Nothing like becoming aware after watching friends and co workers lose jobs, homes and families. Giving illegal aliens sanctuary because....er, its "Humanitarian". Orwellian double think, we pity the poor Mexican families broken up but don't give a shit about harm they created? All the jobs the homes and families they destroyed? Learn to Code? OK, IMMIGRATE LEGALLY and stop pretending it's about racism, then. Ditto.
My experience was rather early. It as the minimum wage hike of 1995-1996, or whenever. I was working at McDonalds. The first thing they did, was lay off 3 part-time workers. Instantly three people lost their jobs.
Then the rest of us had to take up the slack in labor. So the rest of us, who were already earning more than minimum wage, had to do more work, and we got zero pay increased.
Then I watched as McDonald's started to increase prices. Now they didn't increase prices immedeately... they increased them by reducing serving sizes. The small fry, got even smaller. The medium fry was reduced in size to small, and the large fry ended up being a medium in size.
After a year or two, they introduced a new larger size, with a new larger price... and change all the names.
They did the same with drinks.
Wendy's did the same thing. The Biggie fry and drink, became what is now the large. The large became a medium/regular. And the medium/regular became the small.
All the stores did this.
What I realized was, the minimum wage did almost nothing for the working people, but it reduced jobs, and increased prices. I watched that first hand.
After that, I started reading books, like Economics in One Lession, and Thomas Sowell.... and I never went back to left-wing ideology, after I realized it was all built on myths. The myth that if you jack up the price of labor, that somehow the rich will pay for it, when in reality the working people, and the consumers are the ones who pay for it.
All left-wing ideology is built on this myth.
Even after the 2009 minimum wage hike from $5.25 to $7.25, the news media outlets were flipping out because they found that food producers were reducing the net weight of food. That box of cheerios, may be the same physical size, but they reduced the net weight of the food in it... to pay for labor cost increases.
Economics in a picture for no-info leftards:
This coming from idiots who elect the GOP and have taxes cut on rich people expecting that to “trickle down” to them. Sure. Any day now.
Look at every single thing you own in your entire life, from the clothes you wear, to the computer you are using, and everything else.
If trickle down is not working, then explain what poor impoverished beggar provided all those things you use every single day?
Additionally, look at every single job that is created in this entire country. From the burger flipper at the whopper shop, to the engineer, accountant, and surgeon at a hospital.
If trickle down is not working, then explain what poor impoverished beggar has provided all those jobs?
Every time you try and insult the GOP or right-wingers on economic matters, you only serve to prove conclusively to everyone on this forum, and anyone else that hears your stupidity, that you are utterly ignorant and incompetent on this topic.
You’re so dense dude. I’m not saying capitalism doesn’t work. Yes, there was a time when everyone benefitted from a strong supply side. That is no longer relevant. In this day and age, only a handful of people own more wealth than the bottom 50% of of workers. Meanwhile, 78% of workers reporting living paycheck to paycheck. If the federal minimum wage had kept up with inflation and the cost of living, it would be over $20 per hour. There has to be balance to the economy for it to work and right now that isn’t a thing is it?
But none of that changes the fact that trickle down is how the entire planet works.
Every bit of wealth that you own... every single thing... came from someone wealthy. Every single thing! Clothing is a form of wealth. Computers are a form of wealth. Services like connecting to the internet is a form of wealth. The house, or apartment you live in, is a form of wealth. I assume you are inside some sort of housing.
EVERYTHING... came from a rich guy. That's trickle down in action.
Equally every single job, throughout the entire country... is not provided by the poor. They are provided by the rich.
Even government jobs, are honestly provided by the rich, given nearly all the income tax, and the corporate, and the estate tax, nearly all tax, is paid for by the rich. So even a government job, is provided by the rich.
If you have a paycheck at all.... small or large.... that paycheck is trickle down in action.
So every time you complain about people who believe in trickle down, YOU are utterly ignorant.
And on top of that, this is true of every country. Name one country, anywhere on the face of the Earth, where wealth is trickling up? Even in Venezuela or Cuba.... what little wealth they have, where does it come from? Impoverished beggars? What few jobs, and what little food that is produced in either of them, you think it's the impoverished making it?
No. Trickle down is how the planet works. There is no other system than trickle down. None. The more you encourage that system, the more wealth you have. The more you hinder that system, the less wealth. It's that simple.
So either way.... tickle down is how it works everywhere. So no, there "was a time" is not the answer.
