Proposed a new, revolutionary idea that has since been revered as the greatest economic principle to ever be conceived since adam smith invented and made up capitalism. friedman, a long time supporter of the basic model of Keynesian economics, which involves government intervention in the wake of depressions, recessions and so on, but in the 1950's he changed his mind and veered right to monetarism, which is the idea that governments role int he economy is to control the rate of inflation by controlling the amount of money in circulation. Now in the 1980's friedman was brought on to be president ronald mcdonald (aka reagan) economic advisor. friedman advocated this idea he had, and helped ronald mcdonald mold a new national economic policy known to them as supply side economics, reaganomics, voodoo economics, trickle down economics, and as i call it the table scrap economics. so whatever word you so please to use go ahead but from here on it will be table scrap on this blog. but this plan was laid out with the help of friedman, and reagens other baboon, william a. niskanen. they laid out this idea on national television, explaining how it would work and what it would do and so heres how the theory goes:
If you:
Reduce government spending
reduce income tax and capital gains tax
reduce government regulation
and control the money supply to reduce inflation
This will happen:
Everybody will become uber rich, and benefit from allowing the "free market" to reign supreme. The main component here is a having a very very high faith in the human race. and i say this because the idea behind this economic principle is that if you give tax cuts to the rich, and corporate america they will take the money they saved on these tax cuts and incentives and re-invest it into the economy and slowly (like a trickle) that money will find it's way to the middle class and the lower class thus bringing everybody into the melting pot that is the free market. now on paper, this is a WONDERFUL idea. trust me it is. think about it, it makes 100% sense, and nobody, not even I and the rest of the left wing can disagree with that. but the basis here is that all humans believe in kindness and charity, and are not greedy beings. so not only is this economic principle making sense it is capturing and harnessing the thing, that we all believe, makes us better than all other creatures of the world, our sense of being and our attachment to each other. but unfortunately that is not the case here. and anybody who was alive from the start of the industrial revolution will tell you that is not the case. and this man right here knew that better than most:
This is my personal favorite author, aside from twain, and a my hero. Mr. Upton Sinclair. In 1906 at the peak of the industrial revolution he went to a chicago meat packing plant and saw child laborers working wild amounts of hours, he saw massive amounts of rats, feces, and even human body parts grinned into the meat that was being packaged. and the reason why? the free market was allowed to reign free without any government regulation and oversight. sinclair's novel "The Jungle," wrote of these horrors and by the time it reached the president, mr. teddy, the whole system would change forever as we knew it. new regulations for cleaner, safer food, child labor laws were put in place, plant safety measures were ordered, monopolies were busted up, and we saw not only economic growth until the depression, we saw a safer, cleaner, better america. so fast forward to the 1980's. once again we are letting the free market reign supreme, and putting faith in our corporations and the rich to take care of us on the lower end of the class pole, not the government which of coarse would be ridiculous considering Article 1 Section 8 of our own Constitution says:
“The Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. . .”
But no we want our general welfare to be in the hands of corporate america. And so it went that the national deficit shrank from 6% of the GDP to 2.9% of the GDP in reagans last budget. And remarkably it worked. or so it seemed. so while the deficit decreased, the people on the bottom and in the middle got poorer and poorer and the rich got richer and richer bought such exotic things as:
So in the process of this new economic theory, these rich people bought these types of items, fueled the economy by buying big ticket items, and did they ever ask mr and mrs smith of 1 main street if they wanted a ride on this yacht or private jet, or if they might want a watch for christmas, or anything like that? HELL THE FUCK NO!!! did these rich people at the top ask us if we wanted any charity? did THEY promote the general welfare of the people? NO. And now, nearly 30 years after this policy was put in place (with a brief disruption during the clinton years) the right wing is still championing this idea of tax cuts for the wealthy, and corporate america and taking away and shitting on the idea of promoting the general welfare of all people im over it folks and you should be too.
happy reveling folks
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