Fact-Free Politics: From Climate Change to Trickle Down
January 17, 2019
Empty catchwords reveal a mind that’s unwilling to analyze and debate.
In this era when there has been more information available to more people than at any time in the past, it is also true that there has been more misinformation from more different sources than ever. We are not talking about differences of opinion or inadequate verification, but about statements and catchwords in utter defiance of facts.
Among the most popular current catchwords are “climate change deniers.” Stop and think. Have you ever — even once in your entire life — seen, heard or read even one human being who denied that climates change?
It is hard even to imagine how any minimally knowledgeable person could deny that climates change, when there are fossils of marine creatures in the Sahara Desert. Obviously there has been quite a climate change there.
The next time someone talks about “climate change deniers,” ask them to name one — and tell you just where specifically you can find their words, declaring that climates do not change. You can bet the rent money that they cannot tell you.
Why all this talk about these mythical creatures called “climate change deniers”? Because there are some meteorologists and other scientists who refuse to join the stampede toward drastic economic changes to prevent what others say will be catastrophic levels of “global warming.”
There are scientists on both sides of that issue. Presumably the issue could be debated on the basis of evidence and analysis. But this has become a political crusade, and political issues tend to be settled by political means, of which demonizing the opposition with catchwords is one.
It is much the same story on economic issues. Any proposal to reduce income tax rates is sure to bring out claims that these are “tax cuts for the rich,” based on the “trickle-down theory” that reducing the taxes collected from the rich will cause some of their wealth to “trickle down” to people with lower incomes.
Here, yet again, all you need to do is think back over your own life, and ask yourself if you have ever — even once in your entire life — seen, heard or read a single human being who advocated this “trickle-down theory.”
Certainly none of the innumerable fellow economists I have encountered in my 88 years ever advocated any such theory. Nor am I aware of anyone else, in any other walk of life, who has done so.
Yet there are ringing denunciations of the “trickle-down theory” in books, articles, and in politics and the media. That theory has been denounced as far away as India.
The next time someone talks about the “trickle-down” theory, ask them to tell you where specifically you can find the writings, videos, or any other evidence of someone advocating that theory. You may get some very clever and creative evasions of your question, but no actual answer.
One of the best-selling history textbooks did name Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon as having said in the 1920s that letting the rich pay less taxes would allow their wealth to “trickle down” to others. It was one of the very rare examples that actually named a name.
Unfortunately, what this widely used history textbook attributed to Andrew Mellon was the direct opposite of what he actually said. In Mellon’s own book, Taxation, he said that wealthy people were not paying enough tax revenue to the government, because they put their money into tax-exempt securities. Mellon called it “incredible” that tax laws allowed someone making a million dollars a year to pay not a cent in taxes, and an “almost grotesque” consequence that people of more modest incomes had to make up the shortfall.
He understood, however, that higher tax rates did not automatically mean higher tax revenues. So when the tax law changes that he advocated cut tax rates, the income tax revenues actually hit a record high at that time. Moreover, the rich paid more tax revenue and a much higher percentage of all income tax revenues than before.
Issues in both economics and science can get complicated. But when one side of those issues has to resort to demonstrably false catchwords, that should give us a clue.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
h/t to Joseph Bast
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Perhaps climate alarmists should cobble together a little red book full of alarmist talking points and quotes. The propaganda responses from alarmists are all too predictible. Title could be “Quotes from Chairman Gore”
They have a number of sites that provide their responses.
desmog, skepticalscience, realclimate, center for American progress, etc. etc.
Which explains their “predictable” responses.
Those providing the trollops appear to consist of:
* Paid trollops,
* Religious fanatics,
* Those earning their salaries or invested in climate alarmism,
* And the very occasional misguided soul.
“Trickle down” is a pejorative expression used (and probably created) by the political left. I’m an octogenarian, and I recall it being used in political arguments in my high school days.
Indeed, the modern usage was coined by one of FDR’s speechwriters (Sowell documents it in one of his books).
Objection to ”trickle-down” theory was the “Scrooge McDuck fallacy.” He was Donald’s uncle who hoarded gold, bathing in coin, denying it to the rest of us. I leave the mass balance distribution of gold coin to others.
