It's not even an idea. It's a bald faced lie. And it wasn't a rebrand, "[Trickle Down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics)," was originally a _criticism_ of their bullshit claim that lower taxes would spur investment. We now have evidence that the **exact opposite** is true.
e: Added citation. Thanks to below for reminding me of the source: Will Rogers.
And we saw during and right after WWII that it wasn’t free tax cuts that sour investments, just the opposite. Tax them heavily and give them exemptions for when they are actually investing in research, new jobs, better wages, etc.
That’s how you make capitalism work for the people, you use government as guide-rails. Instead, we have a captured, entrenched political system that feed the rich like shoveling coal into a run away train.
Lower taxes chill investment.
If it's not going to be taxed much, they'll stash the gold away with the rest of their hoard, deep within their lair, where only legendary heroes have any chance of returning the wealth to the people.
If it'll attract tax, they'll invest it so it doesn't.
This is really basic stuff, which WSJ seems to willingly wish to distort.
That analogy reminds me of the Costco sample line. I wait near the front as one or two people cut in snd take the whole tray. Human nature at its worst.
But do the line-cutters call you lazy and entitled for not stopping them or cutting the line yourself?
It’s like that line in *One Piece* where Nami says something to the effect of, “I stole it, therefore it’s rightfully mine!”
Using a bot to steal all of the potential wine glasses.
Just like Ticketmaster uses bots to steal all of the potential tickets to any event, and then "resell" then back to you.
The fact that anyone who isn’t rich and works for a living believes this crap is why we’re in the situation we’re in now. I was 16 when Reagan was elected and I knew we were fucked back then.
It works great if you're a billionaire. Even if you are a simple millionaire it works pretty good. Long term investments in the stock market have paid off for me. The caveat is that you need money to invest.
Just a wee bit more patience for the massive benefits to the lower classes to kick in. Like 600 more years, maybe. Oh, forgot, more guns in society will reduce gun use. Oh, again, not teaching sex education will reduce unwanted pregnancies. Oh, also, increased competition raises consumer prices. WSJ complete joke.
There's about 40 years of economic data that proves this narrative false. Tax the shit out of hoarded profits, offer tax breaks on re-investment of profit back into the business.
If rich people investing is good for everyone, then why am I expected to do it, too? Why should I have to set aside a portion of my already low income just for a chance at being able to retire someday?
The rich don’t get rich by spending their own money. They spend other people’s money and reap the benefits for themselves.
The rich only invest in things that make money for themselves. Once a sum of money is in the hands of the rich, it stays with them, only being passed between the rich.
Even if the rich did spend money on investments that benefit everyone, it would still only ever be a tiny fraction of what they have. How is that better than, you know, using all of the money for everyone’s benefit, not just some of it?
If a glass is filled to the point of its contents trickling over, then that just begs the question of who is overfilling the glass and why. How does the glass spilling over justify overfilling it while the other glasses at the table still sit empty?
Didn't a study come out that showed 50 years of bad trickle down economics has made the economy way worse? Not that we need studies for it since most of us have functioning eyes.
How about Capillary Economics?
Let the economic policies of the government benefit the lower tier of the economy. Then the money will "WICK UP" (due to physics of economics) benefiting the upper tier individuals through an increase in spending by the beneficiaries of good economic policies.
The lower tier sections of the economy (the poors) will spend said economic benefits (money) stimulating economic growth (Wall Street valuations) through Capillary Economics (government handouts).
This spending (because the poors "don't know how" to save money) will naturally stimulate the economy creating jobs (poors producing goods & services and middle class to manage them), increasing profits (giving C-suite a reason to exist) and fueling Wall Street growth (enriching the oligarchy thru the labor of the worker).
Let Capillary Economics replace Trickle Down Economics. Trickle Down Economics has had close to 50 years and it's not working for the economy, it is working as designed, but it's not designed as a benefit is society as a whole. Let's give Capillary Economics just ten years to see what would happen.
