Those salaries are also taxed, and at the highest tax brackets. The government may end up getting more revenue that way.

The answer is simple: it's the biggest growth generator in USA.

Growth has its own problems of course (I don't want to estimate the health impact of Coca Cola), but it's a prerequisite of a country not falling behind others.

It can do both, by eliminating corporate taxes.

At that point, do we need to fundamentally rethink political donations by companies (outright ban them) and SuperPACs? No representation without taxation.

Absolutely, companies should not be involved in politics. It's impossible to _fully_ get them out of politics, but we can at least minimize it.

> It is complex - is it better for the money to go back into the economy by paying high salaries to a specific group of highly-educated people?

Yes. Also, the salary will not go _only_ to highly-educated people. For example, if Amazon decides to build a new distribution center, it will employ blue-collar workers to build it, not software engineers.

> Or is it better for the money to go back into the economy through taxes, then disbursing the benefits to lower-income benefit programs?

No.

> I’m not sure what the answer is.

The answer is pretty clear: invest money into the private sector, rather than divert it into the Federal budget. Private actors are more efficient at allocating funds than the government.

I'm not against social spending, it's a necessary evil for any real state. Pure libertarianism leads to dystopian outcomes. But it should be understood that it's a very real artificial inefficiency that is imposed on the economy.

There are also situations where additional social spending is necessary, but they are VERY easy to detect: when your interest rate is near zero.

Jesus man, how can you look at the economic history of the past 30 years and still think neoliberalism is the way to go?

Real neoliberalism (with land value tax and pigouvian tax) has never been tried.

Then you misunderstand, the markets and economies of the past 5 decades have been two children playing Candyland. Saying it's not is a No True Scotsman fallacy, because clearly since I labeled it as Candyland economy it must be so.

Sure, and you could argue that we haven’t actually tried communism, or that US democracy is so gerrymandered and neutered (eg Citizens United), etc about any political system. I don’t think we’d be where we are in the US if we had a “pure” democracy, I don’t think Russia would be where it is if they had actually gotten to communism. South America might be a much different place if the US hadn’t looked at the budding socialist movements and said “no way, buddy”.

because a high percentage people on HN fall into the group that benefits more from neoliberal economics than the larger group of people within those economies who don't benefit.

I used to think like you, until I saw what the lack of neoliberalism does to countries. And before I witnessed the magic of market economy that adapts to changes far, far, far better than anything else.

If you want a static economy that supports gradual decline (preferably with a mineral-based income stream), then a lot of state spending is fine.

Being opposed to neoliberalism does not mean being opposed to free markets in general.

The brand of neoliberalism where the fox sets up shop in the henhouse does not work.

State spending is not a panacea.

Same as the communists, in that it hasn't been truly implemented anywhere?

I don't have the brain-rot of calling all of mainstream economics 'neoliberalism' so I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say here.