Republicans still going on about trickle down economics

Originally posted by Skyfloating

Yes, to some degree. But we are still far from the ideal.

In the past 30 years, the rich have gotten supremely richer, while the middle class has been vaporized and the poor have grown. It has not worked to any degree whatsoever, the bottom 80% (who only own 7% of all the wealth) have actually lost a ton of purchasing power since 1980. and more since 1970. and even more since 1950.

Trickle down is a fraud.

It's absolutely absurd to think this anymore...the last 10 years proved it's a fantasy.

Trickle down economics only work if the money people save because of tax breaks is invested in the own country. Given today's global economy, that's just not the case. Right now, Asia's pretty hot for investors...so if you give a wealthy person more money, they won't waste it on national investments that net less than international alternatives.

In short, those tax breaks only serve one purpose: MAKE THE RICH RICHER! The same trend ever since Reagan let big business meddle in government affairs by appointing a Merrill Lynch CEO as chief of staff.

Originally posted by aching_knuckles
In the past 30 years, the rich have gotten supremely richer, while the middle class has been vaporized and the poor have grown. It has not worked to any degree whatsoever, the bottom 80% (who only own 7% of all the wealth) have actually lost a ton of purchasing power since 1980. and more since 1970. and even more since 1950.

Look more closely. For example, compare what is considered "poor" (owning a TV Set and a Fridge) in America vs. what is considered poor elsewhere.

Anyone can trick around with numbers. Thats where stuff gets complex and the Communist Propagandists can work their brainwashing.

When choosing between Communism and Capitalism it all comes down to the simple question which leftists wont answer: Are you more likely to benefit from my wealth or my poverty?

reply to post by MrXYZ


What makes the rich richer are bailouts to the tune of 23 trillion dollars.

The notion that free markets make the rich richer is utterly ridiculous considering that wealth disparity has increased as the markets have been taken over by government regulators and bureaucrats.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by MrXYZ

 

What makes the rich richer are bailouts to the tune of 23 trillion dollars.

The notion that free markets make the rich richer is utterly ridiculous considering that wealth disparity has increased as the markets have been taken over by government regulators and bureaucrats.

"Free market" never really existed anywhere in the world apart from maybe a few bush people in the Amazon. It's just a buzzword people use. The disparity has increased so much because of TAX LAWS!! Compare how much taxes the rich paid 50-60yrs ago and how much they pay now on a % basis.

Of course the bailouts benefit the rich, mostly because they address wall street instead of the real economy. But if certain people wouldn't have deregulated the financial industry to the point where they were able to screw us all, we wouldn't need the bailouts.

Originally posted by debz325
Also if you want to create jobs for the poor eliminate corporate tax!!

Corporations have to pay dividends to investors. They have been firing people to show on their books they are making a profit because there is less business activity.

Corporations have to pay dividends to stock holders.

You won't create 1 job eliminating Corporate Tax. You'll increase investment income to Stock Holders.

The only way to get Corporations to hire is if people in America have money in their pockets to spend and buy Corporation X's product.

We used to have a robust Federal Government that bought alot of items from Corporations. But since there are +70 million Baby Boomers needing Social Security they gutted the Federal Government and that buyer isn't there anymore. The Federal Contractors that took over what the Federal Government used to do are operating on pennies.....not supporting the economy by buying goods to do their contracted job. Why? They are CORPORATIONS who need to pay dividends to Stock Holders.

The +70 million Baby Boomers needing Social Security are what killed the economy/job market. Unless you pack them all up onto trains and send them to gas chambers there is no possible way to fix our current economic problem. Corporations will hoard the last of the money and it won't be until the Baby Boomers all die off until our economy comes back.

We have to fund them into their Coffins.

Originally posted by Skyfloating

Look more closely. For example, compare what is considered "poor" (owning a TV Set and a Fridge) in America vs. what is considered poor elsewhere.

