Summations Only

There is a different word for poor people who don't work: destitute or perhaps homeless, just not simply poor.

In a too-broad sense, yes, I think your definition of poor works. In every day conversation, your definition works. But, IMO, when discussing economics in this fashion like we are, I think it's better to make the distinction that the poor who don't have jobs (for sake of discussion, let's not factor children into this since I think it is safe to say they share the economic status of their parents) are not simply just poor. We should, IMO, also make the distinction on the other end as well. To me, anyone making 6 figures qualifies as "rich", but the guy making $100,000 is poor compared to, let's say, Bill Gates, but they both qualify as rich, right? These sorts of discussions (about raising taxes on the rich etc.) aren't aimed at the mildly rich or those who are doing much better than average, so it would be unfair to also lump them together.The only reason I even mentioned it was due to my qualm with your comment "many of the poor don't even work". I personally took offense to that, as I considered my family poor growing up and my parents busted their fucking asses putting a roof over our head. Hell, I still consider myself poor, at least internally, even though I know I'm not and I am lucky to have what I have and I have far more than what those who actually are legitimately poor. Yes, there are people who do actually suckle on the teet of government funding, but they are not the status quo and those who genuinely need the assistance are getting hammered because of the mythical "welfare queens". The "poor who don't work" are a small minority and a cheap scapegoat.

{abe}
I should also note that I wasn't quite referring to any particular graph when I responded to Percy. Did your parents take money from you when you were a teenager to pay household bills? Did your income count towards the "household" income? I know mine didn't, but I'm sure some families would do that. However, I was talking more about actual children, which is why I said children and not teenagers. Well, I would say because there are a vast number of single income families, especially in the lower income brackets. Be that due to single parent homes, or not being able to afford a sitter. These single income families happen to also only be making minimum wage.However, economics isn't quite my strong suite and I haven't been able to keep up with much of this thread. It's pretty far over my head for the most part. A lot of what I say will be from an extreme laypersons perspective.Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

Even sillier still is basing anything on how much someone makes annually prior to taxes and other things that are immediately taken out of your paycheck (child support in my case, which is nearly $500/mo). I know of no one that doesn't live paycheck to paycheck, so what ones "annual salary" is, is useless.

I'm not sure how this is at all relative to anything I said, let alone the portion of my reply to Theo that you quoted. I was simply saying that, in my opinion, "annual gross income" figures are worthless to all but the obscenely wealthy I suppose, given that it doesn't figure in actual liquid assets that people are able to use, what with it not factoring in taxes and other things that get taken out of ones paycheck (child support for example).Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

In what sense? I've seen you say this, but can't say that I've seen it explained how it is actually happening. I would ask: if it is happening, why are there still so many companies laying off workers? What is actually trickling down? Cuz it sure isn't jobs. Or wealth.If you've already explained, I apologize and request to be pointed at the appropriate post.Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

You said that it "obviously IS happening" then go on to talk about construction. You do realize that new home construction is down, and has been so for quite some time. It looks to me like the rich have been hording their money, not spending it. It looks to me like the rich have been cutting jobs (and sending them to other countries), not creating them. So I still fail to see that anything except shit is trickling down.{abe}
To expound on what crash said about this: How many "20 room mansions" get built from the ground up compared to how many 200k (which is about average for new construction) are built, even in good times? Entire subdivisions of 200k homes get built, whereas someone who builds a 20 million dollar mansion builds....1? Also, who do you think gets that 20 mil? The whole crew? Nope, they still get their 10 bucks an hour regardless of how expensive the home is (and that 10 bucks an hour is for legal employees; the gophers that consist of a majority of the crew. No telling how many illegals work on a crew).Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

But doesn't this assume that the people receiving this stimulus will continue living at the same means they are currently and the stimulus wouldn't serve to bring them out of the lower income bracket? Should we not, then, view the stimulus on the basis of it's ROI and instead of how much it will help those people?

