Who remembers “trickle down economics” and other lies of the right?


Here’s a doozy from the always reliable source of an anonymous far right nobody pontificating on Twitter.

If Trump succeeds in forcing through mass deportations, combined with Elon hacking away at the government, firing people and reducing the deficit – there will be an initial severe overreaction in the economy – this economy propped up with debt (generating asset bubbles) and artificially suppressed wages (as a result of illegal immigration). Markets will tumble. But when the storm passes and everyone realizes we are on a sounder footing, there will be a rapid recovery to a healthier, sustainable economy. History could be made in the coming two years.
Elon Musk says “Sounds about right”

The first part might be right — the economy will be devastated by a Trump victory followed by mass deportations and firings. The last bit? Where the economy will be magically restored by people realizing this will be good for us? That’s pure fantasy, wishful thinking, nothing but moonshine. But hey, the belief in an all-powerful head of state with total control of everyone’s lives worked for North Korea, so maybe we should give it a shot. It’s not as if Republicans haven’t given us sound financial advice since the Reagan years.

Comments

  1. Ted Lawry says

    Silly me, I believe that a sound, economy requires lots of workers with good jobs making good wages, so they have the money to buy corporate products, so that corporations have lots of customers (the primal need of any business.) That is, capitalism works best when it works, is that too hard too understand? This sounds like the conservative fad for massive tax cuts “shock treatment” except applied to the whole economy, not just government. The effects of this super shock will be even worse, remember Kansas, anyone?

  2. stuffin says

    There has to be a surge of money to the wealthiest corporations and individuals before you can have (they allow) a trickle down of cash to the middle and lower class.

    If they accomplish their goal, there will never be a full recovery from the damage they do to 90% of Americans. Once they pull the teeth from the Federal Government, they will never let it regain its control over the ultra-wealthy. Think of Egypt and building the pyramids.

  3. Doc Bill says

    Oh, the GOPQ are so sensitive, aren’t they? MAGA has been crying about the price of eggs and gasoline for MONTHS and here is billionaire Elon telling them they will have to suffer more “austerity” to … uh … to do what, exactly? Fix things? What things? When will eggs go from $100/carton to a chicken in every pot?

    The only thing that Musk has actually run hands-on is Twitter. And some maniac is going to turn him loose on the economics of the Country? It is more than madness and, fortunately, a pipe dream.

  4. Reginald Selkirk says

    But when the storm passes and everyone realizes we are on a sounder footing, there will be a rapid recovery to a healthier, sustainable economy.

    … just like what happened with Twi#er after Musk took over. No wonder Musk approves this scenario, he has personal experience with it.
    /s

  5. microraptor says

    If they succeed in implementing this insanity, only one of two outcomes are possible: it will be the biggest recession since 1929, or it will be the biggest recession including 1929.

  6. robro says

    As has been demonstrated repeatedly since the first years of the “Great Depression”, trickle down economics does not work. It does not benefit working people, and certainly not the poor. It does not help the general economy. And it’s questionable that it benefits the rich, though some of them believe in it fervently. Sadly large number of Americans are persuaded by this kind of BS. It’s taken nearly 4 years to recover from the last trickle down disaster but people are being told, and believe, that the economy is “struggling” and in bad shape. Of course, large economies always struggle in some sense but the indicators are that the economy isn’t doing too bad by comparison to 2020.

  7. StevoR says

    Tangential but anyone else remember the whole covid denialism thing with Trump saying covid would just go away and vanish and inmenawhile stick bleach where the sun don’t shine and take horse dewormer to cure it?

    It only killed about four hudnred thousand Americans..

    On Friday, the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which is chaired by Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), released interviews and documents revealing how senior Trump officials tried to block government health officials from informing the public about the seriousness of COVID-19. On February 25, 2020, Nancy Messonnier, a senior CDC health expert, warned in a news briefing that the virus’s spread in the United States was inevitable. That enraged Trump, who was trying to downplay the coronavirus threat. The new material shows that the Trump administration tried to shut her up.

    ..(Snip)…As researchers from UCLA noted in March 2021, the United States could have avoided 400,000 COVID deaths if the Trump administration had implemented a more effective health strategy that included mask mandates, social distancing, and robust testing guidelines. Birx made a similar statement at that time.

    We’ve long known that Trump did the opposite of what public health experts advised. More concerned with his own standing in the polls than with the health and safety of the citizenry, Trump dismissed or minimized the threat and sent a mixed message on masks, social distancing, and testing. The new revelations from the committee underscore his immense negligence and dereliction of duty that led to the preventable deaths of hundreds of thousands.

    Source : https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/new-revelations-emerge-on-how-donald-trump-killed-400000-coronavirus-pandemic/

    Trump lied and hundreds of thousands of people – that he was supposedly meant to serve and lead and do the right thing by according to this silly oath of office thingamajig – died becoz of it – &.. yet even after that & Jan 6th he’s close to potentially becoming POTUS again so obvs those deaths are forgettable.. somehow? The fuck?!

  8. raven says

    The first part might be right — the economy will be devastated by a Trump victory followed by mass deportations and firings.

    This might well not even happen.

    Trump had 4 years to do this in his first regime. It didn’t happen then.

