Should you be making $45,000 more a year?

There’s a popular series of talks on the web called the
TED talks — Technology, Entertainment, and Design, where
really smart, successful people get 18 minutes to explain
their world-changing ideas; the audience votes, and the
best ones are posted on the web:

BUT There was some controversy recently over a speech
which DID NOT make the cut.

“If it was true that lower taxes for the rich and more
wealth for the wealthy led to job creation, today we would
be drowning in jobs,” says TED member Nick Hanauer.

This is Seattle venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, who
made his fortune as an early investor in Amazon. And what
he said about job creation didn’t sit well with the
curator of the TED series. Hanauer said that the key to
job creation is more money in the hands of consumers:

“In this sense, an ordinary consumer is more of a job
creator than a capitalist like me. That’s why, when
business people take credit for creating jobs it’s a bit
like squirrels taking the credit for creating evolution,”
continues Hanauer.

The talk was originally supposed to be posted in April,
but it wasn’t. And when a reporter for National Journal
asked why, he was told that sometimes speeches are
considered mediocre, or too partisan to make the cut, but
in any case — it’s been posted now:

“If the typical American family still retained the same
share of income that they did in 1970 they’d earn like
$45,000 more a year. Imagine what our economy would be
like if that were the case,” says Hanauer.

See more of the talk here.