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

221–230 of 474 posts

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#221

Post by dpbriggs »

godelski wrote: post #141
v64 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A person that couldn't afford a car can now. I person with a $1k beater car can now buy a $5k car. Wouldn't car dealers raise their prices some value up to $1k because they know anyone coming in that month to buy a car also just received a $1k check from the government? > Someone that was living paycheck to paycheck can now take a breath, buy a TV and a Netflix subscription. Netflix may raise their prices knowing e…

> Wouldn't car dealers raise their prices some value up to $1k because they know anyone coming in that month to buy a car also just received a $1k check from the government? Why would they. They just got more customers. They already have a surplus of supply. In fact, you could make the argument that they could reduce car prices because with more customers you can operate on smaller margins. This is literally operatin…

For people who can afford cars today -- Why wouldn't they?

I'm not convinced economy of scale applies the same way in this case. Cars (and mattresses, etc) are large and infrequent purchases dominated by preference. Dealerships make most of their money through sketchy financing and tricks.

There's a large class of financially illiterate people who routinely make massive mistakes like monthly income spend planning. Given an extra thousand per month, two hundred more on a car is both feasible and justifiable. Lifestyle creep.

I would agree if the topic was commodities like eggs or rice -- sure, I purchase by efficiency. And I'm not sure about the SV strat and dealerships. It could work in theory, but as of today dealerships are basically fungible and signal the same way as each other. I have no idea how a dealership could signal their lower marginal costs, especially survive in an industry with insane scaling costs.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#222

Post by spicymaki »

qqqwerty wrote: post #187
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 '…

The 'Universal' part of UBI is the key here. The problem with our current patch work of social programs is that the constituencies for each program are fractured and disorganized. A child tax credit here, a food program there, it is easy to slowly whittle down a social program in those cases. But a Universal BI means that any changes or cuts to the program will impact everyone. It is much harder to play politics when…

Another point that opponents to universal healthcare would claim was that granting access to healthcare services to the entire US population would degrade quality forcing rationing of service. With inequality you can buy your way to good service when you wanted it. However, with universal healthcare, you have to wait in line like everyone else.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#223

Post by frobozz »

pc2g4d wrote: post #171
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 '…

We should also have a voluntary charitable UBI. Encourage a culture where everybody contributes what they can to the fund, and then all donations are split equally among all citizens. That money won't be subject to the same political pressures; people who donate will feel good about themselves; and the bureaucracy needed to do this would be minimal.

You can't rely on voluntary donations to produce a stable income. A charity doing this would have to vary the amount paid out based on receipts. In hard times, donations and payments will reduce. This will reduce the effectiveness of a UBI in smoothing out recessions.

It will also suffer a death spiral because every donor will know how much every recipient gets.

If I put in 500 each month and get 200, then I'm going to look for a better place to put my donation. Not because the 200 is a bad RoI for me, but because 200 seems like such a pointless sum for everyone to be getting. I'd rather have that money funding cancer research or more pertinently, I'd rather give all 500 of it to people who need it.

Everyone will have their thresholds for what seems "worth it". The lower the payment gets, the fewer donors there will be, and the proportion of the income used for admin will rise.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#224

Post by ngold »

qqqwerty wrote: post #187
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 '…

The 'Universal' part of UBI is the key here. The problem with our current patch work of social programs is that the constituencies for each program are fractured and disorganized. A child tax credit here, a food program there, it is easy to slowly whittle down a social program in those cases. But a Universal BI means that any changes or cuts to the program will impact everyone. It is much harder to play politics when…

Sadly the majority of america that is uninsured has universal emergency room healthcare. And that is the most expensive kind. We have probably 100 million Americans on this universal healthcare plan.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#225

Post by kwhitefoot »

Gunax wrote: post #58
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…

America is not spending trillions on their military, and even then it's still barely affordable. To give every American 12k per year would cost about 10 times the military budget (7 trillion versus 780 billion). And that's before we even discuss shenanigans like debt jubilees and free healthcare. Even dramatic cuts to the us military barely make a dent to these kinds of spending proposals.

The money paid as UBI doesn't disappear from the economy. People on low incomes spend everything they have and that money supports local shops, bars, restaurants, factories, etc.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#226

Post by frobozz »

nikofeyn wrote: post #151
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 volu…

> are you seriously arguing that heavily taxing insanely wealthy people is unethical?

I don't think that is what allovernow is saying at all.

> There's a point where it becomes unethical and/or counterproductive...but where that point is perhaps remains to be seen.

So, potentially

- Tax the billionaires down to 999millionaires. Not unethical or counterproductive in the slightest.

- Implement a tax that makes every worker's net income identical. Probably both counterproductive and unethical.

- Implement a tax/UBI system that puts a worker's net income below that of a non-worker. Definitely counterproductive, unsustainable and unethical.

The point that allovernow is describing is somewhere between those extremes.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#227

Post by christophilus »

jariel wrote: post #220
qqqwerty wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 negativ…

> Giving up Netflix for 'library books'. This implies a serious degradation in the quality of life.

If everyone gave up Netflix for library books, I think that’d be a massive societal win.

Other than that, I agree with your point.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#228

Post by manigandham »

endisukaj wrote: post #203
manigandham wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several founders of YC companies that are self-made billionaires and they post on this very forum. Do you really think they made it on the "backs of society" through "corruption and bribery" rather than building a company that provides value to those willing to pay for it?

Whether that value is real or whether that value was created just by the founders is something that needs to be discussed.

What does "value is real" even mean?

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#229

Post by manigandham »

buzzkillington wrote: post #208
manigandham wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So automate away all the jobs? What are people supposed to do then?

The sewers have put all the nightsoil men out business, yet I say society is better for automated toilets.

It remains to be seen whether we will really have enough "creative" work for people to do.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#230

Post by christophilus »

taneq wrote: post #172
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…

> 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 understand how anyone ever thought that making it easier to borrow money would make things with inelastic demand more affordable. People will pay what they must to get food and shelter. If you make tertiary education non-negotiable in gett…

And yet, people do fail to see this. The inflated price of college is almost entirely the result of easy credit and inelastic demand. And it creates a cycle: as college prices increase, more people need credit to access education, which puts more pressure on politicians to ease credit rules, etc.
Post reply on HN