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On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo.
How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000...
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On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000...
Lot's of reasons. One, it's not an extra $1000 for everyone.
Most people who are legally disabled receive both SSDI and SSI. Under the Freedom Dividend, those who are legally disabled would have a choice between collecting SSDI and the Freedom Dividend, or collecting SSDI and SSI
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On August 09 2019 05:22 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... The concern is it will take away from the already lacking social programs. Whether or not his particular program is good or not is kind of beyond the point to me. He is getting people talking about UBI, which I think is a important conversation and it leads to other conversations about the currently lacking social programs.
It doesn't really matter how hashed out his proposal is in the details, what he's doing is expanding the conversation on what kind of good we can do with more social programs, in the general sense. Especially as more jobs get automated, and the gulf between value of work vs. salary gets wider, something like a UBI seems more and more like a possibility. It's important to get people talking about it.
On August 09 2019 06:07 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... Lot's of reasons. One, it's not an extra $1000 for everyone. Show nested quote +Most people who are legally disabled receive both SSDI and SSI. Under the Freedom Dividend, those who are legally disabled would have a choice between collecting SSDI and the Freedom Dividend, or collecting SSDI and SSI
I would agree that that's a major issue I'd have with this iteration of the idea, since our disabled people are the ones who kinda need that help the most. However, I'd much rather ferret out and discuss flaws like this, than pretend it can never work while we throw another trillion dollars into our bloated military.
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On August 09 2019 05:22 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... The concern is it will take away from the already lacking social programs. Whether or not his particular program is good or not is kind of beyond the point to me. He is getting people talking about UBI, which I think is a important conversation and it leads to other conversations about the currently lacking social programs.
I agree. We need to address the fact that increasing obsolescence of human labor combined with an economic model where people have to work to afford to live creates immense and unnecessary human suffering.
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On August 09 2019 06:08 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 05:22 JimmiC wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... The concern is it will take away from the already lacking social programs. Whether or not his particular program is good or not is kind of beyond the point to me. He is getting people talking about UBI, which I think is a important conversation and it leads to other conversations about the currently lacking social programs. It doesn't really matter how hashed out his proposal is in the details, what he's doing is expanding the conversation on what kind of good we can do with more social programs, in the general sense. Especially as more jobs get automated, and the gulf between value of work vs. salary gets wider, something like a UBI seems more and more like a possibility. It's important to get people talking about it. Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 06:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... Lot's of reasons. One, it's not an extra $1000 for everyone. Most people who are legally disabled receive both SSDI and SSI. Under the Freedom Dividend, those who are legally disabled would have a choice between collecting SSDI and the Freedom Dividend, or collecting SSDI and SSI I would agree that that's a major issue I'd have with this iteration of the idea, since our disabled people are the ones who kinda need that help the most. However, I'd much rather ferret out and discuss flaws like this, than pretend it can never work while we throw another trillion dollars into our bloated military.
Of Course UBI is a legitimate discussion. My contention is that Yang's exploitation of that is not good.
The idea his ramrodding his bad UBI is better than the way someone like Sanders talks about the UBI is silly from my perspective.
So long as you have Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, and so long as you have a Congress dominated by big money, I can guarantee you that the discussion about universal basic income is going to go nowhere in a hurry. But, if we can develop a strong grassroots movement which says that every man, woman and child in this country is entitled to a minimum standard of living — is entitled to health care, is entitled to education, is entitled to housing — then we can succeed. We are living in the richest country in the history of the world, yet we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country and millions of people are struggling to put food on the table. It is my absolute conviction that everyone in this country deserves a minimum standard of living and we’ve got to go forward in the fight to make that happen.
medium.com
Yang is just selling how cool $1000 bucks sound and vaguely connecting it to people being replaced by robots. He's a sideshow that discredits serious discussion about UBI imo.
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He’s thinking about it because it would trigger Chicago libs.
