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Re:20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘tr... by Clubber on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @08:44AM (#29484583)
>Because that would require taking from some people and giving to others through government, which is a very inefficient way to do it.

I mean where do you think defense contractor profits come from? How about medical and Pharma? Medicare is the largest single payor in the US and they deal exclusively with the elderly who require more prescriptions and medical care. Many large industry's largest client is the federal, state and local governments. Where does that money come from? Our taxes; not only ours but the taxes of future generations through debt. We do it all-the-time with business to prop them up. That doesn't even get into tax incentives.

Re:20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘tr... by xondono on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @10:52AM (#29486227)
> I mean where do you think defense contractor profits come from?

So what? What’s the argument here? Because we have programs that take X amount of dollars, burn a portion of it and give the rest to people in group Y, we should have other programs doing the same for the people in group Z1,Z2,…?

Call me crazy, but IMO the solution is not having programs that burn our collective wealth.

Re:20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘tr... by Clubber on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @12:20PM (#29487537)
>So what?

Follow the thread:

>> I haven't ever heard trickle down proponents suggest we give the money to the working class.

>Because that would require taking from some people and giving to others through government, which is a very inefficient way to do it.

The argument is even though trickle down proponents don't suggest we give the money to the working class, they're fine with giving money via several mechanisms to business, thus trickle down.

>Call me crazy, but IMO the solution is not having programs that burn our collective wealth.

Our collective wealth should be spent on helping the "collective," i.e. citizenry directly. It's been hijacked with trickle down theory. Trickle down theory basically says if you give all the collective wealth to business, it will be spent helping the citizenry. I guess it does in the form of jobs, but the businesses certainly get most of the cut.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

"...means to stimulate business investment in the short term and benefit society at large in the long term."

Of course it's a sham, but it's been going on since at least Reagan.

Re:20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘tr... by 1234letshaveatw on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @09:15AM (#29484900)
>I mean where do you think defense contractor profits come from? How about medical and Pharma?

Inefficiency

Re:20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘tr... by jdgoesmarching on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @10:11AM (#29485652)
Regulatory capture is not inefficiency, it is an extremely efficient result of a system designed to serve capital. At some point we have to stop pretending like we aren’t successfully achieving what our economy is optimized for.
Re:20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘tr... by xondono on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @10:49AM (#29486167)
Regulatory capture is impossible without government enforcement.

The way to fight it is not by giving more powers to government but giving less.

Re:20 year study of global wealth demolishes the myth of ‘tr... by jdgoesmarching on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @12:32PM (#29487717)
I’m not sure what Libertarian-minded people think the era of peak neoliberalism was all about, but defanging the powers of government 50 years ago is how we’ve arrived at the modern corporatocracy. It turns out that taking power away from government doesn’t result in an anarchist paradise, it just swings the balance of power in favor capital.

This is your paradise, your side won. Move the goalposts all you want, but we’re at the logical consequence of letting “the market” make every social, economic, and political decision.