American economics in a nutshell...

[misanthrope]

...Our socio/economic structure is built like a pyramid but works in the inverse when it comes to cashflow.

People with the most money tend to save it while those with the least will spend it. Turn the pyramid upside and you see a funnel that actually reveals our flow of wealth.

For this simple reason, it makes more sense to concentrate stimulus efforts on spending, on establishing jobs for the jobless on the bottom part of the pyramid. The money they make will end up in the hands of those above them.

The only tax cuts considered should be solely for the bottom half of the wealth scale. It has no other course than to flow toward the tiny end.

[patrice]

1. Now, that's what they call an Elegant explanation: Simple & Powerful

i.e. it explains a great deal.

[ThomWV]

2. I'm going to make this short and sweet - your argument fails

You speak to the rich saving what money comes their way but of course money saved by the rich is not stuffed in a matress, it is saved via being placed in accounts that are then invested. Get that? Invested as in put back into the economy to work, Now you may think what you wish about how well they place their money or how desireable the results of their investment but the truth is the money does not drop into some black hole.

Go take Economics 101, pay particular attention to the part where they discuss a guy named Keynes.

[TahitiNut]

4. The question then becomes "Invested where and in what?"

Buying up real estate? Buying up natural resources? Building overseas sweatshops? Buying politicians? Ours? Others'?

When businesses don't have a customer base, they fail. Our domestic economic system no longer penalizes the off-shoring of wealth. Indeed, it's facilitated. ONce upon a time there was a "social contract" that workers had with companies ... allow the fruits of their labor to accumulate in the enterprise to ensure it survived to employ succeeding generations. This, of course, is the con-game played out throughout all of mankind's history. The workers would produce MORE than they themselves needed and surrender those goods to a system that preserved the wealth for "rainy days" ... winter, even. This was how monarchies gained power. They were BOTH the Treasury and Capital. The whole drive towards "capitalism" was to pry loose a piece of the action from the royals and let commoners own land (means of production) too. The 'theory' of wealth reserves held for the benefit of all remained. (Hell... that's the presumption underlying "trickle-down" even now.)

[misanthrope]

5. Allowing for my rough knowledge, didn't Keynes admit...

...that hoarding was likely to occur? I've heard his failure to give appropriate weight for discrepancies between the classes in their capabilities to save and propensity to spend is problematic with his aggregate demand theories.

[misanthrope]

7. I'm still awaiting enlightenment**nm

**

[Octafish]

6. Invested in numbered Swiss bank accounts.

Your idea that the rich would invest their tax savings in industries that create jobs was how Reaganomics got sold in 1981.
It didn't happen then. It didn't happen at any time since. It certainly isn't happening now.

Regarding Keynes. He said it was government's role to invest tax dollars in the public economy when needed.
People like Reagan and the two Bushes and so forth did all they could to lower taxes on the rich.
The end result is that government now has no money to spend on the public.

[specimenfred1984]

9. That is nonsense

I wonder what repuke hijacked your ID?

[hankthecrank]

3. Yes and when they foreclose on some home their just cleaning out the dead wood

Dammit just let eat cake I say!

[specimenfred1984]

8. The problem with that is that it makes perfect sense

Our propaganda culture needs some talking head suit to make it sound complicated and official, to create tension like a cheesy sitcom plot along with the screaming opponents (repukes).

[misanthrope]

10. Reminds me of the seven blind men describing the elephant...

...Sometimes analyzation can lend itself to obfuscation. I have a tendency to get absorbed by minutiae and have to make myself back off from things to remain able to see the whole picture.

[arcadian]

11. I'm more for a redistribution of wealth

which concentrates on seizing ALL assets of the wealthiest people in this country, if they don't like it, they can go to Russia... after we take all their money.