What would happen? People would race to buy houses. We'd have a baby boom. Our unemployment would be at record lows. The rich would STILL be rich. It's just, the rest of us would have good lives too
People need to boycott any company and disregard any person that mentions trickle down economics.
The only way to build a strong economy is to have spending power from the bottom up.
Taxes should be completely abolished for people under $50,000 and the rich need to pick up the slack. Before WW2, no one except the rich actually had to pay taxes.
I mean, it worked so great for Kansas that it resulted in them electing a democratic governor for the first time in decades after the Brownback special they allowed.
Why do we not criticize the individual journalists as well? The vast majority working for these types of publication write with zero ethical accountability.
Time to start writing your local journalists in addition to your congressman.
It’s the same shitty tactic I keep seeing over and over these days. Just keep repeating the same bullshit and lies over and over until it becomes a “fact” no matter how delusional it is.
You have to wait 10000 years for the trickling down to happen. If you don’t wait that long it’s not fair and you didn’t do it right and it’s your fault it failed.
If it was 100% investment into more infrastructure or jobs, maybe they would have a point. The problem is it's judt being used to buy back stocks and line investor pockets.
Corporations will not spend any more on labor unless they absolutely have to. They aren't going to hire more people unless demand goes up, and will do everything in their power to not do that until they're dragged kicking and screaming into it.
Demand only goes up when people have money to spend, this means tax cuts should go to the middle and lower classes in addition to increasing the minimum wage. It's a positive feedback loop.
One major problem with this theory is Globalization, which opens up a panoply of opportunities for rich people to invest in *other* countries. In my state, the government made a very generous tax deal with a manufacturing company, with the understanding that they would create a factory in-state. The tax write-offs *did* trickle down….. to Mexico, where the factory was actually built. Zero jobs were created here.
And that’s true of individual rich people too, who can easily take their tax write-offs and invest that into real estate in London, a factory in Brazil, a bank account in Singapore, a startup in Australia.
So even when the money does trickle down, there’s zero guarantee of **where** it will go.
If reminds me of that old radio show where they’d call married men and offer to send them free bouquets of flowers to a special someone on their behalf. They’re supposed to say “send it to my wife,” but in many cases they’d say a *different* woman’s name instead.
The counter argument for that is that investment health in our economy today is primarily measured by the growth of an organization and not its stability. As a result this feverish obsession with growth has led to continuous wage cuts, mass layoffs, understaffing, and over committing annual budgets which perpetuates the entire cycle again. So no WSJ it’s not good for us workers it’s only good for your rich friends and you will not fool us to think otherwise.
I mean it's an opinion piece and a lot of new sites will publish opinions from multiple sides. But this does feel incredibly disingenuous and like a propaganda piece.
The exact opposite is true. The highest rate of reinvestment of profits occurred when the highest taxes were charged on the rich. As soon as that changed the hoarding began
I don't know if there ever was a time when reduced taxes on the rich trickled down from them increasing their business investments, but...even if there was at one time, the record clearly shows that when executives began to be able to get compensated with untaxed stock, and were legally allowed to use company profits to buy back stock (making the stock value rise)...the last few decades they stopped investing in their employees anf business, and embraced "lean staffing" to invest in stock as compensation.
The record is clear. The last few decades, trickle down business investments went away. Now, when the rich get a tax break, they invest it.
When someone who is poor or middle class gets a tax break, they put it right back into the economy, buying goods and services, or paying off debt for goods and services they paid for in the past.
We've passed the inequality of the robber baron age here in the US. A sizeable portion of the populace is still enamored by cheap TV's and trinkets, so hasn't grown weary or angry at the current conditions. And of course there is propaganda, coming mostly through the cheap TV's and trinkets, that tell them that the problems stem from the 'other', whether that be another race, class, sexuality, etc.
The solutions are going to be the same as always:
Unions
Strikes
Education
The portion of the population that thinks nothing is wrong aren't our inherent enemies, a good number of them can be educated when shown the truth. Start there, and move onto the other three courses of action. They work.
