Bill Gates, Al Sharpton and Trickle Down Economics
One of the countless annoying things about MSNBC is the self righteous promotional spots featuring diatribes from several of their commentators. Al Sharpton's is particularly confounding. His rant is a critique of "trickle down economics". A pejorative for supply side economics pioneered by the Ronald Reagan administration. Supply side economics involves the reduction of top marginal tax rates and reduced regulation in order to boost economic activity. Reagan's policies created the second biggest peacetime recovery in US history with a net jobs increase of over 21 million. Reagan was able to bring down the unemployment rate to 5.4% from a high of 10.8% during the recession of 1982. Many companies benefited from the Reagan era boom and were able to take advantage of our vibrant capital markets. One such company was started by a geeky Harvard dropout named Bill Gates which went public in 1986 creating 12,000 millionaires along the way. Microsoft as we know would go on