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On August 09 2019 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 06:08 NewSunshine wrote:On August 09 2019 05:22 JimmiC wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... The concern is it will take away from the already lacking social programs. Whether or not his particular program is good or not is kind of beyond the point to me. He is getting people talking about UBI, which I think is a important conversation and it leads to other conversations about the currently lacking social programs. It doesn't really matter how hashed out his proposal is in the details, what he's doing is expanding the conversation on what kind of good we can do with more social programs, in the general sense. Especially as more jobs get automated, and the gulf between value of work vs. salary gets wider, something like a UBI seems more and more like a possibility. It's important to get people talking about it. On August 09 2019 06:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... Lot's of reasons. One, it's not an extra $1000 for everyone. Most people who are legally disabled receive both SSDI and SSI. Under the Freedom Dividend, those who are legally disabled would have a choice between collecting SSDI and the Freedom Dividend, or collecting SSDI and SSI I would agree that that's a major issue I'd have with this iteration of the idea, since our disabled people are the ones who kinda need that help the most. However, I'd much rather ferret out and discuss flaws like this, than pretend it can never work while we throw another trillion dollars into our bloated military. Of Course UBI is a legitimate discussion. My contention is that Yang's exploitation of that is not good. The idea his ramrodding his bad UBI is better than the way someone like Sanders talks about the UBI is silly from my perspective. Show nested quote +So long as you have Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, and so long as you have a Congress dominated by big money, I can guarantee you that the discussion about universal basic income is going to go nowhere in a hurry. But, if we can develop a strong grassroots movement which says that every man, woman and child in this country is entitled to a minimum standard of living — is entitled to health care, is entitled to education, is entitled to housing — then we can succeed. We are living in the richest country in the history of the world, yet we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country and millions of people are struggling to put food on the table. It is my absolute conviction that everyone in this country deserves a minimum standard of living and we’ve got to go forward in the fight to make that happen. medium.comYang is just selling how cool $1000 bucks sound and vaguely connecting it to people being replaced by robots. He's a sideshow that discredits serious discussion about UBI imo.
You grossly mischaracterize Yang here.
I WISH Bernie talked about UBI. He used to support it, but more recently has come out against it, instead pushing for $15 minimum wage and a federal jobs guarantee (which I think would be an absolute disaster). Scott Santens, the writer of the article you linked, supports Yang, btw.
I'm honestly really surprised that you dislike Yang so much. In my years lurking this thread, I've generally found myself agreeing with your ideology on most issues.
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On August 09 2019 06:37 Dromar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 06:08 NewSunshine wrote:On August 09 2019 05:22 JimmiC wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... The concern is it will take away from the already lacking social programs. Whether or not his particular program is good or not is kind of beyond the point to me. He is getting people talking about UBI, which I think is a important conversation and it leads to other conversations about the currently lacking social programs. It doesn't really matter how hashed out his proposal is in the details, what he's doing is expanding the conversation on what kind of good we can do with more social programs, in the general sense. Especially as more jobs get automated, and the gulf between value of work vs. salary gets wider, something like a UBI seems more and more like a possibility. It's important to get people talking about it. On August 09 2019 06:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... Lot's of reasons. One, it's not an extra $1000 for everyone. Most people who are legally disabled receive both SSDI and SSI. Under the Freedom Dividend, those who are legally disabled would have a choice between collecting SSDI and the Freedom Dividend, or collecting SSDI and SSI I would agree that that's a major issue I'd have with this iteration of the idea, since our disabled people are the ones who kinda need that help the most. However, I'd much rather ferret out and discuss flaws like this, than pretend it can never work while we throw another trillion dollars into our bloated military. Of Course UBI is a legitimate discussion. My contention is that Yang's exploitation of that is not good. The idea his ramrodding his bad UBI is better than the way someone like Sanders talks about the UBI is silly from my perspective. So long as you have Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, and so long as you have a Congress dominated by big money, I can guarantee you that the discussion about universal basic income is going to go nowhere in a hurry. But, if we can develop a strong grassroots movement which says that every man, woman and child in this country is entitled to a minimum standard of living — is entitled to health care, is entitled to education, is entitled to housing — then we can succeed. We are living in the richest country in the history of the world, yet we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country and millions of people are struggling to put food on the table. It is my absolute conviction that everyone in this country deserves a minimum standard of living and we’ve got to go forward in the fight to make that happen. medium.comYang is just selling how cool $1000 bucks sound and vaguely connecting it to people being replaced by robots. He's a sideshow that discredits serious discussion about UBI imo. You grossly mischaracterize Yang here. I WISH Bernie talked about UBI. He used to support it, but more recently has come out against it, instead pushing for $15 minimum wage and a federal jobs guarantee (which I think would be an absolute disaster). Scott Santens, the writer of the article you linked, supports Yang, btw. I'm honestly really surprised that you dislike Yang so much. In my years lurking this thread, I've generally found myself agreeing with your ideology on most issues.
I disagree again. While I support discussions on a UBI (it's dead in the water without a political revolution replacing congress), it's more important and effective imo to discuss it the way Bernie does framing it around a human dignity and the services that they should have instead of cash that will be used to strip away social programs under the guise of "choice".
I do disagree with him that work is a necessary requirement but he makes a good argument about the crap ton of stuff that needs to get done and why it makes sense to connect it to a jobs guarantee (with a living wage).
