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The introduction to this article is heavily biased against trickle down economics. It defines TDE in terms of what critics believe its effects are, and not what TDE actually is. Any reader looking at a glance would not have a clear understanding of the topic because of this.
Suggestion for change: Define TDE in terms of its policies, followed by the theory behind it, then followed by a brief statement of critiques that is clearly expressed as such. The critiques should not be stated as fact, because they are opinion. I hope to see this done.
Nukey18mon (
talk)
02:43, 12 December 2023 (UTC)reply
Those are just the random articles you found on blog sites or sites like Investopedia. We don't use those. We need to find textbooks, journal articles, reliable publications from reputable outlets, not a website that was built by uncredentialed users with no particular oversight or editorial standards or policies on fact checking, accuracy, peer review, or etc etc. You can read
WP:RS for more Andre🚐05:55, 12 December 2023 (UTC)reply
Ok… how about this? We are talking definitions, so why not a dictionary? Merriam-Webster is already cited in this article, so it’s already been used as a reliable source.
We are NOT talking definitions, and NO, not a dictionary. This is Wikipedia. There's another place called Wiktionary, and you can head over there if you want. Andre🚐06:14, 12 December 2023 (UTC)reply
You asked for a source, and I gave you four different ones, one of which from an entity already cited in this article. If you have an issue with the dictionary being used as a source, then I expect you to remove where it is cited in this article. Otherwise it is perfectly valid to be used in a new introduction.
We are absolutely talking about definitions. Encyclopedias contain definitions to provide context to the article. In fact, the article already tried to define TDE, but fails to do so without being biased, hence the reason for this thread.
Nukey18mon (
talk)
07:14, 12 December 2023 (UTC)reply
See
WP:TERTIARY. Keep in mind, an encyclopedia is not the same thing as a dictionary. The source you are referencing states "a theory that financial benefits given to big business will in turn pass down to smaller businesses and consumers." This is a very narrow view of where the term TDE came from and what it is, ie
Supply-side economics. I think that is the article you are looking for.
DN (
talk)
06:32, 12 December 2023 (UTC)reply
You asked for a source, and I gave you four different ones, one of which from an entity already cited in this article. If you have an issue with the dictionary being used as a source, then I expect you to remove where it is cited in this article. Otherwise it is perfectly valid to be used in a new introduction.
We are absolutely talking about definitions. Encyclopedias contain definitions to provide context to the article. In fact, the article already tried to define TDE, but fails to do so without being biased, hence the reason for this thread.
Nukey18mon (
talk)
07:09, 12 December 2023 (UTC)reply
You were not asked for "a source", you were asked for "reliable sources". The sources you gave did not meet
WP:RS. It's not that difficult to understand that your reasoning is bad, and repeating it does not improve it. --
Hob Gadling (
talk)
07:24, 12 December 2023 (UTC)reply
One of the sources is literally used elsewhere in the article. If you have a problem with the literal dictionary, then fix it in the article. Be consistent.
Nukey18mon (
talk)
07:35, 12 December 2023 (UTC)reply
Merriam-Webster is used for the history of the term, and that is what dictionaries are good for. Different sources are used for different purposes. --
Hob Gadling (
talk)
07:46, 12 December 2023 (UTC)reply
So you admit that the subject of the article is the same as the subject of the dictionary entry? Then why shouldn’t it be used as a source of the definition?
Nukey18mon (
talk)
07:51, 12 December 2023 (UTC)reply
Not done. I suggest you visit the...
Hello! Trickle-down economics,
you are invited to join other new editors and friendly hosts in the
Teahouse. The Teahouse is an awesome place to meet people, ask questions and learn more about Wikipedia. Please join us!
I suggest you propose specific text for a new lead paragraph that incorporates the currently-cited quality sources as well as additional sources of the same caliber. Basically Wikipedia reports what reliable sources report. Do you have any evidence that the cited sources are "opinion" as you claim? ~
Anachronist (
talk)
05:33, 12 December 2023 (UTC)reply
(od) " Define TDE in terms of its policies, followed by the theory behind it" You cant because it is not a formal economic theory. Its a (usually) derogatory slang term.
Bonewah (
talk)
18:50, 14 December 2023 (UTC)reply
No consensus for changes to lead and removal of cited context.
I have already reverted this edit by Bonewah
once before, and asked them to take it to the talk page. Since they have decided to remove again without discussion it should be restored until there is consensus to change the lead.