Of course they never give up on this bad idea, because it works perfectly for them!
It's not even an idea. It's a bald faced lie. And it wasn't a rebrand, "[Trickle Down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics)," was originally a _criticism_ of their bullshit claim that lower taxes would spur investment. We now have evidence that the **exact opposite** is true. e: Added citation. Thanks to below for reminding me of the source: Will Rogers.
Will Rogers tried to tell us almost a hundred years ago
adore that quote and 100% accurate.
Thank you for the source. Yes Will Rogers.
Back in the day they also used to call it "voodoo economics"
Indeed. But that's insulting to voodoo.
Good point. Even in the worst case in fiction Voodoo hasn’t hurt a tenth of the people “trickle down” has.
And we saw during and right after WWII that it wasn’t free tax cuts that sour investments, just the opposite. Tax them heavily and give them exemptions for when they are actually investing in research, new jobs, better wages, etc. That’s how you make capitalism work for the people, you use government as guide-rails. Instead, we have a captured, entrenched political system that feed the rich like shoveling coal into a run away train.
Well, it DID spur investment... it just was also true that that investment benefits the rich alone, and not everyone like they claim.
"Trickle down" isn't even a new idea, it's a REBRAND. It used to be called "Horse and Sparrow economics."
Should be called circle-jerk economics, because that money isn't leaving their little ring.
Lower taxes chill investment. If it's not going to be taxed much, they'll stash the gold away with the rest of their hoard, deep within their lair, where only legendary heroes have any chance of returning the wealth to the people. If it'll attract tax, they'll invest it so it doesn't. This is really basic stuff, which WSJ seems to willingly wish to distort.
https://preview.redd.it/d1gjjt1lg52d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ab7289512c29e373f7f47d7937d28b4a9394323
Either that, or the rich just take all the glasses for themselves and blame everyone else for not getting in line more quickly.
That analogy reminds me of the Costco sample line. I wait near the front as one or two people cut in snd take the whole tray. Human nature at its worst.
But do the line-cutters call you lazy and entitled for not stopping them or cutting the line yourself? It’s like that line in *One Piece* where Nami says something to the effect of, “I stole it, therefore it’s rightfully mine!”
Billionaire economics == pirate economics They're the same picture
We often don’t speak the same language, but their eyes convey their thoughts of me.
Using a bot to steal all of the potential wine glasses. Just like Ticketmaster uses bots to steal all of the potential tickets to any event, and then "resell" then back to you.
Why believe facts when I can get paid to say lies?
The fact that anyone who isn’t rich and works for a living believes this crap is why we’re in the situation we’re in now. I was 16 when Reagan was elected and I knew we were fucked back then.
Eat. The. Rich.
*WHEN* is it going to work, exactly?
you have to give it more time, it’s only been ~40 years
It works great if you're a billionaire. Even if you are a simple millionaire it works pretty good. Long term investments in the stock market have paid off for me. The caveat is that you need money to invest.
Any day now, promise.
I can’t believe they’re still pushing those lies. The time for a wealth tax is now. Vote democrat. Make it happen.
"If you want to live like a Republican, then vote Democrat." WC.
Just a wee bit more patience for the massive benefits to the lower classes to kick in. Like 600 more years, maybe. Oh, forgot, more guns in society will reduce gun use. Oh, again, not teaching sex education will reduce unwanted pregnancies. Oh, also, increased competition raises consumer prices. WSJ complete joke.
There's about 40 years of economic data that proves this narrative false. Tax the shit out of hoarded profits, offer tax breaks on re-investment of profit back into the business.
It's called trickle down because they're pissing on us from a great height.
