Trickle Down Sucks: The Life Out Of Our Economy

[Dorkazoid_Jones]

"The middle class is the engine that drives our economy, not the ultra rich. Since most of those on these boards are middle class, I don't understand why so many of them on the right still genuflect at the Ronny Altar of Trickle Down"

Because it's called capitalism. The reason the middle class likes capitalism is because we get goods as cheaply as possible. If you want to have socialism, then you are asking for inequality by making everyone the same when we are all different start with. Therefore, Socialism is about forced inequality and capitalism is about equal opportunity. Given that, why would anyone vote for socialist economic policies??

 

[Agnapostate]

Actually FDR prolonged the Great Depression by roughly 10 years.

Is this the Keynesian fallacy again?

 

[manu1959]

Actually FDR prolonged the Great Depression by roughly 10 years.

Is this the Keynesian fallacy again?

because he didn't spend enough......once the war started then the proper amount of money was injected into the system......

 

[Agnapostate]

Well yes, the Roosevelt era can be described without reference to Keynesianism up to the point of the war.

 

[Zoomie1980]

No the point is geniuses that most of those outfits wouldn't have been in trouble in the first place had it not been for governemnt rules and regulations that hamstrung them. Keep in mind that most of our highway system has been a private/public cooperative effort in which the Government state local and federal provided the money and private companies built them to specifications. No one here idiots is arguing whether or not the govenment has a role to play in builkding infrastructure or national defense some government is always necessary. It's the other 70% of the Budget in which the problem exists.

By the way this country went from 13 states to 48 and became arguably the second most powerful country in the world after Great Britain by 1907 with out the Feds having more than minor involvement in much of anything to do with infrastructure.

Yes, that's right we went from a poor agrarian society to a major industrial power in about 125 years.

And basically where did our government get the money during that period?

TARIFFS. We didn't HAVE an income tax except for a brief period during the vcivil war and even then it only taxed the stupendously welathy idnustrialists!

And why did we evolve from a poor agrarian society into a mighty industrial power?

Because of TARIFFS. Behind that protective barriar we gave our industries time to become mighty, and effecient and the industrial powerhouse of the world.

The USA had a positive BALANCE OF TRADE for the entire time it was BECOMING WEALTHY AND POWERFUL.

Now notice what the balance of trade looks like...please take a gander at how FREE TRADE is sucking the vitality out of this nation.

We don't have a TRICKLE DOWN economy...we NOW have a BLEEDING OUT economy.

Nonsense. It is 2009 not 1890 or 1960. Unemployment for the past 40 years has run a constant 5-7% with rare exceptions, yet we have shed large swaths of old industrial revolution era manufacturing as they became increasingly obsolete and less profitable and were replaced by ever more profitable high tech manufacturing and services. Free trade makes all that possible. Free trade is the absolute LIFE BLOOD and BEDROCK of the global economy.

 

[oreo]

The financial markets turned out to be a giant Ponzi scheme, and the Amercian taxpayer was left holding the bag.

I think we should empty Gitmo and fill it with Madoff and all his buddies.

I can think of a whole lot of others that belong there with Madoff, along with many of our elected politicians.

In fact, it would be real nice to take about 1 million of those size 10 shoes to Washington D.C. & do some hurling.

 

[editec]

The tarrifs sir were fairly minor

Well, since we cannot know what you mean by minor let's just consider the facts

Tariffs ranged from 5% to 15% from day one climbed to as high as 50% by 1828, and slowly declined to flat 20% by 1848.

and were one of the chief secondary causes of the Civil War and the primary one for the vast majority of Southerners who didn't own slaves and were unlikely ever in their lifetimes to own slaves.

Agreed. The Southern slavers hated tariffs to be sure.

They hated tariffs with good reason, too. Since they made their money off the labor of slaves, and traded their slave-created agricultural products to England, those tariffs made the important purchases more expensive.

The main reason this country became an economic power house was simply that the US government let Business take care of itself for most of that first 125 years.

The USA let manufacturing "take care of itself" first and foremost by protecting American fledgling industrial development though tariffs on manufactured goods.

 

[Diuretic]

Middle class schmiddle class. Where the hell did the working class go?

