• dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    So-called Trickle Down Economics omits, which were made popular back in the 1980s by Ronald Reagan. For anybody who is too young to remember, the idea was that if you gave the top-earners the tax breaks, then they would be inclined to turn around and reinvest it in their workers (so the top would then send money down to the bottom). Sure, sounds great in theory (as most things do), but in practice that did t happen. In fact, if anything, what we have today is a direct result of trickle down economics, and we know (we already knew) that it ain’t working.

    • nucleative@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’m curious, is there a consensus that Reaganomics was faulty entirely?

      Intuitively I feel like a little bit of both is true.

      If a business owner is taxed out the yin yang then he just has less capital to spend on growing his business. If he wants to grow his business by hiring more people, or other local spending, perhaps that is an undesired effect (If you believe a small business in growth mode is a more powerful engine than a government allocating spending to low bid contractors somehow)

      On the other hand if he doesn’t want to grow his business by hiring people, for example by buying AI powered robots to do the jobs instead, and then laying off all the staff, then I say tax away.

      • Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        Your fundamental mistake here is assuming any SMEs have the scale and creative accountants to truly take advantage of this. In practice, SMEs have their lunch eaten while the mega corps really take advantage. Those large companies don’t even buy robots with these handouts, generally. They use it for stock buy-backs to enrich shareholders.

      • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        First of all, I want to address those who are downvoting you: this poster asked a genuine question in good faith. It’s okay to disagree with them, but downvoting seems a bit harsh.

        Ok, I feel better. 😊

        Now, they have done extensive research into the failures of TDE. Also it should be pointed out that high-income earners ($216k at the time) were taxed at a marginal rate of 70%, but was drastically reduced to 38% in 1986, and of course it’s gone down since then (albeit nominally).

  • puchaczyk@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 months ago

    In practice, cancelling student debt would be a great stimulus since people would have more money to spend, whereas tax cut money is pretty much gone.

    • TarantulaFudge@startrek.website
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      3 months ago

      Yeah I’ve been trying to figure out why republicans want to cancel student debt forgiveness so bad as it literally taking money out of the economy. Even worse, that money is already spent. I guess they assume people just hold onto all that extra money, now the government wants it back… Like what the duck. My credits already shot because of this mess.

  • bitwolf@lemmy.one
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    3 months ago

    I was waiting for student loan forgiveness to buy a house. Now my down payment goes to debt.

    I’m sure there are many like me.

    Overall I side with debt forgiveness, not because I am in student debt, but because I saw first hand how school admins abuse the money for lavish paychecks and nice things.

    Subsidies for universities should transparently be enriching the universities or reducing tuition.

        • r3df0x ✡️✝☪️@7.62x54r.ru
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          3 months ago

          True but the more money that gets spent, the more people need to be taxed.

          In certain situations it could be beneficial for some people but I don’t think it should be applied to everyone. If you have an autistic person who went to college but is working low income jobs because they struggle with finding jobs and doing job interviews, then they could be good candidates for such a program. Of course I think it would be better to have a program that helps teach people in that position how to look for jobs and do job interviews.

  • Commiunism@lemmy.wtf
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    3 months ago

    Tax cuts for big companies helps regular people and students in debt too, as they’re now able to create more jobs and innovate further! They’re definitely not going to use the money to enrich themselves further and buy new yachts while still exploiting their workers and laying them off when it suits them, that would NEVER happen.

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Also, even when it does work “like it should”, it’s not like the company is giving away free money to its workers and the community. That money is used to pay for goods or labour.

      Or maybe it is given for free as a bonus, but if any is given to the grunts, I’d assume much more is given to the execs.

      Businesses shouldn’t be given bailouts. If the government is providing money to support a business that is “too big to fail” but incapable of keeping itself going, that money should be compensated with shares of the business that remain in public holdings. That should be what late stage capitalism looks like, not this “as business fail due to perpetual growth hitting a ceiling, whichever survives the longest gets to enshitify its market due to lack of viable competition and rent seeking, gets bought by someone else who thinks they can do better (often via tyranny), or just fails with current investors and employees left holding the bag. Or the government gives them free money instead of or in addition to this.”

      • Incandemon@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        As an addition any company that’s 'too big to fail is also to big to exist and needs to be broken up. Where thats not practicle then it needs to be nationalized and operated as a non-profit/crown corporation.

  • ArchRecord@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    They still somehow think trickle-down economics is a thing that works, while also thinking that more educated people don’t produce more economic growth. I can’t imagine thinking like these people do.

      • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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        3 months ago

        I mean, clearly a scifi, but I’m talking about the premise in the movie. It’s not as farfetched as you may think. Some countries already operate under the premise.

        • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          Why go to scifi when you can go to the past? Ancient empires have risen and fallen that were more advanced than what followed them, time isn’t always progress.

          • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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            3 months ago

            Mainly because scifi hasn’t yet happened, but we see the signs of getting there; while the past may already be over, and we may not see the signs of it happening again now.