Sowell is right, catchwords is a kind description.
Thank you Kym for so aptly proving Dr. Sowell’s point.
A grand total of nobody argues that humans are incapable of influencing the climate. All you have managed to do is burn down a strawman of your own making, and prove yourself a fool at the same time.
The issue is how much is man capable of changing the climate and if that amount is going to be dangerous.
The actual, real world science indicates that while man is capable of influencing the climate, that amount is small.
The actual, real world science indicates that a little bit of warming is 100% beneficial, as is the extra CO2 in the atmosphere.
In 2007, Al Gore’s scifi flick, chock-full of lies and assorted distortions of the truth, ironically named “an Inconvenient Truth” was supposed to be the nail in the coffin for Climate Skepticism/Climate Realism. These were the glory days for the Climate Liars, who, although they couldn’t win an actual debate, declared that “the debate is over”. To their chagrin, though, just the opposite happened. More and more people examined what was being fed to them, through the media particularly as “Climate Truth”, and found it to be shockingly lacking in same. Thus, in a frantic effort to shout down and shut down anyone opposing the Climate
Catechism, the outrageous term “denier” was born, and it was a deliberate reference and comparison to holocaust deniers. Truth-tellers were then referred to as not only “climate deniers”, but, “science deniers” by the biggest liars on the planet, and in human history.
What we are discussing is evil, chaos Rhetoric. Rhetoric is politically correct phrases.
Rhetoric is emotional talk for political purposes/agendas.
Rhetoric stops rational thoughtful discussions, new ideas, groups of people from working together to successfully solve problems.
Notice that there are no facts or logical arguments presented. (Same as most CNN news stories) There is no discussion of past specific cases, no acknowledgement of constraints (say deficits or past efficiency of action).
The news reports once upon a time had facts, numbers, graphs, alternatives, pros/cons of actions, intelligent thoughtful guests who were politically independent, and so no.
What do you expect when so-called “respected” journalists from the Guardian use the term “climate change deniers” as in todays offering, “Zali Steggall to challenge Tony Abbott for Warringah seat” by Anne Davies and Paul Karp.
“The groups have been liaising with GetUp, which has vowed to work to remove Abbott and other climate change deniers from their seats at the forthcoming election, likely to be held in May.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/26/zali-steggall-to-challenge-tony-abbott-warringah-nsw-seat
The only place you will find high ECS values is from the models.
Every single attempt to measure the ECS in the real world has found the ECS to be below 1degree. Most find it to be as low as 0.5C or lower.
PS, I love the way Kym assumes that all of the warming (closer to 0.6C than 1C, but then Kym doesn’t care for accuracy) is due to CO2. Not even her idols make such claims.
I’d love to hear Kym give a lecture on how temperatures were measured back in 1860 and the strengths and weaknesses of this system.
MarkW
You mean like buckets over the sides of ships? Predominantly on well plied trade routes which rarely involved the southern ocean?
Tea boys sent out in the snow and rain to take measurements from Stevenson screens that weren’t developed, far less globally distributed before around 1900? Calibration between Stevenson screens when they were eventually established done by letter?
And this gives us historic temperatures down to hundredths of a degreeC?
I could go on but you have probably seen it all before.
Blind adherence to wonky data which allows the user to manipulate it to represent anything.
Using the Mark One eyeball to guestimate the value read to the nearest degree, most of the readers having little to no training in how to handle issues such as parallax.
How many greenies even know what parallax is, and how to make sure it doesn’t contaminate your readings?
Parallax = Liquid paraffin to loosen your stools (:-))
The left promotes many myths about the benefits of raising the top marginal tax rate.
Myth 1
We had less income inequality in the 1950s – 1960s because there was “Massive Income Redistribution “ when the top rate was ~ 91%.
No. Certainly those at the top paid a higher Effective Tax Rate (% of Gross Income paid in taxes). Those who paid the 91% top marginal rate in the 1950s paid an ETR in the range of 45-50%. But, as an example, in 1954 there were only 201 making $1 M + and only 640 who paid the 91% top marginal tax rate. The taxes paid by those paying the 91% contributed less than 0.5% of tax revenue. Not exactly a massive amount for income redistribution.
