Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 474 posts

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#151

Post by nikofeyn »

allovernow wrote: post #65

The fact that covid is screwing the world right now does not mean that we should all be getting UBI under non emergency conditions. Putting Romney's plan in with Yang's is a conflation here because one is only for a single unprecedented global emergency, not everyday life. That said, UBI is quite literal wealth redistribution. You take taxes from the haves and give the cash directly to the hands of the have nots. The…

are you seriously arguing that heavily taxing insanely wealthy people is unethical? i mean, we're literally living in a moment in which public school closures means many kids don't have reliable access to food anymore. there are plenty of other examples in which people are seriously struggling. and somehow taxing the wealthy is unethical. the fact that you bifurcate people into the "haves" and "have nots" speaks volumes.

and of course UBI is literally wealth distribution. what would you consider public schools, roads, infrastructure, and other things paid with taxes?

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#152

Post by lern_too_spel »

tomp wrote: post #42
mrfusion wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m so confused why this inflation argument keeps popping up. If you’re paying for the Ubi with taxes then there’s no inflation. Net money supply hasn’t changed (0). If you pay for ubi by printing money then yes, inflation would be a problem. But no one has suggested that. (0) I’m willing to entertain an argument about the velocity of money increasing from ubi but I really doubt it would be too significant.

> Net money supply hasn’t changed But where it lands has. House prices and Ferraris might be cheaper. Milk and rents will be more expensive.

Poor people already have to live somewhere. It just paid for with rental subsidies and low income housing now, both of which also drive up rents for others.

Similarly, the US government already buys up milk to create a price floor, giving the milk away to the poor and to school lunch providers.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#153

Post by logicchains »

buzzkillington wrote: post #117
logicchains wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This destroys incentive to invest in productivity improvements, because the gains are eaten by wages. Most productivity gains in the economic sense don't come from people working smarter/harder, they come from investment in better machines and technology (capital). If you took the most productive worker today back two thousand years, their productivity would be massively reduced without access to any modern tools or…

That is only true if your only expense is labour, something that's true out-call prostitution and little else.

Productivity is defined as output per unit labour. This means any profitable investment the firm makes will increase productivity (assuming the number of employees remains the same). If the minimum wage was indexed to productivity, then any such investment would increase labour costs.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#154

Post by dnautics »

puzzledobserver wrote: post #102
Proziam wrote: post #88

My primary concern with UBI is not the concept itself, but the risk for people in power to use it against the people. Once UBI exists, people will rely on it for survival. It will be the single most influential campaign topic. Worse, if UBI were to get 'Obamacared' then we'd end up with a massive battle over implementation, followed by a much worse system than the one we had prior (worst of all worlds with numerous '…

I think something similar has happened with minimum wages. It appears to me that the natural next step is to make the minimum wage grow with inflation. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened, so we're stuck with various government-mandated minimum wage levels that are tied to the value of money from several years before. Companies can now point to the law, and use this obsolete number as a metric by which to set their o…

Minimum wage doesn't grow with inflation because the point of inflation is to steal wealth from the working class:

https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/the-case-for-hi...

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#155

Post by gnicholas »

starpilot wrote: post #52
aazaa wrote: post #3

The interview here is compelling. Yang's book is even more compelling. But what Yang doesn't do here or in his book is make a powerful case to fiscal conservative spelling out just how universal income will avoid demolishing the economy through inflation. Until this happens, UBI is going nowhere. Although COVID-19 is on everyone's minds right now, it wasn't too long ago that Venezuela, its hyperinflation, and empty s…

Yeah, no. When Greg Mankiw, probably the foremost conservative economist in the world, endorses Yang's UBI, then it's probably worth considering seriously: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/business/yang-warren-taxe... https://youtu.be/HDKfdmbCuvw?t=31615

My quick read of the NYT piece is a comparison of Yang's plan and Warren's plan, and it concludes that Warren's is unworkable (e.g., how do you value the present value of Rihanna's future royalties? This has to be determined for Warren's wealth tax, but not Yang's VAT tax).

It does not read like an endorsement — just an assessment that Yang's plan is better than a plan he describes as unworkable (Warren's).

In the Youtube, he says: "My own view is that a universal income financed by an efficient tax, something like a value added tax, might well be worth considering" — hardly a full-throated endorsement.

Has he said anything else that is more positive? Or more specific with regard to the amount of UBI that he thinks would be appropriate/efficient? I wouldn't call either of these things an endorsement.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#156

Post by gumby »

puzzledobserver wrote: post #102
Proziam wrote: post #88

My primary concern with UBI is not the concept itself, but the risk for people in power to use it against the people. Once UBI exists, people will rely on it for survival. It will be the single most influential campaign topic. Worse, if UBI were to get 'Obamacared' then we'd end up with a massive battle over implementation, followed by a much worse system than the one we had prior (worst of all worlds with numerous '…

I think something similar has happened with minimum wages. It appears to me that the natural next step is to make the minimum wage grow with inflation. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened, so we're stuck with various government-mandated minimum wage levels that are tied to the value of money from several years before. Companies can now point to the law, and use this obsolete number as a metric by which to set their o…

> It appears to me that the natural next step is to make the minimum wage grow with inflation.