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On August 09 2019 06:37 Dromar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 06:08 NewSunshine wrote:On August 09 2019 05:22 JimmiC wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... The concern is it will take away from the already lacking social programs. Whether or not his particular program is good or not is kind of beyond the point to me. He is getting people talking about UBI, which I think is a important conversation and it leads to other conversations about the currently lacking social programs. It doesn't really matter how hashed out his proposal is in the details, what he's doing is expanding the conversation on what kind of good we can do with more social programs, in the general sense. Especially as more jobs get automated, and the gulf between value of work vs. salary gets wider, something like a UBI seems more and more like a possibility. It's important to get people talking about it. On August 09 2019 06:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... Lot's of reasons. One, it's not an extra $1000 for everyone. Most people who are legally disabled receive both SSDI and SSI. Under the Freedom Dividend, those who are legally disabled would have a choice between collecting SSDI and the Freedom Dividend, or collecting SSDI and SSI I would agree that that's a major issue I'd have with this iteration of the idea, since our disabled people are the ones who kinda need that help the most. However, I'd much rather ferret out and discuss flaws like this, than pretend it can never work while we throw another trillion dollars into our bloated military. Of Course UBI is a legitimate discussion. My contention is that Yang's exploitation of that is not good. The idea his ramrodding his bad UBI is better than the way someone like Sanders talks about the UBI is silly from my perspective. So long as you have Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, and so long as you have a Congress dominated by big money, I can guarantee you that the discussion about universal basic income is going to go nowhere in a hurry. But, if we can develop a strong grassroots movement which says that every man, woman and child in this country is entitled to a minimum standard of living — is entitled to health care, is entitled to education, is entitled to housing — then we can succeed. We are living in the richest country in the history of the world, yet we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country and millions of people are struggling to put food on the table. It is my absolute conviction that everyone in this country deserves a minimum standard of living and we’ve got to go forward in the fight to make that happen. medium.comYang is just selling how cool $1000 bucks sound and vaguely connecting it to people being replaced by robots. He's a sideshow that discredits serious discussion about UBI imo. You grossly mischaracterize Yang here. I WISH Bernie talked about UBI. He used to support it, but more recently has come out against it, instead pushing for $15 minimum wage and a federal jobs guarantee (which I think would be an absolute disaster). Scott Santens, the writer of the article you linked, supports Yang, btw. I'm honestly really surprised that you dislike Yang so much. In my years lurking this thread, I've generally found myself agreeing with your ideology on most issues.
Why is it that every time Yang and/or the UBI come up in this thread, you drop in with pro-Yang sunshines and rainbows, only to drop out when folks start engaging with the specifics regarding why a UBI is an especially bad kind of social welfare remedy here in the US? As has already been posted, any benefits program that opts for cash instead of services necessarily forgoes the market influence that bolsters the efficacy of services-centric programs (the biggest success stories being Medicare and the VA). Add in the multitude of ways the "free market" is able to swallow up and appropriate newfound cash wealth given to the poor and the whole thing ends up seeming very half-baked.
Another big strike against Yang is how little his policy proposals account for the legislative process that will necessarily accompany any kind of reform as big as a UBI or Medicare for All. The UBI in particular has a storied history among anti-social welfare conservatives as a great vehicle for a bait-and-switch deconstruction of the federal safety net. Saying something about how he'd enforce a policy agenda with enough force to get Congress in line, particularly with how ripe for distortion any thing like a UBI would be, is an essential component of good advocacy on this point.
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On August 09 2019 06:54 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 06:37 Dromar wrote:On August 09 2019 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 06:08 NewSunshine wrote:On August 09 2019 05:22 JimmiC wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... The concern is it will take away from the already lacking social programs. Whether or not his particular program is good or not is kind of beyond the point to me. He is getting people talking about UBI, which I think is a important conversation and it leads to other conversations about the currently lacking social programs. It doesn't really matter how hashed out his proposal is in the details, what he's doing is expanding the conversation on what kind of good we can do with more social programs, in the general sense. Especially as more jobs get automated, and the gulf between value of work vs. salary gets wider, something like a UBI seems more and more like a possibility. It's important to get people talking about it. On August 09 2019 06:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... Lot's of reasons. One, it's not an extra $1000 for everyone. Most people who are legally disabled receive both SSDI and SSI. Under the Freedom Dividend, those who are legally disabled would have a choice between collecting SSDI and the Freedom Dividend, or collecting SSDI and SSI I would agree that that's a major issue I'd have with this iteration of the idea, since our disabled people are the ones who kinda need that help the most. However, I'd much rather ferret out and discuss flaws like this, than pretend it can never work while we throw another trillion dollars into our bloated military. Of Course UBI is a legitimate discussion. My contention is that Yang's exploitation of that is not good. The idea his ramrodding his bad UBI is better than the way someone like Sanders talks about the UBI is silly from my perspective. So long as you have Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, and so long as you have a Congress dominated by big money, I can guarantee you that the discussion about universal basic income is going to go nowhere in a hurry. But, if we can develop a strong grassroots movement which says that every man, woman and child in this country is entitled to a minimum standard of living — is entitled to health care, is entitled to education, is entitled to housing — then we can succeed. We are living in the richest country in the history of the world, yet we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country and millions of people are struggling to put food on the table. It is my absolute conviction that everyone in this country deserves a minimum standard of living and we’ve got to go forward in the fight to make that happen. medium.comYang is just selling how cool $1000 bucks sound and vaguely connecting it to people being replaced by robots. He's a sideshow that discredits serious discussion about UBI imo. You grossly mischaracterize Yang here. I WISH Bernie talked about UBI. He used to support it, but more recently has come out against it, instead pushing for $15 minimum wage and a federal jobs guarantee (which I think would be an absolute disaster). Scott Santens, the writer of the article you linked, supports Yang, btw. I'm honestly really surprised that you dislike Yang so much. In my years lurking this thread, I've generally found myself agreeing with your ideology on most issues. Why is it that every time Yang and/or the UBI come up in this thread, you drop in with pro-Yang sunshines and rainbows, only to drop out when folks start engaging with the specifics regarding why a UBI is an especially bad kind of social welfare remedy here in the US?
