What is it with conservatives and their trickle down utopian theory?

[Xicano]

Here's a post on a forum I like to post from time to time because I sometimes like to engage conservatives. This poster was responding to a post I made about corporations not paying taxes and receiving tax rebates.

If companies can avoid corporate income taxes, they can put more capital back into the company which will help them grow and create more jobs. As they create more jobs, they pay more corporate payroll taxes.

My response:

Sorry but that's just not reality. We have had trickle down economics now for the last 30 years. What has it gotten us? Look around, it doesn't work. Instead it works exactly as I have tried to point out here for several years now. Its nothing but a scheme which concentrates wealth. This is a fact. Wealth distribution numbers over the last 30 years prove this. Do you want to continue to go down the road which ends up looking like Mexico's economy? Because that's the direction this kind of policy steers us to. Where there's a small group of extremely rich people, next to no middle class and where the vast majority of people are at poverty levels.

After 30 years of trickle down economics being a failure. How much longer is it going to take? Until we do look like Mexico's economy?

---

How would you all respond to a trickle down cheerleader?

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. What jobs?

I engage conservatives online also. As soon as they start this bullshit, I ask them "WHAT JOBS?"

Always shuts them up. They have no answer.

[Xicano]

3. Thanks proud2BlibKansan

I forgot about that one.. :)

[jwirr]

25. All those off shore jobs they pay so many taxes on?

:sarcasm:

[BlueJazz]

2. You'll come to the same conclusions that a lot of people find. >>

Republicans are inferior, illogical human beings and are detrimental to the safety and happiness of the Human Race.

[Xicano]

4. LOL Certainly I have no arguments there.

:hi:

[BlueJazz]

6. Can you tell that I (Was) in a shitty mood??

:) :) :)

[HughBeaumont]

5. It's called "My opinions are better than your facts".

http://alstefanelli.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/about-people-who-vote-against-their-own-interests/

Really, they can't possibly pretend to understand how unbelievably silly and idiotic Trickle-On economics is. Reaganomics is a system of belief where others do the thinking and refute logic, reason and history to believe a story. It's kind of like a Bible literalist and much like everything they're taught is right. Poor people are the source of all society's problems. Fair Trade is Protectionism Lite. Democrats are evil enablers who want to take each and every ONE of your rights away. Democrats are for giant government. No poor person ever gave you a job. The USA are ALWAYS the good guys. Peace through strength. If you work really, really, REALLY hard in life, you will become rich.

It's such utter bullshit, living in an insular world where you see your situation as a temporary setback on your way to riches.

[Xicano]

15. Thanks HughBeaumont

I am going to post that. :)

[Ohio Joe]

7. It's a scam

It is played on stupid people and like many other scams, meny people fall for it.

[HughBeaumont]

8. Oh, and if you need to refute them . . .

. . . you can always go here and here.

[Xicano]

16. Thanks again HughBeaumont

I like your links.. :)

[pokerfan]

9. sometimes it's a stream...

[Shandris]

10. It takes a market, a product, an idea, a demand, a service...

...to reinvest. Companies go as long as humanly possible without replacing the slightest thing, even the damn copier machines. But you (said to the imbecile in question, the hypothetical Trickle On believer) think they're going to take handfuls of this money and 'reinvest it'? IN WHAT? These fuckers don't replace FLEET VANS for 10-15 years if they can get away with it. It all goes to the top.

The 'business model' and 'tax model' you support did work, once upon a time -- it worked when the wealthy were taxed so high that it was CHEAPER for them to reinvest. It worked then true small businesses had a legitimate market, product, service, idea, demand, et al to expand INTO. But the modern small business, while still 'called' the Mom & Pop store, is most often not a M&P at all. Your theory, then, that relies on the wealthy being taxed relative to the use they receive from society, has moved beyond the point of being an accurate reflection of reality. The very son of a bitch who popularized it is the one who KILLED it with his 'Capital Gains Tax Cut' mantra.

Edit: stream-of-thought typo

[MH1]

22. Demand is key - no one will invest in building products no one wants to buy

This is why I can't understand how anyone can believe 'supply side' economic theory. It just doesn't make sense.

[Shandris]

23. Yeah. In almost every instance, demand is THE prime driver.

I only mention the others in my list (service, product, etc) in the context of markets that don't exist yet -- primarily, emerging tech markets. They sort of walk the line, since virtually every new tech idea hasn't existed in that format before. Of course, if you conglomerate the entire category into 'technological innovations', then it predictably goes back to demand.

Maybe I should have categorized that a little better. At any rate, yes...on some level, every single one goes back to demand. It's why I don't 'get' supply-side either. It's so demonstrably untrue as to be farcical. :shrug:

[Populist_Prole]

11. This is the issue that pushed me over the edge and made me an ex-GOP-er

Now, what would I say? I would say ( and do say ) that supply-side "trickle down" has been an absolute failure of a policy for 9 out of 10 US citizens.

Back when I was a registered repub, I was somewhat dubious as to the overtly theoretical nature of laissez faire supply side economics, but figured economists knew more than me, and bought their BS.

