Wealth doesn't trickle down.

[Traitorfish]

a US view...
http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/25/news/economy/china-middle-class/index.htm

Chinese view...
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011-08/05/content_13056148.htm

700 million by 2020....?
http://shanghaiist.com/2010/07/26/chinas_middle_class_will_reach_700.php

of course one should go with the more proletariat meaning of middle class, rather than the more bourgeois western meaning

So "middle class", in this context, just means "not a pauper or a peasant"?

 

[Old Hippy]

So "middle class", in this context, just means "not a pauper or a peasant"?

well yes.... it means your not one of the 100 million working poor... but one of the 300 million (and growing at about 13% a year) who have a home, cell phone, large flat screen TV, and get to eat out at KFC, drink COKE and go to the movies etc.... probably wear Nike's and are planning/saving for your overseas holiday... all this, for supplying western consumers... i am just saying how trickle down works... so well

your probably better off and happier than some middle class Americans waiting for wealth to trickle down...

or the British waiting for their share ... when its already in partnership with "Gina" and going to wards MY next 4x4

 

[Cutlass]

Wait, what?


If you're not careful you're going to start sounding like me.

No chance of that. I can recognize the weaknesses in the system without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Those who don't have children can spend time with other people's (not particularly well-indicated) or with old people who don't see anyone from one day to the next. Or spend time sitting on the porch contemplating the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

The possibilities are truly endless - once you can break away from the societal conditioning that says you must spend money in order to amuse yourself.

You're still talking about constraining people to a list of choices they may or may not want.

 

[Ayatollah So]

It's the Ayatollahs, witch burnings, and 'police of vice and virtue' we have to work at preventing.

You can't prevent me. I'm unstoppable.

So, everybody knows where the tax dodger-loving countries are, right? Why don't the other countries get together and slap some sanctions on them?

 

[holy king]

You're still talking about constraining people to a list of choices they may or may not want.

people are always, always, constrained to a list of choices they may or may not want. what that list looks like can be up to debate, but the very fact is kind of an axiom.

 

[Traitorfish]

So, everybody knows where the tax dodger-loving countries are, right? Why don't the other countries get together and slap some sanctions on them?

What makes you think that Western political elites are actually interested in preventing this sort of thing?

 

[LegionSteve]

What makes you think that Western political elites are actually interested in preventing this sort of thing?

It's like when Clegg suggested a temporary extra tax on the super-rich the other day. Amazingly enough, the Chancellor was against it. Why? Because he and his friends are the super-rich who would have to pay it.

 

[Ayatollah So]

What makes you think that Western political elites are actually interested in preventing this sort of thing?

You just hit on my leading hypothesis for the answer to my question. Still, only "leading", not "overwhelmingly probable" - so still worth asking.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Asked before, but this thread seems to be a good place to ask again.

The idea (heavily simplified) that wealth trickles down is that providing 'investors' with capital to invest, increases market size and jobs.

This implies that an investor invests based on how much money the investor has in it's pockets. I disagree and I pose that it's return of investment which is the incentive for investment. Is that wrong?

If not, isn't a growing market with a healthy demand a much better incentive?

If that's right, isn't it much better policy to make sure of demand by increasing spendable income of the most likely consumer class?

With just economics in mind, mind you.

 

[Cutlass]

people are always, always, constrained to a list of choices they may or may not want. what that list looks like can be up to debate, but the very fact is kind of an axiom.

Sure. So why artificially constrain it more?

 

[holy king]

your choices are being artificially constrained right now. you were just conditioned to perceive that state of affairs as freedom.

 

[Borachio]

You're still talking about constraining people to a list of choices they may or may not want.

I still get the impression you're not following my line of argument.

Actually, I don't have time right now to sort this out satisfactorily but I will try my best to indicate the general terms in which I'm thinking.

I'm talking not about constraining people, but liberating them from the conditioning that they are subject to, from the media and big business, amongst other things.

These two seem intent on persuading people that somehow they are lacking if they don't have the latest this or that with the requisite design label, or can only afford two or three foreign holidays a year, blah blah etc etc

It would seem that a man's wallet is the only measure of his worth.

My position is different. Once you have the basic necessities - and these are very much less than most people realize - the rest is the icing on the cake.

AND, and perhaps most importantly, the fewer luxuries you have, the more you value them. And the more you get out of them. So that less is more.

This, to most people, seems so counterintuitive that few will entertain it.

But a cursory examination of my own behaviour confirms it - for me.

I do not mean to suggest that breaking out of this social conditioning is easy. It is not.

But present consumption levels are unsustainable and we either willingly curtail it, or it will collapse of it's own accord, with concomitant suffering and misery.

 

[Antilogic]

well more the 300 million middle class in china... thanks to US wealth and investment...

...

don't know if a pattern is emerging here.... is it that trickle down works or ....

I think this just shows how watered down and useless the term "middle class" is.