Anyone can trick around with numbers. Thats where stuff gets complex and the Communist Propagandists can work their brainwashing.

When choosing between Communism and Capitalism it all comes down to the simple question which leftists wont answer: Are you more likely to benefit from my wealth or my poverty?

You cannot be serious. The rest of the world is catching up to americas living standard.

You have a huge thread on here about the law of attraction, which I have read quite a bit of....so why the resistance to giving up some of your wealth? i thought needing it or wanting it was bad. Didnt jesus say "sell all of your belongings and follow me"?

If anyone, you should be all for social programs and the like, so people quit concentrating on their poverty and hopelessness and this world would manifest better things in the end.....right?

reply to post by MrXYZ


Tax laws LOL

Obviously the fact that the Fed has suppressed interest rates and bailed out industry to the tune of trillions has nothing to do with it.

Blaming this on tax rates is utterly ridiculous.

If you want to blame tax rates, blame the marginal rates on the working class people - the state income taxes, the state sales taxes, the county sales taxes, the county property taxes, the vehicle registration fees, the fees on cell phone usage, the fees on cable usage, the gas tax, the cigarette taxes, the liquor taxes, etc..etc.. etc.. etc..

Arguing that tax rates cause wealth disparity is like arguing that allowing people to keep the money they earn is detrimental to society - totally ridiculous on its face.

Wealthy people invest their excess earnings in productive job growth which DRIVES UP wages for the lower classes.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by MrXYZ

 

Wealthy people invest their excess earnings in productive job growth which DRIVES UP wages for the lower classes.

Only in the fantasy land you live in

In the real world, if you give a rich person more money by allowing him to pay less taxes, he will look at how to best invest that money. Right now, that means the money goes to foreign companies, or commodities like gold (just look at how much more gold people have been buying)...and that creates exactly...wait for it...ZERO JOBS!!

You and a lot of other people completely disregard globalization when talking about trickle down economics.

As for the tax rate not having an influence, you are delusional! So you are telling me the fact the the tax on the rich is now 35% while it was over 70% in the past has NOTHING to do with the disparity? And the bailouts just happened within the last 2 years, the disparity in income has been going on for DECADES...so only a complete fool would claim the bailouts where the main cause of the income disparity.

Also, most of the taxes you listed (cigarettes for example) hurt poor people a lot more than rich people because it represents a larger % of their income...so all those extra taxes hurt them a lot more than the rich folk, they're just too weak to protest as loudly as the rich

Originally posted by whaaa
Apparently you have never been in business for yourself.

You always do a lot of assuming, in your posts, don't you? Why not just stick to the crux of the debate?

I have....I have owned and operated businesses in retail, manufacturing, and service operations for the last 30 years. I have also put into practice 1 thru 5 and never once was it because of raised taxes on any of my stores, galleries, machine shops, guide and outfitting services or film productions.

Good for you! Sorry you couldn't make one work and stay with it. (See what assumptions look like and what they accomplish?)

I never begrudged paying my taxes as I always appreciated the fact that I could participate in this wonderful countries entrepreneurial spirit.

I've never said anyone shouldn't pay their fair share of taxes. To me, the fair thing is the flat tax and throw out the bureaucratic nonsense that is the Internal Revenue Code and the IRS. But, back on target...

The few times my businesses failed was never because of taxes or regulations;

Were there ever any significant tax increases, during those times? Or, did you benefit from tax cuts?

when Bush and his oil cronies raised gas to 4 bucks a gallon and kicked all the profit out due to transportation costs. I eventually learned how to get around the latter.

Let me guess, you had to do one or more of the five previously mentioned options, in order to make up for the increase in overhead? No business can just continuously absorb increases in overhead. Adjustments must be made. Tax hikes are increases in overhead.

I was always motivated by PROFIT. So who gained? The business and ultimately my bankaccount and often my loyal employees especially around this time of year with a very nice Xmas bonus.