Obviously I'm a big fan of Yang. I imagine that's no secret. When Yang comes up in this thread, quite often it comes with falsehoods or misunderstandings. I like to clear those things up when I can, but I'm not especially interested in getting into an argument on the internet. If I make my case and people still disagree, that's pretty much the end of it as far as I'm concerned.
As has already been posted, any benefits program that opts for cash instead of services necessarily forgoes the market influence that bolsters the efficacy of services-centric programs (the biggest success stories being Medicare and the VA). Add in the multitude of ways the "free market" is able to swallow up and appropriate newfound cash wealth given to the poor and the whole thing ends up seeming very half-baked.
I guess I just disagree. I don't think that services are necessarily better than cash-assistance programs. Medicare is great, but I think that is the exception, not the rule. You mention that the free market is able to abuse the poor (which is true of course), but I feel like you're not taking into account the incredible amount of waste and abuse in service-based assistance programs. In short, saying "We will only help THESE people in THIS way" is a terrific way to incentivize waste and abuse. I discussed it briefly last time I dropped in.
In my mind, nothing is more empowering for poor people than literally giving them money as a right of citizenship.
[rant]
There are so many people who really, really want to help the poor, but just can't fathom the idea of giving them money. I mean how much does money really help poor people anyway? What a way to appear sincere, but still keep the poor under your thumb. We couldn't possibly just give these people some dignity. We have to remind them that this is a handout that they don't deserve, that they are a leech on society, and that they are less than us.
But we can't give money to people in need, of course. That would be TOO FUCKING DIRECT of a way to remedy one of society's greatest ills. Whatever would they do without us to decide how they live their lives, and what they can and can't have? Yes, better that we dictate their lives through social programs meant to help/demean them.
[/rant]
Another big strike against Yang is how little his policy proposals account for the legislative process that will necessarily accompany any kind of reform as big as a UBI or Medicare for All.
This is a fair critique. Yang's response to this has generally been that if he manages to win, then his idea must have caught fire to a degree that it essentially becomes a "mandate of the people" situation.
I'm not really sold by this, but the truth is any legislation that meaningfully helps normal people will face significant opposition from the entrenched status quo. So why go for a half-measure? Do we want to go the shitty half-assed Obamacare route again?
The UBI in particular has a storied history among anti-social welfare conservatives as a great vehicle for a bait-and-switch deconstruction of the federal safety net.
I have literally only ever heard this from progressives who aren't very well informed about the current state of welfare in the US. And, as I've said in this thread before, I view a UBI is an increase and reform of the safety net if anything. If "fuck-you-I-got-mine" conservatives want to "deconstruct the federal safety net" by giving every US citizen $1000/month with no strings attached, I think they're not very good at what they're trying to do.
And that entire line of logic ignores the fact that anti-welfare conservatives are ALREADY attacking welfare in any way they can. To think that implementing a UBI puts traditional welfare at risk ignores the fact that it is already at risk. Then it ignores the transformative good a UBI would do for hundreds of millions of Americans. In short, it's ignorant.
