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Mickey_Finn
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Hmmm I’ve never heard anything positive attributed to Bush senior. I’m not sure how to respond.
ATB
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ATB
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JSSD
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Did the president remove Glass-Steagall or maybe one of the other branches?
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Sunbreak
Guest
No. The wealthy just keep their money and spend it on frivolous things. The real workers get pittance. So giving the wealthy more or the companies more just doesn’t filter down very much to the majority of people.
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stinkcat_14
Guest
I meant it as a joke, but sometimes I wonder if my cat could be a better money manager than some people I know.
Here is a good starting point for an overview of the problem.
object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA703.pdf
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JSSD
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Well, you’d probably be better passively investing in funds. That is true of basically everyone, but even that takes (name removed by moderator)ut.
I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek. “Corporate Welfare” is another perjorative like “trickle down” which is largely meaningless because it can mean so many different things. To say nobody agrees with it doesn’t seem fair, as it proliferates in a variety of ways that so many people benefit from. Additionally, I don’t think “welfare” is accurate, in most cases. $0.02
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Mickey_Finn
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As long as everyone agrees that it needs to be fixed. I think we can move forward with changes.
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TARRAT
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What’s the debate about. When tried it did work. 
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Mickey_Finn
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Glass-Steagall was removed by the Gramm, Leach, Bliley act of 1999. The President signed this into law. Here’s a cute video on this.
youtube.com/watch?v=x0k2PmF-o5Q
ATB
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JSSD
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So that is how legislation works.
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stinkcat_14
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If everyone put money into index funds we would probably be better off as a society. What I am talking about is the people who did a cash out refinancing and then bought a hummer or some other type of frivolous consumption item and then lost their jobs. We really need to bring back debtors prison for these types of people.
I think that both liberals and conservatives can agree that government policy should not be setup to enrich certain sectors of the economy at the expense of other sectors. That includes everything from spending money on marketing agricultural products or paying farmers not to plant, to occupational licensing regulations whose sole purpose is to keep out competition. I agree that if you are on the government dole it is possible to be a hypocrite and believe in free markets for everyone else except yourself.
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JSSD
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I don’t know that debtors prisons work, but I do agree there could be different consequences.
I also agree we’d be better off as a society if everyone put money away somehow and I don’t care how. Saving is becoming a thing of the past, unfortunately.
I don’t agree that the sole purpose of licensing regs is to keep out competition. While I consider myself fairly libertarian from an economic POV, I do have a background as a licensed health care provider, although I do not practice. There were people I graduated with and who are licensed I don’t feel are safe. As much as I believe in the free markets and that those people would be “weeded out,” I don’t want society to suffer the consequences of weeding them out. (Having said that, the license can ironically protect them).
People throw out tax breaks, such as for energy exploration or patent protection, as “corporate welfare.” I don’t agree even a little. Letting a company keep their own money? We want the latest and greatest, why would we disincentivize it? OR, if that is corporate “welfare,” then all of us are also on “welfare” for writing off our mortgage interest. I’m fine with either way, but it can’t be one-not-the-other.
On the other hand, I very much agree that it is sheer folly to give farm subsidies and “pick winners” such as Solyndra or GM.
So…again, now that we’ve (collectively) indulged in bashing “trickle down” for pages, I’ll ask yet again, what does anyone propose? What is the better system?
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stinkcat_14
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While I don’t think the sole purpose of regulation is to keep out competition, I think there is no dispute that this is one of the effects of such regulation. Just think about medical doctors and scope of practice laws for APRNs, when physicians argue against expanding scope of practice for APRNs you cannot tell me that they are just doing this to protect the public. Similarly with law firms and the regulations regarding the practice of law.
I wouldn’t call tax preferences for certain industries corporate welfare, but I would argue that there is no reason why different industries need to be treated differently. For example, a couple of years ago a friend of mine built a building for his business. If he was in agriculture, he could have written off the whole cost in the first year. But because he fixes cars, he had to depreciate it. What is the sense in a differential tax law like that? The answer is there is no sense in it. I don’t think there is anything wrong with patent protection, with the exception of the games that companies play to extend their patents.
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Zoltan_Cobalt
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Wonderful!
I am glad that you agree.
