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Comment by rester324 | Hacker News Reader

Sorry but I don't understand your comment. Are you sure you are responding to the right message?

The OP specifically called out trickle-down economics. Which is a myth, a false belief that somehow not taxing rich companies and not redistributing a country's wealth through taxes and other means, companies will do the right thing eventually, and they will raise the wages instead by their own incentives.

Which they never do, and only raise wages as a very last resort. They do instead coordinated wage suppression, lobbying governments to take away labor rights from the labor force, outsource their operations, set up new offshore offices to escape paying taxes, etc

So what does your comment to do with that? I think your message doesn't address any of that

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That’s not what “trickle down economics” is. It’s basically the Laffer curve which argues that tax receipts can actually go down with higher taxes rates as tax’s can discourage growth if high enough.

Thus if you lower taxes, economics growth increases (overall tax receipts go up, not down).

> It’s basically the Laffer curve which argues that tax receipts can actually go down with higher taxes rates as tax’s can discourage growth if high enough.

What you are describing is if we are on the right side of the curve. But is there any evidence that this is true?

When I read Sowell, someone who I imagine would be a champion for this cause, he cites the 1920s as his evidence that trickle-down works which doesn’t inspire confidence. If there is no modern evidence, why are we even entertaining this theory today?

I don't understand. Can you elaborate?

The Laffer curve simply shows the relationship between taxation and government revenue. It has nothing to do with the policies and the economic theories. In fact, there are two points on both sides of the Laffer curve's maxima where tax revenues are the same in theory. That's just a simple didactical tool, nothing more.

Saying that the Laffer curve is the trickle down economics is as bad as saying that visualizations of a binary tree are what we call algorithms and data structures.

The Laffer curve is the basis for what was called "trickle down economics".

The Reagan administration argued the US was the right side of the curve, and that lowering taxes would result in economic growth ("a rising tide raises all boats"). Economic growth benefits every worker.

OK. Thank you for the explanation. But then again, I think you are confusig things. So I am not convinced at all. But at least now I understand where you are coming from.

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