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On August 09 2019 07:21 Dromar wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 09 2019 06:54 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 06:37 Dromar wrote:On August 09 2019 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 06:08 NewSunshine wrote:On August 09 2019 05:22 JimmiC wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... The concern is it will take away from the already lacking social programs. Whether or not his particular program is good or not is kind of beyond the point to me. He is getting people talking about UBI, which I think is a important conversation and it leads to other conversations about the currently lacking social programs. It doesn't really matter how hashed out his proposal is in the details, what he's doing is expanding the conversation on what kind of good we can do with more social programs, in the general sense. Especially as more jobs get automated, and the gulf between value of work vs. salary gets wider, something like a UBI seems more and more like a possibility. It's important to get people talking about it. On August 09 2019 06:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... Lot's of reasons. One, it's not an extra $1000 for everyone. Most people who are legally disabled receive both SSDI and SSI. Under the Freedom Dividend, those who are legally disabled would have a choice between collecting SSDI and the Freedom Dividend, or collecting SSDI and SSI I would agree that that's a major issue I'd have with this iteration of the idea, since our disabled people are the ones who kinda need that help the most. However, I'd much rather ferret out and discuss flaws like this, than pretend it can never work while we throw another trillion dollars into our bloated military. Of Course UBI is a legitimate discussion. My contention is that Yang's exploitation of that is not good. The idea his ramrodding his bad UBI is better than the way someone like Sanders talks about the UBI is silly from my perspective. So long as you have Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, and so long as you have a Congress dominated by big money, I can guarantee you that the discussion about universal basic income is going to go nowhere in a hurry. But, if we can develop a strong grassroots movement which says that every man, woman and child in this country is entitled to a minimum standard of living — is entitled to health care, is entitled to education, is entitled to housing — then we can succeed. We are living in the richest country in the history of the world, yet we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country and millions of people are struggling to put food on the table. It is my absolute conviction that everyone in this country deserves a minimum standard of living and we’ve got to go forward in the fight to make that happen. medium.comYang is just selling how cool $1000 bucks sound and vaguely connecting it to people being replaced by robots. He's a sideshow that discredits serious discussion about UBI imo. You grossly mischaracterize Yang here. I WISH Bernie talked about UBI. He used to support it, but more recently has come out against it, instead pushing for $15 minimum wage and a federal jobs guarantee (which I think would be an absolute disaster). Scott Santens, the writer of the article you linked, supports Yang, btw. I'm honestly really surprised that you dislike Yang so much. In my years lurking this thread, I've generally found myself agreeing with your ideology on most issues. Why is it that every time Yang and/or the UBI come up in this thread, you drop in with pro-Yang sunshines and rainbows, only to drop out when folks start engaging with the specifics regarding why a UBI is an especially bad kind of social welfare remedy here in the US? Obviously I'm a big fan of Yang. I imagine that's no secret. When Yang comes up in this thread, quite often it comes with falsehoods or misunderstandings. I like to clear those things up when I can, but I'm not especially interested in getting into an argument on the internet. If I make my case and people still disagree, that's pretty much the end of it as far as I'm concerned. As has already been posted, any benefits program that opts for cash instead of services necessarily forgoes the market influence that bolsters the efficacy of services-centric programs (the biggest success stories being Medicare and the VA). Add in the multitude of ways the "free market" is able to swallow up and appropriate newfound cash wealth given to the poor and the whole thing ends up seeming very half-baked. I guess I just disagree. I don't think that services are necessarily better than cash-assistance programs. Medicare is great, but I think that is the exception, not the rule. You mention that the free market is able to abuse the poor (which is true of course), but I feel like you're not taking into account the incredible amount of waste and abuse in service-based assistance programs. In short, saying "We will only help THESE people in THIS way" is a terrific way to incentivize waste and abuse. I discussed it briefly last time I dropped in. Another big strike against Yang is how little his policy proposals account for the legislative process that will necessarily accompany any kind of reform as big as a UBI or Medicare for All. This is a fair critique. Yang's response to this has generally been that if he manages to win, then his idea must have caught fire to a degree that it essentially becomes a "mandate of the people" situation. I'm not entirely sold by this, but the truth is any legislation that meaningfully helps normal people will face significant opposition from the entrenched status quo. Why go for a half-measure? Do we want to go the shitty half-assed Obamacare route again? The UBI in particular has a storied history among anti-social welfare conservatives as a great vehicle for a bait-and-switch deconstruction of the federal safety net. I have literally only ever heard this from progressives who aren't very well informed about the current state of welfare in the US. And, as I've said in this thread before, I view a UBI is an increase and reform of the safety net if anything. If "fuck-you-I-got-mine" conservatives want to "deconstruct the federal safety net" by giving every US citizen $1000/month with no strings attached, I think they're not very good at what they're trying to do. And that entire line of logic ignores the fact that anti-welfare conservatives are ALREADY attacking welfare in any way they can. To think that implementing a UBI puts traditional welfare at risk ignores the fact that it is already at risk. Then it ignores the transformative good a UBI would do for hundreds of millions of Americans. In short, it's ignorant.
Thank you for responding on the merits. I am actually intimately familiar with the waste inherent to the provision of service-centric welfare programs and I can tell with some authority that a major cause of that waste is the state/federal cooperative program dynamic that has been the the bread and butter of US anti-welfare state legalism. From the mandate of NFIB v. Sebelius's striking of the Medicaid expansion requirement of Obamacare to the Welfare Reform Act of 1994, there has been a long game played by conservatives in which they shift power more and more towards the states and away from the feds, especially in the area of program implementation, which gives the folks who say "big government doesn't work" the ability to do a shitty job and then prove their own theory. This happens with Medicaid, with food benefits, and even with some kinds of disability, and the answer is not to directly inject money into the economy via transfer payments to easily preyed upon demographics, it comes with shoring up the programs that have basically been sabotaged while taking back control of the narrative regarding how the role of government in bettering society works and should work.
