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Will Rogers and Al Sharpton on the Conservatives' Supply-Side Economics

Glen Contrarian

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I'm no fan of Al Sharpton, but he got it right when he said, ""I first heard it when Ronald Reagan went in, 1980. We in the twenty-first century. How long are we gonna wait for the trickle? I mean we been waiting, and waiting, and waiting. It never got down to us. Thirty years later, we got the down, but we never got the trickle."

Back in 1932, Will Rogers pointed out why this is: "The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands.”

That's what those who support extremely low taxes don't get - the rich aren't going to hurt either way...but when taxes are higher and those taxes are used to build our nation's infrastructure in everything from education to roads to electrical grids to helping the sick and disadvantaged, the people become better off, and the nation becomes stronger as a whole...and as Will Rogers pointed out, the people will have the money again soon enough anyway - but at least it will have passed through the poor fellow's hands.
 
Yeah, becasue a tenth grade dropout and racist crook huckster are exactly the two we should be listening to for economic advice. :mrgreen:
 
I'm no fan of Al Sharpton, but he got it right when he said, ""I first heard it when Ronald Reagan went in, 1980. We in the twenty-first century. How long are we gonna wait for the trickle? I mean we been waiting, and waiting, and waiting. It never got down to us. Thirty years later, we got the down, but we never got the trickle."

Back in 1932, Will Rogers pointed out why this is: "The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands.”

That's what those who support extremely low taxes don't get - the rich aren't going to hurt either way...but when taxes are higher and those taxes are used to build our nation's infrastructure in everything from education to roads to electrical grids to helping the sick and disadvantaged, the people become better off, and the nation becomes stronger as a whole...and as Will Rogers pointed out, the people will have the money again soon enough anyway - but at least it will have passed through the poor fellow's hands.

The rich pay 60% of income taxes (more than ever before). 70% of the budget goes to the non rich. So I guess wealth redistribution isn't working either as people are still poor. Trickle down has proof though. The economy has tripled since the 80s. Median income has almost doubled. We have twice as many jobs. Even democrats practice trickle down. Kennedy lowered top tax rates. Clinton signed rate cuts. Obama extended top rates because it would HURT the economy.
 
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The rich pay 60% of income taxes (more than ever before). 70% of the budget goes to the non rich. So I guess wealth redistribution isn't working either as people are still poor. Trickle down has proof though. The economy has tripled since the 80s. Median income has almost doubled. We have twice as many jobs. Even democrats practice trickle down. Kennedy lowered top tax rates. Clinton signed rate cuts. Obama extended top rates because it would HURT the economy.

Really?

Check this graph:

inequality-p25_averagehouseholdincom.jpg

Guy, the Walton family (of Wal-Mart fame) ALONE has more wealth than the bottom forty percent of the American population combined.

It's like this - if you don't like the rich paying 60% of the income taxes, then you'll hate it even more when they have 100% of the wealth, because then they will be paying 100% of the income taxes! If you want the non-rich to pay a greater share of taxes, make sure more money gets into their hands - that way, they'll pay a greater share of taxes.
 
Yeah, becasue a tenth grade dropout and racist crook huckster are exactly the two we should be listening to for economic advice. :mrgreen:

That's called attacking the messenger instead of attacking the message.

If an idiot says 2+2=4, it doesn't matter if he's an idiot - he's still right.
 
Really?

Check this graph:

View attachment 67150719

Guy, the Walton family (of Wal-Mart fame) ALONE has more wealth than the bottom forty percent of the American population combined.

It's like this - if you don't like the rich paying 60% of the income taxes, then you'll hate it even more when they have 100% of the wealth, because then they will be paying 100% of the income taxes! If you want the non-rich to pay a greater share of taxes, make sure more money gets into their hands - that way, they'll pay a greater share of taxes.

They will never have 100% of the income because then they would be the only ones working. Its a false hypothetical. Youre making the common misconception that the total income pie is static, when it isn't. The pie has gotten bigger and so the slice of that pie contains more pie, at every level. Trickle down works because as the economy grows so does everyone share of it. 20% of 13 trillion in 2013 is more than 20% of 7 trillion in 1987.
 
