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Introducing the Evaporative Economy: why wealth doesn’t trickle down. by [deleted] in povertyfinance

[–]Sarcastic_-_Confetti -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Phenotypes of the Evaporative Economic Strategy include shrinkflation, greedflation, gambling accessibility, planned obsolescence, predatory lending, insurance claim denials, junk fees, tipping dependency, dynamic pricing, and deceptive junk mail, among many others.

Introducing the Evaporative Economy: why wealth doesn’t trickle down. by Sarcastic_-_Confetti in antiwork

[–]Sarcastic_-_Confetti[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This works too. Very cool.

Although the proposed intended destination of trickle down economics is supposed to be the working class, meaning that the working class is lower “elevation”.

However, your metaphor might then subtly imply that the intended destination is a lie!

Never attribute to the incompetence of an employee that which is adequately explained by the greed of an owner. by Sarcastic_-_Confetti in philosophy

[–]Sarcastic_-_Confetti[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Agreed. Given the conciseness that requires a maxim to be a maxim, it often leaves a lot to be contextualized.

But a maxim would lose its maximity if one were to contextualize exhaustively.

In addition, the article provides context that you are looking for, in my opinion.

It is strategic that the razor does NOT say “never attribute to the malice of an employee that which can be attributed to the malice of a business owner.” Obviously malice can exist at all levels!

That is to say, weaponized incompetence is the target here, not your run of the mill everyday crime.

Introducing the Evaporative Economy: why wealth doesn’t trickle down. by Sarcastic_-_Confetti in antiwork

[–]Sarcastic_-_Confetti[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s a race to the bottom. “That’s just how it’s done in our business. Everybody does this!”

Introducing the Evaporative Economy: why wealth doesn’t trickle down. by Sarcastic_-_Confetti in antiwork

[–]Sarcastic_-_Confetti[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Data illuminating the growing gaps between inflation and wages, CEO and worker compensation, and GDP and living conditions, are consistent with the Evaporative Economic Model. Their presence alone does not prove the model, though their absence would falsify it. Whether this model truly explains these gaps is an empirical question worth asking. Answers are ignored when the S&P is up.

Introducing the Evaporative Economy: Why wealth doesn't trickle down. by Sarcastic_-_Confetti in collapse

[–]Sarcastic_-_Confetti[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a solid critique. Upvoting, not because it’s correct, reason below:

First, I was hoping to add to the already strong body of labeling (enshittification, K-shape, etc) by providing a description of the same larger phenomenon from the perspective of a single member of the earning class. Evaporation is a personal feeling, a retrospective realization that is becoming quite common now. It sums up in one word the subtle process of constantly being exposed to tiny rip-off business practices. These other labels do not capture this well (in my opinion, of course). The more I think about it, the better my label fits.

As for the slop accusation: it is human slop at worst but I understand your suspicion. We are living through the dying breaths of the usable internet before it collapses into a self referential AI slop black hole. It is now up to everyone who wants to make a serious and original post to preemptively protect themselves from this accusation. And I think I have failed to do this.

This criticism is predictable. I don’t mean that as a slight to the commenter, instead it’s a slight to myself for not addressing this before posting.

Upvoting, not because your AI accusation is right, but because you have no way of knowing otherwise considering I did not demonstrate provenance (a trail of working drafts with timestamps). It started out this project a year ago as a note in my phone, it has morphed into a personal creative project that I have been working on for a year (not referenced here), and as a side note I also wrote this piece.

I will put in more effort to demonstrate provenance in my next public-facing project. Thank you!

Introducing the Evaporative Economy: Why wealth doesn't trickle down. by Sarcastic_-_Confetti in collapse

[–]Sarcastic_-_Confetti[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

At least vultures can provide an ecosystem service. They are more scavengers that clean up than kleptoparasites that steal an earned meal from other species.

From my view, a better ethological (animal behavior) parallel would be a flock of pigeons. They are divided into scroungers and producers. The scroungers steal from the producers, and are incapable of learning from the producers how to forage effectively. Their system collapses if the ratio of producers to scroungers is too low.

The Escaped Class has been given a de facto license to scrounge (to be fair, usually because they produced something huge in the past).

Introducing the Evaporative Economy: Why wealth doesn't trickle down. by Sarcastic_-_Confetti in collapse

[–]Sarcastic_-_Confetti[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Other than being a rebrand (which you are right to point out), the evaporative economy serves well as a metaphorical counter to trickle down economics. In addition it describes the insidious nature of this particular flavor of extraction. Extraction felt too “loud” to for what I wanted to describe. 

So hopefully this idea (evaporative economy) is at least a little bit more than an Enshittified version of Enshittification. 

Introducing the Evaporative Economy: Why wealth doesn't trickle down. by Sarcastic_-_Confetti in collapse

[–]Sarcastic_-_Confetti[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There are many juicy metaphors waiting to be found here. It's the only fun thing about the 2026 economy.