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20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘trickle-down’

businessinsider.com

411–420 of 444 posts

Re: 20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘trickle-down’

#411
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen a politician advocate for trickle down since the early 1980s. Why is this strawman still the target for low-effort articles?

Aren't tax cuts for the wealthy the same thing as trickle-down? Good thing politicians haven't done the wealthy any tax favors since the 1980's...

They are, but because the Republicans don't use the phrase "trickle-down" as often, it's no longer an issue, so it's a strawman argument, especially because trickle-down actually works, but only the left talks about it to attack our current tax policies for some reason.

- the summary of half of the comments here.

Re: 20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘trickle-down’

#412
post #52

In college, I studied Ronald Coase's famous 1920s papers. The major application ATT was infrastructure stuff. Coase's argument was that "given 0 transaction costs," it doesn't matter who owns what property or right. The market will achieve efficient solutions as firms sell each other radio spectrum or whatnot. Policy should focus on minimizing transaction costs and let the market organize itself. Circa 2005, I heard…

I've had The Nature of the Firm sitting on my bookshelf for 3-4 years. Maybe I should get around to reading it...

It's very readable.

Re: 20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘trickle-down’

#413
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as the billionaire holds on to whatever financial product they bought forever as long as it appreciates faster than inflation. Another word for that is investment. Where do you think that money goes? You don’t earn returns on money that isn’t doing anything.

Yes you absolutely do earn returns on money that isn’t doing anything. If I buy a share of Apple and the share price goes up, I’ve just made a return on money that isn’t doing anything. The money I spent on that share didn’t enable any real economic activity other that me buying that share. My money didn’t go to Apple to enable them to grow their business. It went to some other investor who is primarily engaged in th…

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Re: 20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘trickle-down’

#414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Didn't Norway just bought into the stock market via their pension fund? That is literally the opposite of investing it themselves." A pension fund is payment to a group of people over a period of time. Traditional investment from a government into a country comes in the form of building infrastructure and military. Dollars spent on infrastructure and the military will not pay yearly cash dividends. A factory can tak…

Doing a quick lookup over the budget of Norway, it seems like they invest directly about 4 billion USD each year (this is for year 2007, but it can't be be wildly different today). Compare that to the government letting the pension fund invest 1400 billions on the open market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor... I would say even the government of Norway recognized that the free economy wil…

I don't get it. Can you explain to me what the ROI would be if the pension fund invested their money into public infrastructure?

Re: 20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘trickle-down’

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In any case, the "wealth disparity" discussion is almost always badly anchored. The first thing to understand about wealth disparity is that it maps pretty much to wealth. More wealth, more wealth disparity... almost universally. Many or most people have no wealth, depending on your semantics of "wealth." Therefore, if the value/quantity of wealth rises, wealth disparity rises. I agree with you but it remains a pro…

> Aristocrats used to explain that they could not be dispensed with because they had superior value and were needed to administer and guide while exploiting the collective labours of the population. Modern large shareholders and executives explain that they can’t be dispensed with due to their superior ability Isn't this evidence that the aristocrats were right? We beheaded them and new aristocrats sprang up in the s…

Or that the positions are self-reinforcing, and whoever gets that position first holds it. Which is exactly why the systems that support aristocrats need to be dismantled, and not just the current crop of aristocrats.

Re: 20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘trickle-down’

#416
post #361
post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry your not discussing this in good faith. Yes unemployment skyrocketed in the early 80’s followed by the biggest economic expansion in decades. The 70’s were a morass of stagflation. To argue Regans policies didn’t bring the economy out of that mess is just being dishonest.

> To argue Regans policies didn’t bring the economy out of that mess is just being dishonest. It's only dishonest if I actually thought that Reagan's policies did any good, isn't it? Joking aside, I actually think Reagan's policies were a disaster for the USA in the long run and didn't accomplish much during his time in office[0]. It is however during this time that real wage growth for the middle/low-income complete…

No, what was a disaster was the economic policies that proceeded Reagan. You realize he was elected with some of the biggest pluralities ever in a US presidential election in 1984? Clearly the voters (on both sides) benefited.

Re: 20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘trickle-down’

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The poorest person alive in a first world country today lives better than the richest 100 years ago. What? Not even remotely close. John D Rockefeller was shrouded in wealth about 100 years ago. If you think the poorest, homeless person now stuck on the streets lives better than Rockefeller did, you're confused. Do not conflate general human progress of what's available with more knowledge, science, and basic techno…

>homeless person now stuck on the streets lives better than Rockefeller did, Ok good point, not the absolute lowest, but someone in the bottom 10% has access to food from all over the world that Rockefeller did not. They are usually overweight, which poor people back then were not. They have access to medicine the Rockerfeller couldn't dream of. >Do not conflate general human progress of what's available with more kn…

Hey, Europe is not that bad. ASML is the leading semiconductor fab tech producer is based in Europe. They use optics from Carl Zeiss which is a german firm. ARM chip corporation is a UK company. So, like, stuff happens in Europe which is essential to how the world functions today and which isn't at all easy to replicate somewhere else.

