The Big Lie of the last forty-five years has been Trickle Down Economics. The Great Depression exposed it as a Big Lie. But people have short memories and -- at least until recently -- they've bought the lie for a second time. The OECD, however, has exposed the trickle down lie for a second time. Linda McQuaig writes:
Essentially, the OECD report reveals the immensity of the trickle-down scam, which the report shows has not only failed to foster economic growth as promised, but has proved to be an overall killer of economic growth.
And the report puts actual numbers on how much growth has been reduced as a result of trickle-down. In the case of Canada, the reduced economic growth amounts to about $62 billion a year — which economist Toby Sanger notes is almost three times more than the estimated annual loss to the Canadian economy of lower oil prices.
All along there have been contrarian voices:
Meanwhile, there was mounting evidence — advanced by Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and other high-profile liberal economists — that neoliberal policies did little more than the obvious: making the rich richer, with no benefits for anyone else.
Now the economic powers that be have caught up with Stiglitz and Krugman:
With its report this week, the Paris-based OECD has gone farther still, stating unequivocally that its research shows that policies favouring the rich haven’t just failed to create overall economic growth, they have actually “curbed economic growth significantly.”
Indeed, according to the OECD, the dramatic increase in income inequality — now at its highest level in 30 years — is the “single biggest impact” preventing economic growth.
This drag on economic growth, the OECD explains, results largely from those lower down the income scale — including the bottom 40 per cent of earners — lacking the funds to invest in their own education.
The Harper government, however, has no interest in the OECD's research. They've already been bought and paid for.
8 comments:
"yeahhhhhhhhh!! another happy ending for the rich people" zoiberg from futurama
had a huge rant about "how can they continually be so wrong"
then you hit me with "bought and paid for"
hellova racket
being bought off with the money you give them
i don't think justy fauxdeau or tommy idon'tcare are criminal enough to beat them
or if they are
then nothing changes
Precisely, lungta. If they are, then nothing changes.
Royalty survieves and propsers on lies.
Reality TV is the greatest gift the 1% ever recieved.
At every juncture needed to make change
experts are paid to not know something they do know.
Trickle Down's history is unambiguous, Steve. But people keep buying the same old snake oil.
Trickle Down is for kids Owen I remember the late Ronald Reagan using that phrase. It was a useless euphemism as far as the spectrum of the mind could see. It was more trick than trickle eh?
Exactly, Mogs.
Will Rogers said, during the Great Depression that...Money was appropriated for the people at the top in the hope that it would tricle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn't know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom, and before nightfall the people at the top will have it anyway. But at least it would have passed through the hands of the fellow on the bootom.
Quite true, Anon. Rogers was simply saying that it was in everyone's best interests to give the poor a piece of the action.
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