Do trickle-down economic theories work?

[LeafByNiggle]

That is a straw man. I have not made the case that lack of initiative or character flaws are exclusively to blame. However, they are contributing factors certainly. Why the need to construct false arguments?

You are right. That was an exaggeration of your argument. Perhaps a more accurate representation would be that the poor are poor partly because of lack of initiative or character flaws. And to that I will agree. But how are you going to tell the difference? What practical means have we to give aid to the poor who are trying the best they can while withholding that aid from people who could easily better themselves?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

It’s not about how hard you work, it’s about the value you bring to the company.

If it is not about hard work, why did you use that very phrase in your posting? I was just responding to your dichotomy of being rich through inheritance or through hard work (your words). I was showing that the dichotomy you presented does not cover all the possibilities. So in direct answer to your question, I am referring to both groups of people, for both groups obtained their wealth through unmerited graces.

Why do you assume that I don’t believe Catholic moral teaching?

That was a Spiderman joke. Lighten up.

 

[freeRadical]

If it is not about hard work, why did you use that very phrase in your posting? I was just responding to your dichotomy of being rich through inheritance or through hard work (your words). So in direct answer to your question, I am referring to both groups of people, for both groups obtained their wealth through unmerited graces.

That was a Spiderman joke. Lighten up.

You still didn’t answer my questions.

I used the phrase “hard work” because not everyone who is wealthy is a CEO. Many people worked hard to get wealthy, sacrificing, saving, investing, starting a business, etc. You think they don’t deserve that wealth and should give it to other people. Then you brought up CEO’s. With CEO’s its more of the value they bring to the company as opposed to “hard work” but I’m sure many CEO’s work very hard. You seem to see it as a glamorous lifestyle where they do nothing and reap massive benefits off their exploited and underpaid workers while laughing all the way to the bank.

Why do you even care what CEOs make?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

You still didn’t answer my questions.

My answers: “No”, and “Both”.

I used the phrase “hard work” because not everyone who is wealthy is a CEO. Many people worked hard to get wealthy, sacrificing, saving, investing, starting a business, etc. You think they don’t deserve that wealth and should give it to other people.

No one truly deserves the wealth they get - not even those that get a more moderate amount of wealth.

With CEO’s its more of the value they bring to the company as opposed to “hard work” but I’m sure many CEO’s work very hard.

I’m sure they do. But I chose that example because the income ratio makes it painfully obvious that hard work cannot totally justify their wealth. Of course they can demand the pay they get because of the value they bring to the company. That is what the board of directors values. But God’s valuation of things may be quite different.

Why do you even care what CEOs make?

Why do you even care what people on welfare get?

 

[nmgauss]

You still didn’t answer my questions.

I used the phrase “hard work” because not everyone who is wealthy is a CEO. Many people worked hard to get wealthy, sacrificing, saving, investing, starting a business, etc. You think they don’t deserve that wealth and should give it to other people. Then you brought up CEO’s. With CEO’s its more of the value they bring to the company as opposed to “hard work” but I’m sure many CEO’s work very hard. You seem to see it as a glamorous lifestyle where they do nothing and reap massive benefits off their exploited and underpaid workers while laughing all the way to the bank.

Why do you even care what CEOs make?

There is a saying that the higher position you achieve in a company, the less secure your job is and the harder you will fall when you lose that position. You can be promoted in a company but you cannot be demoted. Once you displease your superiors, you are out the door.

This idea that CEO’s make huge salaries for a long period is inaccurate. A manager can stay a manager at the going rate for managers over most his/her career, but a CEO may lose his/her job at the drop of a hat.

Look what happened when Steve Jobs was fired by Apple. He had a tough time.

 

[babylonfalling]

Pope Francis has his doubts.

LOVE!

Capitalism obviously works better than socialism. That isn’t to say you can’t find something wrong with capitalism.

