The mindset behind trickle down economics in the US

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Anyway, tell me. What freedom do you have if you're born in a poor family and can't afford college without going deep into debt? What freedom do you have if you're stuck in a dead-end job because your spouse has a medical condition that you need the health insurance for? What freedom do you have when you have to waive your own right to medical privacy in order to crowdfund? What freedom do you have when you have to work 3 jobs in order to live?

Come on …

I just went to 11:17 and there is no mention that conservatives value freedom.

Conservatism is about freedom, free markets, free trade, individual liberties, less regulation (freedom), less taxes (freedom).

This video doesn't even talk about any of that.

I went to 13:15 to check out (d).. and I see the pyramid idea this person is pushing. However, conservatives actually believe "rising tides lift all boats" .. that conservatism (capitalism) raises living standards for all.

You can't have an honest discussion unless you accurately represent a position.

But he does mention all that. He just doesn't say it in the way you like it. Because, whether you believe it or not, lots of people do fall on hard times. Lots of people struggle to pay for food or health care, or housing. You are opposed to government assistance for them because it is unearned; the people struggling didn't prove themselves in the free market. Any benefit they do get, should be framed as a gift rather than a right.

And yes, he does mention a rising tide lifting all boats, when he mentions how the rich bring us Amazon, and how it's OK to be a cog in the machine so long as the machine produces something beautiful, and the belief the rest of us need the rich. He mentions the source of that view: Namely, that those who proved themselves very well and thus became rich, are the people whose fruits will benefit all of society. The government cannot interfere, otherwise the resources will end up in the hands of the people who don't know what to do with it, and won't use it well; and the rich people who benefit society will not be able to do all that they can. When you guys speak of liberals mucking things up, that's what you're referring to.

It may not be a flattering way of putting it, but it's the truth.

What freedom does a gambler owing 1 million dollars to the Mafia have?

Free people/free markets will have casualties (hard luck stories), however, conservative thought is that the masses are better off overall, because, overall THE PEOPLE will make better, smarter, wiser, more productive, greater [insert every positive adjective ] decisions than a government agent.

All of this is discussed in the video, just perhaps not in the way you like it. Those "casualties" you mention, are people ending up at the bottom of the hierarchy, and conservatives usually believe that it's because they themselves failed to do well or make the right choices; thus, they belong there. If they want to move up, then they should simply get better at the game. This belief is quite evident in the example you gave in response to mine. And again, it's all addressed on the OP video.

Yes we all know what conservatives think about liberals does not make them right however . Also productivity comes from happy relaxed people not over-worked tired people who don't get paid enough to afford a 1 bedroom apartment on their own.

Also, how is it any better to trust corporate CEOs, do they care about the wellbeing of the people of this country? Putting too much trust in government is a bad thing for sure, but its not like its a better choice to just trust in the corporations to keep the best interests of the public in mind.

Whether you want to credit Trump's tax cuts or not (I actually don't). Unemployment is currently going down and wages are going up...

Edit: bottom image is unemployment from the bureau of labor statistics https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

Like all things it's a matter of degrees. Sometimes tax cuts spur growth, sometimes not.

If a wealthy person invests in a work of art, jewelry etc. they must liquidate that money to give to an art dealer or jeweler, who in turn either saves, invests, or spends that money. Saved money is the only money that exits the economy.

It's the continuation of a trend that started under Obama. The problem with these tax cuts, and the recent bipartisan budget bill, the deficit is going to balloon, and that cannot be good for the economy in the long-term.

Alright I took the time to watch the video, and having seen part of this video series before the maker as usual makes some good points while getting some things wrong:

The good

1) Liberals and conservatives tend to have different underlying assumptions. It's why they both think they're so right and the other side is so wrong.

2) Capitalism is a self-sorting hierarchy.

3) Anyone can succeed, but not everyone can succeed tends to be a conservative viewpoint.

The bad

1) The opposition to government interference, is not that it will disrupt the hierarchy and put people in the wrong places. It is that it will misallocate resources and EVERYONE will be worse off for its interference.

2) Equality before the law is not contradictory with believing people unequal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMYDSyqNpQo. The conservative viewpoint is have fair rules and let the chips fall where they may. By definition conservatives want equality before the law.

Conservatives grant that CEOs are greedy and devious.

However, conservatives counter that greed and deviousness are human traits that will exist in government agents as well (that liberals want to put their trust in).

The government agents, however, has power over you, and can use that power to enforce their greed (and bad decisions).

Here is a relevant interview … with a conservative (capitalist) response ...

Last edited by LoveNotHate on 05 Aug 2019, 1:05 am, edited 2 times in total.

I agree, running huge deficits is a big problem and I disliked the Trump tax cuts. I wouldn't credit Obama with the economy just like I wouldn't credit Trump now. However, since this is a hugely complex system and the trend has accelerated under Trump some people are crediting him and his tax cuts. I can't say for certain they're wrong, just that I think they're wrong.

I have a hunch though that it will come crashing down on Trump's head.

But wages and employment are nowhere near what they had been in my dad's day when he had a great paying industrial job, my mom could stay home, I was spoiled rotten as a kid, and we all had fantastic medical benefits. That began to change when that senile old man, Ronny Raygun, gave us trickle down and allowed for corporate full scale war against organized labor and labor laws. Since, working people have been the losers.

We've had this argument before and I don't want to rehash it, but statistically speaking you're incorrect. In your dad's day real income was lower and life expectancy was shorter.

Nostalgia is rarely accurate. I live in an area of the Midwest that had a 30 year low in raw temperature with record wind chill this past winter due to a fluke weather pattern. Wind chills hit -50ish and raw temperature was -30ish. Some women in her thirties was talking about "How when I was a kid they never would have shut the schools, we had cold winters like this all the time." She was completely false. There was one time during her lifetime it got that cold in raw temperature and never with the same wind chill. It was also a fluke weather pattern and hardly commonplace.

Real wages are still lower than their peak in the 1970s:



And life expectancy has declined for 3 years straight:

https://www.aafp.org/news/health-of-the ... tdrop.html

I live in the Pacific Northwest where wages and benefits were actually better in the seventies, and the weather tends to be more tolerable. Still, I remember snow days very fondly. We even got two weeks off when Mt. St. Helen erupted... and didn't have to make it up!