yo tell me what you think of my new economic videos

UFOs, lost socks, discuss whatever you like here.

Moderators: Master_Kale, TNM Team

Post Reply
Hashi
Silhouette
Posts: 517
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:13 pm

yo tell me what you think of my new economic videos

Post by Hashi »

hello friends

I started making economic videos last year, but all of those ones suck.

I then restarted in January, but the first few videos had a poor background that looked distracting. Also my speaking wasn't too good either. But my recent videos have fixed these problems (for the most part) and now I believe my videos are quite good. But they can always be improved and I want to know what can be done.

Commenting on the content would be cool too. I still read up economics virtually everyday and am still learning.

Here are my two latest videos, which I think show my capabilities the best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLvLWaXsSMQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOVEq2fZec8

Thank you in advance my friends
that guy
The Nameless Mod
The Nameless Mod
Posts: 1312
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2004 1:54 am
Location: Perth, Western Australia

Re: yo tell me what you think of my new economic videos

Post by that guy »

Watched the first video on redistribution of wealth.

With regard to the videography:
- Overall it seemed pretty good. If economics were a topic I was interested in I would probably check out your videos.
- One comment that I would make is that while you were on screen I naturally watched you and listened to what you said. While you were showing static images or text I would quickly take them in and then my attention would wander. Personally I don't think the CEO mugshots added any clarity and I would have preferred if your errata were overlayed on the video rather than cut to.
- On the subject of cuts, It was fairly noticeable when you cut. I was thinking about youtube videos I like, like VSauce or Numberphile and I realised that they probably cut a lot more than you do but for some reason it's less off-putting. I suspect that this is because they would cut to a different camera shot entirely. I think this complete change is possibly better than the subtle changes in the cuts in your video.
- It wasn't clear to me at the outset whether the intent of the video was to educate about a particular topic or to provide a novel opinion. Later in the video it became clear that it was the latter (I think) but towards the start it seemed more like the former.

With regard to the content:
- I'll start by saying I didn't really buy your argument. I thought you made a few fairly big assumptions which I would guess are incorrect.
-- The first assumption was that paying millions of dollars to CEOs improves the well being of other people. I think you could validly make an argument that companies should pay lower tax because of the positive effect that would have on employment but I think the number of people employed by the CEO personally would be fairly low. I wonder how many people were hired to work personally for Bill Gates (e.g. cleaners, drivers, etc) as opposed to by Microsoft. Even if we suppose that people hired directly by CEOs (or top earners in general) represent a large portion of the labour market I think it's invalid to assume that the amount they are paid in total is linearly proportional to the income of their employer. If Bill Gates doubles his salary does he hire twice as many drivers? If he halved his salary would he still hire a driver? If you took the half of his salary that he lost and gave it to someone else, would they hire a driver?
-- The second assumption was that the salaries of top earners have to be that high or they wouldn't do their job. The assumption here is that if you took away say 25% more of their income then it would no longer be worth their time to work. I suspect this is not the case though I clearly couldn't prove it.
-- The third assumption is that top earners make their money from employment rather than investment. Checking wikipedia, Bill Gate's net worth is a little under $80 billion. Say he invests $70 billion of that at a return of 5% per year. He would earn himself about $3.5 billion before tax. I am betting that this would dwarf the salary of any Microsoft employee including past and present CEOs. At that point the value he provided to microsoft becomes somewhat inconsequential. I believe the 'rich get richer' argument revolves around the exponential growth of wealth due to investment compared to the more steady growth in income.
-- Possibly the biggest assumption that you make is that the wealth gap is actually increasing. I don't think this assumption is crucial to your argument but you do explicitly state it in your video with an accompanying graph (which I liked). It wasn't clear what the source of the data in your graph was but I went ahead and compared the income of the top and bottom quintiles in 1980 and 2011 as best I could without having the original data in the graph. What I found was that in 1980, the top quintile earned about 3.6 times as much as the bottom quintile. In 2011 the top quintile earned... about 3.6 times as much as the bottom quintile. Effectively this means that everyone has become richer nominally but no one's purchasing power has really increased relative to anyone else's. I have ignored the complexities of distributions within quintiles but so does the graph. To me the graph was the most interesting thing but I thought it deserved more analysis in the video and had you done that analysis you might have picked a different graph ;).

