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WotD: Trickle-down
If you are a coffee drinker, you already understand how the trickle-down theory works.
Hot water trickles down through the ground coffee into a waiting cup or pot to create the perfect morning beverage or afternoon pick-me-up.
In a nutshell, trickle-down means that something begins at the top of a structure or system and gradually spreads downward throughout the entire system.
It works well when making coffee, but not when fixing an economy.
Regular readers of my Word of the Day posts will be aware that I often refer to politics, economics and other current events.
Well, today is no different.
When Shinzo Abe was prime minister, he created an economic policy that he referred to as the three arrows, which popularly became known as Abenomics.
His three arrows were:
- aggressive monetary policy
- fiscal consolidation
- growth strategy
Basically, he relied on the trickle-down theory.
If you create money for the affluent, that money will eventually trickle down to the plebians (ordinary people) of society.
Do you feel richer? I don’t.
That’s because the trickle-down theory doesn’t work.
Interestingly enough, the term was first created by an American guy named Will Rogers in the 1930s.
Oh, and he was a comedian, by the way.
He used the word to criticize President Hoover’s stimulus efforts during the Great Depression.
Leave it to a Japanese Prime Minister to copy an economic policy first used during the Great Depression and coined by a comedian.
Trickle-down economics doesn’t work.
If you give rich people and corporations money, they keep it.
That’s why they are rich.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 61.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.