What you do think is the number one issue facing us at the moment?
- Thread starter Seattle
- Start date
Nope. Trickle down refers to one ASPECT of supply side economics, specifically that the increase in wealth at the top levels of society will "trickle down" to the lower levels of society. This is the theory that states, for example, if Elon Musk buys ten more business jets, then Textron will get more orders and employ more lower level workers, who will in turn make more money and lift even the lower levels of society. That's one aspect of supply side economics that people like Stockman have touted to support it. Unfortunately that aspect of supply side economics has not panned out. Other aspects (like improving income for the top earners / companies) has.
Sure, some people who support trickle-down policies have highlighted the trickle-down nature of some the policies they are advocating. As said, trickle-down policies are trickle-down policies. But that doesn't really address the issue: it is a derogatory term when used to describe supply-side economics. For reasons given. Maybe you can't see the difference between the whole and a perceived negative aspect of some of the parts, such that you think it acceptable to refer to the whole simply by referring to the perceived negative aspects of the part. I mean, calling cars "gas guzzlers" isn't a derogatory term, is it. Sure, some people delight in extolling the virtues of cars that guzzle gas. That must mean it's not derogatory, then.
But, sure, whatever. I'm out.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
There isn't an economic theory where theory is to increase the wealth of the top levels of society. You're adding that part. Not excessively tax the top levels of society isn't focused on increasing their wealth. It's just not taking so much and it's focused on the motivational aspect and the consequences.
It's also not true that "it doesn't work". Tax receipts did increase after Reagan's tax cuts. After Bushes' tax cuts that wasn't the case. It's a matter of diminishing returns. It's also not that straight forward in either scenario.
Why just make up your own "facts"? You are incorrect in this case and you presented debt to GDP "facts" that weren't true either. Is "nope" a word?
I can. Not sure you can.
The whole: supply side economics
One of the parts of the whole of supply side economics (often seen negatively): trickle down
Supply side economics is an economic plan where deregulation and lowered taxes enable greater levels of productivity in companies, and greater income for the people who own them (which are the top levels of society.) The trickle down theory is a theory that states that since those large companies employ lower income people, and some lower income people even invest in those companies in the form of 401k's and the like, they will benefit as well from the company doing well, and thus the greater income going to the company and its owners will "trickle down" to the poor.
You may not like that term; that's fine. It doesn't work anyway so not much lost there.
I guess you could look it up if you like. Are you not a native English speaker?
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Are you against greater levels of productivity in companies? Let me guess, "nope". It goes without saying that when a company is more productive and profitable that those with stock ownership will gain as well.
The purpose of profit in a company isn't for benefits to flow to the poor in society. There is no relationship. When you go to work and get paid, that doesn't flow to the poor either. It's like asking if Wednesday is your favorite color.
There is nothing not to work here in this context. There is a point where taxes are so high that tax receipts start to go down rather than up. That does "work".
"I guess you could look it up if you like. Are you not a native English speaker?"
Yep, however there is nope word like that in my lexicon so I had to ask.
The purpose of profit in a company isn't for benefits to flow to the poor in society. There is no relationship. When you go to work and get paid, that doesn't flow to the poor either. It's like asking if Wednesday is your favorite color.
There is nothing not to work here in this context. There is a point where taxes are so high that tax receipts start to go down rather than up. That does "work".
"I guess you could look it up if you like. Are you not a native English speaker?"
Yep, however there is nope word like that in my lexicon so I had to ask.
That's a strange question. Think about it. You'll probably work it out.
Sarkus is a clever man. He worked it out.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
That's not much of an answer is it? I take that to me that you don't really have an answer or any real knowledge on this subject? Is that a fair deduction?
What exactly do you find strange about it? Is that a deflation? What does Sarkus have to do with this. Is that another deflection, like bringing up Bitcoin as a non sequitur?
Yours wasn't much of a question, was it?
It sounds to me like you don't have any real knowledge on this subject. Is that a fair deduction?
