
A Democrat is running for president on a platform of Universal Basic Income - pixelmonkey
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/technology/his-2020-campaign-message-the-robots-are-coming.html
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nodesocket
How is he proposing to pay for UBI aged 18-64? The only way I would support a
UBI is to completely eliminate social programs like welfare, food stamps, and
housing assistance. It may then be cost-neutral.

Also, this language is just not accurate:

> unraveling President Trump’s tax breaks for the wealthy

It is mostly for corporations; middle-class citizens will also see a reduction
in their taxes. Until the market meltdown last week, the new tax plan was
widely praised even by very liberal business leaders such as Tim Cook. US
corporate taxes were absurdly high and tax reform has been positive in terms
of the slew of bonuses offered to employees (not executives), raising of
corporate profits, and helping repatriate huge amounts of capital back to the
US.

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apedley
The tax breaks for the middle class are only temporary. Most CEO's are
praising them because it's great for them and shareholders. Most CEO's
acknowledge they will use the additional profits to perform share buy backs.

While the middle class got something, the majority went to the wealthy, and as
per my previous comment on shares, they are not going to be flooding it back
into the economy.

Also US corporate taxes were about median for the world, they were not
absurdly high, you should check out some countries in Europe for that.

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nodesocket
See this NPR[1] article which listed the previous US corporate tax rate as the
highest of advanced economies. This included France, Belgium, Germany. Also
fun fact, go visit Dublin and see all the tech companies (Google, Facebook,
Microsoft, etc) who have a Europe HQ there. The reason, they have a 12.5%
corporate tax rate.

[1] [https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does-
the...](https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does-the-u-s-have-
the-highest-corporate-tax-rate-in-the-world)

~~~
jcranmer
The effective US corporate tax rate is more median. Our headline tax rates
were higher, but we also had larger deductions and tax credits.

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saas_co_de
That is a very bad policy to have though because it encourages wasteful
spending on tax avoidance and rewards the companies that do it. It also gives
an artificial competitive advantage to the largest companies, who have the
scale to invest in complex tax avoidance schemes, at the expense of smaller
more productive companies.

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pixelmonkey
Interesting notes from article:

\- Political platform centered around automation impact on labor market.

\- Proposing a UBI paid for by a higher corporate tax rate targeted at
companies benefiting most from automation.

\- Would be $1,000/mo paid to everyone aged 18-64, with no means test.

\- Candidate is the former CEO and founder of Venture for America, Andrew
Yang. He is 43 and already has backing of many Dem-leaning tech executives.

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danschumann
I think a better solution would be a negative tax rate instead of a 0% tax
rate.

Imagine: On your first $24,000 / Year, you are taxed at -50%. This means, if
you make $12,000, you get paid an additional $6,000. If you make $24,000, you
get paid an additional $12,000. This is an additional reward for working! We
want to incentivize working!

~~~
gremlinsinc
how's that fair if you have person a working in a callcenter for slightly
better pay than person b working at McDonalds.

Person A makes 20k, person B makes 10k. Both work pretty shitty jobs -- I
wouldn't want either.. Both work the same hours. No more jobs exist for Person
A's job, so Person B couldn't rise up to their level if they wanted to.

GBI works because everybody gets it -- so nobody feels like they're getting
special treatment, nobody feels like they're on welfare (which causes a mental
stigma to begin with) and the goal is simply to cover average rents and maybe
some food. Everyone should have food and a roof.

Your plan also doesn't account for what happens when all the jobs for both A
and B close down because of automation which is the whole point for why we're
discussing GBI more and more anyways.

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tylerhou
I'm pretty sure the person you replied to was being satirical.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
I’m not sure why: a NIT has some advantages relative to UBI.

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wdn
I see this as another welfare program and we already have too many welfare
programs.

If we all see that automation is or will be a problem for the labor market,
isn’t it makes more sense to get the labor market ready to embrace the
automation era?

Instead of making our youth going through college, why not have them sent to
learn a craft or skill set?

I personal think only those who are good with school and like school should go
to higher education. For the rest of us, a 4 years experience with no debt is
far better 4 years education with 50 to 100k in student loan debt

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pje
What are these jobs that you think will resist robotic automation, and how
many of them will there be? Realistically a small percentage of people will
ever be programmers in our society; we just don't need that many.

Look, we're entering a period of history where the number of tasks requiring
human labor _will only keep decreasing_. This will lead to a growing class of
people for whom the labor market cannot provide a basic standard of living.

If a stronger welfare state isn't the answer to that problem, I've yet to hear
what _is_ , exactly.

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Caveman_Coder
> "What are these jobs that you think will resist robotic automation, and how
> many of them will there be?"

Trades like plumbing, electrician, lineman, P&C technician, mechanic, power
plant operator, transmission/distribution operator, welder, etc...

~~~
pje
How many more plumbers and electricians do you think we need? I see no reason
to think that the supply of those trade jobs in the labor market would
increase to match the demand caused by automation layoffs. (Also, what makes
those jobs impervious to automation?)

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RickJWag
I heard an interesting comparison last week.

This author noted that the farm equipment revolution threw a very high
percentage of Americans out of work. They were forced off the farm and had to
move to the cities (where the industrial age was hitting it's stride.)

It wasn't easy, but it led to huge improvements in quality of life.

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ryanwaggoner
Is there somewhere I can make a bet on whether 94% of the truck drivers will
be out of work in a few years?

I’m really skeptical.

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m3kw9
Partial communism? There is a time for that but until more jobs are taken over
by automation or robots, this would just slow down a lot of progress

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eesmith
_More_ jobs? For the last 200 years, machines have taken over entire
industries of jobs.

People to cut the crops, people to harvest lax, people to spin wool, people to
weave cloth, people to make soap, street cleaners, navvies, telephone
operators, travel agents, and the list goes on.

Sure, there are still people who do all of those, but not like it used to be.

And this transition, that is, the use of automation to increase the power of
capital by decreasing the cost of labor, is what lead to the original ideas of
full communism.

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yequalsx
Back in the early 80s when Reagan was decrying welfare and it's costs vs.
benefits he joked that it would be cheaper for the U.S. government to abandon
the relevant federal agencies and just send recipients a check each month.
Full circle I suppose.

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gremlinsinc
Wow, something I actually finally agree w/ Reagan on -- mostly because I'm
anti-bureaucracy. Mailing checks can be automated and allow for closing all
welfare offices and firing all the staff that run those agencies, cutting the
utilities, selling the land, etc...

I'm also for single-payer because we spend too much on Sales/Commercials/CEOS
for insurance companies, and medical billers who we could all put out of jobs
because all they do is figure out how to pay hospitals and collect money from
us or our employers.

I feel though that trickle-down has failed immensely. The fact is trickle-out
is what happened trickle-out-to-my-caymen-island-account.

Rich just re-invest/hoard money. Now if they'd trickled up... it would've
worked wonders for the economy. Give the poorest of the poor money --and
they'll spend it on booze/drugs/homes/food does it matter? The money still
circulates and finds it way back up to the rich/b2c businesses.

$10k given to Bill Gates goes into the bank account, and stays their
collecting dust and interest. $10k given to a struggling family goes into a
new car, or braces for Jimmy, etc... Which in turn goes to payroll for
employees at the dentist or car-lot, and that goes on and on...

