Phillip's economic 'total plan of awesomeness'

If you search the words ‘trickle up economics’ in Google you don’t even get a Wikipedia page (although I guess there is one), in fact one of the first hits is from the author of Dilbert. I love Dilbert, but I wouldn’t go to Scott Adams for economic advice (nor me for that matter). When you search for ‘trickle-down economics’ you get a ton of fancy hits, even a Wikipedia page. I know that people no longer can be convinced of anything, instead we are so rooted in our beliefs we wouldn’t know a good idea (if it differed from ours) if it kicked us in the groin; however, I am going to attempt to convince you that trickle-up economics is what this country needs.

Trickle-down economics is the idea that if you give tax breaks to rich people that in turn, this will trickle down to benefit those below them on the economic pyramid. Ever since I was smart enough to care about this stuff (so about 3 months), I have always thought this was crap because rich people save money, poor people spend it. So I am proposing that we, as a culture not as a government, change to trickle-up economics.

Trickle-up economics is just that, get money to poor and middle class families, and they in turn will spend that money. This then boosts the revenues of businesses, thus allowing them (in a perfect world) to grow. If the recession and poor economy has taught us anything, it is that people are allergic to saving money. So instead of giving money to the rich and waiting for it to reach the poor, I say we instead get money to the poor because it will reach the rich probably by noon tomorrow (unless there is a 24-hour Wal-Mart nearby).

The government can’t lead this crusade to save our economy. Sadly, we have to depend on a group I trust even less to do what is right: the rich. Not just the rich like I think of the rich, I mean the super-rich. The people that get the office especially cleaned up when they visit. The people that don’t even check their own email or answer their own phones. I mean the CEOs and executives of the world. The people that make more money that I believe anyone should ever make. Not that there is anything wrong with making as much as you can. Let the record officially state I am not against rich people nor do I want to take away people’s ability to be rich. I don’t want the government to take money from the rich and give it to people that don’t want to work. Nope, that is not my plan. Instead, I want rich people to WANT to do so, or at least be forced by the general population. Not through taxes, they are already way too high (yes, I am a liberal, but taxes are still too high). Instead, I want CEOs and executives to get paid less.

According to Forbes, In 2006 CEOs as a group received a 38% pay raise. Lawrence Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, made ~$193 million. Howard Schultz, the guy that runs Starbucks, made $98 million (what a chump). Granted, this is total compensation, and since most of the people on the list have recently run their companies into the ground they didn’t get to take home all of that, but still, they aren’t doing too bad. The example I want to us is newly appointing Michael Duke, who only made $13 million last year (generic brands here he comes!).

In my warped vision of the world, Mr. Duke and his fellow ‘rich beyond all recognition’ cronies would all take pay cuts. Even if they don’t want them, their companies stockholders and boards have the power to force it upon them. Take that money and pay front-line employees more. This would benefit everyone in a few ways. First, by paying people more, people that work at Wal-Mart would (hopefully) value their jobs more, and thus treat customers better. Second, employees would SPEND that money, as opposed to Mr. Duke who saves the majority of it. This is an assumption, but I bet I am right. By spending money, Mr. Duke and companies will make more. I would continue on to third, but the first two are all that matter right now.

Too much of our wealth is saved and stuck in the top 1% of our economic pyramid. In 2005, almost one third of the countries wealth was in the top 1%. I don’t blame the people that have it. I blame boards and shareholders for letting CEO pay get totally out of control.

I wish that someday I would be important enough to show that I mean this because I promise you I would never make $897 million a year, or even $13 million. I know it is easy for me to piss and moan from the bottom (well not the bottom), but I really believe that this is a better system that in the end would benefit more people. I know people will disagree, and that is fine. I don’t care about stats and history and the same old arguments. We have tried those, and the fact of the matter is that we are in the situation we are in because of our current system (and a combination of many other things). This would work. I am sure some of my republican friends could read this and find stats and history to back up arguments, they always seem to do that. But isn't the situation too unique? What has happened in the past is history, this is today. This isn't the early 80's or the Great Depression. This is the global economy and the 21st century. Do we have any better answers?