…
While your statement is not entirely false, it paints a misleading picture of how the economy at large works. Outside of venture capitalism, credit for running businesses tends to be provided by banks, and banks just create the necessary money out of thin air whenever they find a creditworthy borrower, i.e. a business with a solid business plan and with a reasonable expectation of sufficient demand for its product.
When the overall savings rate rises, it becomes less reasonable to expect sufficient demand for products, which means less creditworthy borrowers, which means less loans given out by banks.
Occasionally imbalances (e.g. too much capital tied up in housing) cause a massive recession
Not quite. The recession isn't caused by capital being tied up in housing. "Putting capital into housing" is just economics-jargon for spending money on houses. And that tends to create jobs in the construction sector.
The recession comes about when private households can no longer use their houses as collateral for loans to fuel demand because the value of those houses is reassessed.
Creative Destruction: it's the primary reason why we're all not planting seeds or hunting right now.
I think you'll find that the primary reason why most of us are not doing these things is actually creative construction. The destruction part is only really beneficial when one gets stuck in a local optimum.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"And only consumers can set in motion this virtuous cycle of increasing demand and hiring." When a consumer chooses not to buy something, i.e. commerce does not take place, saving occurs. Savings means there will be money available in the future. Money available for a small business loan. Money available to buy shares in a company, freeing up capital from the person you bought the shares from. That capital could actu…
Respectfully, I think you are making an unfounded assumption about why consumers aren't buying things. I heard a news story just the other day about U.S. family savings being lower than recent history. This isn't it, but here's a similar article: http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/05/17/our-view-recessio... i.e., consumers aren't "choosing" not to buy because they're saving the money instead, they're "choosing" not…
i.e., consumers aren't "choosing" not to buy because they're saving the money instead, they're "choosing" not to buy because they don't have any money.
I don't see how your argument is necessarily justified by article. It seems entirely possible that families are trying to put food on the table, whenever possible, rather than save for the future.
This is exactly why it is so, so important to foster a healthy middle class: they love to spend money. Give them $10,000, and they'll spend $9,000 of it.
We do not right now have a healthy middle class, and I'm super interested in whether or not our economy will recover without addressing that.
How do you know if the middle class is healthy? Can you define middle class?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how the necessity of demand is the 'elephant in the room' - it seems pretty obvious that you need both supply and demand in order for ongoing commerce to take place. Yes, there has to be a customer; but identifying that customer, discovering his desires, and satisfying them in a way that creates net value for all parties is the role of the entrepreneur. Doing that successfully is not a trivial task, and e…
Gee, I was hoping to just take the time to transcribe the video and add a couple of comments here and there without having to defend its content. The necessity of demand is the 'elephant in the room' because so much of the political argument so far has revolved around increasing benefits for the suppliers, rather than increasing demand. The argument has been, "we're supposed to make the wealthy wealthier, and then --…
> If the necessity of demand isn't the elephant in the room, then why isn't there broad political support for higher tax rates on the wealthy?
Because the two concepts have nothing to do with each other, and support for higher taxes on the wealthy - or anyone else - has antecedents in much more basic underlying principles that many do not share, and often strongly oppose in their own right.
> Why isn't there broad political support for economic stimulus packages? Why isn't there broad political support for universal health care, a significant expense for poor and middle-class Americans?
It's because people oppose these ideas in their own right, and see them as being unjustifiable means even if they could achieve their stated ends.
Many people do not want macro-level attempts to manipulate their economic situation at all. Many people do not want to outsource responsibility for their health to external institutions at all. Many people resent that these intimate and personal aspects of their lives are being politicized and turned into public questions in the first place.
> Why isn't there broad political support for lowering taxes on the poor? Why, instead, do I keep hearing such balderdash as, "The poor pay no taxes at all"?
I'm not sure where you've heard that, but I assume that you and whomever you were discussing the matter with had two very different definitions of the term 'poor'.
> What people like this guy -- and me -- are saying is that they don't add value all by themselves.
Nothing ever does. The very concept of value implies that there exists at least two distinct entities: the thing being valued and the being doing the valuing. In commerce, there are at least two valuers and two 'valuees' in every transaction.
This is basic and obvious, and I don't see how it generates any new or significant perspective on any question.
> But, worse still, are all those other people -- those employees -- who didn't have anything to risk in the first place, and are now back to looking for work again.
Since you're intent on analyzing everything from a macro-level perspective, consider that if a certain proportion of all startup ventures are doomed to failure from the outset, and that these ventures provide a certain aggregate number of jobs, then those jobs represent an ongoing pool of jobs that is not supported by market demand.
In other words, some proportion of total jobs is always being subsidized by capital losses, rather than by aggregate demand.
