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What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

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Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#211

Post by dpbriggs »

whateveracct wrote: post #167
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 '…

M4A is similar as well. I guess all big social safety nets have this problem. UBI and M4A would encourage me (and others) to pursue less lucrative pursuits (arts, research, gamedev, entrepreneurship, etc) but it would be hard for me to quit my nice tech job salary if there's the specter of the GOP potentially killing the benefits that enable my pursuit. And that doesn't even compare to the effect that uncertainty has…

Eh universal healthcare would probably increase 'drive' at a macro level as it doesn't chain the overqualified or highly productive individual to crappy jobs that happen to have good insurance.

Not to mention you lose the overhead of dealing with insurance, for you and your family.

But yeah, I could see a class of people who would use UBI to permanently slack off whereas they would be highly productive otherwise.

Edit: Note I'm from Canada and have taken healthcare for granted until I went to the US. My experience has been overwhelming positive with universal healthcare, and the only complaint is I've had to wait a few hours per emergency visit. Zero wait when serious though.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#212

Post by dragonwriter »

scatters wrote: post #198
dnautics wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Inflation is a tax on wealth, not on labor.

It's a tax on wealth, but as the Krugman article points out it also allows real wage cuts without the psychological barrier facing nominal wage cuts, which facilitates corrections when wages have overshot their sustainable levels, assisting in reaching full employment (unsustainably high wages necessarily reduce employment levels.)

This is related to why minimum wage is inferior to UBI as a basic support: minimum wage is in tension with employment, especially at the low end, in a fairly direct way. UBI, while it had to be supported somehow, isn't directly in tension with employment specifically at the bottom.

I'd like to see minimum wage tied to inflation but UBI tied to a funding stream that grows with output, so that per capita benefits grow (over the long term) with per capita output. And I'd like to see minimum wage decreased from the level it is calculated at with inflation adjustments by the hourly wage equivalent of UBI (for simplicity, annual UBI/2000, so that a $12,000 annual UBI would reduce minimum wage by $6/hr from it's pre-UBI level.)

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#213

Post by michaelt »

manigandham wrote: post #194
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 '…

What would reliance look like? People need a stable minimum amount to survive? Isn't that already the case for many? Isn't that the point of so many entitlement programs? Isn't that the reason for proposing UBI?

> What would reliance look like?

People adjust their spending/working patterns to account for the UBI - maybe they have a child they couldn't have afforded before, or take a long-term mortgage on a home.

Then the political winds change, a politician wants to show how tough they are, and of course we shouldn't be giving UBI to people in jail/drug dealers/anti-vaxxers/millionaire executives/people without photo ID/tax dodgers...

Basically, the same way the federal government can institute a national speed limit and a national drinking age, despite not having the power to do so directly, by making federal highway funds conditional on states having those limits.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#214

Post by GrantSolar »

maigret wrote: post #206
GrantSolar wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the bigger leftist critiques of UBI - instead of enacting meaningful change to the system, gifting the people just enough money to keep them docile and prevent upsetting the ruling class and, like you said, weaponising for further political gain

If that was true there would be more protests in the US than in France. I think the exact opposite of that is true.

Sorry, I don't follow. Could you expand?

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#215

Post by PopeDotNinja »

atq2119 wrote: post #195
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All taxation and spending is wealth redistribution.

Heck, almost everything anybody does related to the economic sphere is wealth (re)distribution. Property rights are wealth redistribution away from the commons and towards a relatively small number of individuals. Does that make them bad? Well, I'd say maybe, it depends on the details... We need to work against the effectiveness of this rhetoric trick where only some things are labelled "redistribution" to show them…

How about calling it legacy building. We'll need to find some way to credit them to make it feel legit. Maybe let people pay a premium to bid on certain projects.

"This year's interstate highway funding brought to you by the Koch Brothers."

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#216

Post by burroisolator »

gnicholas wrote: post #155
starpilot wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Yo…

I feel like the quote you pulled out of Youtube is slightly unfair in the extent to which he endorses the idea. In my opinion, it sounds like he full-throat endorses the general method and aim of the idea just not the exact transfer amounts and the method to raise revenue (sales/VAT tax vs carbon tax). Here is the quote in more context:

"The plan is just a version of the negative income tax. Milton Freedom first proposed it...and as a student 40 years ago I thought it was a pretty good idea. And it turns out I wasn't alone in that judgement...In 1968 a 1000 economists endorsed a negative income tax along these lines. What Andrew Yang is proposing is a version of what these 1000 economists endorsed back in 1968. Could 1000 economists all be wrong? Laughs Well yes they could. But I don't think in this case they are. My own view is that a universal income financed by an efficient tax, something like a value added tax, might well be worth considering. And I'm one of the signatories...of a plan to do something similar with a carbon tax."

