A summary of trickle down economic theory:

[Japher]

Hmong - Laotian immigrant (the H is silent)

[Kidlicious]

I'm sorry you feel that way Japher. It's not true though. Poor people are rational too. They want better, and if they see opportunity for themselves they will take it.

[Japher]

I am not saying they are irrational. True enough that a majority of the people who are poor don't want to be poor, but they do nothing to get themselves out of it. The only thing I do see, however, is the kids getting yelled at to good in school... It is more like they want their kids to do all the work, but them a house, and give them an allowance. Most of my friends who I grew up with that were poor are now successful ppl, their parents and some of their siblings are still soaking of the system.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Damn, this is a hard point to make for you. I'm considering equal persons living in two different environments. One has more opportunity than they other. One of those opportunities is to see success all around you, and to have friends who are successfull.

And it's a hard point to make for you.

I didn't get an automatic rich person's kit at birth. I wasn't born with silver spoon in hand. When I left home, at 15, I lived in crappy conditions for a while in working class (at best) little boxy apartments surrounded by beer-guzzling white trash who fought with each other every night. One place, my roommate and I (another minimum wage underage hippie kid) lived upstairs, and this little pussywhipped runt of a guy who worked in a tire store (weighed maybe 130 dripping wet) and his 300 pound white trash wife (never figured out if she worked or not) lived right downstairs. One night, they got into a fight when he got home (as usual), but this time, the stupid ***** wouldn't shut up. "Are you a man or a mouse" for about three hours straight, nothing else, after two hours of them yelling and throwing stuff. (The cops never bothered to come by for that sort of thing.)

Finally, about two a.m., I went outside, yelled at 'em "He's a ****ing mouse, you're a ****ing shrew, and if you two don't shut the **** up so I can get some sleep, I'm going going to come down there with my varmint plinker and you're going to be a couple of dead rodents." (cheers from neighbors) (cops show up in two minutes ) I concluded I really didn't want to spend the rest of my life putting up with that crap.

You're seriously telling me that just because people don't live in rich neighborhoods and hang out with rich people, they are doomed and have no chance to make money or improve their economic situation? That's the kind of rationalization of failure that I talk about when I talk about attitude.

People who are successful figure out ways to do things. Losers figure out excuses why they "can't" (read won't) do things.

A lot of people figure out that they'd rather do other things than put in extra time learning new skills, or scrimping and saving money rather than buying nonessentials. A lot of people figure they have other priorities. But a lot of people rationalize why they "can't" do things, and then play victim.

In your world view, apparently nobody's responsible for their situation or for changing it, and everybody who isn't rich is just trapped.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Japher
I am not saying they are irrational. True enough that a majority of the people who are poor don't want to be poor, but they do nothing to get themselves out of it.

That is saying they are irrational. You are saying they have opportunity that they don't take. That's not rational.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
In your world view, apparently nobody's responsible for their situation or for changing it, and everybody who isn't rich is just trapped.

In your world view, trickle-down economics creates opportunity for everyone. Still you wont even admit that opportunity is limited, and the number of rags to riches stories are dependent on opportunity. If poor people have just as much opportunity as rich people then why do we need any policy? No, the object is to create opportunity. Oppotunity is not infinite in poor neighborhoods. Even if all the poor were to act just like you there would still be the same amount of poor, because the number of opportunities for them hasn't changed.

[MosesPresley]

You just have to love it when the rich, overeducated and their children get together and take a great big intellectual and economic dump on the poor.

[Arrian]

Even if all the poor were to act just like you there would still be the same amount of poor

I don't happen to believe that opportunity is limited. I do agree that people who grow up poor (such as MtG) have less going for them than people who grow up with money (me, for instance). And there is much work to be done in America's poorest regions to help people improve their lot in life. But then again, please note that MtG is a lot more successful (at least financially) than I, despite my advantaged starting point. Why did that happen? I suspect it's because he set a goal and went for it, all-out. He was willing to work his butt off for it. Me... I'm a bit of a slacker.

-Arrian

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kidicious


In your world view, trickle-down economics creates opportunity for everyone. Still you wont even admit that opportunity is limited, and the number of rags to riches stories are dependent on opportunity. If poor people have just as much opportunity as rich people then why do we need any policy? No, the object is to create opportunity. Oppotunity is not infinite in poor neighborhoods. Even if all the poor were to act just like you there would still be the same amount of poor, because the number of opportunities for them hasn't changed.

Another zero sum fallacy?

I was trolling on my original description of trickle-down, in response to the pseudo-Marxist babble that originated this thread. Overtaxation of upper income earners on a "progressive" system is opportunity stifling, and realigning maximum tax rates and government spending to a more sane level will stimulate growth. That is not trickle-down.