In this country we have a mix of both, which has produced a society that most people on the planet would love to be a part of.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There is a saying that the higher position you achieve in a company, the less secure your job is and the harder you will fall when you lose that position. You can be promoted in a company but you cannot be demoted. Once you displease your superiors, you are out the door.

This idea that CEO’s make huge salaries for a long period is inaccurate. A manager can stay a manager at the going rate for managers over most his/her career, but a CEO may lose his/her job at the drop of a hat.

Look what happened when Steve Jobs was fired by Apple. He had a tough time.

Not just CEOs. There is a Fortune 100 company with which I have some inside familiarity. A lot of the “top brass” churn through. The senior vice presidents that are the head of some really large function often don’t have a very long tenure either. Head of HR, head of production, head of legal, head of compliance. They don’t last.

That world is almost like the world of professional athletes. Yes, they make a lot of money while they’re making it. But it often doesn’t last. Every new “miracle worker” has one or two good ideas to cut costs or otherwise boost the bottom line. But once that one or two ideas is exhausted, companies often start looking for the next person with one or two good ideas.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

No one truly deserves the wealth they get - not even those that get a more moderate amount of wealth.

Mind if I use that, the next time an employee asks for a raise?

 

[stinkcat_14]

Mind if I use that, the next time an employee asks for a raise?

If you have to use that, the employee probably doesn’t deserve a raise. Because if the employee deserves a raise and you don’t give him one, he will probably soon become someone else’s employee.

 

[nmgauss]

No one truly deserves the wealth they get - not even those that get a more moderate amount of wealth.

Are you referring to inherited wealth?

Saving any money over what one spends is accumulating wealth. A farm hand deserves any savings over and above his expenses and he is still accumulating wealth. Are you going to hold it against him?

If he chooses to have a large family, he is less able to accumulate wealth because of his expenses. Of course, if he can get his kids into the fields with him, there is more money coming in. During periods of hardship, I accompanied my father into the fields and picked grapes right along with him.

I’m sure they do. But I chose that example because the income ratio makes it painfully obvious that hard work cannot totally justify their wealth. Of course they can demand the pay they get because of the value they bring to the company. That is what the board of directors values. But God’s valuation of things may be quite different.

It’s not how hard you work. It’s the value of your work. A person who drives a combine can harvest a huge amount of wheat compared to a person cutting wheat with a scythe. And the scythe user is probably working a lot harder than the combine driver.

Why do you even care what people on welfare get?

Because, as a taxpayer, the money is coming out of my pocket.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Are you referring to inherited wealth?

Saving any money over what one spends is accumulating wealth. A farm hand deserves any savings over and above his expenses and he is still accumulating wealth. Are you going to hold it against him?

No, I don’t hold it against him. But the farm hand doesn’t truly deserve his wages either. That does not mean I think his wages should be taken away from him. Many people, including him, get things they do not deserve. God may decide for His own good reasons that the farm hand is able to get wages. He also may decide for His own good reasons that a top-paid CEO get his wages too. In neither case am I saying that God was wrong to grant such graces. I just want you to acknowledge that they are all undeserved graces.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If we all got what we “deserve”, virtually all of us would be shot at sunrise.

As Catholics, however, we believe it is somehow part of God’s plan that some of us have earthly prosperity and that some of us don’t. Despite whatever mental effort we put into it, we can no more plumb the depths of it than we can truly and fully understand why someone gets cancer and another person doesn’t.

But no matter what, we’re all under a death sentence equally; something with which we all struggle at one time or another, just as we struggle with the notions of wealth and poverty.

One trusts and believes that if wealth is part of “our” particular plan, we will use it in a moral way. We know something about what that means, but not entirely. We know wealth carries responsibility with it, but the proper application is not obvious. We work out our salvations as we are able and as we believe we are to do, and as the Church gives us guidance. The Church does not condemn wealth as such, but does tell us we have obligations toward others.

But none of this tells us anything about “trickle down” which, after all, is nothing but a sarcastic term applied by some to a former president’s tax policies, and has no more basis to be called an “economic theory” than does “pennies from heaven”.