They will never have 100% of the income because then they would be the only ones working. Its a false hypothetical. Youre making the common misconception that the total income pie is static, when it isn't. The pie has gotten bigger and so the slice of that pie contains more pie, at every level. Trickle down works because as the economy grows so does everyone share of it. 20% of 13 trillion in 2013 is more than 20% of 7 trillion in 1987.

Did you not pay any attention at all to the first graph which is in constant 2007 dollars? The income of the bottom sixty percent has hardly budged at all...whereas the income of the top 40 percent has improved, and the income of the top 1% has skyrocketed...

...and as the second graph shows, the share of the economic pie that belongs to the rich has (with a couple speed bumps along the way) only gotten larger, whereas that of the lower income groups has shrunk.

Those in and of themselves should make it obvious to you that if a taxation system stays relatively stable - as ours (as crappy as it is) has since Reagan took a meat ax to it - if the income of the rich increases significantly more relative to that of the middle-class and poor, then YES, they will pay a higher percentage of the nation's tax revenue as a result.
 
Did you not pay any attention at all to the first graph which is in constant 2007 dollars? The income of the bottom sixty percent has hardly budged at all...whereas the income of the top 40 percent has improved, and the income of the top 1% has skyrocketed...

...and as the second graph shows, the share of the economic pie that belongs to the rich has (with a couple speed bumps along the way) only gotten larger, whereas that of the lower income groups has shrunk.

Those in and of themselves should make it obvious to you that if a taxation system stays relatively stable - as ours (as crappy as it is) has since Reagan took a meat ax to it - if the income of the rich increases significantly more relative to that of the middle-class and poor, then YES, they will pay a higher percentage of the nation's tax revenue as a result.

Did you not pay attention to what I said? While the SHARE of income has not budged. The SIZE of the income has. Your second graph is meaningless because it is a relative change in a relative number. Youre just using graphs to make the change seem larger than it is. The question was whether trickle down economics works. The fact that lower tax rates on the rich have caused an increase in GDP is proof that it has. The rich are richer, and so is everyone else.
 
Did you not pay attention to what I said? While the SHARE of income has not budged. The SIZE of the income has. Your second graph is meaningless because it is a relative change in a relative number. Youre just using graphs to make the change seem larger than it is. The question was whether trickle down economics works. The fact that lower tax rates on the rich have caused an increase in GDP is proof that it has. The rich are richer, and so is everyone else.

No it hasn't, the first graph is in constant 2007 dollars, the bottom lines didn't rise much to me? There household incomes adjusted to inflation have stayed pretty much the same?
 
No it hasn't, the first graph is in constant 2007 dollars, the bottom lines didn't rise much to me? There household incomes adjusted to inflation have stayed pretty much the same?

So it's okay with you if things only get better for the rich? What's wrong with things getting better for everyone?
 
Things are getting better for the rich under Obama, under his job killing policies, under Bernake's pumping.

Wealth stratification is more prevalent now than ever, and instead of attempting to understand why, ( which your marriage to a corrupt ideology prevents ) you try and justify down what's essentially theft.

Delicious irony. The rich getting richer under a far left President. Well, of-course they are.
 
So it's okay with you if things only get better for the rich? What's wrong with things getting better for everyone?

Things are getting better for everyone who tries. Share of total income has nothing to do with that. The proof is in that fact that the richest people in the US are first generation rich. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Larry Ellison, the top 3 richest people in the US, all started poor or middle class. This example is repeated up and down the income ladder. My parents were lower middle class, their parents poor, my sister and I are solid middle class. The only way to increase your income is to go out and work. Trickle down allows EVERYONE to keep more of what they earn.
 
" The rich are getting richer" is one of those hackneyed cliches which does not survive scrutiny. It implies that Jon Doe the rich person , got richer.

We don't know that. We only know quintiles. Studies have sugeested that individuals move ina out and out of th etop brackets at a much more robust rate than most think. I think rappers, athletes , models , and reality tv stars alone would account for a fair amount of volatility
 
Trickle-down is actually advocated by the left. They believe that taxing everyone, especially the evil rich, and giving government the money will eventually cause it to come trickling-down to the poor, raising them up. The reality is that money taken by the government is just poured into more bureaucracy which increases its power at the expense of society. The poor stay poor and the rich still get richer. That pretty much sums up the whole of human history.
 
That's called attacking the messenger instead of attacking the message.