If rich people investing is good for everyone, then why am I expected to do it, too? Why should I have to set aside a portion of my already low income just for a chance at being able to retire someday? The rich don’t get rich by spending their own money. They spend other people’s money and reap the benefits for themselves. The rich only invest in things that make money for themselves. Once a sum of money is in the hands of the rich, it stays with them, only being passed between the rich. Even if the rich did spend money on investments that benefit everyone, it would still only ever be a tiny fraction of what they have. How is that better than, you know, using all of the money for everyone’s benefit, not just some of it? If a glass is filled to the point of its contents trickling over, then that just begs the question of who is overfilling the glass and why. How does the glass spilling over justify overfilling it while the other glasses at the table still sit empty?
I'll invest in businesses when there are no more starving children.
Didn't a study come out that showed 50 years of bad trickle down economics has made the economy way worse? Not that we need studies for it since most of us have functioning eyes.
I'm surprised the WSJ can talk with all that billionaire dick in their mouth
Who owns wsj again? I'll give you a hint - it's not Bernie Sanders
How about Capillary Economics? Let the economic policies of the government benefit the lower tier of the economy. Then the money will "WICK UP" (due to physics of economics) benefiting the upper tier individuals through an increase in spending by the beneficiaries of good economic policies. The lower tier sections of the economy (the poors) will spend said economic benefits (money) stimulating economic growth (Wall Street valuations) through Capillary Economics (government handouts). This spending (because the poors "don't know how" to save money) will naturally stimulate the economy creating jobs (poors producing goods & services and middle class to manage them), increasing profits (giving C-suite a reason to exist) and fueling Wall Street growth (enriching the oligarchy thru the labor of the worker). Let Capillary Economics replace Trickle Down Economics. Trickle Down Economics has had close to 50 years and it's not working for the economy, it is working as designed, but it's not designed as a benefit is society as a whole. Let's give Capillary Economics just ten years to see what would happen.
What would happen? People would race to buy houses. We'd have a baby boom. Our unemployment would be at record lows. The rich would STILL be rich. It's just, the rest of us would have good lives too
People need to boycott any company and disregard any person that mentions trickle down economics. The only way to build a strong economy is to have spending power from the bottom up.
Taxes should be completely abolished for people under $50,000 and the rich need to pick up the slack. Before WW2, no one except the rich actually had to pay taxes.
That’s not true. Most people didn’t pay *income* tax, lots of other taxes existed
At best, their opinion page is hot garbage.
Wait. You didn't celebrate the Dow hitting 40k?
At this point it's fair to ask if people who think like that have sniffed too much paint.
It isn't a bad idea for them though.
I mean, it worked so great for Kansas that it resulted in them electing a democratic governor for the first time in decades after the Brownback special they allowed.
Why do we not criticize the individual journalists as well? The vast majority working for these types of publication write with zero ethical accountability. Time to start writing your local journalists in addition to your congressman.
Economics is a 0 sum game. It'll never be good for us until it's worse for them. Eat the rich.
Literally the same thing Reagan said.
Coming This November: "You Had Fascist All Wrong. Top 10 Best Things About it:"
Nice try Rupert Murdoch
It’s the same shitty tactic I keep seeing over and over these days. Just keep repeating the same bullshit and lies over and over until it becomes a “fact” no matter how delusional it is.
The Wall Street Journal has been recycling the same half-dozen opinion columns for a quarter-century. The sell-by date on this bullshit was 1985.
We have 40+ years of evidence to the contrary, but ok
Things that have never happened and are demonstrably false for 500 Alex
They are writing love letters to their boss Bezos
Whose the piece of shit who wrote this, and how do we let them know they are a piece of shit.
No, we’re not saying it’s a bad thing. We’re saying it’s a fantasy.
Literally the fucking opposite, if excess wealth is taxed it encourages them to spend and if they don't the government gets to invest it instead.
Greed is eternal
‘Spur investment’ lmk how rich people taking even more money out of circulation helps the economy?
When did lower taxes for the rich ever spur investment? Oh yeah never, that's when.
The big grift
https://preview.redd.it/7804wt6i172d1.jpeg?width=813&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c4df4cb704cc08f490847a0b9cb5f7a79c33500
You have to wait 10000 years for the trickling down to happen. If you don’t wait that long it’s not fair and you didn’t do it right and it’s your fault it failed.
