full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Nick Hanauer: Beware, fellow plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Many economists would have you believe that their field is an objective seccine. I disagree, and I think that it is equally a tool that humans use to enforce and encode our social and marol preferences and prejudices about status and pweor, which is why plutocrats like me have always needed to find psuiervsae stories to tell everyone else about why our relative positions are morally roehgtuis and good for everyone: like, we are indispensable, the job creators, and you are not; like, tax cuts for us create growth, but investments in you will balloon our debt and bankrupt our great country; that we matter; that you don't. For thonaudss of years, these stories were called divine right. Today, we have trickle-down economics. How obviously, transparently self-serving all of this is. We plutocrats need to see that the uinted States of America made us, not the other way around; that a thriving mlidde class is the source of prosperity in capitalist economies, not a consequence of it. And we should never forget that even the best of us in the worst of cniuescmctars are barefoot by the side of a dirt road selilng fruit.

Open Cloze

Many economists would have you believe that their field is an objective _______. I disagree, and I think that it is equally a tool that humans use to enforce and encode our social and _____ preferences and prejudices about status and _____, which is why plutocrats like me have always needed to find __________ stories to tell everyone else about why our relative positions are morally _________ and good for everyone: like, we are indispensable, the job creators, and you are not; like, tax cuts for us create growth, but investments in you will balloon our debt and bankrupt our great country; that we matter; that you don't. For _________ of years, these stories were called divine right. Today, we have trickle-down economics. How obviously, transparently self-serving all of this is. We plutocrats need to see that the ______ States of America made us, not the other way around; that a thriving ______ class is the source of prosperity in capitalist economies, not a consequence of it. And we should never forget that even the best of us in the worst of _____________ are barefoot by the side of a dirt road _______ fruit.

Solution

  1. moral
  2. middle
  3. science
  4. selling
  5. united
  6. righteous
  7. persuasive
  8. circumstances
  9. power
  10. thousands

Original Text

Many economists would have you believe that their field is an objective science. I disagree, and I think that it is equally a tool that humans use to enforce and encode our social and moral preferences and prejudices about status and power, which is why plutocrats like me have always needed to find persuasive stories to tell everyone else about why our relative positions are morally righteous and good for everyone: like, we are indispensable, the job creators, and you are not; like, tax cuts for us create growth, but investments in you will balloon our debt and bankrupt our great country; that we matter; that you don't. For thousands of years, these stories were called divine right. Today, we have trickle-down economics. How obviously, transparently self-serving all of this is. We plutocrats need to see that the United States of America made us, not the other way around; that a thriving middle class is the source of prosperity in capitalist economies, not a consequence of it. And we should never forget that even the best of us in the worst of circumstances are barefoot by the side of a dirt road selling fruit.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
middle class 7
minimum wage 7
economic inequality 3
thriving middle 3
washington state 3
fellow citizens 2
americans shared 2
capitalist democracy 2
rising economic 2
rich guys 2
henry ford 2
human problems 2
problem solvers 2
plutocrat friends 2
median wage 2
restaurant business 2
dirt road 2
road selling 2
selling fruit 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
thriving middle class 3
rising economic inequality 2
dirt road selling 2
road selling fruit 2

ngrams of length 4

collocation frequency
dirt road selling fruit 2

Important Words

  1. america
  2. balloon
  3. bankrupt
  4. barefoot
  5. called
  6. capitalist
  7. circumstances
  8. class
  9. consequence
  10. create
  11. creators
  12. cuts
  13. debt
  14. dirt
  15. disagree
  16. divine
  17. economics
  18. economies
  19. economists
  20. encode
  21. enforce
  22. equally
  23. field
  24. find
  25. forget
  26. fruit
  27. good
  28. great
  29. growth
  30. humans
  31. indispensable
  32. investments
  33. job
  34. middle
  35. moral
  36. morally
  37. needed
  38. objective
  39. persuasive
  40. plutocrats
  41. positions
  42. power
  43. preferences
  44. prejudices
  45. prosperity
  46. relative
  47. righteous
  48. road
  49. science
  50. selling
  51. side
  52. social
  53. source
  54. states
  55. status
  56. stories
  57. tax
  58. thousands
  59. thriving
  60. today
  61. tool
  62. transparently
  63. united
  64. worst
  65. years