# Nick Hanauer on the rich, taxes and job creation **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 20, 2012, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508 "2012-05-20T12:02:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/1 "2012-05-20T12:02:01Z")
Nick Hanauer is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist living in Seattle, Washington. Here is his Wikipedia biography: [Nick Hanauer - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Hanauer) Here is a little talk he gave on the myth of the rich being job creators: [Nick Hanauer on inequality - YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx2Y5HhplI&feature=player_embedded) ---
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/2 "2012-05-20T13:03:11Z")
I watched until he got to “its like squirrels taking credit for evolution”. You never go full retard. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/3 "2012-05-20T17:54:29Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > I watched until he got to “its like squirrels taking credit for evolution”. > > You never go full retard. And since you’re a billionaire entrepreneur, you are waaay more qualified to speak on these issues than HE is, right? ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/4 "2012-05-20T18:40:20Z")
I was going to post this when I saw it last week, I find his arguments persuasive. All the tax cuts and corporate stimulus over the past decade has not been invested in this country, but the growth of American businesses overseas has led to record profits and record dividends. When, if ever, are the American populace going to benefit from this growth overseas? I could argue that they should share in the profit in that they are paying for much of infrastructure and halped created much of the intellectual property. Regardless, it seems like good policy to keep our economy at the top by having good infrastructure, an educated workforce, and a strong safety net so people feel comfortable risking and innovating. All this costs money. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/5 "2012-05-20T18:45:08Z")
Just watched his TED talk with my wife. It is especially enjoyable, as the average TED attendee is a pretty fricking rich - not all of us can afford $6,000 to attend, and for most of it’s existence, it was by invitation only. So he was not exactly preaching to the choir. There is some irony here in that he was the first non-family investor in Amazon, which has destroyed far more jobs than it has created. But at least he is honest about it. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Love](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Dr.Love](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Love)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/6 "2012-05-20T20:53:03Z")
I’m not even halfway through the talk and I’ve already caught him in a bald-faced lie. Look at the graph at [2:18](http://youtu.be/bBx2Y5HhplI?t=2m18s). The blue line ostensibly shows the unemployment rate from 1995 to 2009, compared to the effective tax rate on millionaires during the same period. The plot shows that the unemployment rate increased steadily while the effective tax rate decreased. This is not what happened. [The actual unemployment rate](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=unemployment+rate+US+1995+to+2010) varied between about 4 and 6% during most of that time, until the 2008 recession hit and shot unemployment up to about 10%. You might argue that he’s plotting something other than U3 unemployment that I linked to above. But look at his endpoints: 5.6% in 1995 and 9.3% in 2009. These two points agree with the U3 data (he doesn’t state which month the unemployment rates come from). This is just one thing that I noticed was wrong off the top of my head. What else is he lying about? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Love](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Dr.Love](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Love)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/7 "2012-05-20T21:18:10Z")
After taking a closer look at the unemployment rates, it appears that he averaged the rates in 1995 and 2009 to come up with the endpoints. See [the BLS data (you’ll probably have to adjust the start and end dates)](http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000). The average rates were 5.59167% in 1995 and 9.275% in 2009. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/8 "2012-05-20T22:03:15Z")
Why should we listen to a class traitor? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/9 "2012-05-21T01:23:57Z")
The guy is just a liberal ideologue. He straw mans right off the bat then utters possibly the stupidest thing any speaker at Ted has over spoken. The line about “job creator” and “The Creator”. I expected a big hope to come yank him off the sage at that point. This is another guy who think that because he’s rich that every piece of shit thought that forms in his head is a gold nugget. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/10 "2012-05-21T01:57:28Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > The guy is just a liberal ideologue. He straw mans right off the bat then utters possibly the stupidest thing any speaker at Ted has over spoken. The line about “job creator” and “The Creator”. I expected a big hope to come yank him off the sage at that point. This is another guy who think that because he’s rich that every piece of shit thought that forms in his head is a gold nugget. I suppose you could be right, but it would be nicer to address any of the substantive points he made. I agree the talk was part entertainment (re: job creator —\> the creator stuff), but his point that higher taxes on the rich does not seem to correlate very well with job creation, is what should be addressed. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/11 "2012-05-21T02:31:43Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > This is another guy who think that because he’s rich that every piece of shit thought that forms in his head is a gold nugget. Yeah, but most of those are RWs; this is refreshing. On the LW side we got Soros, Buffett, now Hanauer . . . the list ain’t much longer than that. (Your “limousine liberals” being mostly not serious about anything that might seriously affect their pocketbooks – [neoliberalism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism) is about as far left as they’ll go, usually, and Wall Street **wuvs** it.) ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/12 "2012-05-21T02:35:31Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > I suppose you could be right, but it would be nicer to address any of the substantive points he made. I agree the talk was part entertainment (re: job creator —\> the creator stuff), but his point that higher taxes on the rich does not seem to correlate very well with job creation, is what should be addressed. He mentioned the whole “Job Creator” thing by way of pointing out how every Republican talking head uses the same phrases. Jon Stewart frequently has montages of half a dozen different speakers using the same phrase on the same day, exactly as if they had received an e-mail or fax with the poll and focus-group tested phrase. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2012, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/13 "2012-05-21T20:43:42Z")