Look, Seattle. Your games are fun up to a point, but they become tiresome when you labour the point. Go play with your Bitcoin.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
I think you enjoy tiresome since you exclusively deal in it.
Great (although you're actually wrong in your description of supply side), then you must surely know that referring to the whole in a manner that highlights that perceived negative aspect is to use that aspect in a derogatory fashion.
Since you claim to know the difference, and are referring to the whole in such a manner, you must now conclude that "trickle-down" to refer to the whole is to use the phrase in a derogatory manner. Simples. Anything else from you on this particular matter will just be a waste of time.
Are you an English speaker, by the way? Do you not know what "derogatory" means?
As for your description of "supply side economics", you seem to be confusing what it is as a whole with certain policies that people might often use to achieve it. Supply side economics is in the name: supply. It is about increasing the supply of goods into the market, into people's hands. Not efficiency per se, not productivity per se, and not money. It's about uplifting people's living standards by increasing their wealth through making more goods available to them. And if you don't know the difference between wealth and money in this context: if you only gave everyone more money, there would still be the same volume of supply, so inflation would result and noone would actually be better off. i.e. wealth wouldn't change despite the increase in money.
Look, that you can't describe supply-side without, in the first sentence, talking about income to the already wealthy, just shows you really don't have a particularly good grasp of what you're talking about here, and are already a detractor, so, yeah, it's no wonder you can't appreciate that referring to supply side as "trickle down" is derogatory.
And, well, to be able to criticise something one really should understand what it is they're criticising, right? Rather than any strawman caricature of it, at least.
Anyhoo - the number 1 issue for me at the moment, to bring this thread back on track, is health of the family.
I think the number 1 issue for us, i.e. society as a whole, is the lack of of healthy skepticism, not just with regard wierd and wacky claims, but in everyday life. Especially in this new era of AI-generated material (photos, voices, etc), and with cults of personality.
All I worked out was that what you posted was really just a tautology. Was there meant to have been something else, as you seem to think what you said was of significance? Maybe you meant to say "Supply side economics has disproportionately benefited the wealthy."? That would at least have had you linking supply side to trickle-down. But what you actually wrote added nothing to the discussion. Didn't you work that out from what I replied?
And what exactly was your point regarding Bitcoin? Please help me work that one out as well?
By referring to supply side economics as "trickle-down" is similarly pejorative, as it is describing the whole in terms of a perceived negative aspect, of the disproportionate benefit to the wealthy. Pejorative.
Simples.
A pejorative is a word expressing disapproval.
"Trickle-down" had, previously, been considered a good thing; it's in the history of the term, all the way back to when it was the idea of what might leak down (19th c.), even through its use by humorist Will Rogers (1932), and Nehru's commentary (1933) on wealth and economics in colonial India.
What made "trickle-down" into a pejorative was the application we have come to know.
Analogy: There was this guy I know, and so what, but once upon a time he got so mad at American liberals for using the pejorative "teabagger". The thing is, the conservative teabaggers catching all the flak and complaining about it had adopted the term for themselves. Everyvbody else was just laughing at the fact that they called themselves teabaggers. And sure, he's just his guy, y'know, just one person, but that's also how common such attitudes are: This guy I know who worries so much about free speech does not, these years later, at least, as far as I know, comprehend the irony of his opinion that people shouldn't be allowed to use the word "teabagger" like that.
Anyway, the analogy is that the pejorative context of "trickle-down" depends on recognizing that what it describes is considered notorious. Consider that if, as Samuel Rosenman, the first White House Counsel, once suggested, trickle-down policies have been prevalent since the 1920s, and if explicit application of the term "trickle-down economics" evolved and emerged in the 1940s and '50s, it is only in the '70s that the controversial context we know, today, emerged, with former President Johnson lamenting Republican economic incompetence and their focus on trickle-down theory and giving tax breaks to the rich. Stockman's critique of Reagan's supply-side plan considered what Galbraith described as horse-and-sparrow, and Johnson's complaint was affirmed in the Kemp-Roth tax cut of 1981.
