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What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

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Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#441

Post by digitaltrees »

supportlocal4h wrote: post #352
godelski wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> prices will rise in an attempt to capture some of that known financial excess The assumes financial excess. The reason for UBI is that there isn't excess. If 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, then that's not excess. If 63% of Americans can't afford an unexpected $500 bill, that's not excess. You're right that inflation happens when there is excess, but given these stats, I don't buy that part of the…

Disclaimer: I live in a relatively prosperous community. My perspective is skewed accordingly. Your numbers seem fictitious to me. 78% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck? Look at what they are spending their paycheck on. One car per person. 2.1 people per house. 3.2 game consoles per person. A new laptop every 15 months. A new car every 36 months. A new $800 smartphone every 11 months. Every low-income 10 year…

Your view of people's buying patterns is not accurate. I own a home care agency with 500 employees that live on low income (the government sets the Medicaid reimbursement rate so we have no ability to raise wages). NO ONE is buying a new car, let alone every 36 months. Half our employees don't own a smart phone. We pay $10hr, in rural North Carolina, so lots of people live on even less. Please research this issue and go and meet people in this income bracket, you will see a different picture. I also encourage you to read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.

The truth is most American's wages have gone to Health Insurance, College, and Housing.

See https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/this-chart-i...

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#442

Post by digitaltrees »

justchilly wrote: post #37
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.

Rich people aren't spending all their money on stuff, they're investing it. If wealthy people were to take all that wealth and start buying stuff (themselves or via redistribution through taxes to UBI), there isn't magically more stuff, so the price of stuff goes way up => inflation.

But there would be more stuff, the increase in demand would be met with an increase in supply. Thats the magic of the market.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#443

Post by glaive123 »

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 read what you wrote.

Your opposition is actually an example of a logical fallacy. I'm struggling to find the exact name of it. But it has to do with that fact that you are against the adoption of something positive that you agree with because of some hypothetical negative externality.

Edit: It's called the "Perfect solution fallacy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

The perfect solution fallacy is a related informal fallacy that occurs when an argument assumes that a solution should be rejected because some part of the problem would still exist after it were implemented.[4] This is an example of black and white thinking, in which a person fails to see the complex interplay between multiple component elements of a situation or problem, and, as a result, reduces complex problems to a pair of binary extremes.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#444

Post by jnordwick »

zenhack wrote: post #405
jnordwick wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked exactly as it is supposed to: it incentivized long tern investment where amazon lost a lot of money because they invested so much. if you want to tax them on those losses that they rolled forward, you would basically have far less investment. make up your mind - do you want them to invest and take losses or not invest and pay taxes - you can't do both.

The devil is in the details; a lot of the things they're getting tax breaks for don't benefit the public. Why are they getting tax breaks for building warehouses and data centers for themselves? Stock based compensation for executives? Also, regardless of what breaks are available for what activities, their baseline tax burden ought to be much higher. We should be drawing funding from people who can afford it and use…

> Why are they getting tax breaks for building warehouses and data centers for themselves?

Are you fucking kidding me? They get capital construction break like every other company gets. If you don't see that as the literal definition of investment you don't deserve to have an opinion on this.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#445

Post by rapind »

Traster wrote: post #363
JDiculous wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing inflationary about UBI. It's interesting how people think the onus is on UBI proponents to justify why their policy wouldn't cause inflation. Even if it did cause inflation, ultimately it's just a redistribution of wealth, and it still helps those most at the bottom. You mention Venezuela which is a totally different scenario. They had an economy overly dependent on imports paid for by the revenue fr…

That first paragraph is a hell of whipsaw. It's not inflationary, you need to prove it is inflationary, and even if it is inflationary it doesn't matter. UBI as a policy is trivially putting lots of money into circulation, so it's not unreasonable for people to be worried that would be inflationary. Venezuela is a great example of the problems of inflation, which is a big concern with UBI as a policy, that's what it…

Seems pretty similar to a tax break though no? I think UBI and taxes need to be intertwined. I could get behind UBI if coupled with a flat tax as a simpler system than progressive taxation (that has the same effect, but without all the loopholes).

