Do trickle-down economic theories work?

[nmgauss]

I agree that the property tax is efficient and it is good that it is spent locally but I don’t like that it taxes people’s personal improvements to property that they make with their own money. I’m much more in favor of a land value tax on the value of unimproved land then I am for a property tax just because I don’t like what the property tax actually taxes.

When assessments are made on property, they include all improvements, including those made with your own money.

 

[nmgauss]

I take it you have never heard of Noblese Oblige or There but for the grace of God go I.

At some point in your life, you could end up with nothing and no way to get anything. Imagine being out of work, no savings, no job prospects. Yes, it could happen to you.

Many people used to believe that their wealth obliged them to help those less fortunate.

It has happened to me. I was flat broke. My main concern was surviving for another day. Instead of begging formoney, I started looking for work, any work. My father did the same during the Great Depression. Sweeping floors can get you a meal.

 

[nmgauss]

I agree that we really do need to find another way, we have an obligation to the poor, but clearly our entrenched bureaucracies are not good either.

Do the poor have any obligation to their benefactors? Many people become poor because they have children they cannot afford. So, when somebody gives them money, they have more babies. I used to live near a large apartment district full of young poor hispanics. Each day there was a parade of mamacita’s each one with several little ones. This certainly is not a good way to get ahead.

 

[nmgauss]

I think directly, tax cuts have relatively little effect on those at the bottom since people at the bottom pay little in taxes anyway. One can argue that if a tax cut stimulates the economy it could provide more jobs in general and those on the lower end could benefit. Of course the trick is really determining the cause and effect, since in most years the economy grows anyway. So it is easy to naively say that we cut taxes and see how much it affected the economy, when we really don’t know.

Maybe income taxes have little effect on those at the bottom, but not other taxes. Sales taxes and property taxes do affect everybody, including renters. Landlords just pass the extra burden of their own property tax onto their renters in the form of higher rents.

 

[freeRadical]

Maybe income taxes have little effect on those at the bottom, but not other taxes. Sales taxes and property taxes do affect everybody, including renters. Landlords just pass the extra burden of their own property tax onto their renters in the form of higher rents.

We were talking about income tax cuts.

 

[freeRadical]

Do the poor have any obligation to their benefactors? Many people become poor because they have children they cannot afford. So, when somebody gives them money, they have more babies. I used to live near a large apartment district full of young poor hispanics. Each day there was a parade of mamacita’s each one with several little ones. This certainly is not a good way to get ahead.

Again, you are generalizing all poor people, and in a very uncharitable way.

 

[freeRadical]

When assessments are made on property, they include all improvements, including those made with your own money.

Yes, which is what I said and the main reason I don’t support property taxes.

 

[nmgauss]

Again, you are generalizing all poor people, and in a very uncharitable way.

A generalization is made based of observance of popular practices. Nobody gave anything to me. I worked hard for everything I have. Why should I feel charitable toward the poor when I received no aid to the poor when I was poor?

 

[John_Novotny]

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.

Thanks for your most excellent thoughtful response. I think the intent of the scene is to show disparity between the boys and the callous functionaries. Although they were not super rich the disparity was huge and even a moderate amount of riches can have a “blinding” effect if one is not careful.

 

[freeRadical]

A generalization is made based of observance of popular practices. Nobody gave anything to me. I worked hard for everything I have. Why should I feel charitable toward the poor when I received no aid to the poor when I was poor?

I was going to say because that is the Catholic thing to do, but then I noticed you are a secular humanist so never mind.

Are you saying that we shouldn’t have any kind of social welfare at all?

 

[nmgauss]

I was going to say because that is the Catholic thing to do, but then I noticed you are a secular humanist so never mind.

Are you saying that we shouldn’t have any kind of social welfare at all?

I think social welfare is fine as long as standards are tightened up. Politicians want them to be lax so that they will receive more votes in an election. This is a chief point being made by arch conservatives who claim that Democrats love to have dependents.

 

[nmgauss]

Thanks for your most excellent thoughtful response. I think the intent of the scene is to show disparity between the boys and the callous functionaries. Although they were not super rich the disparity was huge and even a moderate amount of riches can have a “blinding” effect if one is not careful.

A goal in a story is to set up primary themes and illustrate them with emotionally charged scenarios. This was a very effective technique with the Nazis who held huge emotionally charged rallies orchestrated with pageantry galore, all under the creative eye of Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels. Even Hitler practiced before a mirror to hone his oratory skills to endeavor to put people into trance-like states of mind. And it worked like a charm.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

What happens when individuals don’t rovide for the poor? Isn’t it the moral responsibility of society to help those who are less fortunate or going through hard times? Isn’t that what the Church teaches?

IF a Capitalist society were totally Christian then that society would naturally have a moral responsibility to help those who are less fortunate or going through hard times.

A Capitalist society, Christian or secular, tends to reject altruism and rely on individual kindness, good will and respect for the rights of others. A Christian Capitalist would never tell a secular Capitalist that he had a moral duty to provide for the poor. The Christian would be doing it…and most likely…so would the secularist.

In a true Capitalist society there would be very few deserving poor and more wealthy people to provide for them them.