I don't think there's anything wrong with making assumptions. Me disagreeing with some of your assumptions didn't prevent me enjoying your video. Some of your assumptions you do explicitly state. I guess I would prefer if prior to making a point you state the assumptions required for your point to be valid. Not sure if that's a common opinion or not.

Where do you live? I couldn't figure out whether your accent was South Africa or Australia.
Hashi
Silhouette
Posts: 517
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:13 pm

Re: yo tell me what you think of my new economic videos

Post by Hashi »

that guy wrote:Watched the first video on redistribution of wealth.

With regard to the videography:
- Overall it seemed pretty good. If economics were a topic I was interested in I would probably check out your videos.
- One comment that I would make is that while you were on screen I naturally watched you and listened to what you said. While you were showing static images or text I would quickly take them in and then my attention would wander. Personally I don't think the CEO mugshots added any clarity and I would have preferred if your errata were overlayed on the video rather than cut to.
- On the subject of cuts, It was fairly noticeable when you cut. I was thinking about youtube videos I like, like VSauce or Numberphile and I realised that they probably cut a lot more than you do but for some reason it's less off-putting. I suspect that this is because they would cut to a different camera shot entirely. I think this complete change is possibly better than the subtle changes in the cuts in your video.
- It wasn't clear to me at the outset whether the intent of the video was to educate about a particular topic or to provide a novel opinion. Later in the video it became clear that it was the latter (I think) but towards the start it seemed more like the former.

With regard to the content:
- I'll start by saying I didn't really buy your argument. I thought you made a few fairly big assumptions which I would guess are incorrect.
-- The first assumption was that paying millions of dollars to CEOs improves the well being of other people. I think you could validly make an argument that companies should pay lower tax because of the positive effect that would have on employment but I think the number of people employed by the CEO personally would be fairly low. I wonder how many people were hired to work personally for Bill Gates (e.g. cleaners, drivers, etc) as opposed to by Microsoft. Even if we suppose that people hired directly by CEOs (or top earners in general) represent a large portion of the labour market I think it's invalid to assume that the amount they are paid in total is linearly proportional to the income of their employer. If Bill Gates doubles his salary does he hire twice as many drivers? If he halved his salary would he still hire a driver? If you took the half of his salary that he lost and gave it to someone else, would they hire a driver?
-- The second assumption was that the salaries of top earners have to be that high or they wouldn't do their job. The assumption here is that if you took away say 25% more of their income then it would no longer be worth their time to work. I suspect this is not the case though I clearly couldn't prove it.
-- The third assumption is that top earners make their money from employment rather than investment. Checking wikipedia, Bill Gate's net worth is a little under $80 billion. Say he invests $70 billion of that at a return of 5% per year. He would earn himself about $3.5 billion before tax. I am betting that this would dwarf the salary of any Microsoft employee including past and present CEOs. At that point the value he provided to microsoft becomes somewhat inconsequential. I believe the 'rich get richer' argument revolves around the exponential growth of wealth due to investment compared to the more steady growth in income.
-- Possibly the biggest assumption that you make is that the wealth gap is actually increasing. I don't think this assumption is crucial to your argument but you do explicitly state it in your video with an accompanying graph (which I liked). It wasn't clear what the source of the data in your graph was but I went ahead and compared the income of the top and bottom quintiles in 1980 and 2011 as best I could without having the original data in the graph. What I found was that in 1980, the top quintile earned about 3.6 times as much as the bottom quintile. In 2011 the top quintile earned... about 3.6 times as much as the bottom quintile. Effectively this means that everyone has become richer nominally but no one's purchasing power has really increased relative to anyone else's. I have ignored the complexities of distributions within quintiles but so does the graph. To me the graph was the most interesting thing but I thought it deserved more analysis in the video and had you done that analysis you might have picked a different graph ;).

