The Inequality Speech That TED Won’t Show You
May 17th, 2012I’ll never be for anything that hands more money to the state, but I do like the idea of a maximum compensation ratio applying to all employees of corporations. This is an old comment of mine on the subject:
One of my impossible to implement ideas would be to have a maximum total compensation ratio for the top and bottom tiers of employees of corporations. The CEO can only make some multiple of whatever total compensation amount the janitor makes. Total compensation doesn’t just mean salary. It means total compensation. Everything. Stock options, dividends, bonuses, etc. Contractors/temps are not exempt from this.
This would just apply to corporations. Sole proprietors would not have this constraint.
In general, big is bad, so, I thought, how can we deal with super-sized corporate fascism without requiring complex regulations?
This is a simple, structural mechanism that would cause more people to have the resources to become entrepreneurs. More entrepreneurs = more competition = rat poison for corporate fascists.
If sole proprietors are psychopaths, there’s only so much damage that they can do on their own without the absurd responsibility avoidance mechanisms that corporations enjoy. If they decide that they want the protections associated with a corporation, fine, then the maximum total compensation ratio rule kicks in.
I don’t agree with everything on this chart, but I agree with a lot of it:
If you think that taxing the rich is a far out topic for TED, their heads would explode if someone wanted to talk about a maximum compensation ratio rule.
The following link contains the text of Nick Hanauer’s speech.
Via: National Journal:
Prepare to meet Nick Hanauer. He’s a venture capitalist from Seattle who was the first non-family investor in Amazon.com. Today he’s a very rich man. And, somewhat jarringly, he’s screaming to anyone who will listen that he, and other wealthy innovators like him, doesn’t create jobs. The middle class does – and its decline threatens everyone in America, from the innovators on down.
You’ll read a lot more about Hanauer in the next installation of Restoration Calls, which drops tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the full text of a speech Hanauer gave in March at the TED University conference. You can’t find the talk online, because TED officials have declared it too politically controversial to post on their web site.
More: Nick Hanauer’s Powerpoint Slides from Censored TED Talk