But to your point of this being 'worse', I'd ask "worse than what?" If you choose to support yourself by taking a job working for a third party rather than applying your labor to the direct satisfaction of your needs and desires, then the risk of losing your job is always present, regardless of whether or not the business you work for is sustainable in its own right by market demand. The only way to eliminate this risk is to avoid being dependent on a single external source of income in the first place (which, in my opinion, everyone ought to do to whatever extent they can).
> And, anyway, if the business people do the market research they're supposed to do first, and the demand isn't there, they won't bother starting anyway.
Market research is hardly an exact science. Accurately gauging market demand is extremely difficult, and ventures fail all the time. The core problem of economics is one of epistemology.
> then why haven't they lowered gas prices to increase demand like the magic formula says they will?
What magic formula are you talking about? What problem, exactly, is the profitability of oil companies an indicator of in the first place?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Discussions about 'inequality' are entirely political Disagree. If the result of certain economic practices result in social inequality, is that entirely political? Economics is a social science, so why should some results be only political? It's not as black and white as you make it sound.
> Disagree. If the result of certain economic practices result in social inequality, is that entirely political? The concept of social inequality is inherently political. You can formulate methods of quantifying anything, but if what you're quantifying is inherently political in the first place, it doesn't make it any more objective or empirical. > Economics is a social science Exactly. Most social sciences are based…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Respectfully, I think you are making an unfounded assumption about why consumers aren't buying things. I heard a news story just the other day about U.S. family savings being lower than recent history. This isn't it, but here's a similar article: http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/05/17/our-view-recessio... i.e., consumers aren't "choosing" not to buy because they're saving the money instead, they're "choosing" not…
Respectfully, I think you are making an unfounded assumption about why consumers aren't buying things. I heard a news story just the other day about U.S. family savings being lower than recent history. This isn't it, but here's a similar article: http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/05/17/our-view-recessio... . i.e., consumers aren't "choosing" not to buy because they're saving the money instead, they're "choosing" n…
That's actually what I was trying to say, I probably just wasn't clear. I was responding to webXL's opening sentence, "When a consumer chooses not to buy something, i.e. commerce does not take place, saving occurs." I don't think that saving is occurring, I think that people are trying to put food on the table right now, as you say.
> How do you know if the middle class is healthy? Can you define middle class?
To be fair, I'm not aware of a strict definition of "middle class" -- it's one of those amorphous abstractions that everyone refers to without ever bothering to see if they're talking about the same thing.
However, if we define some basic properties of "middle class" -- owns a home (probably with mortgage), has some savings, has reasonable credit, owns two vehicles (for a family) of recent vintage and in decent condition, college educated, etc. -- I think it's pretty easy to see from the news of the last several years that they aren't doing too well these days. Their mortgage is likely upside-down if they bought their home in the last decade; their car is probably requiring more frequent repair; their credit probably isn't as good as it used to be; their savings are diminished; and tuition is expensive.
If you can find any recent good news for U.S. middle class families, I would honestly love to read it. :-)
Why was he even pitching this talk to TED, a conference about rich people, for other rich people? That would be like me pitching a show to Fox News about how white christian males are scum and should be burned for fuel. It's the wrong message, for the wrong audience.
I think you hit the nail on the head, and find it very interesting people are down voting you. This has shown TED doesn't want to spread the word about controversial issues that actually impact the vast majority of people's lives. I stand by the accusations of them being cowardly. But of course, a society by the rich, for the rich is nothing new.
People are downvoting him for making assumptions about the motivations of actual, specific people, based on little more than their presumptive membership in arbitrary and subjective categories. And, for what it's worth, you're doing the same thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a difference between being controversial and being partisan. The talk directly calls out Republicans. Based on what Chris Anderson said, they would welcome a talk on that controversial subject, but it couldn't call out political parties.
except it calls out both Republicans AND Democrats.
And there are other parties.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Disagree. If the result of certain economic practices result in social inequality, is that entirely political? The concept of social inequality is inherently political. You can formulate methods of quantifying anything, but if what you're quantifying is inherently political in the first place, it doesn't make it any more objective or empirical. > Economics is a social science Exactly. Most social sciences are based…
If I understand your point then, it's that nothing other than empirical data should be presented at TED? Then I should suggest you stop watching TED videos then, because this talk isn't a first to touch on political subjects.
TED conferences are discussions of ideas, and ideas are often engender controversy; some of them might influence people toward one political position or another, but that doesn't mean that the ideas don't have some relevance or value outside of politics.
In this case, though, I can't blame the TED organizers for eschewing the discussion of ideas that are entirely political, and which are ultimately only about engaging the controversy itself.