All time, including the present is when people benefit from tickle down. There has never been a time, when it did not benefit everyone. If you have clothes to wear, food to eat, and computer come on a forum and complain about it...
then you are benefiting from trickle down right now, as we speak.
only a handful of people own more wealth than the bottom 50% of of workers. Meanwhile, 78% of workers reporting living paycheck to paycheck. If the federal minimum wage had kept up with inflation and the cost of living, it would be over $20 per hour. There has to be balance to the economy for it to work and right now that isn’t a thing is it?
This was always true. Only a handful of people have always owned the vast majority of the wealth. And this has been true throughout all human history as well. Since the dawn of human existence, this is how it has been, and it always will be.
78% of workers report living paycheck to paycheck? Whose fault is that? Live within your means. If you can't afford it, don't buy it.
When I was making $20,000 a year, I didn't live paycheck to paycheck. If I can live within my means, making $20,000 a year, when the median income is $48,000 a year, then that means you are doing something wrong.
Still doesn't change the fact that all those people who have a paycheck, got it from a wealthy person. Trickle down is how they got a paycheck, whether they are smart enough to live within their means or dumb enough to live paycheck to paycheck. No trickle down, means they wouldn't have a paycheck, and if you think living paycheck to paycheck is bad, trying living without any paycheck.
And as far as 50% of the people not owing much wealth... again, whose fault is that? Buy some stock. Right now is a the perfect time to buy stock. I personally increased my contributions into stocks. The stock market has taken a dive because of the corona virus. Stocks are on sale. Open an IRA, and put some money into a Stock Mutual Fund with a 10-year track record.
Then *YOU* can be part of the wealth owning class like me. You put $100 a month, in to a stock mutual fund from age 20 to 60, and you will be a millionaire, or close to it.
This is problem with people like you. You don't invest your money, and then you want to complain that the rich own everything. How dumb is that?
"I never invest, and I'm pissed off that only the rich investors have investments!"
Do you not see the stupidity of that statement?
Stop whining, and start investing.
Regardless... that doesn't change the fact that tickle down is still how every single person ends up wealthy. No one wakes up, getting billions of dollars from poor people. Everyone starts by making money off of wealthy people.
Trickle down is how the world works. It always has. Always will be. When you show me some country, where people are getting jobs from impoverished beggars, and are able to buy a house, or buy a car, built and sold by impoverished beggars, then you can come back, and we'll talk about it. But we both know, whether you admit it or not, that no such society anywhere exists, or ever has in human history, or ever will.
Denmark, the holy grail of the myth of Democratic Socialism... is home to the Lego Company. The dynasty that runs that company, live like the super wealthy. The poor people of Denmark, live like poor people. All the wealth you can buy in Denmark, is created by the rich. All jobs in Denmark are created by the rich. Trickle down is how everything in Denmark works, just like here.... just like everywhere.
For you to even attempt to claim the America is any worse off now than it was before is ridiculous. The poorest working people, have bigger homes, more appliances, more services, and more material wealth, than the middle class of most European countries.
If you make by yourself, or have a combined income with your spouse, of just $32,000 a year, that places you in the top 1% of wage earners on the planet.
You implied, ridiculously that things were more equal in US history. That is unbelievably ignorant.
Most of the poor people in the past, didn't have access to a horse, and were pooping in a hole in the ground, while the extremely wealthy had a team of horses, and coaches with 'drivers' taking them where they wanted.
Poor people lived in shacks, if they were lucky enough to even own property. Homestead houses were garbage at best. Leaving people to get wet when it rained, and freezing when it snowed.
Wealthy had wood burning stoves, and crude forms of insulation, though often they wouldn't even need it because they owned multiple homes, and would travel to warmer climate during the winter.
The poor often never left the place of their birth, and traveling was a joke. You were born on the farm, lived on the farm, and died on that farm. Only the rich could travel, and take a vacation.
When you look at the real hard practical differences between the rich, and the lower and middle class of the 1600, 1700, and even 1800s.... you are talking night and day. The poorest of people could not even imagine the difference between themselves and the rich.
But today? There is far less of a difference between the rich and lower and middle class. Far far less. My parents were nothing but public school teachers. They own a lake house, on Lake Erie. They have taken month long trips, three separate times through Europe. I could not begin to list all the things that two school teaches have done in their lives.
The lower and middle class people take Caribbean cruises, and fly to other countries, and they own cars, and have high speed internet, and smart phones, and on and on.
Here's a simple one. Going out to eat, at a restaurant. You think the middle class of the 1600-1800s was doing that? No they most certainly were not. Now, even the poorest of people can go out to eat routinely.
So if you think that the difference between the rich and poor, is greater today, than it was in history... you are unbelievably mistaken. You have no idea how good you have it, compared to the past.
