Paul Tudor Jones wants the "free market" to solve wealth inequality. LOL!!!

Billionaire trader Paul Tudor Jones thinks the "free market" is going to solve income and wealth inequality. Keep dreaming, Paulie. He also thinks that capitalists should just "give" more of their profits to workers in the form of higher wages. Guess what? That's not capitalism. (Is he really advocating for Socialism?)

Would he be okay with the state making things more equitable, like it's done at certain times in the past? Of course not, he already made that clear. The free market has to be the one to do it.

What fucking bullshit these people.

And he says that income inequality will eventually be addressed...either through war or revolution or, shriek...HIGHER TAXES. (I'm sure he'd prefer the former two.) He lumps taxes in with war and revolution. Nice. Yeah, to his kind it's worse.

By the way...it wasn't the "free fucking market" that made guys like Paul Jones so vastly more wealthy than the average Jones; it was policies of the state, which he and his kind control.

Related: Protesters to picket Paul Tudor Jones' home over income inequality

Seems Jones is a big supporter of Republicans. Not that Dems have done much to end income inequality (think, Clintons and their cronies), but Jones' choice of party affiliation is disturbing and hypocritical.

Umair Haque — Let's Save Great Ideas from the Ideas Industry

What was your favorite TED talk this year? I found both Amanda Palmer's and Nilofer'sspectacular. Yet, this year, TED made me wonder about Great Ideas, and our relationship with them. And I began to ask myself: even if we enjoy a great TED talk, should the rise of "TED thinking" concern us just a tiny bit?

Let me be very clear: I use that phrase not to refer to the extravaganza that is TED, and though I use TED as an example, this post isn't really just about TED — but let the phrase "TED thinking" serve as a shorthand for the way we've come to think about ideas and how we share them, whether it's through an 18-minute talk, an 800-word blog post, or the latest business "best-seller." Hence, this post isn't really about TED (so please don't leave me raging comments saying "But my favorite TED talk!!!"). "TED thinking" is just a symptom: and the underlying syndrome is our broken relationship with Great Ideas. Herewith, my tiny argument:

TED thinking assumes complex social problems are essentially engineering challenges, and that short nuggets of Technology, Edutainment, and Design can fix everything, fast and cheap. TED thinking's got a hard determinism to it; a kind of technological hyperrationalism. It ignores institutions and society almost completely. We've come to look at these quick, easy "solutions" as the very point of "ideas worth spreading."

But this seems to me to miss the point and power of ideas entirely. Einstein's great equation is not a "solution"; it is a theory — whose explanations unravel only greater mysteries and questions. It offers no immediate easy, quick "application" in the "real world," but challenges us to reimagine what the "real world" is; it is a Great Idea because it offers us something bigger, more lasting, and more vital than a painless, disposable "solution."

Yet in the eyes of TED thinking, it is of limited, perhaps little, value....

The Harvard Business Review — HBR Blog Network
Let's Save Great Ideas from the Ideas Industry
by Umair Haque | Director of Havas Media Labs
(ht Michel Bauwens at P2P Foundation)

Jim Tankersley — Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

If you’re plugged into the Internet, chances are you’ve seen a TED talk – the wonky, provocative web videos that have become a sort of nerd franchise....

...There’s one idea, though, that TED’s organizers recently decided was too controversial to spread: the notion that widening income inequality is a bad thing for America, and that as a result, the rich should pay more in taxes. 

TED organizers invited a multimillionaire Seattle venture capitalist named Nick Hanauer – the first nonfamily investor in Amazon.com – to give a speech on March 1 at their TED University conference. Inequality was the topic – specifically, Hanauer’s contention that the middle class, and not wealthy innovators like himself, are America’s true “job creators.”
“We’ve had it backward for the last 30 years,” he said. “Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs. Rather they are a consequence of an ecosystemic 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.”

You can’t find that speech online. TED officials told Hanauer initially they were eager to distribute it. “I want to put this talk out into the world!” one of them wrote him in an e-mail in late April. But early this month they changed course, telling Hanauer that his remarks were too “political” and too controversial for posting

Read it at the National Journal
Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

by Jim Tankersley

(h/t Clonal in the comments)

Links to Nick Hanauer's talk, slides, and more.

Note to TED: It's difficult to find anything that is truly innovative socially that is not politically controversial.

UPDATE: Here the video (h/t Huffington Post)

2012 TED talks to focus on shaping the future — AFP

Technology, art and magic will mix in perspective-bending ways this week as the prestigious TED conference continues transforming from an elite retreat to a global movement for a better world.

The gathering kicks off Monday in the Southern California city of Long Beach with a roster of 1,350 attendees including Internet heavyweights, Hollywood celebrities, scientists, and other notables.

Tickets to the sold-out event cost $7,500 each, but captivating 18-minute “talks” for which the conference is renowned are made available free online at ted.com and have a growing worldwide audience.

This year’s “Full Spectrum” theme refers to a range of presentations “from dazzling technology and leading-edge science to the richest veins of human creativity and interconnection.”While topics at TED and the way it connects with the world have changed with the times it remains devoted to “ideas worth spreading.”

“I have a fundamental belief in the power of ideas,” TED curator Chris Anderson told AFP.

“Powerful ideas, shared the right way, lead to action. Period.”

TED presenters are known for combining dizzying brain power with mind-tickling spins on concepts as weighty as climate change and the devastation of sea life or as playful as dance and music.

Read it at Raw Story
2012 TED talks to focus on shaping the future

by Agence Presse-France

“Powerful ideas, shared the right way, lead to action. Period.” Sounds like a venue for MMT.