So he’s not Paul Krugman or Robert Reich. The point is that he is an immensely rich man arguing that low taxes on people like him actually hurts the economy. Poor and middle class people spend the majority of their income, where someone like Mitt Romney spends a much smaller portion of his wealth. Businesses are dependent on us. We are the “job creators”. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/14 "2012-05-22T17:35:14Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Just watched his TED talk with my wife. It is especially enjoyable, as the average TED attendee is a pretty fricking rich - not all of us can afford $6,000 to attend, and for most of it’s existence, it was by invitation only. So he was not exactly preaching to the choir. > > There is some irony here in that he was the first non-family investor in Amazon, which has destroyed far more jobs than it has created. But at least he is honest about it. I think you can take this position out of self interest. So if you are in technology, engineering and design, do you want a a nation with a median income of $50,000 with a lower tax rate and some people making billions/year OR would you want a median income of $100K/year with higher tax rates and fewer people making billions/year? For example. If you want to sell more Iphones, you really can’t try to take market share away from anyone else, you need the market to get bigger. Same with a lot of technology. TED attendees are pretty strategic thinkers because they have to be. They would rather be taxed more on profits from a larger customer base than taxed a bit less on profits from a smaller customer base. Very few of these guys have business models that rely on multi- millionare consumers. I’m not saying that increasing the tax rate will necessarily result in higher median incomes but I don’t think its controversial to say that investments in education and infrastructure can lead to higher median incomes. Ultimately everything is paid for with taxes and the place where the consumption base is least affected by taxation is at the high end. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/15 "2012-05-22T17:50:19Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Businesses are dependent on us. We are the “job creators”. This is so trivially true, I have difficulty understanding how the Republicans have managed to keep the job creator label on the rich. Ask any small businessman, when you think about hiring someone, what is the first thing you think about? The vast majority\* will say something along the lines of “Do I have work for them to do?” or “Do I need another worker to handle all of my customers?” They’re talking about demand, is there enough demand for their product/service to justify hiring someone. No businessman, no matter how rich, wants to hire another worker and pay his wages. They hire people because they have customers willing to pay for that person’s labor. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/16 "2012-05-22T18:12:29Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think you can take this position out of self interest. I suspect the people who don’t are in businesses that have little contact with people of average incomes, or are isolated from consumers they are dependent upon. > [@](#): > > So if you are in technology, engineering and design, do you want a a nation with a median income of $50,000 with a lower tax rate and some people making billions/year OR would you want a median income of $100K/year with higher tax rates and fewer people making billions/year? It’s the classic “smart greedy”/“stupid greedy” divide. > [@](#): > > For example. If you want to sell more Iphones, you really can’t try to take market share away from anyone else, you need the market to get bigger. Same with a lot of technology. TED attendees are pretty strategic thinkers because they have to be. They would rather be taxed more on profits from a larger customer base than taxed a bit less on profits from a smaller customer base. Very few of these guys have business models that rely on multi- millionare consumers. Exactly. You can buy [a limited edition cell phone that costs more than a million dollars](http://most-expensive.net/cell-phone-mobile), but it makes much more sense to sell millions of them at $200 a throw. I only know one TED attendee, the guy I used to work for at Hallmark Cards. His job was discovering new business opportunities - I built their first web greeting card store. Smartest person I’ve ever worked for. > [@](#): > > I’m not saying that increasing the tax rate will necessarily result in higher median incomes but I don’t think its controversial to say that investments in education and infrastructure can lead to higher median incomes. Ultimately everything is paid for with taxes and the place where the consumption base is least affected by taxation is at the high end. Especially as those with the highest income have the greatest opportunity to avoid contributing to the tax base. One hundred million Americans with an additional $10,000 in income will pay a lot more taxes than one trillion dollars divided among one hundred billionaires. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/17 "2012-05-22T18:17:01Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > This is so trivially true, I have difficulty understanding how the Republicans have managed to keep the job creator label on the rich. > > Ask any small businessman, when you think about hiring someone, what is the first thing you think about? The vast majority\* will say something along the lines of “Do I have work for them to do?” or “Do I need another worker to handle all of my customers?” They’re talking about demand, is there enough demand for their product/service to justify hiring someone. > > No businessman, no matter how rich, wants to hire another worker and pay his wages. They hire people because they have customers willing to pay for that person’s labor. Taxing the rich doesn’t increase demand, though. Only cutting taxes on the masses can do that, and that’s what’s caused all our deficit problems in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/18 "2012-05-22T18:19:12Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Taxing the rich doesn’t increase demand, though. Only cutting taxes on the masses can do that, and that’s what’s caused all our deficit problems in the first place. No, only government **spending** can do that. Keynesian economics has never been discredited (though there seems to be a persistent contrary assumption/meme on the right for some reason). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/19 "2012-05-22T19:54:48Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Taxing the rich doesn’t increase demand, though. Only cutting taxes on the masses can do that, and that’s what’s caused all our deficit problems in the first place. The masses didn’t get that much of a tax cut. From [here](http://www.epi.org/publication/tenth_anniversary_of_the_bush-era_tax_cuts/). > [@](#): > > The Bush-era tax cuts1 conferred disproportionate benefits on those at the top of the earnings distribution, exacerbating a trend of widening income inequality. > > In 2010, the top 1% of earners (i.e., tax filers making over $645,000) received 38% of the breaks in the 2001-08 tax changes; 55% of the tax breaks went to the top 10% of earners (those making over $170,000).2 > > The top 0.1% of earners (i.e., making over $3 million) received an average tax cut of roughly $520,000, more than 450 times larger than the share received by an average middle-income family.3 The deficit situation would be much better if they had gotten rid of some or all of the high end cuts. And, as **BrainGlutton** said, spending the money saved on infrastructure improvements which create jobs would be far more effective. Giving an unemployed person a job means he pays taxes, does not collect unemployment, and helps him to buy stuff increasing demand. He should be working on useful projects, but we have tons of those. And don’t forget an unfunded war and an unfunded increase in Medicare spending. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508/20 "2012-05-23T00:27:08Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > And don’t forget an unfunded war and an unfunded increase in Medicare spending. Well, at least [the war is winding down.](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/05/2012520152448128385.html) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nick-hanauer-on-the-rich-taxes-and-job-creation/622508.md?page=2)