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... what is the problem here? Investment is being made and people are better off for it. Isn't this how trickle down works?

asutekku 6y ago
Only if you think it purely in cold hard economic terms and believe trickle down economics is a real thing.
- waynesonfire 6y ago
  I don't know if I "believe" in trickle down, but it seems like this is whats happening. Are people not better off that money has moved from someones bank vault into employment?
  - _jal 6y ago
    The trickle-down theory is not a claim that rich peoples' money flows to less-rich people. (And claiming the opposite would be absurd; rich people do not permanently take money out of circulation.) The trickle-down theory posits that the best way to get money to poor people is to flatter the rich with more money. It is a goofy excuse for tax cuts. About the only positive feature it has is that it is useful for detecting the economically gullible.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      “Best” needs to be qualified here. The simplest/fastest way to get money to poor people is to just give it to them. If you do that, what happens that’s good and what happens that’s bad? Another route is to support private employment (what trickle-down seems to be seeking). If you do that, what happens that’s good and what happens that’s bad? Unsurprisingly, people who prefer the government to be more powerful and more directly involved in economic outcomes of people tend to prefer the former. People who prefer a government with less power and less direct involvement tend to prefer the latter.
      - verall 6y ago
        Trickle down doesn't support private employment, it just enriches wealth holders. Lowering cap gains taxes isn't convincing any new rich people to throw more money in the investment pool, it's just increasing the amount margin that capital can extract. Returns are so low that rich people just throw the money they make back into the market anyways, but now we have a ton of capital anyways chasing little returns, which creates speculative asset bubbles.
        sokoloff 6y ago
        It’s certainly theoretically possible that people generally don’t consider the effects of taxes and after-tax returns in the inter-linked areas of investing, employment, and new business formation activities, but that doesn’t match my own personal experience nor the behavior of others I see making those decisions. I find it incredibly hard to believe that increasing the amount by which we tax away the prospective rewards of being successful in a business doesn’t have a negative effect on propensity to form new or expand existing businesses.
ianai 6y ago
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399 https://www.npr.org/2021/02/25/971215788/biden-administration-poised-to-release-report-on-killing-of-jamal-khashoggi https://www.npr.org/2021/02/25/971215788/biden-administratio...
simonh 6y ago
The problem is these companies often claim liberal, progressive values and that they are forces for social good. On the other hand they are flattering and fawning to a murdering oppressive brute in person. It's an exasperating situation to be in. We need Saudi oil so we need to be able to work with them, but they are a grievous threat to freedoms and civil society globally. It's not just MBS either, look at the way gulf rulers have their daughters abducted off the streets of England or international waters and locked and drugged up. Yet the livelihoods of millions of westerners depend on these people. Shunning them completely isn't practical, nor is turning away their money in every case, but that doesn't mean bowing and scraping to them is acceptable.
- waynesonfire 6y ago
  I see, that's a fair argument. Thanks missed that from the article which at the surface seemed to me like a great thing.
- cheaprentalyeti 6y ago
  Look, speaking as someone who had a customer in the area in 2010 who kept me alive... as in, their contracts kept me from homelessness... the US government in 2011 under Barack Obama supported a putsch against the government of Egypt in an attempt to turn the country over to the Moslem Brotherhood, which led to about 1300 deaths in Egypt on both sides at the time. In addition it cost my customer his business. The Arab world is split between groups that are basically catspaws for making the place a satrapy of Iran, and those that don't. What we tried to do in Egypt, what we did do in Libya, and what we paid the Iranians in 2015 greatly accelerated this. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Syria as Iran reestablished control. WITH US MONEY. And this wasn't done by the Orange Man Bad, it was done by Barack Hussein Obama, the guy who everyone thinks was healing all the rifts in the world. Please keep all of those conflicts (the ones in Syria and Libya are ongoing right now) in mind when you hear about what a tragic martyr Khasshogi was. It's just part of the Gleichschaltung and the poeple who generated it have plenty of blood on their hands themselves. (And even bombed, at the end of this week, the 'rebels' they funded with their payment to Iran back in 2015). Gleichschaltung: it's a hell of a drug.
sillysaurusx 6y ago
Unfortunate to see you buried for asking a simple question (that I also had). So, take an upvote from me, for what it's worth. Either way, thanks for taking a hit for those of us wondering what the issue was. The capitalist mentality is becoming deeply unpopular, and I'm curious to see how it will play out. It no longer seems "okay" in a certain sense to simply focus on the money without considering the ethical implications. I remember this kind of thing being an issue several years ago, when a certain Russian investor was courting a lot of unicorns and offering some pretty incredible termsheets that you'd be foolish to turn down.