Legislators like Sanders and Warren have some pretty obvious firsthand knowledge of this process, with the former having been arguing in favor of labor and civil rights since he first took office and the latter having a lot of experience fighting over consumer protection and debtor-friendly bankruptcy laws in the Senate and as an academic. Yang has shown no indication that he knows why giving people $1,000.00 will make a difference other than vaguely referring to transformative processes that sound an awful lot like they exist in a world unlike this one. This is not only a question of abstract "market forces" that will swoop down on easy cash like the vultures they are legally allowed to be, it's also one in which the irrational, yet transactionally predictable preferences and behaviors of average and lower income citizens are used against them by marginal, yet powerful market actors like high interest lenders and buy here/pay here car dealers. The easily-preyed-upon consumption choices of the terminally poor are the result of a system of fairly predatory and stifled transaction opportunities that require a lot of cleaning up in order for them to not be fertile ground for inequitable capture by private interests.
TL;DR: Giving people money without strings needs to be the last thing on the list of reforms we desperately need as a society, and Yang champions it as his first major agenda item. That's a big problem for the above reasons.
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On August 09 2019 07:42 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 07:21 Dromar wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 09 2019 06:54 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 06:37 Dromar wrote:On August 09 2019 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 06:08 NewSunshine wrote:On August 09 2019 05:22 JimmiC wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... The concern is it will take away from the already lacking social programs. Whether or not his particular program is good or not is kind of beyond the point to me. He is getting people talking about UBI, which I think is a important conversation and it leads to other conversations about the currently lacking social programs. It doesn't really matter how hashed out his proposal is in the details, what he's doing is expanding the conversation on what kind of good we can do with more social programs, in the general sense. Especially as more jobs get automated, and the gulf between value of work vs. salary gets wider, something like a UBI seems more and more like a possibility. It's important to get people talking about it. On August 09 2019 06:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 05:18 ShoCkeyy wrote:On August 09 2019 03:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 02:59 NewSunshine wrote:
He's on the path to do what Bernie's been doing. Even if he never wins, he's been succeeding at raising new conversations, and getting us to push for more and more from the candidates we actually accept. No. Medicare for all, free college, a living wage and a political revolution are real conversations Bernie (and his supporters) fundamentally shifted the discourse on (even if Democratic politicians are using empty rhetoric with no intention of following through). Yang has relentlessly pushed (a shitty) UBI and self-deprecating racist jokes to make white people comfortable. Neither of which are going to be part of future campaigns or even seriously entertained (outside of a way to make austerity palatable). Yang is awful imo. How is it shitty? It’s an extra $1000... Lot's of reasons. One, it's not an extra $1000 for everyone. Most people who are legally disabled receive both SSDI and SSI. Under the Freedom Dividend, those who are legally disabled would have a choice between collecting SSDI and the Freedom Dividend, or collecting SSDI and SSI I would agree that that's a major issue I'd have with this iteration of the idea, since our disabled people are the ones who kinda need that help the most. However, I'd much rather ferret out and discuss flaws like this, than pretend it can never work while we throw another trillion dollars into our bloated military. Of Course UBI is a legitimate discussion. My contention is that Yang's exploitation of that is not good. The idea his ramrodding his bad UBI is better than the way someone like Sanders talks about the UBI is silly from my perspective. So long as you have Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, and so long as you have a Congress dominated by big money, I can guarantee you that the discussion about universal basic income is going to go nowhere in a hurry. But, if we can develop a strong grassroots movement which says that every man, woman and child in this country is entitled to a minimum standard of living — is entitled to health care, is entitled to education, is entitled to housing — then we can succeed. We are living in the richest country in the history of the world, yet we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country and millions of people are struggling to put food on the table. It is my absolute conviction that everyone in this country deserves a minimum standard of living and we’ve got to go forward in the fight to make that happen. medium.comYang is just selling how cool $1000 bucks sound and vaguely connecting it to people being replaced by robots. He's a sideshow that discredits serious discussion about UBI imo. You grossly mischaracterize Yang here. I WISH Bernie talked about UBI. He used to support it, but more recently has come out against it, instead pushing for $15 minimum wage and a federal jobs guarantee (which I think would be an absolute disaster). Scott Santens, the writer of the article you linked, supports Yang, btw. I'm honestly really surprised that you dislike Yang so much. In my years lurking this thread, I've generally found myself agreeing with your ideology on most issues. Why is it that every time Yang and/or the UBI come up in this thread, you drop in with pro-Yang sunshines and rainbows, only to drop out when folks start engaging with the specifics regarding why a UBI is an especially bad kind of social welfare remedy here in the US? Obviously I'm a big fan of Yang. I imagine that's no secret. When Yang comes up in this