The Government Trickle Economy

Trickle down theory

The theory is that money spent on public projects moves from one hand to another, that it generates more spending than the initial money spent.  It is more than a theory, because it does work under ideal situations.  In false situations where there is government corruption it does not work.  When the government spends money there are three ways that it gets spent: 1) wages, 2) handouts and 3) projects. 

Government wages is when the government pays people to do stuff for them and this is the largest way that governments spurn on the economy.  In most countries in the West this amounts to Trillions of dollars.  In Canada we have a progressive system of taxation, the first $43,953 is taxed at 15% and the second $43,953 is taxed at 22% and it goes on from there.  We are also taxed by sales taxes and land taxes and a few other hidden ways like luxury taxes and cigarette and alcohol taxes meant t o reduce consumption.  In Ontario the combined federal and provincial sales taxes come to 13% and municipal land tax is set by the municipality and is a percentage of the land's value.

My point is that a small wage automatically will see a large chunk of the money head directly back to the government as taxes.  Then comes the next part, spending the money.  People spend their money.  They buy things, they get services and the eat things.  Most of the things they buy have other people involved in the process.  There are the sales clerks, the cashiers, the people that transported the material, the people that made the item, the people that dig or grow things, there are a lot of people that get a slice of the money spent.  I think most people realize this.  

Every dollar earned by someone gets split into a couple of pots, the tax pot and the spending pot and the savings pot.  Savings are used for longterm or large purchases, whether it is retirement or saving to purchase a big ticket item, a car, a house or a trip.  Given a long enough time frame, all money is eventually spent.  The exception is the very wealthy, who typically buy more expensive everyday goods than the rest of the populous but also tend to get more money per time period than they spend it and so become the final resting spot of currency.  

I work in a greenhouse, a green house with a landscaping arm.  There are lots of cottages and such that need beautifying and servicing.  This is one of the ways wealthy people spend money that other people don't.  But we also have a greenhouse.  We grow our own product.  It supports about ten people with seasonal full time work.  The biggest expense of the greenhouse are the wages of the employees.  There are other expenses, heating, water costs, building maintenance, taxes and insurance.  Oh the second biggest expense is purchasing of plant material.  Like many greenhouses, we can't possibly grow everything we sell and not all our annuals are seeded, some are brought in via plugs and grown on to a larger size.  A lot of our perennials are grown from plugs and bulbs/roots but a larger portion are brought in mature from a grower who has more space and more selection to grow the hundreds of possible perennials.  Then there is the nursery.  Out greenhouse does not have the space to grow the many different varieties and numbers of the trees and shrubs we sell, so we bring these in from somewhere where they are grown.

All told, the greenhouse is self sufficient, add the landscaping and it is making a profit which allows improvements to the buildings and extra money for the owner.  So most of the money that the is spent locally, with some of the money going to external markets with their own set of employees and expenses.  

The point is that money spent circulates until it reaches one of a few locations, the government through taxation, longterm savings of the public, things like education savings plans, RRSPs, and stuf like that, and money pits.  

The first destination, the government, is good because this means that they can spend the money again.  The second, long term savings, is only out of circulation for a period of time before it goes back into circulation, part of this money is taxed and goes back to the government.  Part of it goes back into the economy though and is used by many people before it eventually ends up in the government again or in a money pit.

A Money Pit, is one of a few players that receive money and can't spend it.  They can't spend it because there is nothing to spend it upon, so it just stops.  It is like an economic Black Hole.  There are many such pits.  The most famous one is Walmart,  the profits from each purchase disappear and never enter the economy again.  When I say profits I mean, after paying for everything at Walmart, taxes, wages, building maintenance, product costs, advertising etc. there is some money left over that disappears.  In our current system, this money is gone.  It crosses boarders and vanishes.

Out there, somewhere, there is someone that knows how much each of these figures is, I don't, and sitting in Tim Horton's wasting time before I go to work, I don't have the inclination to look these up.  But we could use hypotheticals and here-say.  I heard that every dollar that a government spends is spent about five times before it ends its journey.  If this is true, then that means a billion dollars of spending is creating a five billion dollar boost to the economy.  If the total taxation that a person pays amounts to about half of their income, then that means most of the money that the government spends is returned to the government in taxes.  Figuring out how much is going into money pits is a bit difficult.  If one percent of every dollar spent ends in a money pit, then about five percent disappears, if it is higher than the more money out do every government expenditure disappears.

People like to say that government money spent just disappears, but there is always a trail and the money has been spent in at least one of a few ways.  Handouts, the most efficient use of money that the government has.  Handouts are almost universally given out to the poor or the working poor.  It comes as workman's compensation, Employment Insurance, Welfare and charitable donations.  Money goes to poor people and they spend it to acquire the necessities of life.

Welfare, there is a lot of myths about welfare, most of them are about how much money recipients get and about people defrauding the system.  To be clear, welfare is not a way to get rich, it is a way to get poorer though.  I was on welfare one year and it is really awful, this was about twenty years ago before they overhauled it and started to give people less money.  I was getting $600 a month and that was before rent.  For people's information it is really difficult to live on less than $300 a month for transportation and food.  I walked everywhere when I was on welfare saving transit fare for really long trips.  I was lucky I had friends that I lived with and rent was shared amongst us.  A minimum wage job now would net you about $340 per month/10 hours a week you worked, but back then most of the jobs were 100% commission.   My point is that welfare recipients, do not get a lot, and not nearly enough to build up savings, rather it was designed to exhaust your savings.  But they spend everything they get when they get it.

EI is much the same, except it is the working poor who receive it and seasonal workers.  Typically this means that they have higher expenses, a house, better rental property, people to support.  Recipients save up money when they work and lose their savings to shortfalls in the winter.  Getting a head is not something that happens with government handouts, recipients spend all there recieved moneys which improves the local economy.  It pays rent, it purchases food and perhaps if there is a bit left over, it purchases clothing, maybe a bit of entertainment.

Workmen's Compensation pays the most it pays most of your wage that you made.  It is where if there is fraud in the system, it is where most of it occurs because the lure is so high, but since there must be a injury to accompany the claim it is difficult cheat for most people.

Wages are the biggest expenditure, the government employs people to do things.  It employs teachers, doctors, nurses, police officers, military people, bureaucrats and system maintenance people, so obviously the government employs a lot of people.  Every government program has a group of government employees associated with it.  Every government program has a set of ancillary employees employed as well, the people how manufacture the guns and munitions that the military and police use, people who make the uniforms, the bandages, the medicine, the paper that is used the buildings that they are in, everything.  These people all get a wage from the government, or from the expenses of the government employing them.

Government employees and associated government employed, buy houses and cars and bicycles, they all purchase food and they all spend their money, most of their money.  They are people that tend to have savings and investments, but most of their earnings come from the government and go directly back into the economy.  The people the government employs pay taxes, the people that earn money supporting those government operations pay taxes, the money left that is spent by these people that goes into the economy pays the wages of people, who pay taxes.

A small amount of the money spent gets sucked up into the coffers of the money pits and disappears, but most of the money fuels the economy.

Grants and public projects are the last way that governments spend money to boost the economy.  The money goes into infrastructure usually.  The government drops a billion dollars to get a road built, subway or some other large project.  The money is given to companies who then build the requested infrastructure.  Materials are purchased, materials are changed and the natural environment is changed as something is built and then when it is done, there is a new building, a new roadway or a canal, subway, or airstrip; something that people can use, something that educates, something that opens up new routes.  Something that theoretically helps the people of the region.  

The money is spent on wages, materials and the rest goes to private interest, the organization that built the project.  They use that money to pay for wages and to maintain equipment and they may pay dividends to shareholders and the owners of the company get a slice.  It is the slice that goes to the high end administrators, the ones that receive giant bonuses, most of this money gets taxed or placed in longterm investments, but some of it disappears out of the economy forever.

My entire point of writing these thoughts was to highlight the importance to our economy of government employment, because many people see the money that government uses as a waste.  They see the loss of 100,000 government jobs as a savings, as a cost cutting idea.  They see the reduction of taxes to balance these expense savings as creating jobs.  100,000 jobs equals a billions less money spent on wages, a billions less money being spent, and a billions less being taxed, billions less moving between people's hands, less money in grocery stores and in their employee's hands.  Decrease in taxation, means that there is a greater amount of money in owner's hand's, but do they spend that money?  Do they increase people's wages?  Do Walmart employees benefit, or do the increased profits end in the Walmart money pit?  It is unquestionable that small business owners contribute more to the economy but is there a balance?  100,000 good paying jobs gone, a 100,000 more people relying on discount stores like Walmart.  

How much of our economy is based on government spending?

Humans and Animals

TRIGGER WARNING: Rape

As I understand it men fear that women might laugh at them and that is their greatest fear about women.  Women fear that men might try to kill them.

What does that say?