I propose a major reduction in all taxes and the repeal of all regulations that place an economic burden on any corporation or business.
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Portrait
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Dear SJBurgess,
Cordial greetings and a very warm welcome to the world of CAF. Hope that you will find your time on these boards profitable and spiritually enriching. Hear, hear to your above remarks - jolly well said.
The supposed ‘trickle-down’ of wealth does not occur in reality and God’s poor still remain poor and suffer being mostly marginalized where Capitalism prevails. If there is any ‘trickle-down’ then it is a trickle-down in the attitudes of the rich and powerful, namely a disconnection from the state, mutual obligation and shared humanity - in short, I am my “brother’s keeper” being callously replaced with a survival of the fittest mentality where it is every man for himself. Those who for genuine reasons are unable to procure the competent maintenance of themselves, such as the mentally afflicted or bodily disabled, not only suffer abject poverty but are treated with disdain because they are shamefully regarded as losers in the struggle to survive. .
Men conveniently forget, dear friend, that themoral roots of Socialism are actually derived from the New Testament and go back to the primitive Church described in the Book of Acts. The early Christian brethren practiced a sort of communism in that they pooled all of their possessions and distributed to every man according to need. Indeed, that great Socialist phrase, ‘to each according to need’, which Karl Marx adopted, is first found in the NT, describing the first Christian community. Now there is a thought.
The greatest Christian social teachers throughout the ages have never been content with promises of justice in the next world, but have always demanded it in the here and now. Their aim was to establish moral criteria for evaluating whether the world in which they lived and moved and had their being was fair or unfair - the “life is unfair, so get used to it” response would have been deeply offensive and unacceptable to them, as it should be to us also. They realised that without such moral criteria the poor and downtrodden would have no right to be other than poor and marginalized; the oppressed would have no right to be other than oppressed and the rich and powerful would have no reason to feel guilty regarding their wealth an power. Unfortunately, some Socialists, both ancient and modern, have wrongly imagined that political ideology can be free of morality. Yet, dear friend, as the Christian prophets of old understood clearly, any political agitation is utterly groundless unless based upon an independent moral and religious critique of society.
In our age I would freely admit that the link between religion and Socialism may seem jolly tenuous and that is a fundamental weakness for the modern Socialist. However, you only have to look to South America, where the great liberation theologians have shown how Christian commitment must lead directly to political action on behalf of the poor and the oppressed. The social message of Jesus, when it is applied to practical issues, does have a tendency, however, to always drive men to a Socialist type vision of society. Now that vision certainly has its defects, especially when severed from the religion of Christ, but surely it is more in accord with the Gospel than Capitalism and the uncaring selfishness that it breeds.
The early Christian community, dear friend, was very liberal to the poor but it was also very unworldly as well and herein was its greatest strength - it sat loose to material wealth and was therefore quite happy for it to be redistributed to the poor and needy. There was an absence, apart from isolated cases such as Ananias and Saphira, of the greed one associates with Capitalism - the selfish materialist who triumphs in his worldly wealth with Laban: “All that thou seest is mine” (Gen. 31: 43) and Nabal: “My bread and my water” (I Sam 25: 11). Look, these brethren were so taken up with the hope of an inheritance in the other world that that material wealth was of no consequence to them - “No man said that the things which he possessed was his own” (Acts 4: 32). They were indifferent to their possessions and wealth and refused to call what they had their own, for had they not forsaken all for Christ? What we have in this world is more God’s than our own; we have it from Him and are under an obligation to use it for Him to alleviate the sufferings of the poor and oppressed in our midst.
Finally, dear friend, some people may ask if St. Luke in the Acts is setting before us the common life of the early Church as an example to be copied now. Insofar as the early Christian brethren loved and cared deeply for one another and thereby succeeded in eliminating poverty from their midst, then most certainly yes. The example of the primitive Christian community surely does challenge us to renounce covetousness, materialism, love of luxury and indifference to the poor. We must sacrificially care for God’s poor and those who are unable to support themselves for genuine reasons.
