Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 26, 2021

Demand side economics.

Up Yours Today

I’ve always had that exact same theory, but called it trickle-up.

Even better: Give it to the poor!

Every movement needs a symbol. Since we want people looking upward, how about a picture of Uranus?

And it works. If there’s a demand for your products because people have more money, you’ll hire more people, open more factories, do more advertising…

If you give the rich more wealth, they’ll just stash it, or buy stock back, useless to the economy.

Rich people don’t create jobs, jobs create rich people.

When will we get that?

We are getting to the point where we can’t give anybody tax cuts. We have huge budget deficits which is one reason why the value of the dollar is falling.

That’d be a great idea IF the little guys paid your reelection bills, but they don’t. It’s the big corporations that do. ;D

Rat has it exactly correct. Except it works even better if you give it to the folks who are running the closest to the poverty line, because they’ll put it back into the economy the soonest. Well and calling it “up yours” is extremely humorous, but of course it has to be called “The Economic Recovery Act of 2021” or something even more pompous.

If nobody has money to spend, nobody can spend it. No wonder the economy is going to shit. If I need a new TV then China/S.Korea has the answer. Need a new car, Japan/S.Korea has the answer etc.etc.

The big corporations don’t like it when you give the middle class tax cuts, as the last legitimately elected President found out.

Trickle down? I know what exactly trickles down. I don’t remember which comic this was but I do remember there were birds sitting one above the other, and…

Why not create pandemic insurance and pay people based on their ACTUAL damages due to the virus. For example, if you run a restaurant, you know how much business you lost compared to last year and you could file a claim for the loss. The government could use the same deficit spending, but give the money to the insurance companies to settle the claims, and then the government will pay the premiums from future tax revenue.

However Rat’s economic plan is still better than anything I’ve seen from any government. They are just spraying fire hoses of money at everything, but the greedy bastards have the best nets to catch the cash.

Didn’t they do this joke already?

I foresee a filibuster blocking the necessity for a vote on that.

Better hurry, I foresee a burning of the reichstag moment when it comes to congress.

I like it and it WILL WORK !

Regardless of what else happens, you can be sure that someone will win and someones will lose.

This one is old mold from 2018. Could not find what I said then Sooooo ….. Croc Power !

You have no concept of economics. When you raise taxes on corporations they pass that tax hike to all the products they produce which makes everyone pay more for everything else. The middle class and the poor do not create jobs. If you want to lower taxes on the middle class lower them for everyone. Please learn basic economics before you empower baboons like the above commenter that the average Joe is better off when only he gets a tax cut.

Which reminds me, now that Biden is President, when are those stimulus checks coming again?

Trickle Down economics AKA Don’t Pee on me and Tell me it’s Raining.

A rising middle class lifts all boats. :-)

Corporations generally don’t pay taxes. They count it as a cost and pass it along to their customers in higher prices, etc.

The problem with trickle-down economics is that there is a dam upriver. It does not let anything trickle down to those who really need it.

Did Rat just say something smart?

I know someone who will get “up yours” soon! We could only hope! A one way ticket on the rocket to Uranus!

Or we could first stop asking governments to spend money for so many things we could and should do ourselves. Rather than complain about their not helping people who are hungry, why not donate to a food bank yourself?

I should know better than to read Pearls whilst drinking coffee. I nearly spit mine across the room.

Taxes do not exist in a vacuum. They are a price of doing business. The US had one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. That meant that the US was putting itself at a competitive disadvantage in the global market, and those middle class incomes in large part come from jobs with corporations. This is a balancing act, and the corporations can vote with their “feet”.

Oh these comments should be wonderful

I wonder how the world would be now if Rat was the economic adviser of Ron Reagan and Maggie Thatcher back in the ’80s instead of Milton Friedman? It would be an interesting hypothesis to contemplate. However Friedman did have some thoughts about a negative income tax, which could be also thought as a stipend. Also while many linked Friedman with the conservatives he was actually more libertarian on social issues like The War on Drugs and LGBT rights thus he might not have been welcome in some far right of center circles here in 2021.

Tis true. The further down the economic scale the higher the velocity. People at the bottom not only spend it quickly, but the money gets re-spent multiple times before becoming lodged in ‘investments’. Even Henry Ford understood that and paid people enough to buy one of the cars they were building.

YESSS!

Once again Toon Boy taunts the GoComics censor.

Rat for president 2024.

“Trickle down” always makes me think of something other than money trickling down.

This strip seems very familiar. Possible it’s a rerun?

Good idea Rat. After all, the “7Up Yours” campaign caused the sales of said soft drink to soar…

Pastis for President!

The “trickle-down theory” was popularized during the Reagan Administration. It didn’t work, but all its supporters claimed “we didn’t give it enough time” and “but the principle is sound.” So the policy was continued under George H.W. Bush until inflation got so bad he had to break his campaign promise ("Read my Lips!) and raise taxes to avert a recession, making him a one-term president. But again, we were told, “we didn’t give it enough time” and “but the principle is sound.” Then came George W. Bush, who’s deregulations and tax cuts led the nation to the precipice causing the “Great Recession.” And what did we hear? You guessed it; “we didn’t give it enough time” and “but the principle is sound.” Now, one would think that after a combined 20 years under three different presidents, that if it was ever going to work it had surely had enough time to demonstrate the soundness of the principle.

Isn’t there a maxim about doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result?

All politicians basically work for their own reelection. They may sincerely believe that their being in a position of power helps people they care about, or they may be simply interested in keeping the job for their own benefit. The result is the same. The voters need to be informed in order to choose the ones who are interested in helping the American people instead of the corporate stooges. If you really want to know who a candidate will be working for, look at a site called “Open Secrets”. There are others, but this is a good one. It will tell you who is financing their campaign. We all have to do the bidding of who ever is supplying the money to pay our bills. So do politicians. If most of their money is coming from individuals, unions, or other organizations representing the Middle Class, that is who they are going to work for. If most of their money is from banks, and rich folks, they are going to work for the 1%. They don’t really have any choice if they want to win the next election. To vote their conscience against the 1% would be political suicide.