The idea (heavily simplified) that wealth trickles down is that providing 'investors' with capital to invest, increases market size and jobs.

This implies that an investor invests based on how much money the investor has in it's pockets. I disagree and I pose that it's return of investment which is the incentive for investment. Is that wrong?

If not, isn't a growing market with a healthy demand a much better incentive?

If that's right, isn't it much better policy to make sure of demand by increasing spendable income of the most likely consumer class?

With just economics in mind, mind you.

I have always been skeptical of the justification for the supply-side mantra. Surely a demand for a product in the market is a better motivator to invest in a factory than whining about the FDA or EPA saying you can't kill people.

 

[Old Hippy]

I think this just shows how watered down and useless the term "middle class" is.

from a western perspective maybe ... I doubt the 300 million Chinese middle class see it any different to how Americans saw it in the 1950's...

if you add up the USA decline of the middle class and the "trickle down" gains to the Chinese middle class it would still be a net increase in the standard of living

its not that trickle down dose not work... but nowadays in a global economy,it just dose not work at home anymore, a point protesters make every time the WTO have a meeting somewhere

 

[Crezth]

well yes.... it means your not one of the 100 million working poor... but one of the 300 million (and growing at about 13% a year) who have a home, cell phone, large flat screen TV, and get to eat out at KFC, drink COKE and go to the movies etc.... probably wear Nike's and are planning/saving for your overseas holiday... all this, for supplying western consumers... i am just saying how trickle down works... so well

You have got to be kidding me. Those "300 million," a deeply suspect figure, are entrepreneuers. The US may be providing a market for them but that doesn't show anything great about the rich having money. It just shows the value of a large consumer base. Two completely different things.

Furthermore, why is no attention given to the hundreds of millions of workers upon whose backs this prosperity is being constructed? The ones who live in slums with no power or plumbing and die weekly in factories with no safety standards and nets below windows to catch anyone who tries to off themselves to get away from the never-ending miasma of the cruel bleak workday? How about the incredibly poor rural peasantry, numbering close to a billion people, who are the backbone of the Chinese economy?

No no no, look at this rising class of businessmen! Trickle-down indeed, it's raining and the water is tainted - a microbial infection of capitalism, and it is terminal.

 

[Antilogic]

Why do we not have this smiley on our site?

 

[Old Hippy]

No no no, look at this rising class of businessmen! Trickle-down indeed, it's raining and the water is tainted - a microbial infection of capitalism, and it is terminal.

So they are making the same mistakes as England a land of shopkeepers or the US a land of momNpop stores... or Australia a land of "tradies"...

i just wish western countries had a plan to increase minimum wages for all their working poor ...like china does ...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/us-china-economy-jobs-idUSTRE8170DY20120208

actually i just wish western countries had a plan to get their poor jobs, let alone jobs they can live on...

 

[Crezth]

You do not seem to be grasping my point, that the essence of this prosperity that the alleged 300 million-strong middle class is seeing is A.) Not due to American wealthy (should qualify as a refutation of your nonsensical point about trickle-down), and B.) built upon the labor of those whom are commonly and systematically oppressed in China.

 

[Old Hippy]

You do not seem to be grasping my point, that the essence of this prosperity that the alleged 300 million-strong middle class is seeing is A.) Not due to American wealthy (should qualify as a refutation of your nonsensical point about trickle-down), and B.) built upon the labor of those whom are commonly and systematically oppressed in China.

you do not seem to be getting my point that trickle down is a prominent American wealth political policy and that the Chinese growth in wealth and prosperity is mostly due to American (and European) wealth... building mobile phones, flat screen TV's, nikee sneakers and blue denim jeans in china so they can sell them back home in American super mails or the fact that labour is commonly and systematically oppressed everywhere...

and that china is actively introducing plans to help those on minimum wages by trying to raise the minimum wage by 13% per year... you could also refute my earlier linked point simply by showing a Government in the west that has a policy of helping its working poor by raising their wages by 13% per year over the next five years

or you could even tell us the essence of what chinese wealth is from... if its not from western investment opting for job creation in china, as opposed to job creation in the west...

 

[Crezth]

you do not seem to be getting my point that trickle down is a prominent American wealth political policy and that the Chinese growth in wealth and prosperity is mostly due to American (and European) wealth... building mobile phones, flat screen TV's, nikee sneakers and blue denim jeans in china so they can sell them back home in American super mails or the fact that labour is commonly and systematically oppressed everywhere...

Thank you for affirming my point.

and that china is actively introducing plans to help those on minimum wages by trying to raise the minimum wage by 13% per year... you could also refute my earlier linked point simply by showing a Government in the west that has a policy of helping its working poor by raising their wages by 13% per year over the next five years

How does this change the elementary power arrangement?

or you could even tell us the essence of what chinese wealth is from... if its not from western investment opting for job creation in china, as opposed to job creation in the west...

Demographics. Labor creates wealth, not investment.