Nothing new here.

There is a long list of papers from the right and left that say the same.

- https://theamericanleader.org/problems/income-wealth-inequal...

- https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/rand-study-how-high-....

- https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/...

For whatever reason, we felt that the techno-elite would be different than the robber barons that came before them and that the internet would lead to greater equality when all it’s done is erode unity, wealth, privacy and security.

...while they duck and dodge taxes through international shell companies and...moving to Texas

To quote the late great Robert W Cox:

> Theory is always for someone and for something. All theories have a pespective. Perspectives derive from a position in time and space, specifically social and political time and space ... There is, accordingly, no such thing as theory in itself, divorced from a standpoint in time and space. When any theory so represents itself, it is the more important to examine it as ideology, and to lay bare its concealed perspective

In this case it could not be clearer that the theory of 'trickle down'/supply side/neoliberal economics - that is, liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation - were for the wealthy, and they were for the purpose of capturing a greater share of wealth (upward wealth redistribution). That's why they acquired prominence and political support, and that's why they've been so hard to dislodge in spite of the overall harm they've done.

Personally I think it'd probably be ok to try something else

I think the golden age of the US lasted between the beginning of the 30's until the end of the 70's and especially that period was a time of higher taxes for the rich and a rapidly growing middle class. With the current lack of well paying middle class jobs together with high barriers for studying for the jobs that do poor people don't really have a chance to emancipate like they did until the 80's: work hard, earn enough money to send your kids to university and see them doing better than you did.

My country, Portugal, is the best example how that "tax the rich" mentality clearly didn't worked.

First of all you have to consider what in your country is considered as "rich". Here people who's wage is above average are taxed as "rich"... so yeah that creates another issue.

Also, the rich are rich because they offer very need services to the middle class. You tax the rich and they increase the prices of their products, which means you're basically increasing taxes on the lower classes instead of the rich.

The solution? An overall decrease of taxes.

Trickle down economics clearly hasn't worked, hopefully governments will stop going down that path.

Do you even need a study to prove that? It's just common sense!

Anyone got a link to the paper? The article doesn't present any evidence.

It led to the greatest trickle down of knowledge in the history of man: the Internet.

If we tax the rich, the taxes go straight to the government. A thriving economy needs CHURN. Please note: it’s not about the taxes..plain old taxation creates stale economies..it’s about how much people spend and buy and produce and keep money in circulation. The economic churn. More churn, more prosperity because we are creating movement of spending money that came from capital to keep alive a thriving economy.

Taxing the rich ..those few amongst us..will result in a welfare state with no vibrant economic activity and everyone being dependent on the state because if there is no income, there is no movement. No small businesses, no new start ups, no way to spend money in all those conspicuously consumptive ways.

While it’s fun to act shocked at the number of billionaires amongst us..most of it is tied up in stocks that can’t be liquidated. The high stock price determines dividends..pension funds, investment firms, wealth funds, retirement funds, universities, everyone invests in these stocks that allows people to retire and spend and splurge and buy homes etc.

The hypocrisy of the outrage is laughable. Case in point: Chicago teachers Union protested in front of Jeff Bezos home with a guillotine because he became the first man to be worth 200 billion. [1]

The same Chicago teachers Union owned 45k AMZN shares which brought its investment in amazon to ..wait for it.. $86 million+. In year ending 2019. Trickle down capitalism doesn’t work? .. right then!

[1] https://www.thecentersquare.com/illinois/ctu-sparks-controve...

[..] The Chicago Teachers Union sparked controversy Thursday when it said it was "completely in support" of demonstrators who built a guillotine outside of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo's home.

The union tweeted a video of the guillotine and wrote, "We are completely frightened by, completely impressed by and completely in support of wherever this is headed." The tweet generated both support and outrage online.

The controversial tweet came as Bezos reportedly became the first person to acquire a personal $200 billion fortune.[..]

[..] The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund owned 45,754 shares of Amazon stock worth $86,641,147 at the end of fiscal year 2019, according to its 2019 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report.

The pension fund is governed by a 12-member board of trustees. Active teachers elect six of the pension board's trustees.

The report showed the pension fund's Amazon stock was its second-largest domestic equity holding behind Microsoft in 2019. In addition to Microsoft and Amazon., the funds top 10 domestic equity holdings included Apple, Facebook, Alphabet, Chevron, Visa, Berkshire Hathaway and Johnson & Johnson, according to the report.[..]

Right. Let’s see.

First of all..this is a political hit piece. Secondly, it is untrue. The world has eradicated crippling poverty due to trickle down capitalism. Anyone who denies this is purposefully being dishonest.

Having said that..why it’s political..

> That will be comforting news to U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, whose hopes of repairing the country’s virus-battered public finances may rest on his ability to increase taxes, possibly on capital gains -- a levy that might disproportionately impact higher-earning individuals.[..]

Rishi Sunak is the husband of Akshata Murthy and son-in-law of Narayan Murthy.

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/diaspora/narayana-murthys-...

[..] Akshata Murthy, who married Sunak in 2009, is the daughter of one of India's most successful entrepreneurs. Her father co-founded the technology giant Infosys, and her shares in the company are worth £430 million, making her one of the wealthiest women in Britain, with a fortune larger than the Queen's, The Guardian reported.[..]

[..] But Sunak's entry mentions no family members other than his wife, and only refers to her ownership of a small, UK-based venture capital company.

Research by the Guardian shows that Murthy and her family hold many other interests, including: * A combined £1.7bn shareholding in Infosys, which employs thousands of staff in the UK and has held contracts with government ministries and public bodies.[..]

[..] The Guardian reported that after becoming chief secretary to the Treasury in July 2019, Sunak revealed for the first time that he was the beneficiary of a blind trust. He also included Murty for the first time, stating: "Mr Sunak's wife owns a venture capital investment company, Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd."[..]

While the wealth of the Murthy clan is staggering and Akshata Murthy(and the Sunak family by extension)‘s inherited riches are impressive making her ‘richer than the queen’, Infosys has also created a new middle class for the millions of educated youth who came out of educational institutions and ended up being gainfully employed. Everyone climbed a couple of rungs in India due to companies like Infosys. I don’t think anyone can deny this. What a bafflingly blatantly dishonest article/study.

Nothing to see here. Ok to move on.

There is a pervasive inverse correlation between government spending, as a percentage of GDP, and the rate of economic growth:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170821004405/http://ime.bg/upl...

A tax cut that isn't matched by a spending cut translates to more government borrowing, where the rich take that money they save on taxes, and lend it to the government.

I'm sort of tired of backwards-looking studies that align directly with the political thinking of the publisher.

How about a study that tries to predict what will happen under the next administration, and by the way, include the relevant metrics?

Something like: Unemployment rates Stock market rise/fall Worker's wages

In truth, the current US administration has had pretty good marks in these departments. I'd love to see the next administration better them. But I'd also like to see the metrics provided before the judgement is made on what works or doesn't work.

Sort of like 'the scientific method'.

If government coffers are a barrel with a bunch of holes in it, and taxes are water pouring into the barrel, why are we constantly fixated on increasing the rate of water entering the barrel, and not on plugging the holes water is spilling onto the ground on? The government is notoriously wasteful with tax money, so why are we unable to incentivize more efficient usage of existing taxes vs. increasing tax income?

It's like a software developer who always adds more and more RAM to their PCs and always frames the problem in terms of how much more RAM they need to make things work instead of taking some time to close a couple thousand chrome tabs.