Trickle-Up Economics?

[Jarhyn]

That only makes sense if you believe that all wealth just is and is not created by individuals and further that the wealth belongs to the U.S. government and it is the job of the government to determine how to pass it out.

Reality is that the government does not give that money to the already rich but a tax cut just confiscates less of the wealth that they create each year.

Assuming that wealth was created in a vacuum, outside of the country/infrastructure/labour force that played a massive role in creating that wealth.

Well then, do you feel the labor force's wages belong to the government, and it is the job of the government to determine how to pass them out? The workers didn't create that wealth in a vacuum either, outside of the country/infrastructure/capitalists that played a massive role in creating that wealth.

The wealth created by economic activity is produced synergistically by the combined actions of labor, management, owners, suppliers and customers. They all receive more than they contribute. The notion that someone who prospered that way needs to "give back" is zero-sum-game thinking and has it precisely backwards. By participating in the productive process, he has already given back -- and he's given back more than he received.

No, it doesn't belong to government, it belongs to the society that makes the rules and infrastructure and which has the power to negotiate on behalf of labor, to offset the asymmetrical power balance between corporations and labor. Oh. Wait. Yeah. I guess that's a part of what we call "government".

 

[SimpleDon]

View attachment 19822

But seriously - this seems to me like a win-win, at least as far as a political platform. And it certainly lends some scale to the size of Trump's tax giveaway.
But just hypothetically - what would the effects be? Assume that the payout would be around $100k/yr over ten years. Seems to me that it would stimulate the economy a lot more than directly fattening the wallets of Trump's buddies. At the end of the day, it would probably benefit those same people just as much - if not more so - than Trump's scheme.
Thoughts?

Trump's tax cut was a tax cut for the corporations and ultimately for the already rich of the world. These tax cuts were supposed to increase the amount of money available to invest. But they don't.

These tax cuts have little impact on the economy.

Tax cuts for the rich whether for the corporations or for individuals can't increase the amount of money available for investment because under existing laws the treasury has to sell bonds to cover the deficits caused by the loss in revenue from the tax cuts. These bonds are bought with money that is available for investment. The net impact on the funds available for investment from the tax cuts is a wash, zero increase.

What it does do is to increase the national debt. And it increases the wealth of the already wealthy. The corporations have more money than they did before and the owners of the government bonds have an instrument that matches dollar for dollar with the cash that they had previously. The federal government's debt has created wealth equal to the amount of the tax cuts without impacting the economy very much.

It grows the wealth of the already wealthy without growing the economy. A neoliberal wet dream.

 

[Bomb#20]

Well then, do you feel the labor force's wages belong to the government, and it is the job of the government to determine how to pass them out? The workers didn't create that wealth in a vacuum either, outside of the country/infrastructure/capitalists that played a massive role in creating that wealth. ...

No, it doesn't belong to government, it belongs to the society that makes the rules and infrastructure and which has the power to negotiate on behalf of labor, to offset the asymmetrical power balance between corporations and labor. Oh. Wait. Yeah. I guess that's a part of what we call "government".

So a worker's wages belong not to her but to society, and it's society's job to determine how much of them to pass out to her. That makes society her de facto employer. And it's society that has the power to negotiate on her behalf. That makes society her de facto union. So in this model, the employer takes it on itself to be the union. Well, it certainly makes negotiating simpler when the same entity handles both sides of the negotiation.

There's a reason societies that abolish private ownership of the means of production invariably ban independent labor unions.

 

[Elixir]

....societies that abolish private ownership of the means of production invariably ban independent labor unions.

As do private owners of means of production.

 

[JohnG]

Well then, do you feel the labor force's wages belong to the government, and it is the job of the government to determine how to pass them out?

I have no problem giving a percentage of my wages to a system that puts it into programs of value to the society in which I live. And yes, it's the governments job - that's why we vote.

I don't have time to research the causes and costs of poverty and how best to implement the tax dollars to solve this. But I will vote for people who take this kind of thing seriously, and give the middle finger to the politicians who do not.

Trickle down economics is great for off-shore bankers. It does less than zero for the society that believes in it.

 

[Bomb#20]

....societies that abolish private ownership of the means of production invariably ban independent labor unions.

As do private owners of means of production.

What planet do you live on, one where only government employees have unions? Here on Earth, vast numbers of privately owned companies all over the capitalist world employ union labor.

In contrast, the first time a collective-ownership country decided to tolerate the existence of an independent labor union, it brought down the entire Soviet empire.

 

[Bomb#20]

Well then, do you feel the labor force's wages belong to the government, and it is the job of the government to determine how to pass them out?