DN (
talk)
21:18, 14 December 2023 (UTC)reply
I removed the line about 'a number of studies..' because it is OR. None of the sources we cite make this claim and so it is inappropriate for us to make this claim. I removed the Laffer curve stuff for POV reasons, and OR, specifically the claim "Despite a lack of practical-use evidence for the
Laffer curve.." as neither citation backs that up. I think its improper for us to claim that 'proponents of trickle-down' do anything as we already defined trickle-down and a a slang or pejorative only used by those who are against what they want to describe as trickle-down.
Bonewah (
talk)
18:35, 18 December 2023 (UTC)reply
deja vu is a daily fact of life for me, I'm afraid. Especially when it comes to the Laffer curve. Despite having been bunk since the 90s, or arguably never not having been not bunk, Andre🚐21:45, 18 December 2023 (UTC)reply
The rules are quite clear here. per
WP:V " All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the material" I am challenging the claim that "As of 2023, a number of studies have shown that there is no obvious link between reducing tax burdens on the upper end and
economic growth.". Please provide a reliable source that directly supports that claim. I am challenging the claim "Despite a lack of practical-use evidence for the
Laffer curve, it is often cited by proponents of trickle-down policy." Please provide a reliable source that directly supports that claim.
Bonewah (
talk)
14:22, 19 December 2023 (UTC)reply
The part of V you're quoting isn't relevant. There's no quotations, and the material has a citation. The lead does not need to include the citation, if it's in the body. Andre🚐19:19, 19 December 2023 (UTC)reply
So, since it has been challenged, reinstate the sentence with those citations in support and it leaves no vacuum to fill with further argument. Doing so will shut down the NOR assertion and we can all move on. --
𝕁𝕄𝔽 (
talk)
20:04, 19 December 2023 (UTC)reply
Well, those citations are all already in the article body. And I'm not sure the present state of the article has excluded the text - the removal was already reverted, wasn't it? Andre🚐21:57, 19 December 2023 (UTC)reply
Are you not familiar with <ref name= "citation name" />? "Methinks he doth protest too much". Just do it and let's move on, for goodness sake. The article doesn't use
WP:LEADCITE, I don't understand the resistance. --
𝕁𝕄𝔽 (
talk)
11:38, 20 December 2023 (UTC)reply
Ok, quite a few citations here, so lets see if any of them actually support the claims in question. To review, the lines to which i object are:
As of 2023, a number of studies have shown that there is no obvious link between reducing tax burdens on the upper end and
economic growth
Despite a lack of practical-use evidence for the
Laffer curve, it is often cited by proponents of trickle-down policy.
And to further clarify,
WP:V at a minimum requires that the reliable source directly supports the material. So it wont do, in my opinion, to simply cite a bunch of sources and say, therefore, "a number of studies have shown that there is no obvious link..." or "Despite a lack of practical-use evidence for the
Laffer curve..". The source itself must actually say that, or something close to it. If they dont, then we would be performing
WP:OR in that we are reaching a conclusion not stated or implied by the sources. Do the other editors here at least agree to that interpretation of policy?. If so, ill go through the sources provided, and, if i find one or more that directly supports the claim, ill add it as a citation. I should add here that i further object to the line in the lede, but that objection will be irrelevant if it must be removed because of either V or OR.
Bonewah (
talk)
14:25, 20 December 2023 (UTC)reply
There's no consensus to remove it. It's being discussed now. I'm adding some citations to the lead now since you seem to not like them in the body. Andre🚐14:28, 20 December 2023 (UTC)reply
I see the Laffer curve context has been excluded, and the last sentence was changed to "As of 2023, studies have not shown that there is a demonstrable link between reducing tax burdens on the upper end and economic growth." We seem to have a collection of attributions that all seem to say the same thing. My current concern is if there is an existing "overall consensus" (whether TDE works or doesn't work) from economics experts and academics, then we should include it as the "mainstream view" and avoid presenting a
WP:FALSEBALANCE. I can understand if it's not that simple, but it's something to consider. Cheers.
