Opinion of the trickle down theory

[they don't love you like i love you]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

Very negative. Absolute garbage.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     A poor explanation for a certain phenomenon that leads some people to think that cutting taxes for the rich provides an unending source of economic growth.

[minionofmidas]

Rather a stretch to call that a "theory".

[opebo]

Rather a stretch to call that a "theory".

Can be summed up like this:  The Titanic is sinking, and the fattest bastard on board convinces everyone that the only thing that will save them is to give him all their life preservers.

[Gustaf]

It's not really an economic term, so it's hard to have an opinion on it. But promoting growth can be good for poor people and getting rid of those insane top marginal tax rates was probably good for everyone. Obviously tax cuts for the rich will not always be great for everyone else. Then again, no one in their right mind would believe that, so it's a bit moot.

[memphis]

A cancer that is destroying this country.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Proof that no idea is too dumb to be considered unacceptable by a large number of academics, especially economists (of course).

[Ban my account ffs!]

Very negative... though I believe that in a situation where you have incredibly high top marginal tax rates... they can squelch economic growth unless the government is making the amount of investment into wealth generation that the people who earned the money would.  Like when the top rate went from 90% to 70% in the 1960s.. I don't think that was a bad thing.  I think we had very good economic growth in the 50s with high marginal rates because the government was making massive investments in defense and infrastructure (the interstate highways).  This massive growth of interstates as well as the government encouraged move to the 'burbs also put a massive demand on automobiles.  Between road construction, defense spending, and the conversion of efficient transit friendly, dense cities to inefficient, car dependent, low density cities caused major economic growth.  That had a lot to do with cheap, plentiful oil.  Now it's back to bite us in the ass.

But to push for historically low top tax rates for the rich when we're on the brink of fiscal insolvency and it has been widely proven that the rich are hoarding the wealth is stupid.  It's time for the rates to go back up.  If the private sector won't invest in the prosperity of all Americans, then the government will have to take the money and do it.

[opebo]

But you have to admit, it has probably the best name of any theory.  Nothing so visceral as the evocation of being urinated upon (short of using the really pithy Anglo-Saxon worlds in the theory name, which would be going too far).

[Redalgo]

Very negative... though I believe that in a situation where you have incredibly high top marginal tax rates... they can squelch economic growth unless the government is making the amount of investment into wealth generation that the people who earned the money would.  Like when the top rate went from 90% to 70% in the 1960s.. I don't think that was a bad thing. . . . But to push for historically low top tax rates for the rich when we're on the brink of fiscal insolvency and it has been widely proven that the rich are hoarding the wealth is stupid.  It's time for the rates to go back up.  If the private sector won't invest in the prosperity of all Americans, then the government will have to take the money and do it.

[Person Man]

     A poor explanation for a certain phenomenon that leads some people to think that cutting taxes for the rich provides an unending source of economic growth.

[Person Man]

But you have to admit, it has probably the best name of any theory.  Nothing so visceral as the evocation of being urinated upon (short of using the really pithy Anglo-Saxon worlds in the theory name, which would be going too far).

A WASPy boy pissing on an Obama logo. That's the trickle down theory for you.

I think the trickle down theory's cornerstone is that by giving money to/not touching the money of those who obviously know how to make it, we are putting our money in the hands of those that are the biggest experts at growing the economy. The only problem with that is  though the pie will grow, those  who made the money will simply keep it amongst themselves.  Those who have all this money will simply create a supply and demand for only things or quantities that they can afford. The outcome- pervasive hidden stagflation.





An example of this could be the actress or widgeteer who makes a million dollars a year and normally pays $400,000 in taxes. Reagan/Bush cuts their taxes to $300,000.00 by cutting programs that cost $100,000 but create $120,000 worth of benefits. The actress or widgeteer (most of these people probably aren't famous and probably do ho hum things) then takes that $100,000 and invests it in  making loans or more widgets. Perhaps they make $200,000 doing that. That means that the tax cuts made the economy $80,000...but where does it go?  Trickle down Republicans will think that these guys (and the Republican widgeteers at the beach insist that they do- and the wikipedia article promises the same thing) will pass on the extra money to give their workers more benefits and wages or at least hire more of them. I don't thin that's actually happening. They are probably spending all the money they got when they invsted their tax cut (through another rich person) on investing in commodities (jacking the prices up so that no one who needs them can actually buy them) and buying really expensive things that some other rich person either makes on his own or makes through cheap foreign labor marks the phuck up out of....making those things more expensive.  The workers see not a dime  go to them beyond what they were already making and they have to pay $4 for a gallon of milk and $200 on shoes....all on the same $14-16 an hour they bought the $3 a gallon milk and the $100 pair of shoes on.  

Long story short- Just because you are letting good business people do more business doesn't mean that they are any more interested in doing any more/better business with you.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

It's absolute garbage.