Custom Search

Trickle-Up Economics

Edgar J. Steele

“If a private enterprise is a failure, it is closed down - unless it can get a government subsidy to keep it going; if a government enterprise is a failure, it is expanded. I challenge you to find exceptions.”

--- Milton Friedman, Why Government is the Problem, Wriston Lecture (1991)

"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."

--- Milton Friedman, The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, Ch 1, pg 15 (2002)

John McCain's closing campaign mantra: Barack Obama told Joe the Plumber that he wants to "spread the wealth," which proves that Obama is a Socialist. Perhaps.

Barack Obama's home-stretch mantra: John McCain "voted with President Bush over 90% of the time," thus McCain simply is more of the same. Probably.

Recall Ronald Reagan's closing campaign refrain for a moment: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Expand that to the full eight years of the Bush Administration and the answer for virtually all of us has to be, "Certainly not."

Trickle-Down Took us Down

How did things go so bad, so quickly? Again, we must look back to the Reagan Administration, during which so many things went wrong, as I believe history will show. First and foremost, Reagan legitimized and institutionalized the concept of "trickle-down economics," in which one confers all economic largesse upon big government, big companies and the fat cats, depending upon them then to spend money in such a way that it "trickles down" to the working man.

The real problem with trickle-down economics is that so much of the money gets side tracked enroute to Reagan's intended recipients. That's why corporate executive pay skyrocketed during the past twenty-five years while that of the common man actually declined, when adjusted for inflation. That's why so many big companies prospered though they were grossly inefficient, as so clearly disclosed by recent economic events. That's why government has ballooned along with its inefficiency and corruption. Implementation of trickle-down economic theory is the main reason why we are so much worse off than previously.

Plunge Protection Caused the Plunge

Furthermore, the secretive Plunge-Protection Team (PPT) was instituted during the Reagan administration. The PPT is empowered to engage in technically illegal stock and commodity market manipulation, all in the name of ensuring economic stability. While Bill Clinton really set the PPT in motion through Fed Chairman "Easy Al" Greenspan, George W. Bush and new Fed Chairman "WhirlyBen" Bernanke have put it on steroids. How do you like the stability of the markets today, with the PPT working overtime?

There's No Such Thing as a Free Trade

Free trade, a la NAFTA, WTO and other similar Globalist organizations, has been an unmitigated disaster for America, just as Ross Perot warned in years past. Free trade, like trickle-down economics and the Plunge-Protection Team, was imposed upon America by Globalist Republicans and Democrats, who continue to be in complete control of America's government and economy. These things haven't worked and we need a change - a serious change. Like it or not, we're going to get it. Eventually, the markets will have their way with us and the day of reckoning is at hand. It will not be pretty.

Trickle-Up Economics

I submit that what we should try is "trickle-up economics." Let's support the common man and depend upon him to spend his money in such a way that it trickles up to the companies, government and less-fat cats. Yes, let's "spread the wealth."

Socialism, as preached by Obama? Perhaps, but I have seen the alternative and it clearly has not worked. Instead, it has produced what I believe that history will dub Depression II, an economic downturn so bad that we begin to number them, as we already number major wars. We need a change.

Mind you, I am voting my conscience and pulling the lever for Chuck Baldwin, Presidential candidate of the Constitution Party. Independent Ralph Nader would be my second choice. But, if you force me to choose between more-of-the-same McCain or pay-your-money-and-take-your-chances Obama, then Obama is my clear choice because of his stance on both economics and the devastating American misadventure in the Middle East.

The United Socialist States of America (USSA)

Socialism? Am I preaching socialism? No. I'm preaching against America's already-existing socialism. If you think that Republicans, particularly George W. Bush, already have not implemented socialism in a big way in America, then you really don't understand the term. Let's examine the top-ten ways in which Bush and his predecessors already have (and McCain wants to continue to) "spread the wealth" of America:

1. Our jobs have been spread to Asia, Indonesia, India and Mexico.

2. Our taxes, along with the blood of our children, have been spread on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

3. Our wages have been spread overseas with our jobs, and domestically to millions of illegal immigrants who drag down the prevailing wage by working for peanuts.

4. Our savings and retirement accounts have been decimated and spread to the usual suspects on Wall Street, who shorted the market on the basis of inside information provided by their cohorts on the Plunge-Protection Team.

5. Our taxes continue to be spread to other countries in the form of "Foreign Aid," particularly to that most nettlesome of nations: Israel.

6. Our health care has been priced beyond our ability to pay, spread to millions of the undeserving - primarily illegal immigrants.

