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What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

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Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#341

Post by chrstphrhrt »

altcognito wrote: post #331

UBI is fundamentally right, my biggest issue with this approach is that this is the last step before eliminating support for the poor altogether. No longer hampered by the intricacies of providing a service, it now becomes a debate over "how much do people need to survive? Why do we need this in the first place? This is redistribution!" This is a battle "the people" not only have lost typically, but failed to even ta…

Yeah I'm afraid that the trickle-down grifters will always cook up some soundbites to knock any no-strings-attached benefits by pushing the freeloader fallacy and people will fall for it. Which brings us back to square one, but without anything needs based, causing a massive surge in poverty again.

Of course this has to be balanced with the utter paternalism of determining "needs" in the first place. It clearly isn't enough on its own, and is also ripe for abuse in different ways.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#342

Post by colinmhayes »

qqqwerty wrote: post #13
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…

Inflation is a non-issue. Economic growth has largely been constrained by demand, not supply. And the modern economy is saturated with replacement goods. 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. Once most basic needs are met, inflation looses its power with a few exceptions. The financialization of our economy…

>Economic growth has largely been constrained by demand, not supply.

This is the most basic misunderstanding of economics that I'm 95% confident you have never taken even an introduction to macro course. Demand shocks don't lead to growth, only inflation.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#343

Post by chipsa »

Shivetya wrote: post #297
JDiculous wrote: post #242

One day we will look at all the homelessness and blatant poverty in our society we allow in absolute disgust, similar to the repulsion people feel about slavery. UBI isn't just about liberty and accelerating ourselves forward (though it's also about that), it's a statement that no matter how dire your circumstances, no matter how useless you are seen to our corporate overlords and private employers, that you belong t…

Poverty and homelessness will not be solved by throwing money around. It only can be solved if society is willing to understand some people need to be told what to do each step of their lives. It will only be solved if people realize that we will actually have to build housing and make people live there. It will only be solved when people realize that once you get them housed you may need to insure their dietary need…

Can't go below a threshold. Cool. So threshold is $12k or whatever. Person could work, and get $200 a week. So they get $50 a week in benefits. Or they could not work, and get $250 a week in benefits. So why work? Working more or less in the very low income range doesn't make any difference. So they won't. Not at a 100% income tax rate.

That's the point of having it being a fixed amount: you can tax the regular income, so the effective amount they get decreases as they work more, but you don't have perverse incentives to not work.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#344

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

v64 wrote: post #48
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.

My understanding is that if it's known that every American adult collects $1000 in addition to their regular income, prices will rise in an attempt to capture some of that known financial excess, so that the net result isn't that everyone gets an extra $1000 in discretionary income, but that everyone ends up paying that extra $1000 back in inflated prices. Similar logic to how raising tariffs doesn't hurt companies a…

> prices will rise in an attempt to capture some of that known financial excess

Why is there no incentive to undercut one's competition in this model?

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#345

Post by jtmarl1n »

sub7 wrote: post #275
kevinwang wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Everyone already has voting rights though, and those in poverty are already incentivized to seek welfare, so how would UBI "create" that? 2. How does your suggestion prevent that?

There's a big difference between money and money that can only be spent on a certain set of services. As far as I know welfare is still food stamps etc i.e. not cash.

"Food Stamps" these days is a debt card that can only be used for certain food items. Very similar to an HSA. It is actual dollars in an account now.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#346

Post by SllX »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #344
v64 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that if it's known that every American adult collects $1000 in addition to their regular income, prices will rise in an attempt to capture some of that known financial excess, so that the net result isn't that everyone gets an extra $1000 in discretionary income, but that everyone ends up paying that extra $1000 back in inflated prices. Similar logic to how raising tariffs doesn't hurt companies a…

> prices will rise in an attempt to capture some of that known financial excess Why is there no incentive to undercut one's competition in this model?

Because the most likely destination of excess cash flow is into the hands of landlords, not salt miners and bakers.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#347

Post by UnpossibleJim »

sunnydayddr wrote: post #43
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.

I'm not sure how one would manage to produce $1,000 per month per citizen over 18 without printing money. That's $2,500,000,000,000 per year. You'd have to raise taxes by more than 50% to cover the costs.

