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Reader question: Please explain the term “trickle-down economy”. My comments: Or rather trickle-down economics, a pro-capital, pro-rich and pro-elite economic theory. First, trickle down. Observe a brook or any small stream of water in the mountains. As water runs downhill, the stream may get thinner. If there is no water from other sources joining in, this thin stream will eventually reduce itself to a trickle, a very thin and slow stream indeed before completely disappearing as it dries up altogether. Or when we cry, we talk of our tears trickle down our cheeks. Trickle, in short, is small in amount and significance. Trickle-down economics, on the other hand, is the economic theory that if you help people at the top, their investment into new businesses eventually will benefit people on the bottom ladders of the economy. If you give tax breaks to the wealthy, for example, they'll have more money on their hands than they know what to do with. Eventually, they'll spend that money through various investments, and that, eventually, benefits the poor by providing them with new jobs. In theory, that should work the same way as adding water to a stream up the hills. Eventually, if you add enough water to the stream that is, the water will trickle all the way down the hills and, hopefully, reach the flatlands. The proverbial flatlands of the economy will be the place where all the poor people, including the so-called middle class, congregate. | 