 

[Skull Pilot]

Middle class schmiddle class. Where the hell did the working class go?

actually what most people here call middle class are working class and dare i say the working poor.

Seriously, if you're 2 paychecks away from losing your home, you ain't middle class.

 

[editec]

No the point is geniuses that most of those outfits wouldn't have been in trouble in the first place had it not been for governemnt rules and regulations that hamstrung them. Keep in mind that most of our highway system has been a private/public cooperative effort in which the Government state local and federal provided the money and private companies built them to specifications. No one here idiots is arguing whether or not the govenment has a role to play in builkding infrastructure or national defense some government is always necessary. It's the other 70% of the Budget in which the problem exists.

By the way this country went from 13 states to 48 and became arguably the second most powerful country in the world after Great Britain by 1907 with out the Feds having more than minor involvement in much of anything to do with infrastructure.

Yes, that's right we went from a poor agrarian society to a major industrial power in about 125 years.

And basically where did our government get the money during that period?

TARIFFS. We didn't HAVE an income tax except for a brief period during the vcivil war and even then it only taxed the stupendously welathy idnustrialists!

And why did we evolve from a poor agrarian society into a mighty industrial power?

Because of TARIFFS. Behind that protective barriar we gave our industries time to become mighty, and effecient and the industrial powerhouse of the world.

The USA had a positive BALANCE OF TRADE for the entire time it was BECOMING WEALTHY AND POWERFUL.

Now notice what the balance of trade looks like...please take a gander at how FREE TRADE is sucking the vitality out of this nation.

We don't have a TRICKLE DOWN economy...we NOW have a BLEEDING OUT economy.

Nonsense. It is 2009 not 1890 or 1960. Unemployment for the past 40 years has run a constant 5-7% with rare exceptions, yet we have shed large swaths of old industrial revolution era manufacturing as they became increasingly obsolete and less profitable and were replaced by ever more profitable high tech manufacturing and services. Free trade makes all that possible. Free trade is the absolute LIFE BLOOD and BEDROCK of the global economy.

Is it? How nice for the global economy...but my concern is the AMERICAN economy first, and the global economy a distant second.

I could sign on to FAIR trade policies, but the current FREE TRADE agreements we have made are anything but fair to AMERICANS.

Doubt me?

In 1970 the US trade balance was $2,603,000,000 to the POSITIVE

The 2007 US trade balance was $819,373,000,000 to the NEGATIVE.

source

That means that in 2007 the USA sent $.819 TRILLION offshore.

In 2007 this nations GNP was $13.8 TRILLION, so in 2007 we sent about 6% of every cent we made offshore, thus losing the multiplier effect that that money might have created for our economy

These trade policies are NOT sustainable if we want the USA to continue to be a powerful and wealthy nation, methinks.

 

[Richard-H]

The problem isn't 'Trickle down', the problem is that 'trickle down' never happened.

One of the corner stones of supply-side economics is that wealth would trickle down to the working people. But, there is nothing to guarantee that it would.

Trickle down depends on the good will, ethics and a sense of responsibilty of the wealthiest people in society. None of these three qualities exist in the nature of the wealthiest people. In fact, the primary personality characteristics of most of them is obsessive selfishness. They simply horded wealth. So supply-side fails.

Alternatively, we have the 'Liberal' approach to economics, which is to tax the daylights out of the wealthiest people and redistribute that wealth to the poorest people thru all kinds of mechanisms, many of which require no productive contribution by them whatsoever.

Wouldn't it be nice if supply-side ecnomics could be complemented with a mandatory 'trickle-down' system? That wealth would actually flow down from the wealthiest to the working people and that working people and achievers would actually be rewarded rather than being the butt end of either economic systems? The poorest people being motivated by the rewards of achievement?

Oops..sorry that would be a semi-socialist system, and we couldn't have that!

 

[DavidJM]

All the government can do, in terms of a long-term fix for this mess, is to revamp the financial system.
The New Deal of the 30's has already been done, and then some. It will temporarily save some jobs, and give credit to the car companies, which is needed to prevent a total collapse. The failure of investement banks which have been allowed to buy into the commercial sector, sub-prime lending and derivatives are the root cause of a situation in which the failure of one institutuion brings the country down with it.