Discussions about degrowth and all sorts of related topics. This includes UBI, economic democracy, the economics of green technologies, enviromental legislation and many more intressting economic topics.
I learned something from this post. Previously, I would have said that trickle down economics doesn't work at all.
But that's not right. It has always worked as intended. Because it was always intended to benefit the rich and increase the wealth gap between them and everybody else.
Sort of. As in most cases it's a bit more nuanced than that, actually happened is that some economists came up with this totally swell idea, except they didn't live in the real world and never had, so it didn't work. Then once the rich upper classes realized how effective it was at giving them lots of money, they maintain the system.
There wasn't some grand conspiracy to implement it, all that happened was the rich being opportunistic and taking advantage of a broken system as per usual.
Also what no one ever wants to admit is that this kind of system can only be carried out for so long before it collapses on its own.
If you start filling a million gallon wine glass on top of a bunch of small glasses, eventually you'll just crush and destroy everything at the bottom.
I like to imagine it as constructing a building. We keep building higher and higher, trying our best to place the richest at the very top and ever higher floor. To make it work, we keep taking building material from the foundation to build the penthouse. As the penthouse becomes higher and higher, heavier and more lavish, the foundation becomes thinner, smaller and weaker.
At one point we'll have an absolutely beautiful penthouse for a handful of people, resting on a very thin foundation that will eventually fail, fall and destroy everything and everyone.
That is part of the problem, when it collapses it hurts everybody. At least until something new can be set up. So much better to stop making it worse.
Hurts everyone except for the people at the top. The world is so globalized that they can easily fuck off with their digital money bank and not have to worry about the collapsed house of cards they left.
That's the great equalizer of imaginary money ... it requires a global system to manage it and make it possible and an entire population of people who believe in it and have faith it, much like a religion of sorts .... if the system falters, their money dies with it ... if the people lose faith, their wealth disappears as well.
That and global nuclear war that just sends every digital system no matter how robust back a hundred years and virtually vapourizing a lot of imaginary wealth for a lot of wealthy people.
In my personal opinion, its the only thing that keeps us from destroying ourselves ... they know if they try to take all wealth, theirs will disappear ... they also know that if we lose faith in the system, nothing is worth anything any more ... they also know that if we all gain a bit of wealth, they lose power over us
So leaders and wealthy elites have to walk a fine line between fleecing us on a regular basis and giving us just enough to keep holding faith in the system.
It's funny when you think about it .... imaginary wealth is what caused all these problems .. but its also imaginary wealth that is preventing us from destroying ourselves
It's like what Homer Simpson famously said about alcohol .... "Alcohol the cause of and solution to ... all of life's problems"
That would be the absolute worst case scenario which I don't think would happen. Barring world nuclear holocaust they're pretty immune. Look at the Russian oligarchs, for the most part even with their assets frozen in multiple countries they're still living in opulence as they have money stored in plenty of countries that don't hate them. That's the trick, they're so rich they cna afford to have multi million dollar piggy banks all over the place.
I find this depiction quite fitting, because people are getting crushed under the weight from above every day - or, to stay with the image a bit better: they break from all this pressure. But the thing is that no one really cares as long as there are enough people left to replace those who are in shambles. It's a bleak reality, tbh.
So trickle down = jenga
Yeah I can see that
They always suggest MORE taxes to fix this and never suggest 0 taxes on middle class and poor. Why do poor and middle class people have to pay property and sales and income and social security tax? It's ridiculous.
The problem is that the rich mainly make money from capital. Hence the lack of tax makes them even richer. Just removing taxes for the poor, would collapse government services, which in many ways protect them from the rich, while the rich would still see their wealth and power grow. Welcome to a disaster.
So tax the rich first, then lower taxes for the poor.
arguably, government services protect the rich from the poor in far more ways than the poor from the rich.
look at bismarck's appropriation of mutual aid programs to undercut and poison socialist movements. he talked about this a bit.
It does work, but by trickle, we mean only a trickle. Like a not worthwhile trickle. Not even a roof leak, like condensation on one window
best bit is when the glasses in the bottom decide to topple over
It seems more like they're made of rubber and just get squashed under the weight while complaining about sports or immigration or whatever.
Now now let's not pretend that the cup never overflows, it absolutely does. It overflows directly into OTHER disgustingly wealthy individuals pockets too.
Johnny billionaires might not buy enough for that to spill over to us schmucks, but they buy enormously expensive real estate and furniture, accessories, planes, etc.... they keep that money circulating amongst themselves and their ilk.
And their lawyers and politicians who benefit greatly of their masters success.
Don't forget that the source of the wine filling it up is everybody else who pays for things, including the glasses at the bottom.
Take the median Income, tripple that number. Below that tax income, above that tax networth.
I’m not sure that’d work. I’m pretty sure I make triple the median income and I have barely any assets and my net worth is like -$700k while I pay off my mortgage.
The median income is incredibly low.
How could your net worth be -700k do to a mortgage, wouldn't the asset offset the debt, so unless you owed 700k on a house post it being repossessed the $x house would be net zero or positive in most situations when you purchase, unless the house devalues faster than the rate at which you pay it off?
Yes you’re correct. The asset offsets the debt. It was a joke but it does feel like that at times. Hopefully it’s paid off by the time I retire
If we want to give Money to the Working Class we should give Money to the Billionaires! That's MUCH better then quite literally just giving the Money to the People we said we want to give Money to!
Trickle down economics works on paper but because it assumes that A there's only one country in the world in which anybody would spend any money, and it's the country in which they generated that money, and B that people pay taxes proportionate to the amount of money they possess and therefore are incentivized to spend it when they get it, which of course doesn't work because either they are not paying taxes proportionate to their earnings, or they are finding some other way to not pay the taxes other than spending the money.
It also assumes that rich people will invest all of their money into new businesses and create jobs and thus let the money flow into the economy. But most rich people just invest most of their wealth in real estate and in the stock market, that money will never flow into the real economy.
it also assumes that the ultra-wealthy are human and should be allowed to live. which I think is a really problematic assumption.
but their behavior is fundamentally not human. it's like a whole thing.
I think "The Platform" is a good example of how trickle down economics work in reality.
And then the big glass grabs a straw and tries to slurp out more defined benefits from the smaller glasses, but they've been dry for a while
So if we smash the top layer, the rest gets some?
so whenever they want teamwork from you, say they'ld just have to wait until the 'teamwork' starts dropping down from where the extra surplus if previous teamwork flowed to. without teamwork from above, there's no teamwork below, exactly as the leaders showed how they want it to be.
We learned this decades ago through Reaganomics where inequality sudden grew at the fastest pace it ever had in the history of our country at the time.
Despite this people keep preaching it.
because you would be suggesting glorious leader ronald reagan the actor is wrong and that is unfathamable
Too many dicks in the way for there to have anything trickle down.
Has anyone actually ever said that trickle down economics works...? I see people making fun of it all the time, but no one seems to be championing it? Is it just one giant straw man?
I don't think anybody actually believes it works, but they'll tell you it does when they give tax breaks to the wealthy "job creators".
They do not call it trickle down economics when lobbying. However tax breaks for the rich to increase investment and consumption are extremly common.
Can confirm.
What are you implying? That looks efficient to me! (/s)
For all you who think voting will change anything, I've got some swampland for you.
Most people who think voting will change anything also think it's the only way to change anything. So it's helpful to suggest specific direct action alternatives.