Myth 2
Clinton balanced the budget because he increased the top marginal tax rate to 39.6%.
He did balance the budget and he did increase the top marginal tax rate, but the added tax revenue from that change was a very small part of the increase in tax revenue 1992-2000. The total tax revenue increase was $925 Billion but the part from the top marginal tax rate was only ~ $100 Billion. Most of it was from the great amount of Real Growth in the Tax Base or Adjusted Gross Income. There were 5 years when the Real Growth in AGI was over 5%. Contrast that with the average Real Growth in AGI since 2000 of only 1%.
Myth 3
When the top marginal rate was 91% Government was awash in tax revenue. No, as an example, in 1948, the Effective Tax Rate for the combined Income Tax and Social Security Taxes was 10%. Truman balanced the budget that year. Today, the Effective Tax Rate of Income Taxes and Social Security Taxes is 22%. We pay more than twice of our incomes in taxes than in 1948. Much of the 1950s the ETR was 12-13%, including SS.
Play around with the top marginal rate at will but don’t expect huge increases in tax revenue. The more effective way to increase tax revenue is to increase the tax base with Real Growth in the Adjusted Gross Income.
If the top 1% paid an Effective Tax Rate equal to that paid in the 1950s -1960s, 30-33%, then that would generate only an additional $75 Billion. Our deficit is going to be $700-800 Billion this year. We need to reduce the spending path or make economic growth return to the average from 1945 to 2000 when the Real Growth in Adjusted Gross Income was 3.3% per year.
In 2016, the last IRS Report , those at the top paid an ETF of 27%.
Kym, if your guessies come true it would be heaven to mankind.
Kym, have you ever heard any mention about “little ice age”? We are still on our climb to normal (if there one is) climate.
Wake up and face the real world.
Sowell is well spoken, penetrating wit, too bad we don’t have more of his ilk. He’s not a big Trump fan though!
Damn good, short and to the point article about THE issue as it is, it completely shows the emperor without clothes sort of speak.
It agrees quite well with something that I’m digging through now about the Climate Industrial Complex and Greta Thunberg. At a website called wrongkindofgreen.com, I’ve come across 2 parts of what is supposed to end up as a 4 part article. It looks rather disturbing and takes one through the belly of this beast. The worst thing about it is that it seems that what we’ve seen so far in the sense of rallying climate fanatics has only been the beginning: They’re planning a major campaign in April this year, I hope the word will spread so that some cool heads will be prepared.
Part 1:
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/01/17/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/
Part 2:
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/01/21/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-inconvenient-truth-behind-youth-cooptation/
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” Thomas Sowell
A computer model is not science.
Would everyone here say that Newtonian physics was settled in 1890?
What would climate scientists have said to Einstein?
What would climate scientists have said to NASA when the Appolo space missions missed the Moon?
Is there any point in debating the physics of Quidditch?
Professor Sowell,
The large and largely misguided comments on your piece prove your point.
Steve
Let’s face it kids. Dr. Sowell is one of the greatest economic philosophers of our time. Always a pleasure to listen to and clear as clean glass. Pay attention!
Regarding the Tricle down effect, is that most of the super rich like to spend their money on things, such as cars, boat s and planes.
This spending creates employment, thus indirectly its a sort of tricle down effect.
MJE
Perhaps a good counter-catchphrase might be to call alarmists “Chicken Littles.”
This literally made my head explode: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/28/ocasio-cortez-dings-tech-for-implicit-support-of-climate-change-denial.html
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung&biw=360&bih=288&ei=C4ZPXPvOF4OurgT1tJe4DA&q=alligators+in+contemporary++sahara+&oq=alligators+in+contemporary++sahara+&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.
Can’t say I’m surprised.
“Since neither the creationists nor the evolutionists were there when the world began, why are our schools teaching either set of beliefs, when there are so many hard facts that the schools are failing to teach?”
– Thomas Sowell
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-11_30_05_TS.html