Trickle Down...R.I.P.

[marmar]

from TPM Cafe:



Trickle Down...R.I.P.
By Jared Bernstein - August 26, 2008, 11:11PM



Look for this obituary in tomorrow's paper:

Trickle-down economics died yesterday morning at 10AM. The cause of death was a data release from the US Census Bureau, but trickle-down had been ailing from lack of empirical support for decades. Also known as "supply-side economics," trickle-down was the love child of Ronald Reagan, Arthur Laffer, and Jude Wanniski. It is survived by Larry Kudlow and Co., and the editorial page of the Wall St. Journal.

That's what you should see, but you probably won't. Let me explain.

The Census Bureau released some new data on Tuesday that strongly contradicts supply-side, trickle-down economics, but the truth is that if this brand of hucksterism could be brought down by evidence, it would have died long ago.

First, the new data. Every year the Census Bureau releases info on middle-class incomes and poverty for the prior year. So today's release refers to last year's data. Median household income, inflation-adjusted, was up slightly in 2007, but poverty rose too.

But the annual data are not of great interest here. Since 2007 was the last year of an economic expansion that began in 2001, that makes it an economic peak: the last year of a cycle. Which means we can now, for the first time, compare the results from this peak to the peak of the prior cycle: 2000. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/26/trickle_downrip/

[thereismore]

1. God I wish to never live under trickle-down economics. nt

[question everything]

2. I think that it was Bill Maher (on a good day) who said that trickle down

means we get the waste..(or something)

[OhioChick]

3. K&R

:kick: