Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for February 22, 2025

Supposedly the entire basis of supply side (trickle down) economics hastily scrawled on the back of a napkin by someone who had no actual economic experience when pitched to Reagan.

And despite it very clearly not working for 40+ years it’s thought of as the only thing that should ever be done by people who are most hurt by it.

We are a nation of idiots.

The key to widespread, broad-based prosperity is NOT “supply side” economics — the scam idea that if you stimulate those who “supply” wealth, i.e., rich investors — they will create jobs and the wealth will “trickle down” to the workers. Prosperity does NOT trickle down; it builds from the bottom up and the middle out.

Investors do not “create” jobs out of the goodness of their hearts or because they care about working people; they invest in opportunities when they see the potential for CONSUMER DEMAND (either filling an unmet need, or inventing a product for which they can create consumer desire — but only if workers are paid well enough to also be the consumers out of whom consumer demand arises.

The old “trickle down” scam has never worked.

Didn’t work under Hoover.Didn’t work under Reagan.Didn’t work under Bush.Didn’t work under Trump.

The few richest elites multiplied their already-massive wealth, even in a pandemic that got out of control because of Trump’s own mismanagement, while tens of millions of Americans lost jobs, careers, livelihoods and economic security in a new TRUMP ECONOMIC COLLAPSE.

Or maybe it has worked perfectly for its true purpose — just the way they designed it — to REDISTRIBUTE the wealth produced by middle class working people to the few richest elites who already have the most while pretending it is supposed to help working people and the middle class.

It does NOT work the way scam artists try to sell it to gullible suckers.It works perfectly for billionaire CON men.

Trickle down? The trick’s on you.

Ah, the old Field of Dreams model of business (If you build it, people will come)!

If it needs an explanation, it’s probably a real economic theory. If it sounds good without an explanation, it’s a slogan. Most of us don’t want an explanation.

Magats believe that that tax cuts and subsidies for billionaires benefit them personally.

And that there is NO waste fraud or abuse in the 18 billion government contracts for Musk. But the National Weather Service? Rife with all three and a total waste of money.

A prime example of magat analysis skills.

The Republicans have been peddling that trickle down economics for more than 128 years.

William Jennings Bryan made his Cross of Gold speech in 1896.

There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, Les Guêpes, 1849

The younger crowd are asking ’What’s a checkbook?’.

Money is like manure. Spread on the field, and it makes new growth. Pile it in a corner, and it starts to stink.

It’s also called cooking the books.

No you don’t.

Andy Capp is great at balancing the books. He asked his wife Flo to “lend him £20 till tomorrow.”

“What’s happening tomorrow?”, she asked.

“That’s as long as it’ll last me.”, he replied.

Off subject , Thank you Governor Janet Mills the Honorable Governor of The Great State of Maine for telling Trumpie the Clown to Pound Sand , VIVA RESISTANCE !

Glad it is Saturday. This arc has run its course.

Wikipedia has an article titled “Supply-side economics.”

It’s insane that some people think it’s a good idea to defund services people actually use in order to hand the money to someone who can’t even spend the money he already has.

It will make YOU richer any day now, I promise. Just hand ME cash, and YOU’LL get richer.

It doesn’t make good sense. It doesn’t even make BAD sense.

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin

Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I’m in

Should I hate ’em for having our jobs today

No, I hate the men sent the jobs away

I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams

All lily white and squeaky clean

They’ve never known want, they’ll never know need

Their **** don’t stink and their kids won’t bleed

Their kids won’t bleed in their d**n little war

And we can’t make it here anymore

Will work for food, will die for oil

Will kill for power, and to us the spoils

The billionaires get to pay less tax

The working poor get to fall through the cracks

So let ’em eat jellybeans let ’em eat cake

Let ’em eat ****, whatever it takes

They can join the Air Force or join the Corps

If they can’t make it here anymore

-James McMurtry “We Can’t Make It Here”

Most of the comments here about supply side economics are comments that that really lack in facts. The idea is not to give tax cuts only to the rich. It is to give tax cuts to all taxpayers—that would be people who actually pay taxes, the bottom 50% pay virtually no income tax. It is not ‘trickle down’ economics, either. This particular plan was done in the 1960’s introduced by the JFK administration. It was also done by the Ronald Reagan administration. And it was done by George W. Bush. And most recently it was done by the Trump administration. In every case, tax revenues actually increased. the problems we had had to do with spending. And before you talk about how the rich got most of the cuts, it is a question of math. Liberals have a hard time understanding that. The top 1% in 2021 paid over 45% of all income taxes. The top 10% paid over 65% of all taxes. The top 50% paid over 97% of all income taxes. It is too bad our hero in the strip displays his ignorance of economics.