If an idiot says 2+2=4, it doesn't matter if he's an idiot - he's still right.

In this case? Nonsense. Both men are sloganizing. That's what they do.
 
Trickle-down is actually advocated by the left. They believe that taxing everyone, especially the evil rich, and giving government the money will eventually cause it to come trickling-down to the poor, raising them up. The reality is that money taken by the government is just poured into more bureaucracy which increases its power at the expense of society. The poor stay poor and the rich still get richer. That pretty much sums up the whole of human history.

It is ironic that it can mean the same thing. BUt technically that wealth resdistribution, not trickle down.
 
That's called attacking the messenger instead of attacking the message.

If an idiot says 2+2=4, it doesn't matter if he's an idiot - he's still right.

A lot of that goes on here.
 
It is ironic that it can mean the same thing. BUt technically that wealth resdistribution, not trickle down.

Only because of the way it has been defined politically to advance an agenda.
 
So it's okay with you if things only get better for the rich? What's wrong with things getting better for everyone?

No I'm agreeing with you! Why is everyone's income staying the same (Except for very rich), but the economys growing?
 
Delicious irony. The rich getting richer under a far left President. Well, of-course they are.

The rich are getting richer under a "slightly left" president in my eyes, and not to mention the rest of the bureaucrats that allow huge corporations to get subsidies, and generous tax breaks, while some people and businesses are getting smothered. The low interest rates should really be spurring investment, but there's a lack of confidence due to the fact we have media that is scaring people in to thinking the president is some sort of anti-christ, and a congress that is inefficient and unpredictable. So now they can keep all that money in the stock market where they are profiting huge.
 
Trickle-down is actually advocated by the left. They believe that taxing everyone, especially the evil rich, and giving government the money will eventually cause it to come trickling-down to the poor, raising them up. The reality is that money taken by the government is just poured into more bureaucracy which increases its power at the expense of society. The poor stay poor and the rich still get richer. That pretty much sums up the whole of human history.

Then explain how the rate of poverty was cut in half in the sixties, cumulating with the advent of LBJ's Great Society. I mean, if that was all smoke and mirrors, explain how things got consistently better when taxes were much higher...and why there's been precious little improvement for those not already rich ever since Reagan slashed taxes in 1981.
 
Things are getting better for the rich under Obama, under his job killing policies, under Bernake's pumping.

Wealth stratification is more prevalent now than ever, and instead of attempting to understand why, ( which your marriage to a corrupt ideology prevents ) you try and justify down what's essentially theft.

Delicious irony. The rich getting richer under a far left President. Well, of-course they are.

Actually, we're STILL under Reaganomics. We still have tax rates that are half that of what we had in the 1960's and 1970's, and a little over a third of that we had in the 1950's. Reagan slashed the tax rates, and our tax rates have never recoverd since. Before Reagan, income growth was roughly equal among all the different income levels...but after Reagan, the bottom sixty percent has stayed stagnant in constant dollars, while the income of the rich has soared.

And we Democrats do share some of the blame, specifically Bill Clinton, who opened up NAFTA (and Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound" turned out to be true) and got rid of Glass-Steagal - he owns that decision because he signed off on it, even though the repeal was passed with a veto-proof majority of Congress (both houses of which were controlled by the Republicans).
 
Actually, we're STILL under Reaganomics. We still have tax rates that are half that of what we had in the 1960's and 1970's, and a little over a third of that we had in the 1950's. Reagan slashed the tax rates, and our tax rates have never recoverd since. Before Reagan, income growth was roughly equal among all the different income levels...but after Reagan, the bottom sixty percent has stayed stagnant in constant dollars, while the income of the rich has soared.

And we Democrats do share some of the blame, specifically Bill Clinton, who opened up NAFTA (and Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound" turned out to be true) and got rid of Glass-Steagal - he owns that decision because he signed off on it, even though the repeal was passed with a veto-proof majority of Congress (both houses of which were controlled by the Republicans).

The question remains, so what? Why does it matter if someone has more money than someone else?
 
The question remains, so what? Why does it matter if someone has more money than someone else?

Are you kidding me that is what Capitalism is all about.

People were asked would you rather have $50 if everyone else had $25 or $100 if everyone else had $200.

Almost everyone asked said they would rather have $50 even though it is less because having more then someone else is better.
 
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