[public] You *cannot* sway opinion without some actual arguments.

[scintilla72]

From The Click Five's "Just the Girl":

She can't keep a secret for more than an hour
She runs on 100-proof attitude power

... so, it's only 50% attitude then? What kind of weak-ass statement is that?

My father just sent me and a bunch of other family this list of statements. He can't find anyone who's sure where it came from, but he says it

Comments

[kalium]

6. You *cannot* lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

Reagan had something like that. What was it called again? Prickle? Fickle? Started with something-"ickle". It'll come to me. Eventually.

[scintilla72]

Are you talking about trickle-down economics? I don't think that statement is meant to be that specific (it doesn't try to assert that the best way to help employees is to help employers), but I suppose the vein is similar.

[kalium]

I've seen conservatives justify tax cuts to the wealthy by reasoning that they employ other people. That's just a thinly veiled trickle-down.

[scintilla72]

That's veiled at all?

I haven't actually heard people coming out in favor of tax cuts to the wealthy specifically, but I have heard people say that tax cuts to individuals in general helps to stimulate the economy by leaving them more to spend, and that tax cuts to corporations help to stimulate the economy by leaving them more to invest in capital expenditures (and/or raise wages, of course!).

The argument goes that the end result is actually MORE tax revenue instead of less, because profits/wages increase enough to counteract the lower proportions thereof being taxed.

And isn't that what actually happens in practice?

[kalium]

It's veiled in that it doesn't explicitly come out and use the phrase "trickle-down".

Much of that only works in an environment where you don't have massive amounts of debt running around. Which is to say an environment entirely unlike the current one. With massive debt, people take their tax cuts and either put it towards their loans or sock it away in case they need it. Corporations do pretty much the same things.

[scintilla72]

... Okay, yes, I should have said "isn't that what happened in practice in the 80s and 90s?".

And now I'm idly wondering how much of the same effect corporations can effect by reducing the debt they have to service rather than spending more on capex -- I imagine it would still improve profits, but probably not as much and not in a way that really helps the greater economy.