DN (
talk)
20:26, 21 December 2023 (UTC)reply
The "Despite a lack of practical-use evidence for the Laffer curve, it is often cited by proponents of trickle-down policy." is in the Usage section. but I'd be interested in putting that in the lead too. We'd need to find a source though for the academic consensus writ large. Andre🚐21:16, 21 December 2023 (UTC)reply
Incorrect. It's not cited for the Laffer curve claim. But it does support the claim that, Last week two British scholars released a study (PDF) concluding that trickle-down economics doesn’t work. Trickle-down theory says cutting taxes on rich people will encourage them to work and invest more, ultimately creating jobs and benefiting everyone. In reality, it increases inequality while not having “any significant effect on economic growth and unemployment,” wrote David Hope, a visiting fellow at the London School of EconomicsAndre🚐14:37, 20 December 2023 (UTC)reply
I don't understand your point. It's not cited for the Laffer curve, and it supports the claim that studies have shown that trickle-down doesn't work. Your arguments are invalid. Andre🚐14:42, 20 December 2023 (UTC)reply
My point is that you need a citation for the claim that "As of 2023, a number of studies have shown that there is no obvious link between reducing tax burdens on the upper end and economic growth." You cant simply cite some studies and then draw broad conclusions not stated in the sources themselves for the same reason I could not say that "As of 2023, a number of studies have shown that there is positive relationship between reducing tax burdens on the upper end and economic growth." and then cite a bunch of studies. You can cite the studies, if relevant and consistent with the other rules of Wikipedia, but not to support the broad conclusion that I object to.
Bonewah (
talk)
14:49, 20 December 2023 (UTC)reply
Actually, no, it's a summary. We absolutely can if there's a consensus that this is an accurate summary, that due to the copious secondary sources interpreting that trickle-down is a myth, it's a myth and no study has shown any evidence of it. We can change the wording, but your argument is a bunch of bunk and unproductive and
WP:1AM. Andre🚐14:50, 20 December 2023 (UTC)reply
"Despite the lack of practical evidence of the Laffer curve"? Excuse me?
What about Estonia and Jamaica? What about New Hampshire? What about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017? Taxes went down and revenue went up.
181.194.252.59 (
talk)
02:52, 8 March 2024 (UTC)reply
The claim that there is some kind of 'lack of practical evidence of the Laffer Curve' is OR. The LC is a concept that can be found in any modern Econ textbook and we should defer to what those RS's say, not a few cherry picked newspaper articles.
Bonewah (
talk)
15:32, 8 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Didn't either of you bother to read
Laffer curve? May you missed this in the lead?
One implication of the Laffer curve is that increasing tax rates beyond a certain point is counter-productive for raising further tax revenue. Particularly in the United States,
conservatives have used the Laffer curve to argue that lower taxes may increase tax revenue. However, the hypothetical maximum revenue point of the Laffer curve for any given market cannot be observed directly and can only be estimated—such estimates are often controversial. According to The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, estimates of revenue-maximizing income tax rates have varied widely, with a mid-range of around 70%.[1]
Im not sure who the 'either of you' is supposed to be, but i would argue that the section you quoted supports my argument. High quality RS's dont make the kind of claims being made here about the LC. Most everything ive read from actual Econ reliable sources say that the LC is correct, but its not always possible to know where a tax is on the Laffer Curve. In other words, as a practical matter, lowering taxes might raise revenue, or it might lower it, but its difficult to know for sure beforehand.
Bonewah (
talk)
20:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)reply
If it has no testable predictive ability, it is essentially
pseudoscience. Practical evidence for it would include predictive ability. Otherwise, saying "A tax increase may either raise or lower revenue" isn't really saying anything at all; of course it might do one of those two things. An actual predictive ability would be to say "Under X circumstances, tax increases are likely to lower revenues, and under circumstances opposite those it will likely raise them." Then that claim could be tested to see if it's actually borne out in practice. That principle of
falsifiability is critical to any theory.
SeraphimbladeTalk to me22:08, 8 March 2024 (UTC)reply
You are the one who stated that the best available sources state that it lacks predictive ability: Most everything ive read from actual Econ reliable sources say that the LC is correct, but its not always possible to know where a tax is on the Laffer Curve. So, I was going by what you claim they say.
SeraphimbladeTalk to me16:55, 11 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Of course, just like if a source says someone "was killed", we can conclude that they are dead, without the source explicitly saying "dead". If what you're asking for is sources which explicitly state that a theory must be testable and falsifiable in order to have validity, I can certainly provide those.
SeraphimbladeTalk to me17:10, 11 March 2024 (UTC)reply
If it is explicitly about the Laffer Curve or TDE, then sure, provide away. If its some inference that you think is relevant, then not so much so.
