Trickle Down Economics VS Redistribution of Wealth: It's the same thing!!!!

Ok I am a conservative independent.

Now, I always hear these media keywords being played and tossed around in the media, internet forums, and casual dinner conversations. However, without getting too technical or detailed aren't both of these economic policies the same thing?

Ideal Scenario 1: Give the rich tax breaks, let them spend money however they want with little to no regulations. We will trust them to create jobs, create business, and help the economy grow.Thus more jobs = better pay and better products and consumer spending increases. Otherwise known as Trickle down economics

Ideal Scenario 2: Tax the rich to death. Maybe an 80% tax on the 1%. The government and the Fed spend money however they want with little to no regulations (since they make the law). We will trust the government to create jobs programs, invest in favorite companies (bailouts) and give some stimulus to the poor. This will help the economy grow. Allow more jobs with gov't pensions. Which leads to American Government approved products and consumer confidence and trust in government. Other wise known as trickle do--- I mean Redistribution of Wealth.

On the surface, these two theories are the same thing. And they both DON"T WORK!!!!!!

reply to post by jjf3rd77

I think it must be time for your meds. Trickledown my behind! As if the rich are not free to spend their money on whatever they want to already. Fail, epic fail. Logical fallacy, non starter, etc.

60% tax? On millions or billions that still leaves millions or billions. If I was to earn just 10,000 a month (peanuts compared with millions) the government here wants 51%.

ETA Sorry, slightly over-caustic answer but I disagree strongly. Its all the NWO and 1%'er talk lately. Rich people avoid taxes, us peasants cannot

Government spending money is no different than rich spending money. What you need is the smaller people to be able to run businesses themselves and be more productive. Not 30,000 people working in an office filing papers...

Originally posted by LightSpeedDriver
reply to post by jjf3rd77

 

I think it must be time for your meds. Trickledown my behind! As if the rich are not free to spend their money on whatever they want to already. Fail, epic fail. Logical fallacy, non starter, etc.

60% tax? On millions or billions that still leaves millions or billions. If I was to earn just 10,000 a month (peanuts compared with millions) the government here wants 51%.

ETA Sorry, slightly over-caustic answer but I disagree strongly. Its all the NWO and 1%'er talk lately. Rich people avoid taxes, us peasants cannot

edit on 7/12/11 by LightSpeedDriver because: ETA

I don't understand your rant. It was kind of hard to understand what your trying to say though. But i think your saying the policies behind trickle economics fails and taxing the rich won't work which is exactly the point I am making. Duh! Read the title.

reply to post by boncho


Exactly. Government should have let the bank fail. Now, they are more connected than ever before!

reply to post by jjf3rd77

My bad. I was trying to say (while possibly failing) that the trickledown thing is a myth but the taxing will work if applied. I shall not rant. Let me try it again.

Mr Big earns say 10 million a year, or a 100 million. Now, apart from buying a house, a car and possibly some groceries, Mr Big will be using some kind of financial tax/portfolio management companies to keep his money locked up in legal, non taxable things. If money keeps getting invested and rolled over, much tax can be avoided while still leaving some comfortable pocket change.

I, and many others here I would guess, are not in a position to be able to take advantage of tax laws, tax havens or other tricks the rich use such as offshore bank accounts and the like. So every penny we earn is taxed.

A little statistic I read. People with average or below average income actually end up donating more money to charities than a rich person when you compare the amount donated to the amount that person has. But I digress.

Bill Gates is giving all his hard-earned (cough cough* money away and yet...he still is the richest man on the planet and his foundation still has the 50 billion dollars it started with. This is the point I was trying to make while possibly failing.

To summarise, point 1, the rich already have tax breaks and I don't see them spending their money to anyone's benefit except their own and possibly the local Lamborghini dealership. Point 2, every tax break ends up going to the rich and corporations (who are owned by rich people) anyway and not the people. I think there is enough evidence that the government and the rich are one and the same and are not to be trusted, whether it is to redress the issue, create jobs or do anything that benefits the general population. Hope it is clearer now. Just my 2 cents.

ETA To show what I mean, here is a graphic from this thread about taxes and that is just the corporations.

reply to post by LightSpeedDriver


The rich are not alone in the problem though. Government and agencies like SEC should be regulating the laws that we already have closely. Before making a whole new regulations on top of other regulations that aren't working we need an overhaul of the tax system completely. One thing I liked from Herman Cain for instance.

But I was just pointing out that those two economic policies are too flawed to "work" like people want.

Begging Bill Gates to sell his foundation isn't going to do anybody any good! At least he is one of the few who actually retired to try and make the world a better place. I do understand your point the rich like to accumulate. And maybe it's because of that old saying, Money changes people. It makes you greedy.

It's like how you see in the poorer communities and even the ghettos. People have large families and share with each other (for the most part) as long as there isn't any bad blood between them.

There's always going to be two classes of people Rich and Poor. The Middle Class is a fairly modern concept.