You can't mean your employees benefited from your success? That is impossible! Say it isn't so! Funny you didn't mention how a significant tax hike would have affected your PROFITS. and, ultimately, your employees.

And to always find a scapegoat and never take personally responsibility.

Wait a minute .........Hold on ....... I can't believe.... Sorry ...... Okay, okay..... No ..... Okay maybe I can get through this.... I can't believe that statement came from your mouth. Throughout this thread, I have pointed out the insanity of demonizing the "wealthy", who are the producers, entrepreneurs, job creators. I have decried the left's attempts to hide their ludicrous spending habits, by placing the blame for deficits on American citizens not giving them enough money.

Who is scapegoating? Who is promoting personal responsibility? My friend, holding a gun to someone's head and demanding they give you their money, is not "personal responsibility". That is robbery.

Originally posted by aching_knuckles

You have a huge thread on here about the law of attraction, which I have read quite a bit of....so why the resistance to giving up some of your wealth?

You dont know how much of my money Ive given away. You are only assuming. .And what allowed me to give that much money away? Having a lot. Hence others do not benefit from my poverty.

I exist now because I dont enjoy these conversations that drift off into assumptions over assumptions.

reply to post by WTFover


You're confusing a CORPORATE TAX with INDIVIDUAL TAXES. Of course a corporation can create jobs with less taxes...but the tax breaks are PERSONAL TAXES that have almost no effect.

Originally posted by Skyfloating


I exist now because I dont enjoy these conversations that drift off into assumptions over assumptions.

I know mods are only human but....huh?

Don't drink and mod!!!

Lucy, you got some splainin to do....

reply to post by aching_knuckles

Any credibility you had is now gone. The financial crisis didnt kick off til 08? Get real, you are obviously too young to know what happened.

Perhaps you should re-read the very quote you used.

"Depends upon where you start the clock. I'd place the beginnings of the financial crisis before I was born. Though it wasn't triggered until early 2008 or so - which would place me at 19."

Now, you could place the triggers as far back as the FDIC and the New Deal; when Congress lifted restrictions on the Federal Reserve and completely de-regulated the practice of Fractional Reserve Banking. You could go back to the creation of the central bank, the end of the Silver-Back, or even back to the decision to use an income-graded tax system that the masses could vote for/against increases on the established income brackets.

You could, more recently, cite the creation of the FHA and the massive boom for housing backed by programs intended to place owning a home within everyone's reach. You could say that, by the 90s, the market finally reached saturation/balance and the entire lending economy, influenced heavily around mortgages, entered into jeopardy. You could also cite the two wars as major factors - many younger individuals and families are abstaining from purchasing a permanent residence due to military service - a significant part of the first-homeowner's market is currently serving.

However - despite what you credit with being the final trigger in such a nonlinear system, the issue came to a head in, if I remember correctly, early 2008. I recall having about one pretty decent year at ABM before the feces started flying into the fan and really started to hit in the late summer of '08, just in time for the elections. The economy had been precipitating since before then - but it really started taking hits in 2008 - or so I recall. Unemployment in 2008 was below 5% - The housing market had started to slip, but forecasts were rather optimistic.

www.kiplinger.com...

If you want to invalidate me, you're going to have to try a hell of a lot harder. Personally, I don't think you have it in you.

In the past 30 years, the rich have gotten supremely richer, while the middle class has been vaporized and the poor have grown. It has not worked to any degree whatsoever, the bottom 80% (who only own 7% of all the wealth) have actually lost a ton of purchasing power since 1980. and more since 1970. and even more since 1950.

What changed in the past 30 years that wasn't there in the prior 200+?

The rich didn't suddenly get more crafty or start doing something different than they have since they first evolved from man.