I don't think there's anything wrong with making assumptions. Me disagreeing with some of your assumptions didn't prevent me enjoying your video. Some of your assumptions you do explicitly state. I guess I would prefer if prior to making a point you state the assumptions required for your point to be valid. Not sure if that's a common opinion or not.

Where do you live? I couldn't figure out whether your accent was South Africa or Australia.
yo thanks for the reply. Yeah Vsauce cuts to different shots so it's not as noticeable. What do you mean errata were overlayed into the video rather than cut into? In terms of images etc. I find it's easier to make the video first and then find images etc. that fit into what I'm saying. So the graph was just something random I found in google images lol. It's just that I see the argument about income inequality so often so I take it as truth now. I mean I don't think income inequality is that big an issue, so that's why i didn't talk about it, just alluded to it.

In terms of investment, that goes back into the economy. Is it better to have bill gates control his investment back into the economy, earn some money back, than it is to take that investment and redistribute it? Personally I think it's the former. Also the investment helps employ others etc. If that investment was instead redistributed, it wouldn't employ nearly as many people.

The other thing about paying millions to CEOs is that as a general rule, we're risk averse. So that it's been discovered that we will take a risk if we can get roughly double back, as in we will risk losing 100 dollars if we can win 200 dollars in profit. This is where a lot of nonsense about businesses comes in. Of course the owner takes all the risk. So most people are willing to earn a salary, as your potential loss is only your salary, and nothing else. You only have to gain (monetarily) from the arrangement, whereas the business owner/CEO can actually lose the business, and then even more money than he started with. So I think that's another reason for the big pay we give to CEOs.

You point about the video is interesting. Yeah for me it's about providing a novel opinion, a novel take on economics and the way we think about your daily lives. It's always about the why behind certain things we take for granted. I mean there's so much about 'money being wasted here' 'money wasted there' etc. but is that an actual description? Money can only work between people, so it can't really be 'wasted' except that you disagree how some money was moved around to one person instead of another. But it cannot be 'wasted' as it doesn't disappear.

You said you didn't really like economics but I guess you watched it since it was posted here lol. What would I need to do to get more people interested who wouldn't normally be into the subject? I can't do fancy graphics as I don't know how to use those programs (or websites - powtoon comes to mind). But that's why in general I don't get too technical and try to keep it as high level as possible.
that guy
The Nameless Mod
The Nameless Mod
Posts: 1312
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2004 1:54 am
Location: Perth, Western Australia

Re: yo tell me what you think of my new economic videos

Post by that guy »

By Errata I mean text like "How many jobs they produce*" where you've realised you mispoke but it's not worth a retake. In a numberphile video they would display that text on screen overlayed on top of the talking head so that you could simultaneously see the person talking and the correction to what they're saying.

You're probably right that Bill Gates investing his money will create more employment than if you just handed out the money. However one way of redistributing wealth is for the government to spend the money. e.g. If the government taxes Bill Gates and then spends the money building a new hospital, everyone gets a new hospital regardless of wealth but also a ton of jobs are created first building and then operating the hospital as well as peripheral businesses.

If I understand your argument correctly regarding risk you're saying that shareholders are willing to pay very large salaries to CEOs to avoid the risk of a replacement CEO being not as good. I think this is an interesting comment on the motivations of employers but not particularly relevant to the topic of how much tax you charge top earners since that doesn't directly affect employers at all.

I get the impression that you've thought more about this than what you say in the video. For my tastes it would have been better if you'd gone into more depth on one of your points rather than simply stating all of your points. I wanted to read one chapter rather than the contents page. That being said, I appreciate that your target audience are not economists so you have to simplify things. When I say depth I really just mean justification, examples, etc. I don't think in one 6 minute video you could convince me that redistribution of wealth is a bad thing but you could convince me that it had a particular disadvantage. You can always do subsequent videos about other disadvantages.

