Virga is a meteorological phenomenon that is familiar mostly to pilots and weather geeks. It is when precipitation falls from clouds but evaporates before hitting the ground.
Economic virga is what we have been experiencing in this country for four decades.
I first entered the workforce nearly that long ago. My first real job (other than doing chores and working for neighbors) was in a factory cleaning shipping drums. The workforce was largely male; the oldest workers had been working there since the Harding Administration. A good percentage of the workers were Second World War veterans. They were all supporting their families. Most of their wives didn't work. They owned houses and late-model cars.
Now, after four decades of nearly continuous Republican presidents (Bill Clinton was economically not much different than a Republican), look where we are.
The economic gains of the last four decades have largely been confined to the rich. The middle/working classes have not kept pace. In much of the country, it is impossible to buy a home on one worker's paycheck; the only way that most families have been able to afford to buy a house is if both spouses work full-time.
"Trickle-down economics", the idea of the party of Hoover that things will get better if taxes are cut for the rich, has been economic virga. After 40 years of this bullshit, it is time to try something else.
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Tuesday, February 3, 2009
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Yes, yes, yes. Trickle down has been a complete failure.
ReplyDeleteWord.
ReplyDeleteTrickle-down didn't make sense to begin with. The investor class is (duh) the investor class. That is, if you give the investor class more money, they don't spend it and therefore increase consumption and thus jobs. They invest it. Which would be a Good Thing if there was a shortage of investment capital in the economy, but there isn't. Indeed, all indications are that there is a *surplus* of investment capital in the economy -- banks can't lend the money they have because they can't find enough solvent customers to lend it to, Treasury bills are at 0% interest because investors can't find any investments worth investing in because they have so much investment capital flowing out of their coffers, and we've had one investment bubble after another caused by too much investment money, too few good things to invest in.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, "trickle down" was bullshit from day one, and those of us who knew a damned thing about economics were saying it from day one (yes, I was around during Ronnie Ray-gun's introduction of "trickle down" economics and I called bullshit on it then too, but we didn't have blogs back then). There probably needed to be some modest decreases in the top tax tier when Ronnie took office in order to ease access to investment capital, but when he slashed the top tax rate from 80% to 36%, well. That ain't modest unless you think a string bikini is modest.
- Badtux the Economics Penguin