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Joey deVilla
This comic does a great job of explaining what “theory” means, when used scientifically rather than colloquially. What we call a “theory” in everyday conversation is often more like what is called a “hypothesis” in science, and people often use it in the place of “hunch” as well.
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Steve Payne is the artist behind the “Replaceface” series of paintings, in which he take digital copies of George Dawe’s paintings of Russian generals and Photoshops in celebrity faces. They look pretty good!
You can almost see Robert Downey Jr.’s character, Tony Stark, having one of these in his penthouse.
Steve Jobs was the general who turned a near-defeat for Apple into victory.
Machete! Okay, his name is really Danny Trejo.
Robert De Niro: “You lookin’ at me?”
Jet Lee!
Morgan Freeman should dress up like this all the time.
Jason Statham would make an amusing Russian general.
This series wouldn’t be complete without CLint Eastwood.
The “Russian general” look works surprisingly well for Jackie Chan.
It’s a bit of a stretch for Charlie Sheen…
…but it almost works for Jonah Hill!
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Yesterday, I posted an article about “The Talk That Was Too Hot for TED” — Nick Hanauer’s TED presentation in which he said that the middle class are the job creators, not the super-rich. TED originally didn’t post the video, but it’s now available online — I’ve posted it above.
TED curator Chris Anderson has posted his explanation of what happened in his blog, in which he says that the topic was too partisan (“we try to steer clear of talks that are bound to descend into the same dismal partisan head-butting people can find every day elsewhere in the media”) and that the audience response was too lukewarm (in an audience poll, it got mediocre ratings). Read his post, watch the video, and tell me what you think.
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The Uni-Cub is Honda’s answer to the Segway — a “personal transport device” that you control by shifting your weight ever so slightly. Now we’re a step closer to the future described in the Pixar film Wall-E, where walking is passe and every rides, eats and surfs the net on their transport chairs:
It’s still a concept device and not yet on the market, so if you’re tired of still walking around like a chump, you’ll have to settle for a Segway or Rascal for the time being.
Here’s Honda’s video showing the Uni-Cub in action, complete with Katamari Damacy-esque J-Pop promotional soundtrack.
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R.I.P. Donna Summer, Queen of Disco, and the only other person who could do justice to that wonderful musical mess known as MacArthur Park. She died today at the age of 63 after a battle with cancer.
In her honour: her hits Hot Stuff and Bad Girls:
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If you’ve been looking for a name for your new cocktail, band or website, you might want consider this one.
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They’re calling venture capitalist Nick Hanauer’s TED presentation too controversial to put on their site. In his presentation titled Who Are The Job Creators?, he says that income inequality is a problem and that it’s the middle class, not the rich and especially not the super-rich, who are the job creators. In fact, he suggests that the coinage “job creators” is not just a fiction created by plutocrats — it’s self-deification.
This is unusual for TED, who normally publish videos of their talks. If you’ve never seen a TED talk, go to their site, look through the list and pick one that interests you. I think you’ll find them interesting and enlightening.
Even though TED is breaking with their standard practice and refusing to publish the video of his presentation, you can still get the gist of Hanauer’s presentation. I’ve published the text and slides for Who Are the Job Creators? below. Read, and if you feel like it, comment.
Who Are the Job Creators?
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 creation will go down.
This idea is an article of faith for republicans and seldom challenged by democrats and has shaped much of today’s economic landscape.
But sometimes the ideas that we know to be true are dead wrong. For thousands of years people were sure that earth was at the center of the universe. It’s not, and an astronomer who still believed that it was, would do some lousy astronomy.
In the same way, a policy maker who believed that the rich and businesses are “job creators” and therefore should not be taxed, would make equally bad policy.
I have started or helped start, dozens of businesses and initially hired lots of people. But if no one could have afforded to buy what we had to sell, my businesses would all have failed and all those jobs would have evaporated.
That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. What does lead to more employment is a “circle of life” like feedback loop between customers and businesses. And only consumers can set in motion this virtuous cycle of increasing demand and hiring. In this sense, an ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than a capitalist like me.
So when businesspeople take credit for creating jobs, it’s a little like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. In fact, it’s the other way around.
Anyone who’s ever run a business knows that hiring more people is a capitalists course of last resort, something we do only when increasing customer demand requires it. In this sense, calling ourselves job creators isn’t just inaccurate, it’s disingenuous.