I feel that way too, but remember that indexing wages to inflation made the stagflation of the 70s significantly worse (I don't believe it was the cause, though it is often blamed). That doesn't mean it's not a good idea, in particular for the minimum wage, but some further thought is required.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#157

Post by asdf9240 »

bavell wrote: post #90
beastcoast wrote: post #71

The problem with UBI is that most versions of it would essentially liquidate social services that people would normally receive. UBI only makes sense in addition to the other parts of a comprehensive safety net (universal housing and healthcare), not as a replacement.

Why would I choose to jump through bureaucratic and degrading welfare programs for vouchers and discounts when I can opt-in to a superior UBI program that gives me cash which I can use for anything? I'm the one who best knows how to effectively allocate those resources in my life. E.g. What good are food stamps when I have no gas (or car) to get to the store? There are some social services that are necessary and bene…

> I'm the one who best knows how to effectively allocate those resources in my life.

Some people do not get good enough education and do not know how to effectively allocate resources.

> There are some social services that are necessary and beneficial but these should be built on top of a UBI foundation for maximum effectiveness.

Do you mean the other way around? Necessary social services should be the foundation with UBI built on top of it. Social services can do some things better than UBI can even when assuming everyone uses their UBI completely rationally.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#158

Post by Melting_Harps »

Proziam wrote: post #96
glaive123 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God forbid people get money to take care of their lives. Because we can afford it.

I assume you misread what I wrote, or implied some opinion that hasn't been stated. I want people to have enough money to live reasonable and modern lives. What I DO NOT want is for UBI to become a political weapon and for the people who rely on it to have it taken away suddenly. That is a serious risk to that system that doesn't get enough attention. It could happen due to financial collapse or for political reasons…

> I want people to have enough money to live reasonable and modern lives. What I DO NOT want is for UBI to become a political weapon and for the people who rely on it to have it taken away suddenly.

Personally speaking, as a proponent of UBI, I reluctantly accept that the first versions of it will have to be state-based. If only to be able to learn from its mistakes and iterate from them to refine them further.

This is one of the reasons I'm such a cryptocurrency enthusiast, after the wake of the financial crisis and massive unemployment in Iceland they deployed, and subsequently failed, with aurora coin to try and experiment with UBI. Had we gotten more information from it would have helped to be able to have a decentralized version of it by now, but it was too much for such a poorly backed project to surmount.

> That is a serious risk to that system that doesn't get enough attention. It could happen due to financial collapse or for political reasons. But no matter why it happens, the damage would be absolutely horrific.

I think this is inevitable and not a question of if but when it will occur, UBI will not be the biggest contributing factor to the 'system' failing, either: it will have been an outcome of centuries of needless war, currency corruption and Market manipulation, ecological destruction and climate change.

its just a matter of time. At least having this in place prepares us as Species for what lies ahead, the status quo cannot be maintained, this much has to be accepted.

The transition is definitely terrifying, but the idea of getting this right has so much potential and worth the sacrifice when you realize just how broken the 'system' really is.

I think this what most don't understand when they see the Greta Thurnberg led Gen Z revolts happening all around the World, and they're dropping out of school to protest; this system is already doomed if you cannot convince the future generation play along anymore.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#159

Post by imafish »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #149
olivermarks wrote: post #74

Congress woman Tulsi Gabbard (the Clinton blacklisted presidential candidate) took on Yang's UBI initiative after he ran out of money and dropped out of the presidential race. Gabbard introduced HRes 897 last Thursday and has been vocal about providing an urgent $1k per month UBI payment for the projected 10 million US citizens who will lose their jobs. The DNC in their wisdom have again chosen to blank Gabbard and f…

Tulsi is going on Fox to complain about not being allowed in the debates despite having ~0 support. She is not a good-faith actor, and blacklisting her is entirely appropriate.

Well, blacklisting is absolutely undemocratic.

But it is fair to not have her in the debates when she does not meet the requirements.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#160

Post by keithnz »

uk_programmer wrote: post #32
grecy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It (inflation) is besides the point really isn't it? Rampant inflation or the idea that nobody would go to work are commonly held up as big reasons not to have a UBI (or something similar) so it's important to address those. > Why should the tax payer pay for someone sitting on their behind? There are a host of reasons, here's a few off my head: - We accept there will always be people we will pay to sit on their be…

> Rampant inflation or the idea that nobody would go to work are commonly held up as big reasons not to have a UBI (or something similar) so it's important to address those. You completely missed the point. I am against the principle of me (a tax payer) paying for someone else not working unless they can't work (unable to work). The inflation argument is completely irrelevant. > If you want to rebut that last point b…

you are a cog in a economic system, you just ( as many here have ) fit into a spot in the machine that generates wealth at good levels. Your personal principles don't really make any difference. It's a system. There are a number economic principles at play. Worrying about individuals sitting around is not even a factor worthy of consideration, it's a simplistic layman reaction to quite a complex system. Even IF it was a problem, it's a problem to be addressed in other ways. Economically speaking, there are far bigger contesting problems to be dealt with.
Post reply on HN