The 70s ring a bell... all of those entitlement programs kicking off. We had the elimination of silver-backed currency (though that's not just within the past 30 years. We got the great idea, a long while back, to create a central bank (which equalizes the credibility of bank notes and therefor nullifies free market methods of attrition) - then de-regulate it to the point where they have no responsibility to remain even partially solvent. Why print money when it's just as effective and far more cheap to loan it?

That kind of royally boned everyone. And the boning will continue until that nonsense is put to a halt.

This is what a number of the anti-wealthy honestly lack: the ability to analyze.

Really - it's what most people in disagreement with me (and others like me) lack. That's a conceited attitude to have - but unless it's a moral disagreement or under some other context - the disagreement is because we know how to properly analyze a situation, and the "opposition" doesn't.

When what you are saying pretty much amounts to: "The wealthy get a lot of money and I don't think it's fair, we should tax them and get some!" - you're not properly analyzing the situation.

Why are the wealthy getting disproportionately wealthy? Within his question:

- Who is actually 'disproportionately' or 'unfairly' wealthy?
- What is 'disproportionately' or 'unfairly' wealthy? (should actually be first)
- What is the source of this income?

What has lead to the disproportionate incomes and concentration of wealth?

- When did this trend start?
- What policies were put into place about or before that time?
- How has the consumer market changed?
- What kept this from happening in earlier times?

Answering those should pretty much give you a solution to the problem.

When you turn the wheel too far to the right while driving, you don't turn on your wipers in the hopes of stopping the negative effects of the change you've made. It doesn't make any sense to do anything other return to a previous state of policy.

You cannot be serious. The rest of the world is catching up to americas living standard.

Could have something to do with the fact that they welcome business and those able to spend money in their economy.

Europe isn't doing too hot. Asia, on the other hand... well - they've got this whole free market thing figured out a hell of a lot better than we do.

so why the resistance to giving up some of your wealth? i thought needing it or wanting it was bad. Didnt jesus say "sell all of your belongings and follow me"?

He told his disciples to do that. His directions and parables told to the general population were a little different.

The problem with you saying "we are going to take more of these peoples' wealth" is exactly that. When you have an income-graded tax system, people are far more likely to be in favor of disproportionate taxing. If you have to take a 2% raise in your taxes along with the wealthy, you are less likely to go along with the idea - even though you would benefit from the flat-rate increase under our progressive tax system. It amounts to institutionalized thievery. Not taxes in general - but the idea that you can tax someone a different rate based upon their income.

If anyone, you should be all for social programs and the like, so people quit concentrating on their poverty and hopelessness and this world would manifest better things in the end.....right?

That's never worked before, and it won't work now. People have a sort of entropic law about them. They tend to seek a state of being content - of comfort, and try not to stray too far from it, unless a place of greater content and comfort is readily achievable. You can liken this to water flowing down hill and gathering in lakes.

When you provide them with comfort and security (a lake with a regulated dam) - then there is little incentive to strive to burst the dam and continue onward. Providing people with a standard of living will, if anything, make them bored and restless. There's a reason crime and welfare correlate. It's not because the "poor need money to alleviate their woes" - it's because the poor are provided for and not given productive direction with their free time.

So, you inverse the sequence - one must be productive, through which one achieves stability and security.

Good things don't just manifest from multisexual orgies in the streets as a display of community affection. Good things are made from one's efforts, skills, and talents applied to a task. Providing the reward without the effort will not result in "focusing on better things."

I worry about where my car payment is going to come from in a few months. That motivates me to fill out applications and bug the piss out of secretaries at those businesses for updates on the status of those applications. I probably qualify for some government handout, but I'm a person of principle, generally. When I work, it's because I want the comfort of knowing my bills are going to be taken care of and that I will have money to put in the bank after my expenses.

Otherwise, I'm drawn towards various forms of mischief and personally-destructive boredom-inspired pastimes. Like arguing with people over the internet when I have a whole book-universe plot concept, several circuits in the design and prototype phase, and a few dozen college credits sitting at the local college with no completed degree. That sort of stuff.