I have no problem giving a percentage of my wages to a system that puts it into programs of value to the society in which I live. And yes, it's the governments job - that's why we vote.

I don't have time to research the causes and costs of poverty and how best to implement the tax dollars to solve this. But I will vote for people who take this kind of thing seriously,...

That's all fine; but that's not the issue in dispute -- nobody in this thread raised any objection to the government taking a percentage and using it to reduce poverty. Read the question again, and read your own answer. You said it yourself: "I have no problem giving a percentage of my wages...". That's a citizen giving money to the government.

What ZiprHead and skepticalbip were arguing about when you stepped in was whether the government was giving money to a citizen. ZiprHead said a tax-cut was the government giving money to a citizen. skepticalbip said that's not the government giving money to a citizen; a tax-cut is the citizen giving money to the government, just not as much as the year before. He's not saying the already rich shouldn't have to give a percentage of their income to support anti-poverty programs, just like you and me. All of us who have more than enough income to live on need to do our parts. All skepticalbip is advocating here is that we shouldn't spread lies about who is giving and who is receiving. When people recite the meme that a tax-cut is a "giveaway", they're passing on a lie that went half way round the world before the truth got its boots on.

So, supposing you help build a car in exchange for a $30 wage, after which you have $24 of it and the government has $6 of it, the question in dispute is, what just happened? Did you give 20% of your wages to a system that puts your money into programs of value, just like you said? That's also what skepticalbip says happened; that's also what I say happened. We three appear to be in violent agreement. Or, contrarily, did the government actually give you $24? That's what the "the wealth belongs to the government and it is the job of the government to determine how to pass it out" theory says happened. That's the theory the "A tax-cut is a giveaway" meme is relying on.

 

[untermensche]

....societies that abolish private ownership of the means of production invariably ban independent labor unions.

As do private owners of means of production.

What planet do you live on, one where only government employees have unions? Here on Earth, vast numbers of privately owned companies all over the capitalist world employ union labor.

In contrast, the first time a collective-ownership country decided to tolerate the existence of an independent labor union, it brought down the entire Soviet empire.

The capitalists in the US have crushed the labor unions. Some last but much less than in the past.



https://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-union-membership-in-the-u-s-falls-below-12-in-2010-for-the-first-time/

 

[Bomb#20]

....societies that abolish private ownership of the means of production invariably ban independent labor unions.

As do private owners of means of production.

What planet do you live on, one where only government employees have unions? Here on Earth, vast numbers of privately owned companies all over the capitalist world employ union labor.

In contrast, the first time a collective-ownership country decided to tolerate the existence of an independent labor union, it brought down the entire Soviet empire.

The capitalists in the US have crushed the labor unions. Some last but much less than in the past.

And you think your graph shows that? Maybe it only shows that unions are the victims of their own success -- they've gotten employers to generally treat employees so much better than in the past that most employees don't feel they need a union any more. Capitalists still have no authority to crush labor unions. Unions are still legal. Reprisals against union organizers are still illegal. 11.9% is still millions and millions of workers who wouldn't be in unions if private owners of means of production invariably banned them as Elixir claims. Maybe this is just what victory looks like.

But let's say it isn't. You're suggesting that the drop from 32% was a bad thing, yes? Well, that's a plausible contention. Let's say you're right. Let's say the decline isn't because there isn't as much need as before. Let's say there's plenty of progress yet to be made. Let's say Americans would be better off back at 32%, or 50%, or maybe even 68%.

Well then, get out there and help organize a union! If the drop in unionization is a bad thing, then why are you here, constantly arguing for a form of economic organization -- abolition of private ownership -- that in country after country has held the unionization rate at zero?

 

[TV and credit cards]

By and large they'll just end up broke, but not until after they dutifully place that money in the hands of those who are capable of not only obtaining it themselves but the much harder part of retaining it. Poor people are poor for a reason. And I don't think it is so much a lack of opportunity as it is being trained from birth that what we all want, what we really all want is to accumulate a mountain of useless shit. Seventy eight percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Seventy percent of lottery winners are broke in three to five years. Heaping cash on people is not the answer. Giving people who would otherwise work fifteen dollar an hour jobs for the remainder of their days an extra $100k a years will by and large just create misery for them.

Tax high income. Provide good social services. Give people jobs, even useless ones.

 

[angelo]

Why only give one in a hundred and forty a million dollars? Why not everyone?

Because the giveaway pot is "only" $1,500,000,000,000.00 shared among 1.4m taxpayers... plenty left over to build a pointless WALL.

But what would the impact look like?

That didn't really answer. Why not a pot 140 times larger?