Bonewah (
talk)
17:26, 11 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Furthermore, the texts say (and the Laffer curve says) that the effect of a tax regime is imprecise, that nobody knows where the Goldilocks spot is. It the equivalent of the
medieval scholastics debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin: it is a thought experiment with no expectation of real-world application. But it is also superficially attractive answer beloved of populists of left and right. It is not deterministic but that doesn't make it pseudoscience. --
𝕁𝕄𝔽 (
talk)
17:28, 11 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Chris Giles (14 March 2024).
"Searching in vain for the Laffer curve boost". Financial Times. Perhaps because Arthur Laffer is extraordinarily rightwing, the curve he drew on a napkin in 1974, suggesting lower tax rates increase revenues, has become a weapon of Conservative thinkers. This is far from ideal. If any government can find tax reductions that change behaviour sufficiently to raise receipts, everyone should be in favour. The problem is that genuine examples of the phenomenon are vanishingly rare.
"Chris Giles is the FT’s economics commentator. He writes a fortnightly column and the weekly newsletter, Chris Giles on Central Banks (sign up here). Previously, he was economics editor and served as a leader writer.
He is an Honorary Professor of Practice at the UCL Policy Lab. Before joining the FT, he worked for the BBC, Ofcom and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Chris loves numbers." (
https://www.ft.com/chris-giles) That good enough? --
𝕁𝕄𝔽 (
talk)
21:27, 14 March 2024 (UTC)reply
Arthur Laffer's views only appeal to a minority of economists. As explained in the main article on Laffer:
"Numerous leading economists have rejected the view that a tax rate cut of current federal
U.S. income taxes can lead to increased tax revenue. When asked in a 2012
University of Chicago business school survey whether a "cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would raise taxable income enough so that the annual total tax revenue would be higher within five years than without the tax cut", none of the economists surveyed agreed and 71% disagreed.[2] According to
Greg Mankiw, most economists have been very skeptical of Laffer's contention that decreases in tax rates could increase tax revenue, at least in the United States. In his textbook, Mankiw states, "there was little evidence for Laffer's view that U.S. tax rates had in fact reached such extreme levels."[3] Under the direction of conservative economist
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the
Congressional Budget Office conducted a 2005 study on the fiscal effects of a 10% cut in federal income tax rates, finding that it resulted in a significant net revenue loss."
Dimadick (
talk)
12:08, 15 March 2024 (UTC)reply
^Fullerton, Don (2008). "Laffer curve". In Durlauf, Steven N.; Blume, Lawrence E. (eds.). The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (2nd ed.). p. 839.
doi:
10.1057/9780230226203.0922.
ISBN978-0-333-78676-5.
^Mankiw, Greg (2014). Principles of Economics. Cengage. pp. 164–165.
Recent lead rewrite
The lead was recently rewritten in
this series of edits to say that "trickle-down economics" is another term for "supply-side economics", a statement that obviously contradicts the body and numerous sources describing its usage as something that predates supply-side economics entirely. When I reverted it, it was reverted back in with the statement that it had been discussed; however, I can see no such discussion (nor can I imagine that such a
WP:BOLD rewrite would have withstood any serious scrutiny, because, again, it directly contradicts the body of the article and most high-quality sources, relying entirely on lower-quality news sources.) As far as I can tell, the rewrite had no discussion at all. In fact, the only discussion around the time of the rewrite focused solely on the Laffer curve. The proposed rewrite to the lead contradicts most sources, severely damaged the quality of the lead, and fails to accurately summarize the entire article or the relevant sources per
WP:LEAD. --
Aquillion (
talk)
17:26, 5 April 2024 (UTC)reply
The core problem i have with your rewrite is that it does not clearly state that TDE is a pejorative and not used by economists. I agree that the term predates Supply side econ and so the lead should reflect that. I think your edits are superior to what we had, but, again, i think we need to emphasize what the sources actually say, that TDE isnt an economic term and never has been. Ill revert my reversion and offer some tweaks to address my concerns. Thanks
Bonewah (
talk)
16:06, 8 April 2024 (UTC)reply
As I said 18 months ago, "Did someone forget that “trickle down” is a journalistic expression, and as such, entirely appropriate in a Guardian article? Please stop debating “trickle down” as if it were some kind of economic theory; it isn’t."
DOR (ex-HK) (
talk)
16:33, 8 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I agree. I have no problem with the lede rewrite, save that it does not spell this out, and, frankly, the last line is doing exactly what
DOR (ex-HK) is saying. Which is, acting as if some study or whatever 'disproves' something that isnt an economic theory in the first place.
Bonewah (
talk)
15:38, 9 April 2024 (UTC)reply