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#446

Post by rapind »

digitaltrees wrote: post #440
dx87 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would absolutely happen. When I was in the military, the town I lived in had to pass laws preventing landlords from changing your rent based on your rank because everyone's pay information was public. It's naive to think dealerships would try to undercut each other instead of colluding to all get more money.

Colluding to prevent competition is and should be illegal in a market economy. We can't say we can't implement a viable and beneficial social policy because people will break the law. We should enact the policy and ensure the culture, norms and laws are in place to make it effective.

I disagree. Policy should be pragmatic. As an extreme example, self driving cars shouldn't ignore the possibility of jaywalking.

I don't think there would be this sudden collusion at such a large scale though. Would be pretty obvious and begging for a crackdown IMO.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#447

Post by boomboomsubban »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #436
boomboomsubban wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could have the choice to refuse the UBI and end up in a similar position to homeless today, though most homeless did not make a choice not to work.

But, could you choose to not be one of the taxpayers to fund UBI? I say if you want to do UBI, add a checkbox on the tax return where a person can choose to donate $1000 to the UBI program out of their tax refund. Let the UBI recipients all have an equal share of the funds collected from that checkbox.

If you don't make any income, you aren't paying for it. You can have your issues with UBI, but "the government could force you to work to pay taxes" isn't any scarier than the current situation, where not working can just kill you.

Your opt in situation couldn't be considered UBI.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#448

Post by typ »

zajio1am wrote: post #274
typ wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lea…

Rents should be limited by marginal utility of living in costly city. If you can have higher wage by living in costly city compared to small town, than it make sense to accept higher rent. But if you receive extra income regardless of where you live, then it is hard to say what effect it would have on prices. It may even cause people to prefer cheaper small towns as marginal utility from wage difference would be lowe…

That has to assume that most people would choose lower-paying jobs if the extra income presents. But I don't think it is necessarily true. It is also unlikely that people would right away leave their current job if rents are on the rise, at least not until the net gain gets surpassed by the alternatives. The extra income probably gives the tenants more 'tolerance' to the rent increase and that is simply how subsidies interact with market.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#449

Post by gnicholas »

burroisolator wrote: post #216
gnicholas wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prop…

I don't hear the words you hear. At the end, he says "of a plan to do something in a smaller way with a carbon tax"

As in, the $1k/month thing is too big, and he thinks we should consider doing something smaller. How much smaller? We don't know for sure, but I doubt economists would support a carbon tax that would approach the level of $1,000/mo for every adult in the US. The primary purpose is to internalize the externalities of pollution, not to generate revenue.

The fact that an economist thinks a concept is worth considering is a far cry from saying they are endorsing a specific instance of one of those things. It's one thing to say he endorsed the concept. It's another thing to say he endorsed the plan. He didn't.

Re: What If Andrew Yang Was Right?

#450

Post by listenallyall »

digitaltrees wrote: post #441
supportlocal4h wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I live in a relatively prosperous community. My perspective is skewed accordingly. Your numbers seem fictitious to me. 78% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck? Look at what they are spending their paycheck on. One car per person. 2.1 people per house. 3.2 game consoles per person. A new laptop every 15 months. A new car every 36 months. A new $800 smartphone every 11 months. Every low-income 10 year…

Your view of people's buying patterns is not accurate. I own a home care agency with 500 employees that live on low income (the government sets the Medicaid reimbursement rate so we have no ability to raise wages). NO ONE is buying a new car, let alone every 36 months. Half our employees don't own a smart phone. We pay $10hr, in rural North Carolina, so lots of people live on even less. Please research this issue and…

By definition, you're the one with a narrow perspective -- your employees are all low-income workers in a rural town. The parent never said NOBODY is poor -- in fact, he specifically acknowledged that there are poor people. His claim was that he doubted that 78% of the American population is. Additionally, many (many, not ALL) who technically are "poor", still find money to purchase expensive electronics.
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