Re: 20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘trickle-down’

#418
post #286
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those investments only benefit very few people though, who already have well paying jobs. Private investors prefer to take long bets in technology corporations (like FAANG, etc). That benefits to a small extent the few people working there because the high stock price convinces the CEO that he can afford another position here or there. It does nothing for the people in the lower income percentiles, because the additi…

> Those investments only benefit very few people though Buy stock and benefit (or take a loss) with them. > Instead the government needs to invest in projects that create jobs for everyone. Vote for such government or immigrate to a socialists country, Venezuela or North Korea. They have the lot of jobs.

>Buy stock and benefit (or take a loss) with them.

Buy stocks, and explain to your children why they won't get to eat for the year to come.

It will pay off in the long run!

And if they starve to death, well, that's savings right there!

.... You do realize that millions — if not most people under 40 in the US — don't have spare money to invest into papers that they can't eat today, do you?

Rent, food, transportation, medical expenses, educational expenses, and a small amount of spending on something that makes that life feel like it's maybe worth living — and oops, there goes the paycheck.

Funny how the rent is larger than mortgage, but you can't get a mortgage unless you save money, but you can't save money because you have rent to pay.

And everyone who's working to make a living is one car accident away from a medical bankruptcy. A fun lottery nearly all of us get to play, funny that.

>Vote for such government

Yay, I voted, and FPTP ensured that meant nothing. I voted for ranked choice, but peculiarly, the vote for that was based on the same system that I was trying to replace.

>or immigrate to a socialists country, Venezuela or North Korea. They have the lot of jobs.

False dichotomy much?

And these are the only two countries in the world with universal healthcare and government providing housing and services to its citizens, I guess? Not Sweden, no? Not even the UK, or any EU country? Oh wait, nobody is waiting for me there.

But more importantly, what basis do you have for telling people what to do?

Especially when you tell someone to move to another country. How about... No.

What the parent commenter is doing, and what I'll do, is we'll be damn sure to talk about what the government should do in all public forums whenever the opportunity presents itself, to raise the awareness ans steer the public discourse in the direction we want our country to move into, rather than shutting up and moving if our vote gives us nothing this election cycle.

And we'll make it obviously, blatantly clear that opinions like the one you presented — ”vote or leave" — are rubbish.

Bad faith rubbish that doesn't belong on HN.

So I'll ask you to stop. My basis for that are the guidelines of this forum. We could do with less trash here.

Re: 20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘trickle-down’

#419
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) There are certain issues which are unlikely to receive spending due to well-known economic effects. For example: building highways and public transportation are things unlikely to be funded by individuals because they are public goods. 2) There is little evidence that the high tax rates in the middle of the century led to decreased productivity. Tax rates are marginal, meaning that more effort leads to more reward…

> Tax rates are marginal, meaning that more effort leads to more reward, still. > Why would you try to push forward your society if it seems like no matter what you do, wealth inequality is just going to increase Curious how you seem to flip-flop between understanding marginal gains and not understanding them. The reason you would try to push forward your society is that more effort leads to more reward, still.

What you are saying is correct in the dimension of income but not in the dimension of power.

The power of those with more wealth is steadily increasing, and the power of those without wealth is steadily decreasing. To many it seems like the game is rigged and no amount of effort is going to be able to give them a say in what direction our society heads in.

Re: 20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘trickle-down’

#420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The truth is that they conserve their wealth by investing it, which means that money recirculates into the economy to provide for the continued prosperity of others. I know asking to read the article is too much, but maybe read the title? Also, is the word "offshore" not in your vocabulary? Otherwise agreed. Bailouts, of course, are atrocious. Investment should be a risk. Speaking of which, reminder: bankruptcy does…

> I know asking to read the article is too much, but maybe read the title? There's nothing in the article that actually refutes the notion of trickle-down economics. It is little more than a summary of a summary of the actual report[1]. The actual report is even worse than the summary when you dig into it. For example, the report notes on page 63 that taxes and transfers did nothing to change inequality. That's preci…

OK, commenting to save the only comment so far that voices an objection based on having actually looked at the report.

While I vehemently disagree with what you wrote, I thank you for providing basis for them, referencing the article, and giving food for thought.

Student loans aside, let's start:

>they're not talking about tax evaders having to pay their fair share, but rather justifying theft from those who produce the real value in the world.

So, what's the basis for making the distinction? Large corporations like Amazon and Apple both produce "real value", and also evade taxes, as do people who own and fun them. This is not a dichotomy.

The evaders aren't outliers.

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