But little rabbit Foo-Foo didn't listen...

I don't quite know enough about economics to understand this thoroughly, but I do know enough about history to point out the obvious - trickle-down economics or supply-side economics, which has genuinely been tried three times in the recent American past, is an abject failure. Here is a link to a HuffPo piece that contains a document by a UC-Berkeley professor that lays out the current, and past, ratios of the distribution of wealth in the US. The above graph I grabbed from HPo's site. Now, historically, to look at the graph, one would note two things: tax policy can be effective at ameliorating the more grotesque maldistribution of wealth. (And note - this is the top .o1%!!) So the passage of the first income tax bill by Woodrow Wilson (using the newly-passed 16th Amendment), along with war-time taxation, significantly reduced the share of wealth held by that top .01% of the population. Similarly, the programs of the Great Society and War on Poverty also had the effect of diminishing income inequality, which was the point of the program (well, one of them), for LBJ. The second thing worth noting is the periods at which income inequality spikes, and the historical events that follow: notice that GIANT spike in 1928 and 2003? Obviously, the historical events that follow those are two dramatic economic collapses - the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Now, I have to admit, I've not yet read J.K. Galbraith's The Great Crash, though it's on "the list." But I have read enough of the Depression to feel pretty confident in classifying three causes of the Great Depression: overproduction/underconsumption, the collapse of the international economy, and a huge maldistribution of wealth. Consult the 1929 Brookings Institution report for a good description of the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Notice any connection? I don't want to paint a mono-causal picture, but historically, it seems that a dramatic maldisribution of wealth can have calamitious economic impacts. Does this sway in any way the thoughts of the super-rich? No, of course not. They don't care. But the next time a Republican administration tries to sell you "supply-side" economic dung as rosebuds and lilacs, be skeptical. It don't work.

Soapboxing

Well this is the last week of school. I'm uneasy about it. Awesomes: graduating, being finished. Un-Awesomes: what next, where and how, and unsettlement. And evals. I hate unsettlement (sorry to pull a Dobelieu but it's an apt description). I myself have really enjoyed this last semester (much more so than fall), and gotten in some great classes that once or twice more around will become outstanding classes. But not my best work this semester, I feel. Definitely not. But I learned the most, worked the most, so, eh. Whatevs.
Hard however lately in classes to not get on my soapbox. Modern Europe a little difficult w/ McCarthy, and the obvious parallels to Communism and containment, and then Algieria and the FLN and, well, what some people knew years ago. Fun with McCarthy when Repub party is going off the rails. But lately to be frank, it was beyond what even I could have imagined. I was down with getting the Taliban out, knew the historical context, the Afghanistan mess. Cool with that. But Iraq from the beginning I knew just smelled rotten. Never for a moment doubted it was all bullshit. Knew it was being justified by 9-11 though it had nothing to do with it. I'm not unsympathetic - Saddam was a pretty horrible guy, even considering the "long, lamentable catalogue of human crime." [H/t: Sir Winston] Really, you know, it's hard to disagree with the sentiment that 'the world is better off without him.' But everything about the way it was handled was so blasè, so offensively naive and fully-assed (twice as worse as "half-assed"), justified with such BULLSHIT - you don't get to use that justification when you pooch it so badly. And what is coming out now about torture is just really stunning. I am not surprised - I was flying back from Rome when the torture scandal broke - I bought The Economist with the breaking story at Da Vinci. I knew it then. But I never believed I was actually right - there are some very evil people in the world, and they are banal indeed.