Posted on 01/06/2014 12:02:09 PM PST by jazusamo
New York's new mayor, Bill de Blasio, in his inaugural speech, denounced people "on the far right" who "continue to preach the virtue of trickle-down economics." According to Mayor de Blasio, "They believe that the way to move forward is to give more to the most fortunate, and that somehow the benefits will work their way down to everyone else."
If there is ever a contest for the biggest lie in politics, this one should be a top contender.
While there have been all too many lies told in politics, most have some little tiny fraction of truth in them, to make them seem plausible. But the "trickle-down" lie is 100 percent lie.
It should win the contest both because of its purity — no contaminating speck of truth — and because of how many people have repeated it over the years, without any evidence being asked for or given.
Years ago, this column challenged anybody to quote any economist outside of an insane asylum who had ever advocated this "trickle-down" theory. Some readers said that somebody said that somebody else had advocated a "trickle-down" policy. But they could never name that somebody else and quote them.
Mayor de Blasio is by no means the first politician to denounce this non-existent theory. Back in 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama attacked what he called "an economic philosophy" which "says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else."
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
The milk analogy of communism, and our current government:
Government confiscates the milk from the middle class,
skims the cream off for themselves and their wealthy friends,
and gives some milk to the dogs to keep the cows in line.
I stand corrected. Thank you.
You know what amazes me. Talking to a leftist recently and mentioned how much I liked Sowell. Was told that Sowell is “insane” “crazy” “stupid.” I was shocked. I asked whether Sowell had ever been read and was answered affirmatively.
It is like an alternate universe out there.
Leftists do not live on the same planet as reality
Sowell’s point in the article is that “trickle down” is not a theory proposed by any actual person. Rather, it is a parody of "supply side economics” - the unexceptionable point that taxation lowers the supply curve and thus reduces economic activity. ”Trickle down economics” is straw man argument.I call supply side economics “unexceptionable,” but of course “liberals” continually take exception to factual statements about reality. Back when Sen. Spector was doing a fairly passable imitation of a Republican, he questioned a witness about his projection of tax revenue as a function of the rate of a particular tax. Spector asked what would be the revenue of that tax if the rate were set at 10%, and the witness gave a number of dollars. Spector asked what the revenue would be if the rate were set at 20%, and the witness doubled the number of dollars. Spector marched all the way up to 100%, and the witness quoted the original number of dollars, time ten. Spector then said, “I give up.”
The correct response would have been for Spector to go beyond 100% at a geometric rate - he should have asked what the witness projected if the rate were 200%, and 400%, and 800%, and 1600% - continuing on until the witness cracked, or everyone in the room started laughing.
Dr. Sowell is hated by the left. I have a google email alert for him and it’s amazing how many letters to the editors are written by leftists belittling him, they’re pathetic.
As opposed to the utter failure of the Dem’s Trickle Up Economics. Nothing is nothing is nothing. Trickle Up is a bad joke.
Idiots all. Wealth is created, not by those who spend, but by those who save their income and invest it in new production. The little cretins at MSNBC wouldn't have jobs if some capitalist somewhere hadn't save some of his "ill-gotten-gains" to put up the capital that pays their little red butts each week.
The time is long overdue for people to ask themselves why it is necessary for those on the left to make up a lie if what they believe in is true.
I remember that from the debates that went on after the GOP took the congress ~ 1995. They were accused of trickle down when they talked about supply side.
Just as Adam Smiths system of free markets was miscast by Marx as “Capitalism”, the modern socialists miscast the system by which the wealthy invest money, time, and ideas and expect a return as ‘trickle down.
In reality, the investor spends his money first, and may, after buying, hiring, and organizing, get a return later.
If investing doesn’t make sense (say, a 300% capital gain tax rate) then the investor class doesn’t invest, and the stock market booms as the fed gov inflates the currency.
Oops, that is what we see today.
"Supply side" was accused of being "trickle down" when it first entered the field of political discourse. The latter had already been long established as a pejorative.
