Rich Entrepreneur, "The Wealthy Aren't Job Creators, Middle Class Workers Are" Think Progress

[Stuart G]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/07/2123831/rich-entrepreneur-the-wealthy-arent-job-creators-middle-class-workers-are/

Bryce Covert on Jun 7, 2013 at 3:30 pm..
from Think Progress

Nick Hanauer

On Thursday, entrepreneur and self-described one percenter Nick Hanauer warned Congress that rich people like him aren’t the engines of the economy. In a testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, he explained why, in fact, middle-class workers are the economy’s real job creators:


In the same way that it’s a fact that the sun, not earth is the center of the solar system, it’s also a fact that the middle class, not rich business people like me are the center of America’s economy. […]

As an entrepreneur and investor, 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 would have failed and all those jobs would have evaporated.

He described what he calls a “virtuous cycle” in which middle class consumers have money to buy goods, which increases demand and therefore hiring. The rich, on the other hand, don’t fuel the economy with their consumption in the same way. “I earn 1,000 times the median wage, but I do not buy 1,000 times as much stuff,” he noted.

[NYC_SKP]

1. K/R. (nt)

[Xipe Totec]

2. Not all rich people are miopic egocentrists. Some get it. nt

[Stuart G]

3. Here is a vid from May 2012 where he discusses the same issue. Was from a talk at TED

A Republican businessman's meeting. It was generally ignored by them but discussed here and in the progressive media.

[Notafraidtoo]

4. This is how I talk about the economy to people.

This is how i explain democratic economic and tax policy to people who are bombarded with trickle down from the media,It works people understand when you explain that the rich cant be the engines when they don't spend as much as a 1000 people with equal amounts of money.

[sheshe2]

5. Thank you, Stuart G

Well said by Mr Hanauer!

Kick and Rec!

[undergroundpanther]

6. actually

The lower class is.Being poor,every dollar you get is spent.People on SSI,Foodstamps we spend all we have.Thus all we get gets put back into the economy.

https://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/dec/30/poverty-industry-drives-memphis-economy/?print=1

[blkmusclmachine]

7. .

.

[Populist_Prole]

8. Major K&R. Another way you know he's right

Is how REALLY angry the shills for the 1% get whenever demand-side economics is touted: It's clear they know we ARE paying much attention to the main behind the curtain. It really sets them off because they know, they KNOW that if demand-side economics were practiced in the US that their gravy train will blow up in flames.