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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.

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.