You say that in a plural sense. Far as I can tell, we've had one "boom": the dot com boom, and one MAJOR bust: the '08 bust. The "rising" GDP has benefited only the rich. The "rising GDP" means fuck all to the rest of the nation since it isn't affecting us. What good is a rising GDP if the only people who reap the benefits are the rich?{abe}
Your graph even shows that it is only the top 5% that rise with the rising GDP.Again, I speak strictly from a laypersons perspective.Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

1: Do you really think a good indication of the economy is to look at the stock market/Wall Street?2: Referring to all those periods as "recessions", don't you think that kind of cheapens the term? Perhaps Straggler first introduced it, but you used it and that is what I was responding to, not Stragglers use of it.

On the contrary. The fact that you are showing what the stock market does on any given day says nothing regarding people who don't invest in the stock market. I, personally, couldn't give two fucks what the stock market does (yes, yes, I am aware that much pricing is a result of what plays out on Wall Street). Again, don't you think that somewhat cheapens the word? Especially when you would also say that what happened in 2008 was also a recession? I had no idea we were talking about investing, other than the fact that your second and third graphs had investing related stuff.....(this is why I shouldn't talk economics?).If you want to talk about investing, you've lost me. People with money invest it. People that live paycheck to paycheck spend that money. Better yet: rich people invest, poor people spend. I would love to invest money so my money makes me more money, but sadly, I have bills to pay.

I don't believe I did say or imply that. I simply said that there has been one major boom and one major bust. Equating a fluctuating economy with recessions (as I've already said a number of times) cheapens the term, unless I am incorrect in what a recession is. I remain unconvinced that natural ebb and flow of an economy can be labeled "booms and recessions" if those terms are to have any meaning. It would be like me saying I'm rich the day I get paid, then poor after all my bills are paid. Wile perhaps technically true, it serves no value for those terms. What we can see, however, is that since that time, the rich have increased their wealth over the poor at an astoundingly alarming rate. Here is a chart that shows unemployment rates. It appears to have been relatively stagnant until 2008, even through all these so called "recessions" (well, until the real recession of 2008 anyways). Oh and whats that? The "dot com boom" had relatively lower rates than all the other times? Nope, pretty sure I didn't. Hell, I didn't even introduce any data until now. I offered opinion and repeatedly stated that I am a layperson. But now that you want to call me out on shit I didn't say, there you go.

Ok, I suppose I could concede point. However, I will say that now the word recession is wholly meaningless as opposed to potentially meaningless. Rahvin's response to this is better than I could have said. I probably would have just called it stupid or something. Who has been doing that? Pretty sure the only usage of a chart/graph from me has been an attempt to strengthen an argument I have made, not to have been the argument itself. Apparently we have lost site of what trickle-down ecomics actually is (aside from a buzz-word. Catchy isn't it?) in all these graphs and charts. I thought it was: give rich people money or tax breaks and everyone else gets better. What we have shown and what we can see is that it hasn't quite worked out that way, what with all the tax breaks the rich have had and how shitty everyone else is doing and how their wealth is still growing and our economy is still tanking. We've shown at least that much, don't you agree? It's not like the "reagan tax cuts" were actually tax increases and that they were repealed in order to fix this mess and now all our problems are alleviated. We've shown that the uber wealthy have had low taxes for quite some time and that unemployment numbers, the number of jobs going overseas and the number of people just plain out of work are rising. This, all in light of the disparity between rich motherfuckers and everyone else. It's almost as if they do better the worse everyone else does.Edited by hooah212002, : fixed grammar

Suppose that's true. How would you correlate the two? Couldn't it also be argued that that growth was due in large part to a technology boom? Are you saying that the tech boom wouldn't have happened if the rich didn't get their tax breaks?You also seem to be saying that in order for TDE to work, we must be coming from previously high top tier tax rates and that extended low tax rates won't work for TDE. Doesn't that in and of itself make it an economic principle that is unreliable as it only works for certain periods of time? Wouldn't a sound economic principle be something that can be maintained and provide continued growth?

Yea, and from that, you say that TDE has happened and worked, while we have said that "well, the rich have gotten their tax breaks and have amassed their wealth far and above any other class, and we are still in this shit economy, so obviously no it hasn't worked". You've sure been adament that TDE works for also claiming to not have any conclusive evidence. Yet you've still not shown that.