That’s why our current policies are so upside down. When you have a tax system in which most of the exemptions and the lowest rates benefit the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer.
Since 1980 the share of income for the richest Americans has more than tripled while effective tax rates have declined by close to 50%.
If it were true that lower tax rates and more wealth for the wealthy would lead to more job creation, then today we would be drowning in jobs. And yet unemployment and under-employment is at record highs.
Another reason this idea is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power a great economy. The annual earnings of people like me are hundreds, if not thousands, of times greater than those of the median American, but we don’t buy hundreds or thousands of times more stuff. My family owns three cars, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. Like everyone else, we go out to eat with friends and family only occasionally.
I can’t buy enough of anything to make up for the fact that millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans can’t buy any new clothes or cars or enjoy any meals out. Or to make up for the decreasing consumption of the vast majority of American families that are barely squeaking by, buried by spiraling costs and trapped by stagnant or declining wages.
Here’s an incredible fact. If the typical American family still got today the same share of income they earned in 1980, they would earn about 25% more and have an astounding $13,000 more a year. Where would the economy be if that were the case?
Significant privileges have come to capitalists like me for being perceived as “job creators” at the center of the economic universe, and the language and metaphors we use to defend the fairness of the current social and economic arrangements is telling. For instance, it is a small step from “job creator” to “The Creator”. We did not accidentally choose this language. It is only honest to admit that calling oneself a “job creator” is both an assertion about how economics works and the a claim on status and privileges.
The extraordinary differential between a 15% tax rate on capital gains, dividends, and carried interest for capitalists, and the 35% top marginal rate on work for ordinary Americans is a privilege that is hard to justify without just a touch of deification.
We’ve had it backward for the last 30 years. Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs. Rather they are a consequence of an eco-systemic feedback loop animated by middle-class consumers, and when they thrive, businesses grow and hire, and owners profit. That’s why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.
So here’s an idea worth spreading.
In a capitalist economy, the true job creators are consumers, the middle class. And taxing the rich to make investments that grow the middle class, is the single smartest thing we can do for the middle class, the poor and the rich.
Thank You.
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It’s all determined by your birth month and date and the colour of the shirt you’re wearing right now. Yes, it’s one of those silly diversions making the internet rounds, but for some reason I like it.
I rather like my team: Tyrion “The Imp” Lannister from Game of Thrones, Batman and Scarlett Johnansson.
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Byron Sonne, dubbed by some folks in the media as the “G20 Geek” was found not guilty on all counts today. Byron is a computer consultant and a freedom-and-technology activist who wanted to expose the 2010 Toronto G20 Summit’s “security theatre” — measures taken by security that serve little actual purpose except to present a false image of security and to justify the security team’s budget — and wound up being arrested and accused of planning to detonate bombs at the event.
Byron faced some pretty tough opponents: a police force who’d pretty much used the summit as an excuse to make mass arrests and crack some skulls, detective Tam Bui playing the bad cop’s bad cop, and Liz Nadeau as the prosecutor determined to justify the security theatre. His house was raided, he and his wife were arrested, he was put in prison for nearly a year, his stuff was confiscated and his ability to use a computer — the tool of his livelihood — was seriously curtailed. In the process, he lost not just his freedom, but also his wife.
While I don’t agree with the way in which Byron went to point out the security theatre of the G20 Summit, I believe that as the citizenry that is supposed to be served by the security mechanism put in place (and we were very badly served), we have the right to call it out. Byron’s arrest and the prosecution’s actions during the trial were just extensions of that security theatre, and his exoneration is one small step to justice being served. He would be justified in taking legal action against the police — they’re the real criminals in this case.
Congrats, Byron! I’m buying you a freedom beer when we next see each other.
Recommended Reading
- FreeByron.org: A site providing information about Byron Sonne’s case put together by his supporters.
- How Byron Sonne’s obsession with the G20 security apparatus cost him everything: A Toronto Life article covering his case as it was last year.
- Everything You Need to Know About the Byron Sonne Trial: His case explained, in timeline form.
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I took this photo yesterday on the south side of Adelaide, just east of Jarvis. There wasn’t anybody using the door to load stuff on or off a supply truck, nor was anybody using or watching it:
Here’s a close-up of the sign:
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Be warned, it’s pretty sweary, but the show itself has gratuitous cursing, violence and sex. That’s why we love it, and that’s why Anitra and I like to call the show “Boobs and Beheadings”.
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