7. Our income has been spread to oil companies, who have reported record profits again and again, in the form of higher gasoline prices and the increasingly burdensome cost of heating our homes during the winter.

8. Our children's financial future has been mortgaged and the proceeds spread to the already-fat cats and inefficient organizations through the current incredible corporate and banking bailouts. Note that these bailouts result in the government acquisition of a controlling interest in much of America's formerly privately-held corporations, the very definition of Socialism. Note well that the architect of these bailouts is Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen, who just a couple of years ago was "earning" $37 million per year as the head of Goldman, Sachs, a prime recipient of all that bailout money.

9. Our money is diluted daily by the massive creation of dollars from nothing by the Federal Reserve Bank, a private organization owned by foreigners, resulting in a spreading of our wealth to the recipients of all the foregoing government largesse and excess.

10. Because new money is created as the result of new debt owed to the foreigners who own the Federal Reserve Bank, our future wealth is spread to those foreign fat cat central bankers in the form of ever-increasing interest payments.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. America already has become a socialist nation. Like the proverbial frog in the slowly-heated pot, you likely never noticed.

Bail Out People, Not Banks

Arguing for trickle-up economics merely suggests that we change the injection point of all the government-mandated money now being handed over to the guys at the top.

Rather than bail out banks holding bad mortgages, who still foreclose and evict homeowners, why don't we use that money to help out those who lost their jobs and have fallen behind in their payments?

Rather than pay for illegal immigrants' free health care, why don't we use that money to help out those who no longer can afford health insurance premiums, yet have suffered crippling medical bills?

Rather than paying for massive market intervention via the Plunge Protection Team, why not take our hands off and let traditional free-market forces take over?

Why don't we really support our troops in the Middle East by bringing them home and providing proper medical care for all veterans, care which routinely is denied them today?

Why don't we mandate a truly balanced budget, suffer the egregious hard times that already are coming, and put our money on a sound basis?

Why don't we round up all the illegal aliens (just arrest them all at the inevitable rallies and parades that will result from the announcement) and toss them back over the border, then police that border with Mexico with a vengeance?

Why don't we kill the tax breaks for the big boys, particularly the oil companies? You think they won't still drill? You think they won't still sell gasoline at the resulting lower prices?

Why don't we provide tax credits for college tuition and for the cost of winter heating, rather than the massive tax credits given to special interests, particularly corporations?

Why don't we finance a lot of the foregoing by arresting all the fat cats who plundered large business and government organizations, forcing them to disgorge their undeserved gains (starting with Henry Paulsen) and putting them in prison for their criminal mistreatment of their fellow Americans?

Again, I could go on and on. Again, you get the idea. This isn't rocket science and it isn't particularly complicated.

Trickle-up economics. An idea whose time has come.

How to Make a Difference

Make a difference this time. Voting for Democrats or Republicans is the real way to waste your vote. Seemingly, Obama is destined to win, so you might as well derive some satisfaction by voting for someone who actually would make changes that count. The Constitutional Party's Chuck Baldwin, in my opinion. Or Independent Ralph Nader.

Not voting at all is a cop out. Yes, the results often are rigged; but you have no valid complaint unless they first rob you of your vote.

Throw them all out on November 4. Vote against every single incumbent for every single office at all levels: local, county, state and federal. Vote against both Obama and McCain. Make a statement. Make it loud. Make a difference!

We Can Deserve to Succeed

Maybe we won't succeed. Maybe all we will do is substitute new crooks for old crooks, just like the last major Congressional election, wherein we replaced Republicans with Democrats who did an even worse job on our behalf, starting with the execrable Nancy Pelosi.

However, we can deserve to succeed, if nothing else. But, we won't deserve success if we keep on doing the same old thing and reelect the same old crooks. To make a difference, we actually have to do something different.

New America. An idea whose time has come.

-ed

Forward as you wish. Permission is granted to circulate both the written and audio version of this Nickel Rant™ among private individuals and groups, post on all Internet sites and publish in full in all not-for-profit publications. The audio version of this Nickel Rant may also be freely used in its entirety by for-profit broadcasting entities, but is not to be included in any recorded format which then is sold to others. The audio version may be rebroadcast, either live or archived on the Internet, either copied or linked directly to my web site, profit and nonprofit alike, so long as it is used in its entirety. In fact, I encourage any and all radio hosts to use it freely. Contact author for all other rights, which are reserved.

On-Line link to this rant in HTML format: http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/columns/trickle.htm

ownloadable audio file of Trickle-Up Economics:

streaming mp3 (1.4 mb, 12 min)

http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/audio/trickle16-16.mp3