Andrew Yang 2020

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Phdtobe, Mar 19, 2019.

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  1. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

  2. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    Thank's for the compliment. But Yang doesn't appeal a whole lot to me at this point. (Of course I haven't studied him very closely either, so most of what follows is based on my first crude impression.)

    For one thing, he's said to be a Green New Deal guy, who supports a dramatic expansion of the EPA, effectively turning it into yet another police agency intruding into people's lives. He is said to want a cabinet level "Department of the Attention Economy", or something like that, effectively a department of media putting expression of ideas and opinions under the government thumb. (If Trump ever suggested anything remotely like that, imagine the shrieking from the left.)

    I'm skeptical about numbers-based political philosophies as well. (Attention economy?) It's the fundamental error that publications like the Economist make. A numbers-based approach does make pundits look smart (there's a graph, a table or an equation for everything). Except for the fatal flaw that many of the most important things in people's lives are impossible to quantify. There's a sense of community, of tradition, of belonging, of hope, of beauty, of self-worth, of purpose in life, there's ideas.

    If we are preparing for a future in which most people don't have jobs, first off we need to be removing the stigmas associated with not working. We have to think of valuable, constructive and socially prestigious things that all these idle people can be doing with all that time. Dismissing people as 'not that smart' is exactly not the way to do it.

    Inferiors, one and all, people who can simply be dismissed from the brave-new-world run by Ivy League graduates like Yang. (Will the lesser-people even be allowed to vote? Will they be allowed to nominate people like themselves for higher office, or will they only be permitted to choose from among pre-selected Party slates comprised of better-people like Yang?)

    The second thing is that if we are going to have much of the population subsisting on Yang's $1,000 a month, we can't allow unlimited wealth accumulation among those who are still working. That would just create almost infinite wealth inequalities between the small minority of venture capitalists and tech billionaires, and the hundreds of millions of proles trying to live in their hovels on $12,000 a year while the media dismiss them as ignorant and sneer at them as stupid.

    No thanks, I think that I'll stick with "racism" and "xenophobia" at this point. I'll watch Yang because he seems smart and interesting. He does raise issues that everyone needs to be talking about. But unless he addresses the obvious concerns, I'll damnably continue to perceive his program as Marxism with a new 21'st century face along with a managed decline of the United States to "third world" status.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2019
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  3. JBjunior

    JBjunior Active Member

    Where is the data? The story seems to be one opinion on why a certain group may be talking about one candidate. It makes a lot of assumptions about why they are in their situation, why they are talking about him, and who they may be willing to vote for and why. It is also assuming that the majority of these people are at the bottom of the ladder and that getting free money will make them feel better about themselves enough to change their minds....
     
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  4. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    The Freedom Dividend is designed to be supplemental, not an only source of income. Yang plans to get the money from tech companies. Netflix and Amazon paid $0 in taxes last year.

    https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/
     
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  5. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    That is why I covered my statement with “if”.
    I think this statement can hold true, people are less likely to hate when their lifes are more meaningful.
    The “Wealth of Nations” was published in 1776. If Adam Smith was publishing this book in 2019 for the first time my guess it would have been slightly different.
     
  6. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Speaking of the xenophobia, California has a shortage of agricultural workers. Some farms started offering as much as $19 per hour, but most Americans would quit within a month. With labor costs getting so high, farms have been looking at replacing pickers with machines. Among the farms with crops that can't be picked by machines, they're looking at changing what they grow.

    People think that supply and demand means that wages will go higher and higher until enough people apply and keep jobs. That's not how it works in the real world. If companies can replace you with a cheaper technological advancement, they will. They will also consider switching to a more profitable business model. If this continues to happen, Americans will be importing more crops from other countries with cheaper labor.
     
  7. JBjunior

    JBjunior Active Member

    I agree that people are less likely to hate if their lives are meaningful though I don't think money brings meaning. Especially money given, that can actually make someone feel more discontent. In the situation we are talking about it is the perceived loss of opportunity, growing up in a certain situation, minimal resources, and who they blame for it. I don't think free money from the government would work but it may work generationally. It would likely just shift to "these people" not only took our jobs but put us in the position where the government has to give us more money; what is the difference between this and the welfare they are already potentially on and potentially feel horrible about? If everyone gets $12K, it just shifts everyone on the ladder similar to the $15 minimum wage, and doesn't fix any real issues.
     
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  8. JBjunior

    JBjunior Active Member

    This has been discussed extensively regarding increasing the minimum wage. Why will McDonalds pay someone $15 an hour to take someone's order when a kiosk will do the same with increased long-term benefits to the company?

    I worked fields in my teens and it was a wonderful experience that I hope to never repeat. Sounds like an opportunity for short-term work visas.
     
  9. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Why short term? It's not like there won't be more fruit next year.
     
  10. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Why not create a hologram and make it President? No muss, no fuss and every bit as good a source of endless news cycle yammering as any natural person who has ever held the office.
     
  11. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

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  12. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I'm With Her?
     
  13. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

  14. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

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  15. JBjunior

    JBjunior Active Member

    It depends on what the data said prior to, it could have failed and been terminated.
     
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  16. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    I did a little more reseach on why the programme failed. It failed based on ideological differences between parties. It was a limited temporary programme with 4000 people for 3 years. It was terminated ofter the change of government prior to the 3-year deadline.
     
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  17. JBjunior

    JBjunior Active Member

    What were they testing and did they get any data?
     
  18. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member


    This is from wikIpedia:
    Ontario Basic Income Pilot Project In Ontario, three-year basic income projects were launched in three regions from late spring to fall 2017. The participants of the project were randomly selected among resident of the regions aged 18–64, who were living on low income.[10] The purpose of the experiment was to tackle poverty, providing people with income security while, at the same time, not discouraging them from entering the labour force. Furthermore, as poverty is believed to be one of the biggest determinants of health, the project is believed to improve health condition, which could, in turn, reduce health-care costs for the government.[3] The pilot project was cancelled on July 31, 2018 by the newly elected Progressive Conservative government under Ontario Premier Doug Ford, with his Minister of Children, Community and Social Services Lisa MacLeod stating simply it was 'unsustainable' without citing data.[11] Payments to participants will continue until March 2019.[12]
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_pilots
     
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  19. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

  20. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Although that's in The Guardian, so it's not surprising the author's complaints included that a UBI is insufficiently far to the left since it places money in the hands of actual people instead of leaving it under centralized control.

     
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