I'm not taking a test (feel free to answer yourself) but my view is that it's the same old talking point: Help the wealthy, and the Nth order effects will benefit others. The only thing these policies deliver on reliably is the 1st order effect - helping the wealthy.

(I think that's a good way to analyse any policy - the 1st order effects are the ones you can count on; the Nth order effects are just BS that magically costs nothing, but gets others to go along - 'the people will pay for this stadium for my privately owned franchise (1st order) and it will bring business to the community (2nd order).' That's repeated over and over, and the 2nd order effect is well known to not happen, but it sometimes gets enough votes from those uneducated in the issue.)

I think in the 1980s the Reagan administration called it 'trickle-down economics', such an incredibly revealing name!

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tmoertel 25 days ago | parent [-]

Okay, but you didn't refute the line of reasoning. You called it "the same old talking point" and then jumped to the conclusion that "the only thing these policies deliver on reliably is the 1st order effect - helping the wealthy." But you didn't show that your claim was true. Or that the claim you were responding to was false.

Can you offer a substantive argument that getting the wealthy to invest their wealth instead of spending it on themselves is a policy that benefits only the wealthy and makes life worse for everyone else?

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mmooss 25 days ago | parent | next [-]

You might have overlooked this part: "I'm not taking a test (feel free to answer yourself)".

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tmoertel 25 days ago | parent [-]

I didn't ignore that part. I interpreted it as your way of saying that you intended to state your opinion without offering supporting argument.

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mmooss 25 days ago | parent [-]

You misinterpreted it: It meant I (and others) aren't here to take your tests nor are interested in your grades.

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tmoertel 25 days ago | parent [-]

If that's what you think is happening – tests and grades – when people come to a site whose purpose is to foster thoughtful and substantive discussions, and then on that site they share ideas and invite criticism of them, you might consider whether you're missing something.

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mmooss 25 days ago | parent [-]

It was only your comment.

	▲	tmoertel 24 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'm curious. What specifically about my comment made you believe it was a test and that I would be assigning grades to responses, as opposed to an idea for which I invited criticism?

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orwin 25 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Can you offer a substantive argument that getting the wealthy to invest their wealth instead of spending it on themselves is a policy that benefits only the wealthy and makes life worse for everyone else?

Not gp, but if the investment is made in either a non-productive asset, or in the secondary market toi buy share in a company that is downsizing/stabilizing their investments (share buyback is very often a good tell), then the wealth does not benefit society in general but either inflate a bubble, or separate the owning class from the working class.

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tmoertel 25 days ago | parent [-]

> Not gp, but if the investment is made in either a non-productive asset, or in the secondary market toi buy share in a company that is downsizing/stabilizing their investments..., then the wealth does not benefit society in general but either inflate a bubble, or separate the owning class from the working class.

That if is doing a lot of lifting. What percentage of investments do you believe satisfy that if condition? If that percentage is p, then do you agree that it's generally beneficial for society, for approximately 100% − p percent of the time, when wealthy people decide to invest in the economy instead of spend on themselves?

(Further, even when companies downsize, don't they release their resources, such as people and equipment, back to the market? And doesn't the evidence of economic history suggest that, on the whole, the market tends to take up resources, including those released from downsizing companies, and use them produce goods and services that benefit both the owning class and the working class? For example, for most of history, even the wealthiest of the owning class lacked electricity, air conditioning, refrigeration, radio, television, electronic computers, the internet, cell phones, HDTVs, antibiotics, vaccines, generic drugs, medical imaging, DNA testing, video conferences with health care professionals, and so on. Today, don't even working people benefit from these things? So, even when your if condition holds, the claimed consequence, that such investments "either inflate a bubble, or separate the owning class from the working class" seems hard to believe.)

	▲	orwin 25 days ago \| parent [-]
		More than two third of all public investments are on the secondary market, and this do not benefit investments or the 'real' economy. It's this beneficial to society at best 33% of the time (I'm counting MIC in 'benefic for society' only for the sake of the argument to be clear). While a worker is beneficial to society 100% of the time.

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ranger_danger 25 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[dead]

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dwb 25 days ago | parent | prev [-]

False dichotomy. We should tax the lot of them until they are not wealthy any more.