    We don’t even have the people and infrastructure for mass deportations. It takes lots of immigration cops, detention centers, the court system, and the transportation to somewhere else. It will cost billions of dollars, and that money has to be allocated from the US treasury somehow.

    Plus, cui bono? Who benefits?
    Powerful economic interests employ those legal and illegal migrants in construction, agriculture, and meat packing among other industries. They aren’t going to watch their profits and cheap labor disappear.
    Trump will need funding and laws from the US congress. Even with GOP control, he is unlikely to get it.
    They know who funds their campaigns.

    When has Trump and the GOP ever told the truth anyway?

  9. muttpupdad says

    And now wants to put RFK jr in charge of determining what health care we get. Prepare for the great DieOff to happen.

  10. raven says

    Reagan’s 8 years didn’t work all that well.

    .1 He bought into the Supply Side Economics lie, that tax cuts pay for themselves.
    .2. Cut taxes.
    .3. Didn’t work. The annual deficit went up, not down.

    .4. So they cut services to balance the budget.
    .5. He also raised taxes 8 times to balance the budget.

    The Trump regime’s cuckoo economic plans will do the same thing.
    They will run up deficits and then fix them by drastically cutting government services, including what is left of our social safety net.

    The US already has a housing problem resulting in a large homeless population.
    You haven’t seen anything yet.
    There will be large increases in the homeless population and more widespread poverty.

  11. StevoR says

    Thinking things strangely forgotten – do people not remember when Trump was a punchline to a political joke. A candidate so obvs absurd and ridiculuous that he could never win and it was great fun that the Repugs were embarrassing themselves by having him as their joke candidate, joke presidential nominee and it would end them or do them a great deal of damage..

    Ah 2016, 2015, back before or around the time New Horizons was approaching Pluto. It seems not that long ago and yet a whole other era entirely..

    In not so co-incidental musings I miss Modus Operandi, wonder what happened to them?

  12. unclefrogy says

    you don’t need billions to put kids in cages nor courts though that might not be such a problem.
    As for cops and prisons I am sure they will be able to find some excellent independent contractors who will glad to do the work ($$$$). They have a large pool of people who they can draw on for needed workers.
    It will more then two years to clean up the mess Von shits in pants will make. the 4 years Biden has had have not fixed it all mess from the first go round just yet but he made a good start.

  13. lanir says

    Elon just admitted why he likes this plan.

    What I learned from the 2008-ish economic issues was one simple thing: when most people are scrambling to cover basic needs, the rich assholes to whom money isn’t a means to procure necessities but rather a score card start buying everything up on the cheap. After the crisis when everyone starts to slowly recover, they own more. They bought it cheap when other people were struggling and desperate.

    Let’s face it. Rich people love it when you and I struggle to get by. In their little race against each other to rack up the highest score, that’s the time when they sprint. Elon is giddy about this economic shock idea because even a self-important moron like him can figure out that if it happens he’ll make out like a bandit.

  14. StevoR says

    @ ^ unclefrogy : yes. Despite having a Congress he didn’t control and Trump’s treason SCOTUS with “Justcioes”that lied to get their jobs yet somehow cannot be impeached and jailed for gaining things by – effectively deceit.

    Let’s remedy that on November 5th please Americans.

    Get Kamala Harris and a Blue Congress in. Then reform, reform, reform and fucking fix things! Starting with SCOTUS and the abolition of the EC, gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc..

  15. Artor says

    “When the storm passes…” Is it just me, or does this line make you think of Stormfront too?

  16. imback says

    Just like Hoover did in 1929, and twenty years later—voilà!—the nation’s economic engine was perking up fine with no intervening contributing events that anyone can remember!

  17. robro says

    StevoR @ #15 — As I assume you know, “the abolition of the EC” requires a Constitutional amendment. As much as I agree with the sentiment, it’s unlikely to happen even with a Blue Congress because of the preponderance of Red states. In other words, the piecemeal amendment process of the Constitution isn’t working…where’s that Equal Rights amendment?… because of the archaic notion of quasi-independent states to balance and reign in an overzealous Federal government. We need a Constitutional convention but opening that worm can would give the bastards even more opportunity to torpedo sane governance.

  18. raven says

    Trumps cuckoo threats to raise tariffs and start trade wars with the rest of the world while cutting income taxes, has been done before.
    It didn’t work.

    Wikipedia; Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.

    The Tariff Act of 1930 (codified at 19 U.S.C. ch. 4), commonly known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff or Hawley–Smoot Tariff,[1] was a law that implemented protectionist trade policies in the United States. Sponsored by Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, it was signed by President Herbert Hoover on June 17, 1930. The act raised US tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods.[2]

    The tariffs under the act, excluding duty-free imports, were the second highest in United States history, exceeded by only the Tariff of 1828.[3] The Act prompted retaliatory tariffs by many other countries.[4] The Act and tariffs imposed by America’s trading partners in retaliation were major factors of the reduction of American exports and imports by 67% during the Great Depression.[5] Economists and economic historians have a consensus view that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff worsened the effects of the Great Depression.[6]

    The Smoot Hawley tariffs didn’t cause the Great Depression but they definitely made it a lot worse.

    They were a failure and eventually were repealed.

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