What I was to find was not all economists were a monolithic bloc, and that those pols or economists that pushed it hardest never seemed to be in a position to be harmed by its ill effects. That enriching the capitalists did not in fact cause them to employ and create demand, but just richened them....full stop. They tried to whitewash over it then, but now? Hell, they'll tell you unabashedly they have every right to game the system to their advantage. That's capitalism blah blah blah............... It's almost conventional wisdom nowadays for capitalists to make money by rent seeking / arbitrage not so much actually running brick and mortar business as a going concern.

As the evidence built up that the working class was getting squeezed, the claims be the economic elite became more strident and dramatic, as they exhorted us to throw away even more good money after bad, and stay the course; that the ill effects us working class types we see and feel is either illusory, or worse yet, inconsequential. That pissed me off.

I could go on and on, but that should do it for now.

[Xicano]

19. Thanks Populist_Prole

Its nice to see someone who's come over from the GOP..

:hi:

[Populist_Prole]

24. I appreciate the welcome. It was a fellow DU-er and co-worker that showed me this site

I was never a die hard type even when I was a repub and I began to hate them long before they were radicalized by the teabaggers. I know others like who feel the same way on economic issues, but still hang on to the GOP by a thread due to a single social issue, or out of some sort of perverse "brand loyalty". I gotta work on them and get 'em to crack.

All the best.

[sendero]

12. They know it is 100% bullshit..

.. they're just selling it to stupid Americans to keep the perpetual shearing going.

[annabanana]

13. Tell them that NO ONE EVER hired a person they didn't need. . . . It's

only when the work load gets too big for the staff, and they're losing money by not being able to keep up. .They and ONLY then will someone get hired.

It's not that hard to figure out.

If the demand is REALLY big, they'll open up new facilities, or sell franchises.. whatever it takes to keep up with the demand.

Trickle down is horseshit now and it always WAS horseshit.

[al_liberal]

14. Case in point:

From "The Huntsville Times" LTE section.

No Robinhood

The March 25 letter by Mr. Robert Bob Nicholson opined that those who earn an income of $250,000 or more should be willing to pay an additional 4 percent in taxes, calling it their "fair share." My household income has never approached $250,000. That said, how can any logical person say that a person with an above-average income should pay a higher percentage of it in taxes?

These individuals already pay much more in actual dollars than most, but can you say that they use more public services than those making less? If so, the difference in services used is marginal at best and more than offset by the increased taxes they pay. What those who think higher income earners should pay more are really saying is that those who are most successful should pay their own share, and also someone else's share. If you truly believe that redistribution of wealth is a good idea, stop trying to hide behind catch phrases like "fair share" and admit you want to take from those who earn and give to those who don't.

Shane F. Knox

Madison, 35756

[Shandris]

18. Just once I'd like to hear what these bastards do to 'earn' it.

Someone give me a definition already. Because from where I sit it usually has to do with kissing a richer person's ass or swindling people.

[saras]

28. You can't make that much money without stealing

It's that simple. Most probably you are stealing from the commons, but you may also be in a position where you can compel people, through the size or power of your company, or through corrupt deals with government, or for other reasons, to pay more for your product or service than it is worth in a hypothetical free market (i.e. where it cost consumers nothing extra to switch to a competitor).

[Skittles]

17. "trickle down" is rich fucks pissing on us

[Xicano]

20. Hey its Skittles..

Nice to see you Skittles.. Hope everything is going good with you.

:)

[Skittles]

21. aw it's OK

I just....feel like I'm living in Bizarro World lately :o

[EC]

26. The only time corps expand and add help

is when there are higher taxes on them and it creates an incentive to invest therefore keeping the worth in assets but not paying taxes on it because it's listed as an expense.

[Mister Ed]

27. Please allow me to debunk a myth for your trickle-down cheerleader correspondents.

Companies are not in business to "create jobs". They never have been.

They are in business to make as much money as they can. If they can make the most money by "creating jobs", then they will. If they can make the most money by doing away with jobs, then they will do that instead.

When we give a company a tax break, "creating jobs" is only one of many, many things they can do with it. They are under no contractual obligation to "create jobs" with it. They can tuck it away in a Swiss bank account, if they want. Or, they might instead use the money to open a new plant overseas, and close their plant in the USA.

They can use the money to bribe politicians to give them even more tax breaks if they want to. They can use it to finance a highly-leveraged buyout of a another company, dismiss its employees, and plunder its assets, if they want to. Heck, they can blow it on coke and high-priced hookers if they want to. It's their money. We gave it to them free and clear.

The right-wingers on the blog must know this is true. Whatever our differences, they surely must agree that companies simply are not in the business of "creating jobs".

[Prophet 451]

29. By dopeslapping them

The creation of jobs has no relationship with how much money a business has on hand. The two have nothing to do with each other. Businesses don't just hire people for the hell of it, they hire exactly the number required to do the work required. If businesses want to expand, they usually use leveraging assets, loans and so on to expand without putting up very much of their money.

[opihimoimoi]

30. History tells us the trickle thingy is passe...there is no trickle up