This isn't the 19th Century industrial world of Marx anymore, where you have evil capitalists and downtrodden workers, and nothing in between except the few middle class lackeys and stooges of the evil capitalits. Opportunity is neither zero-sum nor linear.

Of course, there are going to be **** jobs in the economy, but if people are proactive about improving their education, job skills, and position in the job market, those **** jobs are starting points, not lifetime achievements.

You can take dumps like parts of western Virginia and West Virginia, where a lot of my family is from, and yes, you'll have long term poor. Why? Lack of education, lack of relevant skills, and unwillingness to move to areas with more economic activity. People expect companies to locate there, but why would anyone? It's logistically inconvenient to everything except coal, and you have to import any skilled workforce of significant size, or spend years training locals from the ground up. No amount of money you throw at the the locals in terms of trivial tax subsidies is going to cure those basic structural problems.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Arrian






I don't happen to believe that opportunity is limited. I do agree that people who grow up poor (such as MtG) have less going for them than people who grow up with money (me, for instance).
-Arrian

Actually, I grew up middle class for the most part, if you don't count that year we moved four times all over the US because my dad couldn't find long-term work, or the time my parents got both cars repo'd when an employer of his screwed him and everyone when it went out of business. (Oh, and they were Ford pintos too ) At that time, in addition to working full time, my dad workied a part time night job as a draftsman, and a weekend job as a gas-station attendent back before the self-serve days. They dug themselves out of the hole though, and moved on.

Yeah baby, we all were born with silver spoons in hand. My parent's parents and their parents were all reasonably well off, until they got reamed by the depression. My mom's side survived mostly off the inherited family farm (been in the family since the 1820's), my dad's side because of WPA nepotism from Uncle Fred. (Fred Vinson, owner/operator of the Kentucky Democratic Party machine, and buddy of FDR and Truman) They all survived but came out of the depression pretty much dead broke, like everyone else.

When my mom met my dad, she was a divorced single mom (in the 50's, my brother's dad was a useless punk) who worked in the friggin' Greyhound bus terminal in downtown San Diego, and my dad was an engineer a couple of years after graduating with his BSME, right after getting out of the Air Force, where he flew (flight engineer) in tactical bombers in Korea. He was out west for the first time, since there were no aviation or good mechanical engineering jobs back home in Kentucky or thereabouts, and my mom came out here when some of her family moved out here as well. He finished up college on the GI bill, while working nights in a fuels test lab where he and a couple other guys almost got their asses blown up more than a few times. For the most part though, starting from not much, they were middle of the middle class, and gradually moved on up economically through the 80's and 90's.

So that wasn't so bad, it was just when I decided to go out on my own that I got a real look at the way life worked, trying to go to school and support myself on $600-$800 a month in a good month. (that's rent, tuition, books, food, you name it) There were lots of not good months too.

So yeah, baby, we just sit here with our rich-person's Unfair Opportunity Kit^TM and our silver spoons in hand, while the colored help goes and fetches us our Mint Juleps.

[HershOstropoler]

"Even if all the poor were to act just like you there would still be the same amount of poor, because the number of opportunities for them hasn't changed."

If all the poor got better skills, they could bake a bigger pie.

My grandparents had about nothing; one granddad had an alcohol problem. My parents and their siblings started out with pretty much nothing.

It wasn't possible for them to study, back in the 60s. But they worked themselves into middle class (with the exception of one uncle of mine, but that's a rather odd story). I used the opportunities they could offer me, but guess what, some of my cousins are "slipping". Maybe it's really more about work than handouts?

So I'm a tad bit sceptical towards daddyboys just as well as towards the "please, someone pull me out of my society-created misery" crowd. (Actually I can't stand either of them. )

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Arrian
I suspect it's because he set a goal and went for it, all-out. He was willing to work his butt off for it. Me... I'm a bit of a slacker.

-Arrian

Actually, I'm inherently lazy.

Ever heard that saying "When you've got a really difficult job, give it to a lazy person - he'll inevitably find an easier way to do it?"

There's gold in them thar hills of finding easier ways of doing things.

[Arrian]

No, never heard that one.

Unfortunately, not only am I lazy, but I'm complacent. But I'm not complaining. If I was, I'd be outta line.

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian
I don't happen to believe that opportunity is limited. I do agree that people who grow up poor (such as MtG) have less going for them than people who grow up with money (me, for instance).

Total contradiction

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Another zero sum fallacy?

Please make the connection between finite opportunity and zero sum game.