What does it say when I know, KNOW, that about half of women half of women have been, or will be sexually assaulted at least once in their life.  Some of those women, will be assaulted multiple times.  I know some of these women.

Sometimes I live in fear that I will do it.  If it is so common, then maybe I will be responsible for one or more of these attacks in my life.  I hope not.  I would rather die, but then that is no small comfort.  Because women die all the time during sexual assault.

Men fear being humiliated by women.  This is a true crime.  The crime is that is what they fear.  Men fear that other men will laugh at them because a woman humiliated them.  Women just fear the life being choked out of them.  They fear being left for dead on the side of the street and then dying, loss of blood, suffocation, blunt trauma and in some countries of the justice system that holds the virginity of the woman in higher esteem than the crime that put them there.  Hi you got raped, now since you had premarital sex, against your will, you have to die.  No one ever died of humiliation, unless you are a woman and you humiliated a man and he killed you for it.  Poor man he has to live with the knowledge that a woman humiliated him.

A sixteen year old girl told me that she got raped twice in one twenty-four hour period.  She told me that she went over to a guys apartment, because she was bored and he jumped her and raped her.  She did not view it as rape, just that he forced her to have sex with him against her will, but not rape.  I guess because she lived through it.  Then the next night, while she was feeling like shit, because that is what women feel like after they are raped, another guy forced her to have sex again.  She said no, but persisted anyways.  She did not view it as rape either, because she got turned on.  Interesting fact, women get turned on by being raped.  Women who get turned on from getting raped is a self defence mechanism, a woman who is lubricated gets less damaged when they are raped.  So what does that tell you?  It says men have been raping women for so long that our species gets turned on by it for its own protection, Evolution at work, the women that did not lubricate during rape died.

A man walks into a school in Montreal and murders women, because they are going to be engineers and he isn't.  A man shoots six because women won't date him.  Two lessons, women: obviously be nice to the men in your life and be subservient to them and fuck them when ever they want, because if you don't they will kill you.  Men: apparently it is okay to kill women that humiliate you.

I wrote that because, I am really very angry.  The society that I want to be apart of is one where women feel safe around me, I am big and strong and could kill 95% of anyone around me with my bare hands.  I could rape every woman that I met, but I don't, not because I might get caught, but because I respect women as equals, theoretically.  They have the right to their own choices and I respect their desicions, especially when they are wrong.  I will tell them I think they are wrong, but I will not force them, ever.  Because it is right.  Because to do otherwise would be denying that they are human.  If I deny that they are human, then I am denying that I am human too.

I don't understand why people don't all believe this; it seems so self evident.  Everything I believe to my core seems this way, but women being Human and denying it would therefore mean that men are not Human.  Maybe we need the Gom Jabr, the box that they used in Dune to separate the humans from the animals, two classes of people, animals and Humans.  PETA would finally have  a good cause.

Libertarians arguing with a Socialist

This is a conversation that I was having via Facebook with a girl I used to know and one of her friends, who are Libertarians.  It started out with me asking if they really believe that the best way to run the economy was to end all government subsidies and all taxation.  There is more to their ideas than this, but it is all along those themes.  That is, for those that think this might be a good thing is any government subsidy, like education and health care (public schools are run by the state and healthcare too). This would mean a lot of home schooling for the poor and uneducated and private schools for the wealthy.  Three tiered healthcare: none, what you get with insurance and what you can pay for. In exchange you get no taxes.  Initially this might sound good, I have no children and the last time I had a serious medical problem was when I was a kid, one broken arm and one elective surgery at age seven.  But I know that healthcare is paying for emergencies and the elderly, which if I do not die by my own hand, I might reach one day.  Education needs to be universal as emancipation, because it frees the masses and adds to the potential economy.

When I finished writing this they simply stated that I was wrong and it would take too long to explain why.  They would not even take the time to explain one thing.:

Greenpsychpomp, what do you think is happening now?

Tiger lions' claims:
1)Libertarianism returns the power to the people, where it should be.

Who are these people, as previously mentioned I suggested that these people are the wealthy, as they are the ones that would benefit most from no taxes and who would be able to afford proper schooling and healthcare, but also better quality everything.  As per the American Dream, the poor could aspire to join the wealthy elite, but as with that dream that is all that it is.  See the growing gap between the poor and the rich and the present myth of the middle class.

 2)Who is in control right now? A few very large corporations and a government that is in bed with them.