Venezuela did even better. They made every Venezuelan a multi-millionaire. So did Zimbabwe for its citizens.

The problem was that one needed a million just to buy a loaf of bread, if they could find one!

 

[angelo]

What planet do you live on, one where only government employees have unions? Here on Earth, vast numbers of privately owned companies all over the capitalist world employ union labor.

In contrast, the first time a collective-ownership country decided to tolerate the existence of an independent labor union, it brought down the entire Soviet empire.

The capitalists in the US have crushed the labor unions. Some last but much less than in the past.

View attachment 20004

https://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-union-membership-in-the-u-s-falls-below-12-in-2010-for-the-first-time/

Could it be that unions and their thuggery have become irrelevant in the past few of decades? Here in Australia, it's around the same figure, and most of those are public servants!

 

[untermensche]

Could it be that unions and their thuggery have become irrelevant in the past few of decades? Here in Australia, it's around the same figure, and most of those are public servants!

Capitalists are thugs. Violent oppressive thugs.

Unions are nothing but a mechanism to achieve more equal negotiations between capitalist masters and workers trapped in a capitalist system.

Unfortunately dealing with a monster (capitalists) caused many unions to look liked capitalists in response.

Unions were nothing but a bandaid for the inequities and injustice of capitalism. They were never a cure. There is no cure for human greed and the desire to live like a parasite off the labor of others.

And they have been systematically and illegally crushed. Some of it was just moving union operations making a nice profit overseas so capitalist scum could make more but more importantly so any means of fair negotiation with workers is swept away.

They are as needed today as much as ever. They will always be needed in a top down system run by thugs.

And unions were always the only way working people advanced.

As the unions have died so has the middle class.

 

[bilby]

By and large they'll just end up broke, but not until after they dutifully place that money in the hands of those who are capable of not only obtaining it themselves but the much harder part of retaining it. Poor people are poor for a reason. And I don't think it is so much a lack of opportunity as it is being trained from birth that what we all want, what we really all want is to accumulate a mountain of useless shit. Seventy eight percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Seventy percent of lottery winners are broke in three to five years. Heaping cash on people is not the answer. Giving people who would otherwise work fifteen dollar an hour jobs for the remainder of their days an extra $100k a years will by and large just create misery for them.

Tax high income. Provide good social services. Give people jobs, even useless ones.

People don't need jobs; They need an income. If that's derived from a useful job, that's great. But useless jobs are a waste of everyone's resources. Far better to pay people the wage, and then let them decide how to fill their time, than to insist that they do some useless and meaningless task in exchange for it.

 

[TV and credit cards]

By and large they'll just end up broke, but not until after they dutifully place that money in the hands of those who are capable of not only obtaining it themselves but the much harder part of retaining it. Poor people are poor for a reason. And I don't think it is so much a lack of opportunity as it is being trained from birth that what we all want, what we really all want is to accumulate a mountain of useless shit. Seventy eight percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Seventy percent of lottery winners are broke in three to five years. Heaping cash on people is not the answer. Giving people who would otherwise work fifteen dollar an hour jobs for the remainder of their days an extra $100k a years will by and large just create misery for them.

Tax high income. Provide good social services. Give people jobs, even useless ones.

People don't need jobs; They need an income. If that's derived from a useful job, that's great. But useless jobs are a waste of everyone's resources. Far better to pay people the wage, and then let them decide how to fill their time, than to insist that they do some useless and meaningless task in exchange for it.

"Useless". Poor choice of words. Maybe superfluous, redundant, or excessive.
With a stronger tax base, positions can be created in all the nice to have stuff society is not currently willing to pay for like better maintaining infrastructure. Having more people performing those government jobs that are first to be cut in the budget. I'm sure Fish and Wildlife, Geological Survey, Land Management, etc. could benefit from having more people. I'd greatly expand services for the elderly to help them stay in their homes. Not just from a medical standpoint but even in chores they can no longer do or afford to have done for them. Government can employ a wide spectrum of individuals to better serve society as a whole. Maybe I'm only seeing the ugly side of things but with just giving people money and letting people decide for themselves, we'd be having to focus more of our social services on the ills of society. I wonder, if given enough money to do so, how many people would choose to do little more than eat, drink, and be merry all day long?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What planet do you live on, one where only government employees have unions? Here on Earth, vast numbers of privately owned companies all over the capitalist world employ union labor.

In contrast, the first time a collective-ownership country decided to tolerate the existence of an independent labor union, it brought down the entire Soviet empire.

The capitalists in the US have crushed the labor unions. Some last but much less than in the past.