Republicans, by the way, don't like it any better when people recall the other name for American trickle-down; before he was elected Vice President and expected to support the argument, George H. W. Bush described the plan as "voodoo economics".
The reason "trickle-down" is viewed as a pejorative is because the story Seattle tells in #45↑ is an article of faith. "Trickle-down" is a pejorative because it doesn't work.
It is not a digression if I recall that my late father used to criticize communism for a perceived lack of incentive: Why would he work hard if the next guy on the line didn't have to? It's common mythopoeia among conservatives and an indespensible article of faith in justifying capitalism in general, and Reaganomics in particular. But the underlying fault of this critique is that the sales pitch to voters relied on another controversial presupposition, that the people at the top would allow the benefits to trickle down. It's forty years later, and it ought to be clear, by now, that it's not happening.
Before Republicans applied the term to something so awful, "trickle down" was not a pejorative. And in the way of "teabagger", "trickle down" only becomes truly pejorative because the people who support what it describes insist.
This happens a lot with conservatives, especially when traditional lines and institutions are in play. But it's dysfunctional in its way: While I might say much about what is "Christian", it is more likely that the complaint coming back at me would suggest I am applying the word wrongly, not that the word itself has somehow become pejorative.¹
By comparison, the question of "socialist" as a pejorative does not have to do with what socialists actually do, but what conservatives disdain. Anecdotally, someone recently complained, "They're giving us socialized medicine!" but it was a private hospital and a private insurance policy. For her, "socialized medicine" does not refer to an actual subsidized medical system, but inefficient and low-quality care. Republicans, after twenty years of advocating for a legal mandate requiring Americans should pay tribute to private-sector enterprise, suddenly decided reinforcing the power and influence of private ownership was some manner of socialism.
Inasmuch as a pejorative is a word that expresses disdain, sure, both "trickle-down" and "socialist" are often used in pejorative manner. However, that use of "socialist" is entirely invented by critics, while "trickle-down" refers to something both critic and supporter agree is real.
As pejoratives, they are completely different kinds, and work in different ways. The pejorative context of "socialist" is projection and fearmongering; the pejorative context of "trickle-down" works in such a way that any regularly-used term of criticism is subject to similar complaint. Inasmuch as "trickle-down" accuses failure, so also can "supply side" become a pejorative if it becomes the summary of failure or even swindle. That is, the pejorative context of "socialist" distorts and misleads discussion, while the pejorative context of "trickle-down" hurts fragile conservative feelings.
But if we take a moment to look what happened to this thread, the whole distraction↑ has achieved its purpose, which is to turn the discussion away from the obivous criticism↑ of yet another supply-side argument depending on trickle-down↑ for its justification.
____________________
Notes:
¹ Once upon a time, the idea of being "atheist" was a pejorative that meant your god was so goddamn stupid it was no god at all. These days, I'm sure I could make the word a pejorative, but it would work differently.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Capitalism might be a pejorative when some use it but it's just a recognized field of economics. Liberal and Progressive might be pejorative when used by some but they have political history behind them.
"Trickle-down" is just a negative commentary by some for the descriptions of supply side economics, just as "wage slaves" might be a negative commentary by some for a description of capitalism. It's not a legitimate field of study in economics. It's not a "thing" and it's not an accurate description of anything that is actually in economics.
I knew a guy who...well, nevermind, it's like Winston Churchill said, well, that's beside the point, ya know. To the one, it's not relevant and twix you and me, to the other, well that's not relevant either.
It's a strawman analogy to set something up as meaning one thing and then to say that thing doesn't work (over and over). Supply side descriptions focus on supply side behaviors and demand side descriptions do the same. They are descriptions. There's nothing not to "work".
If you reduce taxes that leaves more in the private sector. The private sector is more efficient than the public sector and the economy is more productive, in general, when you do that.