thread, quite often it comes with falsehoods or misunderstandings. I like to clear those things up when I can, but I'm not especially interested in getting into an argument on the internet. If I make my case and people still disagree, that's pretty much the end of it as far as I'm concerned. As has already been posted, any benefits program that opts for cash instead of services necessarily forgoes the market influence that bolsters the efficacy of services-centric programs (the biggest success stories being Medicare and the VA). Add in the multitude of ways the "free market" is able to swallow up and appropriate newfound cash wealth given to the poor and the whole thing ends up seeming very half-baked. I guess I just disagree. I don't think that services are necessarily better than cash-assistance programs. Medicare is great, but I think that is the exception, not the rule. You mention that the free market is able to abuse the poor (which is true of course), but I feel like you're not taking into account the incredible amount of waste and abuse in service-based assistance programs. In short, saying "We will only help THESE people in THIS way" is a terrific way to incentivize waste and abuse. I discussed it briefly last time I dropped in. Another big strike against Yang is how little his policy proposals account for the legislative process that will necessarily accompany any kind of reform as big as a UBI or Medicare for All. This is a fair critique. Yang's response to this has generally been that if he manages to win, then his idea must have caught fire to a degree that it essentially becomes a "mandate of the people" situation. I'm not entirely sold by this, but the truth is any legislation that meaningfully helps normal people will face significant opposition from the entrenched status quo. Why go for a half-measure? Do we want to go the shitty half-assed Obamacare route again? The UBI in particular has a storied history among anti-social welfare conservatives as a great vehicle for a bait-and-switch deconstruction of the federal safety net. I have literally only ever heard this from progressives who aren't very well informed about the current state of welfare in the US. And, as I've said in this thread before, I view a UBI is an increase and reform of the safety net if anything. If "fuck-you-I-got-mine" conservatives want to "deconstruct the federal safety net" by giving every US citizen $1000/month with no strings attached, I think they're not very good at what they're trying to do. And that entire line of logic ignores the fact that anti-welfare conservatives are ALREADY attacking welfare in any way they can. To think that implementing a UBI puts traditional welfare at risk ignores the fact that it is already at risk. Then it ignores the transformative good a UBI would do for hundreds of millions of Americans. In short, it's ignorant. Thank you for responding on the merits. I am actually intimately familiar with the waste inherent to the provision of service-centric welfare programs and I can tell with some authority that a major cause of that waste is the state/federal cooperative program dynamic that has been the the bread and butter of US anti-welfare state legalism. From the mandate of NFIB v. Sebelius's striking of the Medicaid expansion requirement of Obamacare to the Welfare Reform Act of 1994, there has been a long game played by conservatives in which they shift power more and more towards the states and away from the feds, especially in the area of program implementation, which gives the folks who say "big government doesn't work" the ability to do a shitty job and then prove their own theory. This happens with Medicaid, with food benefits, and even with some kinds of disability, and the answer is not to directly inject money into the economy via transfer payments to easily preyed upon demographics, it comes with shoring up the programs that have basically been sabotaged while taking back control of the narrative regarding how the role of government in bettering society works and should work. Legislators like Sanders and Warren have some pretty obvious firsthand knowledge of this process, with the former having been arguing in favor of labor and civil rights since he first took office and the latter having a lot of experience fighting over consumer protection and debtor-friendly bankruptcy laws in the Senate and as an academic. Yang has shown no indication that he knows why giving people $1,000.00 will make a difference other than vaguely referring to transformative processes that sound an awful lot like they exist in a world unlike this one. This is not only a question of abstract "market forces" that will swoop down on easy cash like the vultures they are legally allowed to be, it's also one in which the irrational, yet transactionally predictable preferences and behaviors of average and lower income citizens are used against them by marginal, yet powerful market actors like high interest lenders and buy here/pay here car dealers. The easily-preyed-upon consumption choices of the terminally poor are the result of a system of fairly predatory and stifled transaction opportunities that require a lot of cleaning up in order for them to not be fertile ground for inequitable capture by private interests. TL;DR: Giving people money without strings needs to be the last thing on the list of reforms we desperately need as a society, and Yang champions it as his first major agenda item. That's a big problem for the above reasons.
This all sounds agreeable enough to me except the last part. Fwiw, I updated my previous post multiple times. Mostly it was to change a word here and there and add a rant. This line that I added probably best sums up our disagreement:
"In my mind, nothing is more empowering for poor people than literally giving them money as a right of citizenship."
Of course the poor are preyed upon by vultures. But don't you agree that that is made possible because they are poor? Don't you think that giving them money (especially a form of financial security like a recurring $1000/month) would help free them from being preyed upon? The examples you give, like high-interest lenders, are exactly the type of people that would have more difficulty taking advantage of people when they have more money and financial security.