View attachment 20004

https://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-union-membership-in-the-u-s-falls-below-12-in-2010-for-the-first-time/

More like the unions have destroyed their companies.

Union membership is so low because union companies can't compete against non-union companies. Only when non-union competition isn't possible is there any appreciable union presence in today's labor force.

 

[untermensche]

What planet do you live on, one where only government employees have unions? Here on Earth, vast numbers of privately owned companies all over the capitalist world employ union labor.

In contrast, the first time a collective-ownership country decided to tolerate the existence of an independent labor union, it brought down the entire Soviet empire.

The capitalists in the US have crushed the labor unions. Some last but much less than in the past.

View attachment 20004

https://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-union-membership-in-the-u-s-falls-below-12-in-2010-for-the-first-time/

More like the unions have destroyed their companies.

Union membership is so low because union companies can't compete against non-union companies. Only when non-union competition isn't possible is there any appreciable union presence in today's labor force.

Total unsupported bullshit.

Union membership is low because the unions have been attacked and are losing.

They have been decimated by moving jobs elsewhere.

Unions are the crucial thing that created the American middle class. It never would have existed without them.

When 33% of the working population is a member of a union their activity raises the pay of many other workers.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

More like the unions have destroyed their companies.

Union membership is so low because union companies can't compete against non-union companies. Only when non-union competition isn't possible is there any appreciable union presence in today's labor force.

Total unsupported bullshit.

Union membership is low because the unions have been attacked and are losing.

They have been decimated by moving jobs elsewhere.

Unions are the crucial thing that created the American middle class. It never would have existed without them.

When 33% of the working population is a member of a union their activity raises the pay of many other workers.

Earth to untermensche: Jobs moving elsewhere is a form of not being able to compete against non-union companies!

 

[angelo]

Could it be that unions and their thuggery have become irrelevant in the past few of decades? Here in Australia, it's around the same figure, and most of those are public servants!

Capitalists are thugs. Violent oppressive thugs.

Unions are nothing but a mechanism to achieve more equal negotiations between capitalist masters and workers trapped in a capitalist system.

Unfortunately dealing with a monster (capitalists) caused many unions to look liked capitalists in response.

Unions were nothing but a bandaid for the inequities and injustice of capitalism. They were never a cure. There is no cure for human greed and the desire to live like a parasite off the labor of others.

And they have been systematically and illegally crushed. Some of it was just moving union operations making a nice profit overseas so capitalist scum could make more but more importantly so any means of fair negotiation with workers is swept away.

They are as needed today as much as ever. They will always be needed in a top down system run by thugs.

And unions were always the only way working people advanced.

As the unions have died so has the middle class.

Gee, you must be truly grieving the demise of Soviet Russia! perhaps you should stop and give a thought to why it collapsed!

 

[untermensche]

More like the unions have destroyed their companies.

Union membership is so low because union companies can't compete against non-union companies. Only when non-union competition isn't possible is there any appreciable union presence in today's labor force.

Total unsupported bullshit.

Union membership is low because the unions have been attacked and are losing.

They have been decimated by moving jobs elsewhere.

Unions are the crucial thing that created the American middle class. It never would have existed without them.

When 33% of the working population is a member of a union their activity raises the pay of many other workers.

Earth to untermensche: Jobs moving elsewhere is a form of not being able to compete against non-union companies!

Bullshit.

There were no companies in China competing with union companies that were making a profit in the US.

Until scumbags took the capital that workers created and moved there.

Just to get rid of the union.

- - - Updated - - -

Could it be that unions and their thuggery have become irrelevant in the past few of decades? Here in Australia, it's around the same figure, and most of those are public servants!

Capitalists are thugs. Violent oppressive thugs.

Unions are nothing but a mechanism to achieve more equal negotiations between capitalist masters and workers trapped in a capitalist system.

Unfortunately dealing with a monster (capitalists) caused many unions to look liked capitalists in response.

Unions were nothing but a bandaid for the inequities and injustice of capitalism. They were never a cure. There is no cure for human greed and the desire to live like a parasite off the labor of others.

And they have been systematically and illegally crushed. Some of it was just moving union operations making a nice profit overseas so capitalist scum could make more but more importantly so any means of fair negotiation with workers is swept away.

They are as needed today as much as ever. They will always be needed in a top down system run by thugs.

And unions were always the only way working people advanced.

As the unions have died so has the middle class.

Gee, you must be truly grieving the demise of Soviet Russia! perhaps you should stop and give a thought to why it collapsed!

Talk about points sailing miles over the head of somebody!

You addressed nothing.

You are lost in delusion somewhere.