Strange, if I follow from the last comment on the last claim, I might suggest that the owners of those same few very large corporations would be the same "people" who would benefit most from Libertarianism.  Still this is a claim, it holds no truth unless you are going to name names.  You have to substantiate your claim.

3)The a) government is a self serving entity b) that is growing larger and larger on the backs of the taxpayers and c)subsidies from those few big corporations that require legislation in their favour.

a) true.  Government is a job and the party in control wants to stay in control, how would a Libertarian government be any different — it wouldn't.
b) ah something that can be proven one way or the other, but you would have to prove that it has grown bigger than the population has grown and in proportion to all the services that people expect of it.  But you just stated the claim there is no proof that backs up your assertion and that is all it is until you do.
c) I assume that you are talking lobbyists? Or political contributions? Funny how the left wing Socialist governments have tried to limit that source of political Capitol and right wing libertarian-like parties increase these donations, oops I just made a claim myself.  Corporations often benefit more from reduced regulation that right-wing parties often introduce so right-wing parties often reap more political funding from these businesses than pro regulation left-wing parties— do you contest this?

4) government mismanages, wastes and squanders tax payer dollars

Sure there is some waste, there is always some waste in every government and the waste gets bigger as the government gets bigger.  Rob Ford got elected to get rid of the Gravy Train, but when he got in he found out there was very little to trim.  One might say that coaching football during working hours was more gravy than he found.  As was pulling strings to get work done on his mother's street before the annual Ford Picnic was more gravy.  I think that it is interesting that the closing of two gas plants got a lot of fuss when all three parties wanted to end them.  When you are talking about governments with budgets of billions, a million dollars is not much.

I challenge you to show me a government that did not have waste.

5)  big corporations keep them (governments) going so that they control the legislators.  (I assume you meant legislation.)

This you will need to show proof, it is  a rather extraordinary claim.  Are you talking about Lobbyists?  If you can prove this I know that the RCMP will want to see your proof, unless you are suggesting that the police are in on the conspiracy?

 5)The system we have now guarantees the disparity that you are opposed to.

Oh I quite agree, but I see your system, essentially an Oligarchy, as worse.  As the often attributed quote to Winston Churchill, "Democracy, is the worst government, except for all the others."  Capitalism is far from ideal and has some huge flaws like the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few: the 1%, the .1% and the .0001%, but then Libertarians would represent high  these loftily low percentages.

6) Freedom is the only hope!

Long live the Roman Republic!  Oops.  Old argument: Pax Libertas.  Give me peace or give me freedom.  You offer freedom, do you offer true freedom? Anarchy.  Lawlessness?  Or total Authoritarianism of those with the money?

I would take peace over freedom every time.  Pax Romana!

(Assertion suggesting that I am naïve designed to belittle my arguments without addressing them) You have drunk the Koolaid if you really believe that the government is there to protect you.


Girl-That-I-Used-To-Know:
The essential flaw in the socialism you describe, Aubrey, is that it assumes that humans are a sorry lot who won't do anything for each other unless they are forced to at gunpoint. I disagree.

-Actually I don't subscribe to that theory either. I am a Humanist

Girl-That-I-Used-To-Know:
 I like humans and I trust them to behave humanely. Problem is - you and I have never been alive in a pre-socialistic world. So you can assume it wouldn't work - I assume that it did and does and must. The poor exist today because of government mismanagement.

-no.  The poor always existed.  There were poor, always.  The poor in Canada are substantially better off, for the most part than the aristocracy of a millennium ago, but it is the disparity between the poor and the wealthy that is the main problem.  This is not a government issue, except that the cure is in the hands of the government and they have yet to act to cure the problem.

-the problem is a flaw in Capitalism. There is a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few the .001%.  Well actually there is a general concentration in the hands of the top 1%.  The Capitol is not in circulation anymore and the people that have it are continuing to acquire more and more wealth increasing the income gap.

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/details/society/income-inequality.aspx

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality

Girl-That-I-Used-To-Know:
No one has money to spend anymore, so there go the jobs. Where did the money go? Buy gas - mostly tax, buy beer - mostly tax, pay a lawyer - mostly tax, buy anything - tax, tax, tax. Income tax, employment tax, insurance tax, fines, permit fees, passport fee, licensing fees, on and on and bloody on. So who can buy flowers? The rich. Nice. Basically, libertarians trust their fellow man. Socialists trust government.

