NICK HANAUER: Capitalism
is the greatest
social technology ever
created, but I believe that it
is manifestly dishonest.
To both believe that
capitalism is the greatest
social technology ever
invented, but also
believe that the whole system
will come tumbling down
if capitalists are
required to pay
their workers enough to
get by without food stamps
is bull [BLEEP].
There is no excuse for
any company in America
to pay their workers so
little that they need
Medicaid and rent assistance.
That's not capitalism.
That's socialism for the rich.
My name is Nick Hanauer.
And I'm both a serial
technology entrepreneur
and venture capitalist.
But I'm also a civic activist.
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The thing about inequality is
that every reasonable economy
has to have something.
That's not in dispute.
The question is, how
much should you have
and how quickly
should it change?
And really, the
sort of thing that
got me to start
to care about this
was realizing in 2007 or so that
the top 1% of Americans in 1980
shared only about 8% of
national income, but by 2007,
that number had
grown to almost 22%,
while the income of the
share of the bottom 50%
had fallen from about 17
and 1/2% to about 12%.
And it doesn't take
a mathematical genius
to see that if that
trend continues,
we will no longer have
a capitalist economy
or a democracy.
We'll have a feudal system.
And to be clear, since then,
it's only gotten worse.
The sort of national trends
that have been slowly eroding
and eviscerating
the middle class
have been proceeding
for a long time.
And that ideological
framework got
really rolling under Reagan,
and essentially, the rest
is history.
And so we have endured 40 years
of trickle-down economics.
And that is why,
largely, our democracy
is disintegrating today.
Make no mistake, if you're
a middle class person
and feel like the country
has left you behind,
that is an objective truth.
And that didn't
happen by accident.
Leaders on the left and right
have enacted policies that
have impoverished most
people in the middle,
and have massively
enriched people like me.
When people are that
angry, they lash out.
And we elected the leader
who was lashing out, too.
And he happened to
be Donald Trump.
He's a narcissistic thug.
And the quicker he's
gone, the better.
But to be absolutely
clear and honest,
he is not the cause
of the trouble.
He's a symptom of the trouble.
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The tax bill that the
Republicans passed a few months
ago was just a giant theft
from the middle class
to the very rich.
DONALD TRUMP: Ultimately,
what does it mean?
It means jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.
NICK HANAUER: If there was
a shred of truth to the idea
that tax cuts for rich
people and corporations
would somehow increase
growth, then we
would have had enormous
amounts of jobs, and growth,
and wage increases already
because corporate profits
are already twice as
high as they were.
And a tiny fraction of what
companies could be investing
is actually invested.
The vast majority
of the cash flows
are simply enriching
the very rich already.
If it was me, I would radically
increase corporate tax rates
because I don't think that
makes American companies less
competitive.
I think it makes
them more competitive
because it forces them
to invest in themselves
and in the country
rather than paying taxes.
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Rich people no more create
jobs than farmers tomatoes.
The economy generates
jobs, not rich people.
And the more money
consumers have,
the more jobs that are created
because people buy things,
and people like me are
required to hire people
in order to meet that demand.
And so this whole idea that the
rich are job creators, again,
is just another way
of instantiating
a narrative that ultimately
means we matter and you don't.
It's an intimidation
tactic masquerading
as economic theory.
It is exactly the same as
claiming that white people are
superior to people of color.
If you accept that
as a biological fact,
then there are a bunch of
norms that are acceptable,
like slavery and other things.
The American public needs
to come to terms with this
and start pushing back
against these lies.
If people don't have any
money, who will buy the stuff?
What's happened to our country,
and one of the big reasons
the middle class
has declined, is
that in the day 40 years
ago, about 65% of workers
were entitled to
overtime if they worked
more than 40 hours a week.
Today if you're salaried,
that number is just 8%.
The overtime
threshold is something
that people really, really
don't understand very well.
But it is the
indispensable labor
protection for middle class
people, and here's why.
If you go to work for a Jack in
the Box or something like that,
and your boss pitches you a fake
title like assistant manager,
they can make you
work 70 hours a week
without paying you overtime.
And here's why that's terrible--
is if you do that 30, or
40, or 50 million times
across the economy, you have
turned three jobs at 40 hours
a week into two jobs at 60
hours a week millions of times.
And that's a way to
turn 60 million jobs
into 40 million jobs and
take 20 million jobs out
of the economy.
And so nobody makes
overtime anymore.
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The idea that raising
wages kills jobs
flies in the face
of all common sense.
There is no earthly reason
why Walmart couldn't pay
every single worker
enough to lead
a dignified middle class life
without government assistance.
The reason they don't
is they choose not to.
And no one has confronted that.
It's egregious.
If you put me in charge of the
country, what I would not do
is implement the minimum
wage geographically, which
is what we have largely done.
If you go to a small
town, it's not dominated
by the local department store.
It's the Walmart,
or the Walgreens,
or the Bank of
America, or whatever
it is that employs people.
And so if it was
me, what I would do
is implement labor standards
like the minimum wage
not by geography
but by company size.
This is not to penalize
the biggest companies,
but to hold them to the standard
that they should be held to,
which is, congratulations.
You are a giant, profitable,
multinational corporation.
Now act like one.
When I start talking
about raising wages
to my wealthy friends
and CEOs, mostly
they look at their shoes.
Nobody wants to face the truth.
If past is prologue,
they're going
to wake up after
everything gets burned down
and then be like, oh, sheesh, we
should do something different.
The simple truth is that our
country will not be better
until people feel better.
And they're not going to feel
better until they do better.
And they're not
going to do better--
and here's the hard part--
until we pay them more.
And everything
else in politics is
either a distraction or a lie.
And there are no examples in
human history of a society that
is that unequal that is not
either in revolution or in
an authoritarian police state.
We are trending dangerously
towards an authoritarian police
state today.
This is not a partisan issue.
The truth is that a thriving
middle class creates growth,
not the other way around.
And we all, again,
Democrats and Republicans,
should hold our elected leaders
to the standard of enacting
policies that benefit working
class and middle class
people directly.
Not cutting taxes
for rich people
and hoping that it
will trickle down,
but raising wages for
middle income people.
That's what we
should unite around.
And that's what a
teacher, or a firefighter,
or a police officer, or
whoever ever you are--
that is what you can do.
You can call your
elected representative
and demand those
policies, and not
get conned by this
trickle-down nonsense
that raising wages kills jobs.
It doesn't.
It's just a thing rich
people say to poor people
to keep rich people rich
and poor people poor.
It's a lie.
Don't believe it.
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