Trickle-Down Economics Must Die. Long Live Grow-Up Economics

[applegrove]

Trickle-Down Economics Must Die. Long Live Grow-Up Economics

by Scott Santens at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-santens/trickledown-economics-mus_b_8527636.html

"SNIP..............


What Mother Jones neglected to mention however is something that goes well beyond "fucked up," and something which did not go unmentioned in a piece by the Institute for Policy Studies after identical news the year before.

Every extra dollar going into the pockets of low-wage workers, standard economic multiplier models tell us, adds about $1.21 to the national economy. Every extra dollar going into the pockets of a high-income American, by contrast, only adds about 39 cents to the GDP. These pennies add up considerably on $26.7 billion in earnings. If the $26.7 billion Wall Streeters pulled in on bonuses in 2013 had gone to minimum wage workers instead, our GDP would have grown by about $32.3 billion, over triple the $10.4 billion boost expected from the Wall Street bonuses.

Yeah, you read that right. In 2013, by giving huge bonuses to those on Wall Street instead of low-wage workers, we actively prevented the creation of about $22 billion in additional national wealth. In 2014, we did the same thing, but to an even larger degree, preventing about $23 billion in additional national wealth that would have otherwise been created, had those billions in bonuses been distributed to low-income earners instead.

Year after year, we prevent new wealth creation. Why is this the case? What causes such a big difference in wealth creation, such that money at the bottom is over three times more effective at driving economic growth than money at the top?



................SNIP"

[hifiguy]

1. BIG kick!

[napkinz]

2. ...

[prairierose]

3. and another kick...

[Kelvin Mace]

4. Anyone who has experienced "trickle down economics"

know it is just rich people pissing on the poor.

[Hoyt]

5. I agree with the message, but to be fair, the Multiplier Effect of investment - say in a new factory

- is much more. Increased taxes, higher wages, other policy changes can make the "trickle" flow stronger.

[lostnfound]

6. The food court.

I stopped in the food court at my train station tonight, where all of the low-wage fast food workers were hustling to get the job done. How the hell do they live on low wages in this expensive city? And I thought about the owners of those fast food chains -- the shareholders of Taco Bell, Arby's, McDonalds, and others - and pictured the kind of life some of them have, by virtue of owning shares.

The contrast between the society's owners and the society's workers has never been so great, in my lifetime.

[Xipe Totec]

7. K&R! nt