He doesn't do it all with taxes. He cuts a lot of welfare programs, as those would now be covered by UBI. He cuts spending in Social Security, as 12000 dollars a year of that is covered by UBI. There were some more overlapping areas he laid out that I heard him mention in an interview. It wouldn't be, "Oh, you get this program AND this program" unchanged, but more of, "You already get $12000 in UBI, now what more of a subsidy do you need? Not as much." At least, that's the way he was laying it out. He was far more conservative with spending than a lot of people were getting by just looking at the headlines, but that's one of the failures of our media structure.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#348

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

trymas wrote: post #144
kuzimoto wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize the top 1% already pay for a disproportionate amount of the taxes? Also they own businesses that employ hundreds of thousands of people. To tax people's wealth on top of the standard tax is plain evil, and will end up driving all the wealthiest people out of the country...

Billionaires need your country more than you think. It's just a bluff.

Some billionaires may, but at least in the US this often isn't true. Off the top of my head, the Collison brothers or Sergey Brin don't need the US in any fundamental sense; they weren't born here, but came here because they thought the US was a great place to build a valuable business. If we decide that we don't like this as a matter of policy, maybe the existing crop of billionaires will be too enmeshed to leave, but the next set of foreign entrepreneurs with billion-dollar ideas won't show up in the first place.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#349

Post by kuzimoto »

ubercow13 wrote: post #289
_zg4q wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing the vast majority of "wealth" is in assets/stocks. That isn't money just sitting around. The value is only realized when those are selled off. They also would owe capital gains tax. So now they gets taxed twice? > The current system is also a redistribution of wealth, just from the bottom to the top. I think that capitalism/free markets has been the biggest driver in bringing people out of poverty. > Tha…

>Taking money from one person and giving to another is immoral Basically every society in the world does this, how is it immoral? I think it is immoral not to do that, considering that there is no way that any society can guarantee absolute equality of opportunity for all citizens.

> Basically every society in the world does this, how is it immoral?

The difference is taxes should be paying for public goods, to which everyone is equally entitled and able to use. Taking money from one person to give directly to another person is stealing, how is that not immoral?

> considering that there is no way that any society can guarantee absolute equality of opportunity for all citizens.

It's impossible to guarantee that. Some people are born rich, some are born poor. What can be guaranteed is equal protection of your rights and your individual freedoms. There is no right to equality in the economic sense, because it requires infringing on the rights of others.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#350

Post by mattrp »

sub7 wrote: post #254
JDiculous wrote: post #242

One day we will look at all the homelessness and blatant poverty in our society we allow in absolute disgust, similar to the repulsion people feel about slavery. UBI isn't just about liberty and accelerating ourselves forward (though it's also about that), it's a statement that no matter how dire your circumstances, no matter how useless you are seen to our corporate overlords and private employers, that you belong t…

Agreed that everyone deserves a basic standard of living as a human right but disagree that UBI is the path to that. Giving money to people instantly creates a class of beggars. Beggars with voting rights will vote for people who give them more and more and more for no more work. It's the road to ruin. My suggestion is a set of hospitals, schools and housing that is super basic but sufficient to give people dignity a…

Thank you for articulating this. Outside a crisis, I don’t think we should have a standing policy like this in the United States. If you consider the issue from a first principles argument, each citizen of the United States is essentially an equity owner and the government are the managers. Power of the managers comes from its owners. We are unique in the world in this regard. There are other democracies sure but none that I know of who get their power from the people. It’s universally the other way around. Government is given all the power and whatever rights the people have come from the government. It is because of this, that in the US, an individual must be an independent self governing being. If the individual is not self governing then it is impossible for the individual to confer rights to the government. If the government becomes a source of universal income then the sovereign individual is potentially weakened and here’s how: ubi is not economically sustainable. At the beginning it may be available to everyone but eventually it will be curtailed. Means testing may be one way but social credit scores may be another. What stops of government from saying if you go to that protest your income eligibility score could drop and you might not receive an income next month or at all? Income without doing something to earn it is a form of coercion — a coerced people cannot be free. And while I have no problem with folks in Australia who want to try it, for myself, a citizen of the United Stares, I have grave concerns that ubi is but a gateway to less freedom rather than more.
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