As a retired CPA, I find UP YOURS economics to be a brilliant concept. Seems quite plausible.

That actually IS the way it works. Money trickles UP. Every dollar in your pocket will wind up in the hands of a rich person. That’s why they’re rich.

They’ve been trying trickle down for more than a hundred years, and it hasn’t worked yet.

And they don’t believe it themselves. They just know that it will make them, personally, richer.

“The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickles down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands.” – Will Rogers, 1932

“There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.” – William Jennings Bryan, 1896

Rat for US Senate!

Will Rogers coined the term Trickle Down and had this to say about it in 1932:

“They didn’t start thinking of the old common fellow till just as they started out on the election tour. The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickles down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands. They saved the big banks, but the little ones went up the flue.”

“No sir, the little fellow felt that he never had a chance, and he didn’t till Nov. 3, and did he grab it? The whole idea of government relief for the last few years has been to loan somebody more money, so they can go further in debt. It ain’t much relief to just transfer your debts from one party to another, adding a little more in the bargain. No, I believe the “boys” from all they had and hadn’t done had this coming to ’em.”

“We’ve upped our standards, now Up Yours!” RIP, Patrick Paulsen.

Pat Paulsen for Prez!

My sympathies to your parents.

It should sell well to half of them…

Is the Cartoon Censor out of town again?

For those of you saying that we should raise taxes on corporations please understand the following. Please understand that corporations want to make more money. They do this by growing. They grow by increasing their products. To do this they have to hire more and build more buildings. In other words, create jobs. Not perfect but it is the way it is. Countries that have tried it differently result in miserable quality of life not better for it’s people

The motion is carried ba a unanimous popular vote…Up Yours……

YES!!!!

Of course you also need to stop artificially constraining supply so there actually is something to stimulate. The fact that they skipped that rather important step is the only reason this didn’t work last spring with the $1200. Repeat the same dynamic and you’ll get all the negatives of printing money, the rising prices and weakened currency and high interest rates, without the GDP growth that would make it possible to get out ahead of them. And we’ll also have no room to maneuver with similar tactics in the future.

We may already be past the point of irreparable harm having been done, but when you realize you’re in a hole you’re supposed to stop digging.

Nailed it!

Too many people are skeptical about raising taxes on the rich. When I was in law school I worked for an accountant preparing taxes. Most clients were middle class, of course, but we had several rich and even famous, at least in academic circles. The top federal marginal rate then was 70% and people mostly actually paid it, with very few exceptions. They were still rich. The point is that taxing the rich actually works and provides the government with much needed funds. We can’t continue running huge deficits and national debt. You know who buys those bonds: China. Soon they’ll own more of America than Americans do.

The “trickle down” crap did not start with Reagan. It was called out by William Jennings Bryan in 1896 at the Democratic Convention.

There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.

Republicans in the 1920s again asserted that “trickle down” was the way to go. Well, we have seen where that went. Sh*t flows downhill and so do poverty and misery.

Andrew Yang wrote a book called “The War on Normal People.” He proposed a basic universal income. Not enough really to live well on, but enough to help those trying to help themselves to a better life. The income would replace numerous “welfare” programs, giving money to everyone (even the rich) to do with as they wished. By giving everyone the money, there is no stigma such as is perceived with welfare payments of various sorts. Joe cannot complain about Jack because Joe is getting the same money as Jack.

Yang proposed paying for this with valued added taxes. In other words, taxes on goods sold. Everyone pays those taxes, no schedule by income.

The extra income means that even those with low paying jobs are able to buy more goods and services. People slightly above that will have a little more money to save (thereby providing capital in the form of bank loans) or invest. The benefit diminishes the greater the original income, but those folks don’t do much for the general economy for basic survival.

Hundreds of billions of dollars spendable by the lower income earners will boost the economy from the bottom up. Merchants get more sales. Manufacturers get more sales. Eventually, shareholders benefit. So there will be a trickle up, and it will be far more reliable than trickle down.

Best … Advice … EVER !! … :)

‘UP YOURS!’

Something about “drinking free bubble up and eating rainbow stew”?

Yes, it’ll come the same time as Congress is required to join Medicare and a publicly available Medical Insurance Company.

You need to give the big tax cuts to the big corporations so they can give the big contributions to the politicians, so they can give big tax cuts to the corporations, so they can give contributions to the politicians, so they can . . .

What’s really funny is all this pompacity is over a re-run.

“Rigged election?” try rigged economic system where whether the market goes up or down the 1% always wins.

Rat has the right idea, but he’s about 4 years too late.

Works for me.

Yes, Rat has a better grasp of how capitalism works than the entire GOP. You give the breaks to those at the bottom, and the money invariably trickles back up to the corporations who own all the good and services.

Here’s our problem.

I have a better word for supply-side economics: Ponzi scheme.

oh i think we all do, multiple times a day

Rat’s Daily Rant doesn’t really work for me today. I don’t think there would be any “trickle up,” and I do think we’d soon be worse off….

Why not both?

Yeah, Rat has a good idea for once! I advocated the idea for years.

oddly, giving money to the poor has not helped them to not be poor for the last sixty or so years.

and so, the war on poverty continues.

I very much want to tell Congress “Up yours.”

I work in retail. When the first $1,200 stimulus payment went out we sold out of high end TVs. We sold more TVs in June than the previous holiday season. People spent the money on a luxury item instead of necessities like food Can’t fix stupid