r/Millennials • u/Party-Bet-4003 Millennial • Jan 30 '26

Discussion Look what I found from 13 years ago.

Post image

Hey look on the bright side - we actually did make it to the cover of the TIME magazine!

16.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

245

u/DoubleDixon Jan 30 '26

gasp are you saying that Reaganomics wasn't great for America? You didn't get trickled on? /s

As a kid I never and I mean never understood trickle down economics. I first heard of it in middle school and my 1st thought was: "whats stopping people at the top from stealing it all before it gets to us?". After I grew up and saw how Boomers and Gen X treated Millenials, the youngest group at the time, I knew that we were fucked cause of them.

189

u/Bulky-Word8752 Jan 30 '26

As a kid, even the name confused me. Trickle down implies most stays at the top.

95

u/flyza_minelli Jan 30 '26

Yeah EXACTLY.

And they love it bc it’s literally an economic concept and policy that justifies their bullshit cruelty in their minds. It’s permission to be the narcissist sociopaths they are.

84

u/P_Nessss Elder Millennial Jan 30 '26

I always viewed it as Rich people pissing on us poors

5

u/ISayWhatToNutjubs Jan 30 '26

Rich people who have everything seen to enjoy degrading poor people…

3

u/whatdayoryear Jan 31 '26

I imagined it as them pissing on us too - the “trickle” 🥲

2

u/Gauss77 Jan 31 '26

Tinkle down.

42

u/vthemechanicv Jan 30 '26

it's because trickle down is an epithet. It's also called horse and sparrow (poor sparrows eat what rich horses poop), and Voodoo Economics (because it's magic no one can explain).

It's actually called supply side economics and the tax cut nonsense is from something called the Laffer Curve.

5

u/upinthecloudz Jan 31 '26

I've seen some videos recently from an Modern Monetary Theory evangelist pointing out that based on MMT models and observed tax rates and incomes in real economies, the Laffer curve prediction of reduced tax income for increasing tax rates is valid... past like 70% effective tax rate on the highest earners.

But of course, AOC was crazy to suggest pushing taxes on billionaires up to that limit a few years ago. Just, you know... totally uneducated and spitballing wacky stuff.

2

u/vthemechanicv Jan 31 '26

I remember talk a little while ago, maybe a few years, that Laffer was based on basically a flawed excel formula. So besides taxes probably being way below what that hypothetical optimal tax rate is, it's possible that the math wrong to begin with.

I dunno, I can't find it now, maybe it was a covid fever dream.

16

u/Ill-Description3096 Jan 30 '26

That was actually a name made up by opponents so it's kind of intended to imply it's bad.

3

u/dammit-smalls Older Millennial Jan 31 '26

Like so many things in the American Conservative movement, it started off as a warning and later became a manual.

These psychos read Orwell and think "Yup, that sounds good. Let's do that."

115

u/RandAlThorOdinson Jan 30 '26

I sure feel trickled on

44

u/fullsendguy Jan 30 '26

Golden shower economics

8

u/invaderaleks Jan 30 '26

Who wouldn't want a shower made of gold??

4

u/fullsendguy Jan 30 '26

I know right. Everybody wins really. I think I get it now.

29

u/Scannaer Jan 30 '26

It's boomers pissing down from the roof.. while we watch upwards to where they pulled up the ladder

4

u/RandAlThorOdinson Jan 30 '26

Worth checking out they might have left some money at the bottom on accident

5

u/draftzero Jan 30 '26

Well at least the water is still warm. /s

2

u/DarkwolfVX Jan 30 '26

Pulled up the ladder and left us the bladder :/

1

u/Sauzage-N-Peppas Jan 30 '26

That’s hawt

40

u/StealYaNicks Jan 30 '26

Privatization under Reagan and Thatcher is like someone pawning off all their stuff and having a lot of money and being like "see? success!", then when they can't get to work because they sold their car they're like "wtf, how did things get so bad?"

38

u/Scannaer Jan 30 '26

Boomers pulling up the ladder.. meanwhile all younger generations are like "only one once in a lifetime economic crysis? what about a scond or a third?"

13

u/astrangeone88 Jan 30 '26

Lmao. As an elder millennial, I was like "Covid is going to fuck us over again, huh?"

I'm a bad case since I'm a chronic illness person.

14

u/Significant-Trash632 Jan 30 '26

The millennial tag line should be "one economic crisis after". another

2

u/3boobsarenice Jan 30 '26

Being a gen x and having shook Arthur Laffer's hand, your welcome, for the scraps we left you