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Old 11-18-10, 09:05 PM   #45
tater
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mookiemookie View Post
I work in the financial business. We deal with factual and data driven analysis, not theory. If someone is going to propose theory, it needs to be backed up by empirical data. I have never seen one piece of data driven analysis for trickle down economics. All that is ever offered in its defense is idealistic thinking and anecdotal evidence. That doesn't hold water. Therefore, it doesn't work.
That sounds very scientific.

I can predict specifics about a star very far away more accurately than you can predict the economy a month in the future. Economics is not science, sadly. So all the talk about empirical data is great, but all the models are so terrible that the data doesn't make much of a difference. If the top marginal rate went up 1%, what will the tax revenue be the next year? How accurate can you be? How about not accurate at all—say to the nearest dollar (if it was a physics thing I'd want it out in the deep decimal places).

Nope, they'd have error bars larger than the 1%.
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