That doesn't mean a poor person is suddenly going to be wealthier. There is also the case of marginal effects. When taxes are extreme, cutting them can result in more tax revenues than if you didn't do that. They did go up after Reagan's tax cuts.
There is a law of diminishing returns however. When Bush cut taxes (which weren't particularly high in the first place) you didn't see tax revenues go up. In both cases, the effects aren't that direct in the first place since the economy is more complex than that.
This whole subject is just a case of political commentary masquerading as economic commentary. The commentators generally don't have any understanding of economics unless they are economists who are now in the political sector and then politics takes over.
Ya know?
"Trickle-down" is just a negative commentary by some for the descriptions of supply side economics, just as "wage slaves" might be a negative commentary by some for a description of capitalism. It's not a legitimate field of study in economics. It's not a "thing" and it's not an accurate description of anything that is actually in economics.
I knew a guy who...well, nevermind, it's like Winston Churchill said, well, that's beside the point, ya know. To the one, it's not relevant and twix you and me, to the other, well that's not relevant either.
It's a strawman analogy to set something up as meaning one thing and then to say that thing doesn't work (over and over). Supply side descriptions focus on supply side behaviors and demand side descriptions do the same. They are descriptions. There's nothing not to "work".
If you reduce taxes that leaves more in the private sector. The private sector is more efficient than the public sector and the economy is more productive, in general, when you do that.
That doesn't mean a poor person is suddenly going to be wealthier. There is also the case of marginal effects. When taxes are extreme, cutting them can result in more tax revenues than if you didn't do that. They did go up after Reagan's tax cuts.
There is a law of diminishing returns however. When Bush cut taxes (which weren't particularly high in the first place) you didn't see tax revenues go up. In both cases, the effects aren't that direct in the first place since the economy is more complex than that.
This whole subject is just a case of political commentary masquerading as economic commentary. The commentators generally don't have any understanding of economics unless they are economists who are now in the political sector and then politics takes over.
Ya know?
I disagree in a much as there is also fearmongering and projection with "trickle-down": the fear that rich people are getting richer while the wealthy only trickles down.
If the issue was merely failure then "supply side" would be the pejorative enough. That they focus on a perceived negative (not all supply side is trickle down) is what makes it pejorative when used instead of "supply side".
Maybe the issue here is one of economics v politics. I'm not a supporter of supply-side, I'm not a conservative, and in so far as the discussion has been about the economics, I do think referring to supply side as "trickle down" is pejorative, for reasons given. Maybe not in quite the same way as "socialist" but pejorative nonetheless. That it's gaining acceptance as a synonym for supply-side within politics... meh. Language changes despite my best efforts.
As for the issue being a distraction from the criticism, perhaps, but wouldn't even discussion of that criticism be a distraction from what this thread was initially set up for.
So what do you think is the number one issue facing us at the moment? I'm asking in all sincerity.
Wait, what?
Okay, look—
—the "trickle-down" was the promise. That's how it was supposed to work: Horse and sparrow leaves excess seed for sparrow; if the cup of the rich runneth over, then the wealth will trickle down.
Think of it this way: Why would working-class voters vote to carry the tax burdens of the rich? Because they believed it would pay off.¹ (Narrator's voice: It didn't pay off.)
But that renders the underlying complaint about pejoratives useless.²
Don't you understand, that's the point? The number one problem facing the U.S.? Someone suggests the economic system that has been wrecking the place for decades, now, and instead of disputing about the merits, the response is to dispute the terminology according to an apparent ignorance of circumstance. Look back at #34↑: "Supply-side economics describes the supply-side," Seattle explains, "and demand-side economics describes the demand side and they are both accurate descriptions." Here we are, how many posts later, and it's still some kind of difficult for people to acknowledge what the phrase "trickle-down" actually was. "Supply-side economics" was not some textbook abstraction in this context; it was a policy discussion, and "trickle-down" was the promised benefit, the sales pitch.