 

[Sochi]

IF a Capitalist society were totally Christian then that society would naturally have a moral responsibility to help those who are less fortunate or going through hard times.

A Capitalist society, Christian or secular, tends to reject altruism and rely on individual kindness, good will and respect for the rights of others. A Christian Capitalist would never tell a secular Capitalist that he had a moral duty to provide for the poor. The Christian would be doing it…and most likely…so would the secularist.

In a true Capitalist society there would be very few deserving poor and more wealthy people to provide for them them.

We have a a true capitalist society. How’s that working for you? OK, actually it is a plutocracy and an oiligarchy [sic]. And Somalia is a good example of Libertarian capitalism. Statistically, the poor support the poor, giving proportionally way more to charity than the rich. And all the very rich would have to do to “give” charitably is to pay a living wage. Do they? It is in the deep interest of crapitalim to have masses of poor competing for low paying jobs. Why do you think there were deadly wage riots and unions formed in our history? Was it because capitalism is in the interest of wage earners?

 

[nmgauss]

We have a a true capitalist society. How’s that working for you? OK, actually it is a plutocracy and an oiligarchy [sic]. And Somalia is a good example of Libertarian capitalism. Statistically, the poor support the poor, giving proportionally way more to charity than the rich. And all the very rich would have to do to “give” charitably is to pay a living wage. Do they? It is in the deep interest of crapitalim to have masses of poor competing for low paying jobs. Why do you think there were deadly wage riots and unions formed in our history? Was it because capitalism is in the interest of wage earners?

If a capitalist society intends to have companies sell to that society’s own people, then it makes sense to pay wages high enough so that the wage earners can afford to buy the company’s products. However, determining what those wages should be is difficult because affordability depends on a family’s allocation of its own money. If a family decides to have more children instead of buying a car, then the car manufacturer is left out, because no matter what he pays his workers, they will decide to have more babies instead of buying cars.

 

[sallybutler]

A generalization is made based of observance of popular practices. Nobody gave anything to me. I worked hard for everything I have. Why should I feel charitable toward the poor when I received no aid to the poor when I was poor?

There are those who feel minimum wage is aid to the poor. Earned income tax credit is another aid. Our progressive tax rate. Unemployment payments. Trickle down benefit as it were.

Are you saying you didn’t take advantage of any of these? No training, no community college courses, no jobs working for government agencies (street sweeping, ditch digging, etc.), no unemployment checks, no working for a company that got additional deductions for hiring an unemployed person.

If you did none of these things, then I give you kudos for being one of the few people in the United States who did not use any hand up offered to them.

 

[nmgauss]

There are those who feel minimum wage is aid to the poor. Earned income tax credit is another aid. Our progressive tax rate. Unemployment payments. Trickle down benefit as it were.

Are you saying you didn’t take advantage of any of these? No training, no community college courses, no jobs working for government agencies (street sweeping, ditch digging, etc.), no unemployment checks, no working for a company that got additional deductions for hiring an unemployed person.

If you did none of these things, then I give you kudos for being one of the few people in the United States who did not use any hand up offered to them.

When I was a high school graduate, I enrolled in Stanford University in 1953 paying my own tuition, books, and housing, based on summer jobs and part time jobs while a student. When I got into graduate school, I became a teaching assistant. After college, I worked saving enough money to make a down payment on a house. I sold the house later at a profit which I used to go to a private computer trade school. I worked as a computer programmer for many years. The only assistance I had was living with my parents during summers so that I could save my summer job money for college.

 

[sallybutler]

When I was a high school graduate, I enrolled in Stanford University in 1953 paying my own tuition, books, and housing, based on summer jobs and part time jobs while a student. When I got into graduate school, I became a teaching assistant. After college, I worked saving enough money to make a down payment on a house. I sold the house later at a profit which I used to go to a private computer trade school. I worked as a computer programmer for many years. The only assistance I had was living with my parents during summers so that I could save my summer job money for college.

In 1953, the tuition at Stanford was about 100 per quarter. In 2014 dollars, that is less than 900. The current tuition at Stanford is over 14,000 a year. Very few students can make that much in a summer, even if they live with their parents. America has changed since 1953. Heck, it has changed since I became a computer programmer in 1979 (without a college degree, didn’t get my AA from CCSF until 1984). Your grandchildren and great-grandchildren don’t have the same opportunities you, or even I, had.

 

[freeRadical]

I think social welfare is fine as long as standards are tightened up. Politicians want them to be lax so that they will receive more votes in an election. This is a chief point being made by arch conservatives who claim that Democrats love to have dependents.

Well, I agree that standards need to be tightened.

 

[freeRadical]

IF a Capitalist society were totally Christian then that society would naturally have a moral responsibility to help those who are less fortunate or going through hard times.

A Capitalist society, Christian or secular, tends to reject altruism and rely on individual kindness, good will and respect for the rights of others. A Christian Capitalist would never tell a secular Capitalist that he had a moral duty to provide for the poor. The Christian would be doing it…and most likely…so would the secularist.

In a true Capitalist society there would be very few deserving poor and more wealthy people to provide for them them.

What happens if the wealthy choose not to provide for the poor? It seems to me like you are making a lot of assumptions.