- interesting, I have not heard of a few of those taxes, employment tax, insurance tax.  Fines as opposed to jail time- usually a fine is levelled as a penalty for breaking a law, have you been speeding?  Interestingly speeding fines are a good way to get people to stop speeding.  People who travel to fast are more likely to get in accidents and the accidents are more likely to be serious and serious accidents are a huge burden on our health care system.

- I thought it interesting your point that humans would help other humans without putting a gun to their heads.  This is true it you are poor, but not if you are wealthy, the wealthy need things like tax right offs to contribute.  Wow Greenpsychopomp, that is a bold statement, I hope you have proof:
http://m.thirdsector.co.uk/article/1176810/poorest-people-give-highest-proportion-income-charity-says-study

-What I am saying is, as a Humanist, I see socialism as a cure for the concentration of wealth from the flaw in Capitolism.  I also see that a few economist around the world are coming to the same conclusion, and they are expounding their radical ideas and it is getting traction in world governments.

Too many flaws to discuss one point they said, or perhaps they thought I had drunk the koolaid.  They then said I was deluded by my liberal arts education and needed some real world experience.  And then they labeled me a few times.  Labelling the tried and true way of excluding people from society, something they then said the education system does to people.  People do it to people Girl-That-I-Used-To-Know and her friends.

Face of Stone, Heart of Glass

I said to myself, since I am moving away from here, I would like to have one positive experience here.  One more that is because I have met people that I like, I have met people I have not liked too.  I am unhappy here, but I would like to have a good summer.  I would like to have a girlfriend.  I would like to have good sex, I would like to erase the negative feelings that MPTR has given me.  But the problem is that I am not attracted to many women from this area.  Moreover, I am very shy, so getting to a position to ask anyone out is tough for me, but I only have six months, so I asked.  

Women who are quirky in the boonies are rare, usually they are city people so when I first met this woman, who I was not sexually attracted to at all, I was intrigued.  In the boonies, single women are all younger than me.  Well that is not true, but effectively.  She is 17 years younger than I am and that is a lot, but for a quirky woman, it might mean nothing.  And nothing ventured nothing gained.  So I asked.  I actually was almost smooth, I told her that this I am always rushing around on this job and I would hardly ever be able to speak with her, so I was wondering if I could get to know you after work, to which she agreed.  That was a week ago.  True to my words talking with her had been difficult and she was rarely working, so it was only a couple of days ago I was able to ask what she wanted to do, to which she said, that we both needed to eat, so why not go out to eat, that sounded a lot like a real date.

There were clues that this was not to be, but clues are easy to brush over, because usually if a social engagement can be construed as a "date" an uninterested party would bring up their partner well before, which she did not, so I allowed myself to relax.

Was that a too blunt of a foreshadowing attempt?  She cancelled siting that her boyfriend and her wanted to have some time together.  

One of the blessings of Asperger's is the unreadable face.  When I go into work tomorrow she will never know how torn up I am, how despite everything I told myself, that I would not fall for her, I did.  I should have known as soon as her frumpy appearance started to appear very desirable.

I do want to get to know her better because there seems to be a few connections between us that I would like to explore.  And she is an amazing person, an artist, a clown, a sailor, a cyclist, adventurous, quiet . . . So many things that I am and I am not.  The illusionary conversations that I tried not to have, because I did not want to fall too quick and falsely, did happen, if only slightly.  Right now a large part of me is looking at the broken picture glass hoping the glass would guillotine me right now, but another part is still happy from before she texted me and does not want that.  

I have to go to work tomorrow and see her and talk to her, pretending that everything is perfect.  Six months now appears to be six years away.

Part of me wonders about the even younger woman . . ..  But stops, I never seriously considered because at a certain age difference you just have to wait for them to make the first move.  Of course they would never know I was interested, because my face is like stone and I can not be easily read. I wish that my heart was equally stone and not glass.

Numbers

Sometimes it is a bad thing to be me, except not sometimes.  New new girl started at work, the old new girl suggested her for employment.  She is nothing special to look at, short, average looks, below average cup size— as if that is important.  She is unquestionably intelligent, obviously quirky and difficult to place as to her age.  Younger than me to be sure, but who knows.  She looks like a young teenager, but is at least in her early twenties; she could be in her late twenties too.  She is a mystery, one to be unraveled.  

What I know is that she has been in Boonieville for a couple of years.  Someone said that she went to school to learn Thai Massage, or something, for three years.  I am assuming that she completed high school first, so that would make her 23, but who is to say that anyone is right, she could have completed the course through correspondence so she might be only 21.  