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#217

Post by jariel »

manigandham wrote: post #196
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…

Technically Yang's UBI plan is that everyone receives it, regardless of wealth. Also there are plenty of entitlement programs already and replacing them with UBI would probably yield less total cost from simpler implementation and less bureaucracy, while making it more available.

"Also there are plenty of entitlement programs already and replacing them with UBI would probably yield less total cost from simpler implementation and less bureaucracy, while making it more available."

This is a fundamental flaw in the argument.

1) That a 'single program' will be cheaper. Maybe, but maybe not. My government spent more than $1 Billion implementing a simple 'gun registry' for police to store gun records.

(They spent $100M on a 'judicial assessment' of Aboriginal community's historical crimes - not a single study or dollar was spent on scientific analysis, research. Just lawyers.)

2) That any way shape or form those 'other programs' will disappear or a single government worker will lose their jobs.

The most powerful bodies in the world are Public Sector Unions. Tell me, what is the turnover rate for such jobs? How often are people laid off? Fired? What salary do they earn compared to private sector peers? How often are government agencies that have lost their material relevance shut down?

So aside from all of the regular arguments about UBI, social impact, cost, redistribution ... all of the arguments about 'efficiency' are completely moot. Government projects are generally extremely inefficient - they tend to work best through regulation, and/or competitive bidding for work that can be independently assessed, or when there's a social element. For example, road work and construction: we can roughly estimate cost, there are many bidders, and it's outsourced, not done directly by gov staff. This is efficient. Public schools are roughly efficient. Garbage collection. etc.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#218

Post by typ »

qqqwerty wrote: post #173
typ wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. There are two kinds of goods. The ones like computers and phones which are steadily getting cheaper and the ones like housing whose price has got inflated enormously. Remember how we tried to fix the education problem by student loans and how we tried to alleviate the housing burden by mortgage tax deduction and subsidies of interests? I don't think the problem is people are unable to afford milk or a shi…

My original comment could probably use an edit or two, but we are actually in agreement. Some context that was left out, inflation has been stubbornly low this past decade[1]. For many of us, this feels counterintuitive based on our experience with housing, education and healthcare. But as you pointed out, globalization and industrialization has resulted in downward pressure on prices of a wide array of goods. And wh…

I still don't think we can put out the fire by pouring more fuel.

For instance, rents are proportionally related to the income of the population. How can we prevent the extra cash flow from being translated into higher rent/housing prices? If I have that extra cash, I would certainly 'leverage' it to expand my real estate portfolio :)

That said, I don't object to UBI per se and I agree that the Fed's policy would lead to some undesirable consequences. But without addressing the problem systematically, UBI would go nowhere better, I am afraid.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#220

Post by jariel »

qqqwerty wrote: post #53
karaterobot wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the demand for milk goes up, I can switch to soy milk. If soy milk goes up, I can switch to Almond. And if all of them go up, I just drink water. I don't understand how this example describes a situation where inflation is a non-issue. I used to be able to afford to drink milk; now, due to inflation, I can only afford to drink water. That sounds like inflation. What am I missing from this example?

There are 2 issues that I was attempting to demonstrate, but perhaps I conflated them a bit. Here is second attempt: Inflation requires a persistent and durable increase in the price of a good. The first issue is that a large proportion of individuals in modern economies are barely making enough money to make ends meet. They are very sensitive to price. An increase in the price of milk would likely cause them to swit…

1) Real inflationary problems are always about money supply, not regular changes in supply/demand.

When Chavez goes nutty, people don't want his currency, it starts to crash, he prints to pay his bills, it really crashes. This is where all the inflation crisis comes.

2) The 'milk substitute' thing I think illustrates the opposite point you're trying to make. Having to give up Milk to drink water is a severely negative consequence! Projected across all of one's lifestyle and habits, it would be comparable to giving up a car to ride only the bus. Giving up Netflix for 'library books'. This implies a serious degradation in the quality of life.

If anything though, we've been concerned about deflation for a very long time, not inflation.

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