Identifying a failure by its name—this supply-side argument failed because wealth did not trickle down properly—can be said to be pejorative by definition, but that's not really much of a credential. There is an infamous racist's retort reminding that attending to injustice inflicted by racism is itself racist. And there are people who aren't supporters of white supremacism, and would say they're not racist, and, hell, they don't even have to be white, who will agree as if the point is significant. And that's the thing: One definition would seek to diminish racism, the other is used to preserve and even advance it; the simple fact that both racism and anti-racism discuss race does not make them the same. The fact that two different terms might express disdain does not make them the same.
Here's another question: What's the best song ever? How about the best album? Okay, okay, rock. Even still, it's hard to do. There is, however, a class of albums that I just don't argue with. The number one issue facing the U.S. is kind of similar.
Supply side? Well, the failure to trickle down really has impacted society over the course of multiple generations, now. I might not call supply-side economics, or capitalism in general, the number one issue facing the nation, but it is both in that class of vital issues I'm not going to refuse, and an important aspect of my own take on the question.
Because it's true this is a very important challenge to our society, but I'm not ready to crown it as first and worst. Rather, in recent days something important is happening in the discourse: People are recognizing and discussing something I'm familiar with, and actually merges two things that do, in fact, go together; on a recent episode of Capehart's Saturday Show, they discussed the anti-liberalism that has been with us the whole time. And this isn't just the question of liberalism as a party affiliation, but a more fundamental and historical question including social contract; consider, ca. 2017↗:
Republicans really haven't been in on this part of the social contract for a while, now. Conservatives, traditionally, have never been in on this part of the social contract, and no, not even when Democrats were the conservatives. Think back to Maryland. The Catholics wanted to be different from their Protestant persecutors, so they passed a religious tolerance law for Christians. Protestants plantationed a majority, struck the tolerance law, and began persecuting Catholics.
We recall Abigail Adams: "Remember the Ladies!" Her husband's response, for some reason, is not nearly so famous.
Okay, that's not fair; we need not wonder why ....
.... It precedes the Republic. The trial of Anne Hutchinson reminds this subtle poison has been with us since before the whole time. It is not subtle, anymore; all my life, the one thing we were supposed to not accept was happening is what is happening right now, and it can't be happening right now if it wasn't true the whole time. This is not ex nihilo.
At some point, the obvious logical thing to do is believe what we're seeing.
We recall Abigail Adams: "Remember the Ladies!" Her husband's response, for some reason, is not nearly so famous.
Okay, that's not fair; we need not wonder why ....
.... It precedes the Republic. The trial of Anne Hutchinson reminds this subtle poison has been with us since before the whole time. It is not subtle, anymore; all my life, the one thing we were supposed to not accept was happening is what is happening right now, and it can't be happening right now if it wasn't true the whole time. This is not ex nihilo.
At some point, the obvious logical thing to do is believe what we're seeing.
Not only is the discussion emerging into its own context in the public discourse, the circumstance in effect is more severe and absurd than my imagination, back then, would have afforded.
Six and a half years ago, bits about calling the whole thing off weren't hyperbole, but, this time later, a familiar argument↗ about the Seventeenth Amendment is back, and we're to the point that a state Republican Party has actually come out in opposition to democracy.
Consider the study, several years ago, suggesting a significant number of white people oppose programs that benefit white people because they might also benefit minorities. As Donald Trump explains that Americans want a dictatorship, and many of his supporters agree it's what they want and what society needs, what we're facing is an anti-liberal temper tantrum extraordinary even in American history. Or think of "angry white male syndrome", ca. 1990s; while it was easy and common to see the joke as utterly pejorative, the underlying behavior it described persists, and what we have been supposed to pretend wasn't happening, all along, is what it comes to, today.