asutekku 6y ago

Only if you think it purely in cold hard economic terms and believe trickle down economics is a real thing.

waynesonfire 6y ago
I don't know if I "believe" in trickle down, but it seems like this is whats happening. Are people not better off that money has moved from someones bank vault into employment?
- _jal 6y ago
  The trickle-down theory is not a claim that rich peoples' money flows to less-rich people. (And claiming the opposite would be absurd; rich people do not permanently take money out of circulation.) The trickle-down theory posits that the best way to get money to poor people is to flatter the rich with more money. It is a goofy excuse for tax cuts. About the only positive feature it has is that it is useful for detecting the economically gullible.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    “Best” needs to be qualified here. The simplest/fastest way to get money to poor people is to just give it to them. If you do that, what happens that’s good and what happens that’s bad? Another route is to support private employment (what trickle-down seems to be seeking). If you do that, what happens that’s good and what happens that’s bad? Unsurprisingly, people who prefer the government to be more powerful and more directly involved in economic outcomes of people tend to prefer the former. People who prefer a government with less power and less direct involvement tend to prefer the latter.
    - verall 6y ago
      Trickle down doesn't support private employment, it just enriches wealth holders. Lowering cap gains taxes isn't convincing any new rich people to throw more money in the investment pool, it's just increasing the amount margin that capital can extract. Returns are so low that rich people just throw the money they make back into the market anyways, but now we have a ton of capital anyways chasing little returns, which creates speculative asset bubbles.
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        It’s certainly theoretically possible that people generally don’t consider the effects of taxes and after-tax returns in the inter-linked areas of investing, employment, and new business formation activities, but that doesn’t match my own personal experience nor the behavior of others I see making those decisions. I find it incredibly hard to believe that increasing the amount by which we tax away the prospective rewards of being successful in a business doesn’t have a negative effect on propensity to form new or expand existing businesses.

ianai 6y ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399 https://www.npr.org/2021/02/25/971215788/biden-administration-poised-to-release-report-on-killing-of-jamal-khashoggi https://www.npr.org/2021/02/25/971215788/biden-administratio...

simonh 6y ago

The problem is these companies often claim liberal, progressive values and that they are forces for social good. On the other hand they are flattering and fawning to a murdering oppressive brute in person. It's an exasperating situation to be in. We need Saudi oil so we need to be able to work with them, but they are a grievous threat to freedoms and civil society globally. It's not just MBS either, look at the way gulf rulers have their daughters abducted off the streets of England or international waters and locked and drugged up. Yet the livelihoods of millions of westerners depend on these people. Shunning them completely isn't practical, nor is turning away their money in every case, but that doesn't mean bowing and scraping to them is acceptable.

waynesonfire 6y ago
I see, that's a fair argument. Thanks missed that from the article which at the surface seemed to me like a great thing.
cheaprentalyeti 6y ago
Look, speaking as someone who had a customer in the area in 2010 who kept me alive... as in, their contracts kept me from homelessness... the US government in 2011 under Barack Obama supported a putsch against the government of Egypt in an attempt to turn the country over to the Moslem Brotherhood, which led to about 1300 deaths in Egypt on both sides at the time. In addition it cost my customer his business. The Arab world is split between groups that are basically catspaws for making the place a satrapy of Iran, and those that don't. What we tried to do in Egypt, what we did do in Libya, and what we paid the Iranians in 2015 greatly accelerated this. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Syria as Iran reestablished control. WITH US MONEY. And this wasn't done by the Orange Man Bad, it was done by Barack Hussein Obama, the guy who everyone thinks was healing all the rifts in the world. Please keep all of those conflicts (the ones in Syria and Libya are ongoing right now) in mind when you hear about what a tragic martyr Khasshogi was. It's just part of the Gleichschaltung and the poeple who generated it have plenty of blood on their hands themselves. (And even bombed, at the end of this week, the 'rebels' they funded with their payment to Iran back in 2015). Gleichschaltung: it's a hell of a drug.

sillysaurusx 6y ago

Unfortunate to see you buried for asking a simple question (that I also had). So, take an upvote from me, for what it's worth. Either way, thanks for taking a hit for those of us wondering what the issue was. The capitalist mentality is becoming deeply unpopular, and I'm curious to see how it will play out. It no longer seems "okay" in a certain sense to simply focus on the money without considering the ethical implications. I remember this kind of thing being an issue several years ago, when a certain Russian investor was courting a lot of unicorns and offering some pretty incredible termsheets that you'd be foolish to turn down.