From Wikipedia: "Trickle-down economics" and the "trickle-down theory" are terms in United States politics to refer to the idea that tax breaks or other economic benefits provided by government to businesses and upper income levels will benefit poorer members of society by improving the economy as a whole. The term has been attributed to humorist Will Rogers, who said during the Great Depression that "money was all appropriated for the top in hopes that it would trickle down to the needy." The term is mostly used ironically or as pejorative.
Not Reagan.
From Sowell's article:
...If there is ever a contest for the biggest lie in politics, this one should be a top contender.
While there have been all too many lies told in politics, most have some little tiny fraction of truth in them, to make them seem plausible. But the "trickle-down" lie is 100 percent lie.
It should win the contest both because of its purity — no contaminating speck of truth — and because of how many people have repeated it over the years, without any evidence being asked for or given.
Years ago, this column challenged anybody to quote any economist outside of an insane asylum who had ever advocated this "trickle-down" theory. Some readers said that somebody said that somebody else had advocated a "trickle-down" policy. But they could never name that somebody else and quote them...
Sowell contends that it's a lie to suggest there is any support for 'trickle down'. Here's what the pope says:
... Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape...
...In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.
Sowell seems to be making a convincing argument that the Pope lied.
Excellent find! Not that I’m glad that the Democrat politicians remembered it, of course - but it’s all to the good to understand its source.I think that the way to critique the sarcasm in that quote might be by reference to the nature of money, and of jobs. Democrat politicians love to declaim that the people need jobs, which is absolutely true. But a “job" which is nothing but a source of dollars is not a job at all, it is a dole - dependence on which is demoralizing. To be a real job, it must have economic utility which the employee is proud of. If you work for Boeing you can tell a child that you “make airplanes” (even if you are in a department which never occasions you to do any assembly work). In that sense self-employed people also have “jobs” because they can tell a child “I’m a doctor and I help sick people get better” - or, “I’m a venture capitalist and I find out who is going to make a wonderful new product, and I help them to do it.” The point is that without a rationale for your own value to society, an income is not a job. Of course, retirement income is different, but only in the sense that that income is related to what you did in the past, not what you are doing now. “Granddaddy used to make airplanes - but he saved up enough money that he doesn’t have to do that anymore. That’s why he can play with you while other people make the airplanes now.”
Ownership of money - ownership of anything, actually - is supposed to represent value added to society in the past. Even if that value consisted of finding value where others did not know to look. The extreme socialist will say, “all private property is theft,” but in reality ownership of property is societal memory - and socialism is societal Alzheimer's, a grievous dysfunction of society which has to be imposed by government overriding the collective memory of society. All of which is trying to lead up to the fact that the productivity of society is organized by the medium of ownership of property, and the ownership of property reflects past production and saving. Government can inject dollars either into the unsatisfactory dole, or it can inject dollars into "the top in hopes that it would trickle down to the needy.” But if those dollars are being created by the government - that is, if the dollars are exogenous to society and societal memory - ownership of those dollars will not reflect past production no matter where they are “injected.” But that is a false choice. There is a third way of increasing the number of dollars in the system - simply do not tax it out of the system. Lower taxes, and more dollars will exist in the economy.
Whether increasing the number of dollars in the economy is inflationary or not depends on the details of how it is injected - or not withdrawn - from the economy. If you use it to pay people to be idle, people will be idle - will either continue to be unemployed or, in the worst case, will realize that idleness pays better than the job they have, and intentionally become unemployed. Whether “injected” dollars are used to reward idleness or to purchase goods/services which are themselves somehow allocated to the people, the society will produce more of what the government pays for - and less of what the government taxes.
The existence of a “multiplier effect” depends on the prudence of the choice of the behavior to reward, and on the prudence of the suppression of behavior - in the form of taxation - which the government engages in. Paying people to do things which are in the long-run interest of society - for example, learning valuable trades to engage in, developing habits of thrift, forming loving and stable families - results in an increase in society’s capital, whereas inducing idleness and mischief of the “community organizing” sort decreases society’s capital.
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