It really is hard to figure the range, danger, and priority of anti-liberalism. What was once the stuff of a two-bit Glenn Greenwald rant, or at Sciforums includes Vociferous- and Schmelzer-grade crackpottery, really ought to remain the stuff of the fringe. Consider that two jokes from Stephen Colbert's world have gone on to be notorious: The dude working the campaign to harass metermaids in New Hampshire went on to be an iconic Nazi felon, and the white guy who could dance to rap was an infamous MRA attorney who eventually went on a coast-to-coast murder tour. Really, we're all better off if this is the sort of stuff we really don't need to take seriously.
Except it's now front and center, a nearly unavoidable question; they're telling us, uncoded, unfiltered, straightforward telling us that's where they're going. And the underlying lamentation is the same as it ever was: That's not what they meant by liberty and justice for all. That's not what they meant by equality.
It's not like they haven't told us, before. It's just that they don't have anything else, and thus work to make it impossible to ignore.
____________________
Notes:
¹ Michael Moore described it as, "Horatio Alger Must Die"↱. Consider the four trillion dollars lost between 1999-2002, the end product of a stock market boom. Trickle down? Pensions and endowments were wiped out. (And it would happen again, all of five years later, a thirteen trillion dollar decline of household wealth because of the subprime crisis.)
² Akin to Syndrome syndrome: When everything is super, nothing is; i.e., such a loose and contradictory application of what is pejorative diminishes what makes pejoratives notorious. If pejoratives are so meaningless, then there is no point in complaining about them.
² Akin to Syndrome syndrome: When everything is super, nothing is; i.e., such a loose and contradictory application of what is pejorative diminishes what makes pejoratives notorious. If pejoratives are so meaningless, then there is no point in complaining about them.
TheVat
Registered Senior Member
https://www.salon.com/2024/05/03/wh...ires-degrowth-to-make-our-planet-sustainable/
Japanese philosopher and eco-socialist talks about degrowth and challenges some of the conventional wisdom of the Green New Deal. Maybe being more productive isn't quite the virtue it's assumed to be. Not even with electric cars.
Japanese philosopher and eco-socialist talks about degrowth and challenges some of the conventional wisdom of the Green New Deal. Maybe being more productive isn't quite the virtue it's assumed to be. Not even with electric cars.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
I think this is actually a really good question. We can answer in terms of the world (I went for Putin) but we can answer for our country and locally.
I work in a deprived area, this is maintained by the police and social services.
Really messed up people bringing kids into a messed up environment.
Inner cities should make that the number one priority.
As a country? I always thought poor education combined with the above should be priority no 1.
Putin is a worry BUT I will change my vote to religion. Drop that and we will still have cultural differences but at least we are dealing with reality.
I work in a deprived area, this is maintained by the police and social services.
Really messed up people bringing kids into a messed up environment.
Inner cities should make that the number one priority.
As a country? I always thought poor education combined with the above should be priority no 1.
Putin is a worry BUT I will change my vote to religion. Drop that and we will still have cultural differences but at least we are dealing with reality.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Since you work in the inner cities, what do you think is the answer to that generation after generation problem? The standard answer is more government assistance and better education.
My guess is that it's not that simple.The answer, I think, is to gradually get people out of that culture (government programs and education may help with that) and those are the people that can be "saved".
The rest, I'm afraid, are just the bottom 3% to 6%, that can't be helped in any society.
What is your perspective now that you have a lot of personal experience?
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
I do not work with these people in social services or anything. My place of work happens to be in a deprived area.
Yesterday I picked up a prescription before work in one such area near where I live.
A guy pacing about waiting for the pharmacist to arrive.
Skinny as hell, unkempt. Probably coming for his methadone.
On the bus after, I overhead a guy talking about prison to a woman with no teeth.
After work in the pub, different people more prison talk.
Unfortunately we cannot go back and teach these people maths English and science.
They take the kids to cheap pubs so they can drink.
Those kids are screwed before they can talk. Education can work in school but not at home if dad is in prison and mum has no time to read to you because it's too much like hard work.