I did watch it because it was posted here. I don't enjoy economics but I actually know more than the average person about it (It was my best subject in high school and my wife majored in it at university). As such I don't think I was ever really your target audience. I don't know anything about marketing videos so I can't really help you there.
Hashi
Silhouette
Posts: 517
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:13 pm

Re: yo tell me what you think of my new economic videos

Post by Hashi »

Well one of the problems is that if I had to do research etc. that would take many more hours than this does already. Currently it's about an hour to collate my thoughts and then make a few takes. And then maybe 3 hours editing and then another hour to upload. Yeah the videos aren't the greatest, but if I had to actually find all my evidence and so on, it would be a much bigger project than it is now.

And that's why I just present my opinions in the videos, since I've read so far and wide, and continue to do so. But actually finding all the evidence would take too much time, so I just present my opinions and extrapolations as fact lol. If I had more time or was somehow making money off this, then for sure I would get graphic artists and would get more evidence and examples. But for now it shall remain a hobby.

Well one of the things about extra taxation on the rich is why isn't it happening right now? The rich are so few, and everyone else so many, and politicians want to appeal to the many. So why isn't it happening right now? I don't think it's intentional that CEOs etc get paid so much. I just think it's an artifact of the way our society has gotten richer and our aversion to loss, so that it was up to a few people to take the risks. I'd say it's an aspect we understand about humans, and so we sort of tolerated it as the pays at the top got larger and larger. And even though some might complain along the way, I think most just understood that it how it was. And understood why they were employees as apposed to the business owners.
that guy
The Nameless Mod
The Nameless Mod
Posts: 1312
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2004 1:54 am
Location: Perth, Western Australia

Re: yo tell me what you think of my new economic videos

Post by that guy »

I think research improves a video but I don't think it's required for an opinion piece. My point was simply that I felt that you weren't adequately justifying your claims. I'm not expecting figures with sources necessarily, just common sense arguments. There was some of that there but I didn't feel that the depth given reflected the amount of thought you've clearly put into the topic.

I totally get what you mean about it being a hobby project. I've been working on a hobby project for years but haven't bothered to publish it in any way. Although I'd love everyone to be using it, I just don't enjoy marketing and distribution as much as I do working on it. That being said, you did ask how you could improve your videos and reach a wider audience and I think spending more than 4 hours per video is one way to do that. Whether you would enjoy it, I can't say.

As for your question "Why isn't it happening now?"
1. It is right? According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax , "Most systems around the world contain progressive aspects". Looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... _tax_rates there are a bunch of countries where the maximum tax rate exceeds the minimum by more than 45%.
2. I would think a big reason that politicians would be against tax rates significantly affecting the rich is that they, their friends and family and contributors to their campaign are all rich. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_he ... _net_worth David Cameron and Barack Obama both have net worths in excess of $5 million.
Hashi
Silhouette
Posts: 517
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:13 pm

Re: yo tell me what you think of my new economic videos

Post by Hashi »

What's your hobby? Is it videos or written stuff?

In terms of your question before, I was born in Serbia but have been living in Canberra for most of my life.
that guy
The Nameless Mod
The Nameless Mod
Posts: 1312
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2004 1:54 am
Location: Perth, Western Australia

Re: yo tell me what you think of my new economic videos

Post by that guy »

It's a piece of software for creating conversations for an RPG. The idea was to create a universal, versatile format with a useful editor to go with it but really I just work on it for fun so for the most part I work on features that are interesting rather than necessarily useful. Similarly I haven't invested any effort in attempting to market it.
User avatar
Jonas
Off Topic Productions
Off Topic Productions
Posts: 14224
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2004 9:21 pm
Location: Hafnia

Re: yo tell me what you think of my new economic videos

Post by Jonas »

Well at least one highly respected, well established studio (staffed by very intelligent and handsome people) have used it for one game, and soon a second ;)
Jonas Wæver
Chief Poking Manager of TNM

I've made some videogames:
Expeditions: Rome
Expeditions: Viking
Expeditions: Conquistador
Clandestine
Post Reply