What I do know is that I am so lonely here and I am so thoroughly not in love that there is a vacuum in my heart space yearning to be filled and quirky and intelligent, for me is a powerful combination.  Except I am moving in a few months and I don't know where but I know it is far away from here and starting something is off the table, unless it is brief is off the table.  Age is just a number, but it really isn't.  I will be 42 soon.  21 is half of 42.  24 is a dyslexic 42.  28 is 66.7% of 42.  

She knows how to fly a plane and sail a boat.  Bicycles everywhere, like me.  I am strangely drawn to her and my mind is playing tricks on me telling me that she is in to me, but I cannot trust my intuition because it lies to me.  My emotions are turning on a dime.  All the while the old new girl, the new girl from last year is teasing me, "accidentally" bumping into me and reminding me about swimming last year, hugging me in private and melting into my arms, like that rabid wild dog that; she is the proverbial dog that bites that hands that feed her.  She does not know that last year she burnt that bridge.

New new girl, who knows, but I can't make any move.  One does not "date" outside certain boundaries in boonieland which is stuck morally in the 1950s.  With old new girl, who is a sexual tease, but is quick to call it sexual harassment if you reciprocate, she believes that she is holds the truth of what is morally correct and true in the world.

Life is complicated

Feelings

A friend said to me, Wait until you get your first serious health scare, you will be anxious too.  I replied, But I want to die.  How do I know when I am depressed, sex does not interest me.  It has not interested me for weeks, about three or four weeks, before that too, maybe five or six of the past two months.  Right now I am hoping for a suffering end. Something filled with pain.

Still want to die.

Blue

Everyone knows why the sky is blue right?  Rayleigh scattering is where the light of our Star hits the atmosphere and the shorter wavelengths get scattered it all directions while the longer wavelengths pass through relatively untouched.  The thicker the atmosphere the more the scattering occurs so at dawn and dusk, more light gets scattered and less gets through, so the sun appears red or orange and the sky more yellow and green and even orange and red at these times and less blue.

The net effect of this scattering is that the longer wavelengths appear to be coming from the Sun and e shorter wavelengths from everywhere.  The blue light appears to come from everywhere so the sky is blue.  A month ago I started another post, which I have yet to finish, and a thought occurred to me, the more subtle implications of Rayleigh Scattering, shadows and water.

Right this moment I am looking at some shadows and they appear black compared to the fully lit areas, but they are not.  The trouble is that it is in contrast.  The second problem is that most things are made of different colours and this hides the effect I am going to talk about.  I look at the shadow and it is not black.

The best shadow to look at is a shadow on a white substance, because white reflects all the light that hits it, that is why it is white.  A shadow is lacking of light from the Sun, at least a shadow during the day, but it is not lacking the light that is not coming from the Sun or the light that was scattered.  You see what I am talking about on fresh snow as fresh snow reflects 90% of all light, but you can see it on white paper too.  

Shadows are blue.  The light from the sky, from Rayleigh Scatttering is not affected.  If the substance in the shadow absorbs blue light it will appear darker, so ground, out side of snow, appears quite dark.  Shadows that cover up much of the sky also appear very dark too.

Then I had another thought, this was actually the first thought, but since it is positioned second, it sounds better this way, water appears blue, but is known to be colourless.  water is a very good absorber of light.  Water will absorb almost all the light that hits it as long sat the angle that the water hits the water is 70° or more from the zenith.  Everyone looks at sunsets, and sunsets over water are the best, because you can see forever and the sun is unobstructed, and due to Rayleigh Scattering it is such a nice , but also because the light from the setting Sun is reflected on the water turning it red.  The Sun is low so most of the light that hits the water is reflected off it.  Before the sun turns into those romantic colours, most of the light is reflected off the water, blinding the casual observer, because the sun is only twenty degrees of the horizon and most of the sunlight is hitting the water and coming to your eyes.  When the sun is high in the sky, you only get blinded from the waves, which reflect the light that is 20° of that portion of the wave, but in any case that reflected light is mostly going into the water anyways.

Rayleigh Scattering is sending the light in all directions and from all angles.  A portion of the scattered blue light hits water at 20° or less to its surface, just like the water at sunset the clear colourless water appears to have a colour, blue.  

Why are tropical seas so blue? The sand is white and more blue light is reflected with white light, so it appears brighter.  Why does water look green when you look into it?  The longer wavelengths are absorbed more easily, the yellows and the reds, the greens and blues are reflected back off the bottom and green dominates.  

When people say that the water reflects the sky they are right but not for the reasons they think.