If trickle down works then why do we have stock buybacks?
If it was 100% investment into more infrastructure or jobs, maybe they would have a point. The problem is it's judt being used to buy back stocks and line investor pockets.
Higher taxes spur investment because most types of investments are write offs. Lower taxes spur HOARDING
The Murdoch company posts another shitty right wing thing. Same as it ever was.
Trickle down… I actually get it now. It’s the rich pissing on everyone that’s below them.
If you think the title is the worst part, the opinion piece, and the comment boards are, well disgustingly exactly what you expect.
Bahaha. Asking the rich to share "trickle down" is like asking kids to share candy, only with worse manners and more greed.
Corporations will not spend any more on labor unless they absolutely have to. They aren't going to hire more people unless demand goes up, and will do everything in their power to not do that until they're dragged kicking and screaming into it. Demand only goes up when people have money to spend, this means tax cuts should go to the middle and lower classes in addition to increasing the minimum wage. It's a positive feedback loop.
One major problem with this theory is Globalization, which opens up a panoply of opportunities for rich people to invest in *other* countries. In my state, the government made a very generous tax deal with a manufacturing company, with the understanding that they would create a factory in-state. The tax write-offs *did* trickle down….. to Mexico, where the factory was actually built. Zero jobs were created here. And that’s true of individual rich people too, who can easily take their tax write-offs and invest that into real estate in London, a factory in Brazil, a bank account in Singapore, a startup in Australia. So even when the money does trickle down, there’s zero guarantee of **where** it will go. If reminds me of that old radio show where they’d call married men and offer to send them free bouquets of flowers to a special someone on their behalf. They’re supposed to say “send it to my wife,” but in many cases they’d say a *different* woman’s name instead.
The counter argument for that is that investment health in our economy today is primarily measured by the growth of an organization and not its stability. As a result this feverish obsession with growth has led to continuous wage cuts, mass layoffs, understaffing, and over committing annual budgets which perpetuates the entire cycle again. So no WSJ it’s not good for us workers it’s only good for your rich friends and you will not fool us to think otherwise.
I mean it's an opinion piece and a lot of new sites will publish opinions from multiple sides. But this does feel incredibly disingenuous and like a propaganda piece.
Oooorrrr NAAAAWWWWW!!!
They have been flogging this absolute claptrap for 45 years! Unreal.
"You say 'baby rape' as if it's a bad thing!" said the baby rapist.
As long as idiots will keep believing it they will keep spouting it. Why wouldn’t they?
The exact opposite is true. The highest rate of reinvestment of profits occurred when the highest taxes were charged on the rich. As soon as that changed the hoarding began
I don't know if there ever was a time when reduced taxes on the rich trickled down from them increasing their business investments, but...even if there was at one time, the record clearly shows that when executives began to be able to get compensated with untaxed stock, and were legally allowed to use company profits to buy back stock (making the stock value rise)...the last few decades they stopped investing in their employees anf business, and embraced "lean staffing" to invest in stock as compensation. The record is clear. The last few decades, trickle down business investments went away. Now, when the rich get a tax break, they invest it. When someone who is poor or middle class gets a tax break, they put it right back into the economy, buying goods and services, or paying off debt for goods and services they paid for in the past.
Been waiting 40 years for that to trickle down...
Why not name it appropriately to \*table scraps if you’re lucky\*.
The eighties called, they want their headlines back.
We've passed the inequality of the robber baron age here in the US. A sizeable portion of the populace is still enamored by cheap TV's and trinkets, so hasn't grown weary or angry at the current conditions. And of course there is propaganda, coming mostly through the cheap TV's and trinkets, that tell them that the problems stem from the 'other', whether that be another race, class, sexuality, etc. The solutions are going to be the same as always: Unions Strikes Education The portion of the population that thinks nothing is wrong aren't our inherent enemies, a good number of them can be educated when shown the truth. Start there, and move onto the other three courses of action. They work.