Trickle up sure doesn't work. Pour money into a poor neighborhood, and you'll see an upswing in parties, drinking, a few chrome car accessories glued on, and a few more babies. The best way to fight poverty; sterilize the poor. Fewer teens on welfare on having fatherless kids who grow up to be teens on welfare having fatherless kids. Teens not having kids will result in more opportunities to attend college. Then those teens then become part of the society that actually creates money instead of being a burden on society. Those with more skill tend to hire those with less skill, that's the economy, that's trickle down.

So you have one part of society that creates money, and you have another group that's a burden on society, complaining that this trickle down economy doesn't work. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

reply to post by Aim64C

Otherwise, I'm drawn towards various forms of mischief and personally-destructive boredom-inspired pastimes. Like arguing with people over the internet when I have a whole book-universe plot concept, several circuits in the design and prototype phase, and a few dozen college credits sitting at the local college with no completed degree. That sort of stuff.

Then go study school boy, then go out in the world and put your book learning to use and get back to us when you have some real knowledge of the real world and not that academic BS.

Sorry kid, you'll see....

reply to post by whaaa

Then go study school boy, then go out in the world and put your book learning to use and get back to us when you have some real knowledge of the real world and not that academic BS.

Sorry kid, you'll see....

The amount of time it takes me to logically analyze your standpoint and develop a counter-response is less time than it takes me to go to the bathroom. I type faster than most can read.

The most time consuming part of any of my posts is when I place in links and excerpts from other sources. In general, for each post I make including a link - I read about five times as much as I type in that post (excerpts included).

In that context - school is a vast waste of my time and money outside of accreditation.

As for the real world - what is it that you have experienced that makes your opinion so much more valid in this conversation than my own? Every one of your claims is demonstrably wrong according to all records. Tell me, also, why I should seek to attain wealth? You've already established in your mind that anyone existing above a certain standard -must- be some kind of criminal, and therefor you are entitled to money they make. It would be more difficult for me to live were I working, had a home, and a wife with children to feed.

It makes little financial sense for me to excel in society - both the present tax system and the will of people such as yourself are directly in opposition.

To put it bluntly - your position is based on nothing more than emotion. You want a living, right here, right now - and are angry that others out there can afford to eat out at a restaurant every night of the week and tip the whole staff. You see the government as a quick-fix. Tax them (what could they possibly need with all of that money) and give it to you (because you are having trouble making ends meet). It's an emotional knee-jerk response with no consideration for the dynamics of an economy.

Wrong is wrong. It doesn't matter how good it makes you feel. Being completely dysfunctional is being completely dysfunctional - regardless of how many of 'the poor' eat.

The solutions to your problems have all been given. You will not find me incorrect on these issues. However, it is not a microwaveable solution. It is not likely to have serious returns for the first five years (as you should know, being a business owner and all - most businesses don't turn a profit in their first two years of operation) - and not really intended to stabilize for ten to twenty years.

Will it, therefor, benefit you? Not instantly. It will, however, benefit your children and grandchildren - had you the capacity to consider what their lives may be like if we carry on like East Germany.

I think of my grand-children not just because of the relevance such a perspective has; but also because I intend to be around to see my fifth-generation offspring. We'll have the ability to extend the natural body's existence indefinitely within the next 20 years - likely within the next 10. So, it's worth considering the repercussions of mishaps, because I may just be sleeping in this bed for quite a while. Wetting in my bed would be a considerably bad idea.

Originally posted by Pervius
You'll increase investment income to Stock Holders.

Isn't that a good thing, as well? Being as how most workers' retirement programs are invested in stocks?

It seems like every week I hear a right wing pundit mistakenly quote the laffer curve as "proof" that revenues go up when you lower taxes. Yeah there is a point on the curve where that can happen. There are also points where the expected outcome happens, lower taxes = lower revenue. The thing is, you can never tell where you are on the curve.