Whatever its failings, it admits of no doubt that Socialism has and does have a tendency to reach out to poverty-stricken souls and plead their cause, even when it is no longer popular to do so. They are not deterred from doing good by the hysterical ultra right-wing who vociferously speak of “perpetuating the dependency of the poor and undermining the enterprise of wealth creators” They quietly alleviate the suffering of the poor and oppressed and in so doing become men and women in whom Christ lives again.
God bless.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
In Christos
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Zoltan_Cobalt
Guest
I am beginning to think that “Social Justice” should be called “Social Covetness” I see more and more people who are infected with bad cases of class envy whining about “Social Justice”.
Trickle down economics, not only works, it is what provides for all the wage earners in this country. Unless you are working for yourself …you are earning what “trickles down” from someone who makes more money than you do. If you are unhappy with a job or don’t think your wages are fair…you are free to start your own business. Of course there are government jobs or even welfare…but they also depend on the “trickle down” principal. The government taxes the rich to pay government employees and and provide for the welfare state.
A well known economist was once talking about the “health of the economy”. He said that if the upper class caught a cold, the middle class would have the flu and the poor would be seriously ill.
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Mickey_Finn
Guest
I think dear friend, you spent a great deal of time twisting things in order to form your points.
ATB
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Zoltan_Cobalt
Guest
In what way, Mickey?I think dear friend, you spent a great deal of time twisting things in order to form your points.
ATB
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Portrait
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Dear Zolton Cobalt,
Cordial greetings and a very warm welcome to the world of CAF. Do hope that you find your time here informative and spiritually enriching.
In reality the so called trickle down effect does not work post globalism. Customers obtain their disposable income from their wages and businesses get the profits to pay wages from their customers. Unfortunately, dear friend, when they offshore production so that they can pay the minimum in wages they are disrupting the balance. All of a sudden businesses do not have to share the wealth and greedily keep the lion’s share for themselves and invest it further. Thus you have money accumulating at the top with only the bear minimum coming back down, seldom if ever reaching those at the very bottom.
One is surely entitled to ask, dear friend, where this wealth is supposed to trickle down from. Here in Britain foreign multi-nationals own most of our car plants and foreign billionaires own half of the prohibitively expensive property in central London. Moreover, the largest interweb search engines operating in Britain are not based here. Your high street stores are registered offshore, thus other than their employee PAYE and National Insurance contributions paid to the government what proportion of their wealth actually remains in Britain to trickle down to the working poor? Precious little, which is why the working poor must have meagre wages augmented by government Social Security ‘top ups’ of one sort or another. Therefore, it could be reasonably argued that the British tax payer is funding these avaricious foreign multi-nationals, as well as other employers also, who claim they do not have the money to pay a decent living wage. They ought to remember that without these essential workers who labour for a pittance, their businesses would not survive - “the labourer is worthy of his hire”, as St. Paul said.
J.K. Galbraith, the American economist, offered the best definition of ‘trickle-down economics’ that I have yet read: “If you let the horses guzzle enough oats, something will pass through for the sparrows”.
God bless.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
In Christos
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Mickey_Finn
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cargau
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The following is my opinion, not Catholic social teaching, so take it for what its worth.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=19863&stc=1&d=1398604051
Pope Francis has his doubts.
LOVE!
The focus of social justice should be on ensuring equal opportunity (not equal dollars) to attain wealth of whatever magnitude. In a very real sense, trickle down economics serves this purpose.
Incentivizing risk taking, entrepreneurship, creativity and hard work is the first step. When we simply redistribute wealth, those incentives disappear and we begin to see the ramifications.
I teach at a local community college. I had one student ask to see me. He said that he wasn’t “getting” the information that was being discussed in lecture. I asked him if he was doing the corresponding reading and he said that he didn’t buy the book because financial aid wouldn’t pay for it. I was flabbergasted! I told him to go cut somebody’s lawn or wash their car, but not buying the book was not an option. Although it is late in the semester, I told him to find a way to buy the book since he will need it when he has to take the course again in the fall.
I don’t mean to pick on this lad, but this is a mindset that doesn’t understand how to utilize the gifts God gave him to be the very best he can be. How sad…
Instead of coddling and providing for everything one needs, we should help folks to reach the pinnacle of their potential.
Maybe I am at odds with our dear Pope, but life is more than money…it is purpose and honor and knowing the satisfaction of a job, a career, a life well done.
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