Before anyone called it “trickle-down economics,” there was another way of describing the same basic idea. It was called the horse-and-sparrow theory. Feed the horse enough oats, the thinking went, and eventually some of those oats would pass through the horse, land on the road, and the sparrows would get something to eat. It is crude. It is unflattering. And it may be one of the most accidentally honest metaphors ever attached to an economic theory. For decades, we’ve been t

If you’ve spent any time in political discussions over the past several years, you’ve probably heard some version of this claim: that President Barack Obama “gave Iran pallets of American taxpayer money.” Sometimes the number attached to that claim is $150 billion. Sometimes it’s $400 million. Often the story is told with dramatic language about planes loaded with cash and secret deals. It’s a powerful narrative. The only problem is that it’s also deeply misleading. The actua