Wow! I’d like to see your checkbooks.

And yet, the dimocrats are screeching about Trump cutting fraud and waste (which are the biggest reasons for ghem to even hold power in the first place, playing “Satan Clause”)

This is a bit dated with one update:

How Much is 2 + 2?

Accountant: 4

Carpenter: (after measuring 3 times): 3 feet 11 and 31/32 inches.

Engineer: 3.999 – oh heck, we’ll call it 4.

Lawyer: How much do you want it to be?

Arizona Republican: The liberals claim it’s 4 but we are still recounting.

Floridian: I don’t have to answer that. It’s Critical Race Theory Math.

Lauren Boebert: AR-15 (Guns are the answer to everything).

Marjorie Greene: Q.

Tucker Carlson: Why is the radical left indoctrinating our youth with the belief that 2 + 2 = 4? Can they prove it?

Ted Cruz: This is a bunch of WOKE nonsense.

Musk: 4 but we’re cutting that to zero.

What DDWiz is trying to say is Never trust a rich Bahstahd

Hey DDWIz good to see you’re still upright, how ya feelin?

Embrace Panda Side economics! Send me some $$$ and I’ll triple it and send it back to you. Trust me.

Skeptical? You’ll never get rich with that attitude.

I’m still glowin’…Team Canada knocked the stuffin’ out of those yank buggers. 27 to 2.

Think trump never accomplished anything? Hah! He destroyed all the friendships and allies the USA made since 1940…and did it in only a month! What a guy!

Well, did Danae’s method work for you, Dad?

I thought I had a comment to add to the comic, but after reading a lot of comments, I was too tired to remember it.

I have no words.

Supply-side economics is an economic theory that states that economic growth is achieved by increasing the supply of goods and services. It’s also known as “trickle-down economics”.

Supply Side Economics was developed to legalize Price Gouging Economics. No one does it better than the pharmaceutical industry, especially when it comes to cancer medications.

Don’t give me the research and development costs argument, as the taxpayers pay for most of that.

Nice analysis.

The dark side of capitalism.

Supply Side Economics “ along with “Small Government “ are the scams designed to lower the tax burden from the wealthy and corporations onto the middle and working classes.

To accomplish it, you have to gut the federal government as the only effective counterbalance to monied interests and keep the middle and working classes at each other’s throats so they don’t look up at the real problem.

If you are for “Small Government “, it means you better trust the Amazons, Facebooks and ExxonMobil’s of the world to have your best interest at heart. Spoiler alert – they don’t.

And if you raise the taxes too high the wealthy will gladly pay the taxes? Ask the UK how that’s working out. >

While there were many, many aspects of Henry Ford that were not good, he did understand that his labor force needed a living wage and would then be able to afford his products. For more of the good and bad google: wiki Henry Ford Labor philosophy

One aspect of our current situation I peg more on the D than R is the National Minimum Wage. When the D’s have had control of POTUS and Congress they never seem to seize the day to put the Federal Minimum Wage on at least a mechanism to hold it steady to inflation. Or to the CEO to worker compensation ratio.

Economics and religion are similar since they both rely on faith or beliefs in a particular system.

Does anyone know the difference between there. their and they’re anymore?

“Rich people don’t create jobs; jobs create rich people.”

The right hate to hear that.

But, Danae, don’t you have to know math to back into that balance?

Also known as, “Cookin’ the Books”…!

“Just start with the balance you want to have…”

That’s how a Republican congress makes a budget.

And now we know who it was that came up with the idea of trickle down economics.

Careful, Danae… that Magic Math Method can also work on your allowance.

“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.” – J.K. Galbraith

Tell the bartender to set you up with a running tab as you’re gonna be there quite often while Danae’s on her latest ‘greatest idea’ bit…

or you can daydream about the recipients of the millions, billions of US tax dollars in foreign lands laughing their behinds off at how stupid you are about their “needs” and your money being laundered by the unelected bureaucrats feathering their own nests…

Just seems so terribly simple, really.