 

[freeRadical]

No, I don’t hold it against him. But the farm hand doesn’t truly deserve his wages either. That does not mean I think his wages should be taken away from him. Many people, including him, get things they do not deserve. God may decide for His own good reasons that the farm hand is able to get wages. He also may decide for His own good reasons that a top-paid CEO get his wages too. In neither case am I saying that God was wrong to grant such graces. I just want you to acknowledge that they are all undeserved graces.

I don’t look at it that way. God doesn’t give people wages, God gives them talents, skills, and the ability to perform labor. If I use my God given labor to gain wealth, who are you to decide that that wealth isn’t justified?. After all, my labor comes from God, he gave it to me. Shouldn’t what I earn with that labor be mine too?

 

[freeRadical]

No one truly deserves the wealth they get - not even those that get a more moderate amount of wealth.

So you say. Who are you to decide what people deserve? Only God can decide that. I don’t know about you but I don’t presume to know the mind of God.

I’m sure they do. But I chose that example because the income ratio makes it painfully obvious that hard work cannot totally justify their wealth. Of course they can demand the pay they get because of the value they bring to the company. That is what the board of directors values. But God’s valuation of things may be quite different.

If a business wants to pay their CEO that much, that’s their business. Why do you care what a private business pays its CEO?

Why do you even care what people on welfare get?

You answered my question with a question. Nice. Are you a politician?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

So you say. Who are you to decide what people deserve? Only God can decide that. I don’t know about you but I don’t presume to know the mind of God.

Read Ridgerunner’s post just above. He did a better job explaining it than I did.

 

[freeRadical]

Read Ridgerunner’s post just above. He did a better job explaining it than I did.

I did. It doesn’t sound like he’s talking about what you’re talking about.

 

[John_Novotny]

Here’s an excellent example of trickle-down from the halcyon days of no socialism, low government interference in the market, time before organized labour, a veritable Christian golden age. Watch to the end to see how the super rich are eager to share their wealth.

youtube.com/watch?v=IT05hySTl6g

 

[Ridgerunner]

Here’s an excellent example of trickle-down from the halcyon days of no socialism, low government interference in the market, time before organized labour, a veritable Christian golden age. Watch to the end to see how the super rich are eager to share their wealth.

youtube.com/watch?v=IT05hySTl6g

Of course, the functionaries in a late 18th century/early 19th Century workhouse were anything but “rich”, let alone super-rich.

And during that era, a free market was far from the real situation. Government bestowed patents to do business, and one had to have one or risk jail. Not surprisingly, government played favorites. It was “crony capitalism” at its very worst, and the antithesis of a free market.

The movie (and novel upon which it was based) is set in England. And, the very system of government control of opportunity and government-bestowed privilege was one of the main reasons why the American colonies revolted. Because the British government was hampered in its ability to control and regulate commerce in America, the general prosperity in the colonies was far greater on a per capita basis than it was in England at the time. Colonial America, in fact, had the highest per capita wealth in the world at the time. British threats to that freedom incited the Revolution.

And, of course, “trickle down” is a meaningless term in an economic sense. It’s just a sarcastic term coined by the left to defame one president’s tax reductions in the absence of a persuasive reason to oppose them.

 

[Pat_Albertson]

No, but then neither does anything else.

At least an ‘ordinary’ sort of economy allows for a certain amount of feedback about shortages or surpluses of goods and services via higher or lower prices, but other than that nothing I could say would be anything other than damnation via faint praise.

I have my own private thoughts on what would be best, but they aren’t really something I can espouse on this forum.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Here’s an excellent example of trickle-down from the halcyon days of no socialism, low government interference in the market, time before organized labour, a veritable Christian golden age. Watch to the end to see how the super rich are eager to share their wealth.

youtube.com/watch?v=IT05hySTl6g

Let’s keep in mind that poor little Oliver was in a GOVERNMENT poor house.