Bubble Up Economics

Money, like hot air, rises.

Eventually ending up at the top.

Some have suggested that, once at the top, it trickles down.

Wrong.

Once at the top, there it stays, as we have witnessed in the last 40 years, with the growing hyper-concentration of wealth in upper ranks of American families.

The wealthiest 1 percent of families owns roughly 34.3%  of the nation's net worth, the top 10% of families owns over 71%, and the bottom 40% of the population owns way less than 1% (Click HERE for more info).


Trickle-down economic theories are one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated on the American public. The fact is: once it bubbles to the top, as all money does, it stays there. Period.

Unless the federal government does what good government should do - tax the wealth at the top and put it to work by infusing it into the lower reaches of our society - pumping it into the renovation of our schools with good salaries for our teachers; improving our roads and light-rail systems for our cities; supporting our cities; funding the arts; promoting research on global warming; cleaning up the environment; wind turbines; alternative fuels, and with single-payer health insurance, the money would go directly to the providers of health-care rather than the billions currently siphoned off by the insurance companies and their high-salaried CEOs.

Money always bubbles up.

Unless appropriate taxation helps return billions to the lower reaches of a society, the poor will only grow poorer and the wealthy, of course, will only grow wealthier.

The United States stands alone with its infantile fixation on trickle-down economic theories and its fear of taxation.

We have to pay attention to how the rest of world handles its wealth,  by sustaining a positive flow of cash from the top to the bottom, and letting it bubble up through all the layers of a society, and when it returns to the top, appropriate taxation starts the cycle all over again.

In a such a society, there are still wealthy families, and there are poor, as well, but the gap is smaller, as it should be.

The terrible and growing gap in our society between the wealthy and the poor is an affront to God, the deepest kind of violation of justice. If Christians are biblical (and what's the alternative?), they have to face these alarming trends, and as followers of Christ, work to keep wealth flowing throughout a society rather than allow it to rise to the top and stagnating there, even as more flows upward, finally starving the economy for 90% of the population.

As Paul the Apostle wrote:

I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. As it is written,
      “The one who had much did not have too much,
      and the one who had little did not have too little.”