Regarding the slow but sure deconstruction of the effectiveness of service programs by conservatives - this is of course, terrible. And I know that this has been happening. I just don't see "fixing it" as really all that plausible. I see "it getting more broken" as much more plausible.
When your house is falling apart and is consistently being eroded by malicious forces, at some point shouldn't we consider building a new house? Because in this analogy, the house is falling apart and there's only a roof over about 25% of it. It would be great to get rid of the malicious forces, but I don't really see that happening either.
Leaving the analogy to address the resilience of a UBI against those malicious forces, I see a direct cash transfer as being pretty strong against conservative deconstruction. You set it at $1000/month, you tie it to inflation and/or CPI. How exactly would conservatives attack that? If they reduce the payment, they'll piss off hundreds of millions of recipients.
My best guess offhand as to how they could go about deconstructing it is to reduce the payment, but replace it with a temporary tax credit (with very little emphasis from them on the temporary part). But then the immediate question people would ask is "why?" and the only answer is "they want to fuck us over." That's the important distinction between an actual UBI cash dispersal and a tax credit; nobody understands their taxes, but people very much understand cash money.
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The right wing would not need to attack the UBI because its implementation furthers the goals of the special interests they represent. The state of the poverty trap as it exists today is such that a mere cash injection to the poor comes nowhere close to tipping the scales in their favor, and this is particularly because here are numerous market actors who have the opportunity to offer them various predatory products that the poor think they must consume in order to make ends meet. The prices of simple goods targeted to and frequently consumed by the lower class would naturally rise in response to the sudden disposable income increase, and all kinds of easy credit would have their offer terms adjust in response the same way. The margins of poverty are not denominated in terms of sums like $1,000.00 a month, rather in 72+ month loans, 25+% interest rates on consumer credit, and 0% down adjustable rate mortgages
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On August 09 2019 08:53 farvacola wrote:
The prices of simple goods targeted to and frequently consumed by the lower class would naturally rise in response to the sudden disposable income increase, ...
Do you believe the above because you think that poor people are not price-sensitive, or do you believe that the sellers of all consumer goods would simultaneously conspire to gouge consumers rather than compete for them by undercutting their competition? Is there a third option I've missed that leads you to believe the above? To be clear I'm thinking things like food, appliances, etc, goods and services that are NOT housing, education, and medical costs. Those 3 are a completely separate topic from what I'm talking about (and what I think you're talking about here).
If you believe what I've quoted above, do you believe that poverty is impossible to eliminate, because there will always be a group with the least money, and they will always be preyed upon (relative to groups that have more money)?
... and all kinds of easy credit would have their offer terms adjust in response the same way. The margins of poverty are not denominated in terms of sums like $1,000.00 a month, rather in 72+ month loans, 25+% interest rates on consumer credit, and 0% down adjustable rate mortgages
Sure. Do you think that people having more money makes them more susceptible to these types of things? Do you think poor people are just financially stupid and can't help themselves from falling for these types of scams, so giving them money is just giving the scammers money, but with more steps?
I really don't understand why you think people become more susceptible to scammers when they have more financial freedom. The examples you cite take advantage of poor people precisely because they have few financial options. Because they are poor, their only option to acquire a home/car/whatever is to take a bad deal.
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On August 09 2019 09:18 Dromar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 08:53 farvacola wrote:
The prices of simple goods targeted to and frequently consumed by the lower class would naturally rise in response to the sudden disposable income increase, ... Do you believe the above because you think that poor people are not price-sensitive, or do you believe that the sellers of all consumer goods would simultaneously conspire to gouge consumers rather than compete for them by undercutting their competition? Is there a third option I've missed that leads you to believe the above? To be clear I'm thinking things like food, appliances, etc, goods and services that are NOT housing, education, and medical costs. Those 3 are a completely separate topic from what I'm talking about (and what I think you're talking about here). If you believe what I've quoted above, do you believe that poverty is impossible to eliminate, because there will always be a group with the least money, and they will always be preyed upon (relative to groups that have more money)? Show nested quote +... and all kinds of easy credit would have their offer terms adjust in response the same way. The margins of poverty are not denominated in terms of sums like $1,000.00 a month, rather in 72+ month loans, 25+% interest rates on consumer credit, and 0% down adjustable rate mortgages Sure. Do you think that people having more money makes them more susceptible to these types of things? Do you think poor people are just financially stupid and can't help themselves from falling for these types of scams, so giving them money is just giving the scammers money, but with more steps? I really don't understand why you think people become more susceptible to scammers when they have more financial freedom. The examples you cite take advantage of poor people precisely because they have few financial options. Because they are poor, their only option to acquire a home/car/whatever is to take a bad deal.
Imagine you're a door to door bullshit salesman. You sell some worthless product for exorbitant prices so you can get a small slice of that profit.
You think your job gets easier or harder the month everyone's got a fresh $1000 in their pocket and credit offers up the wazzu in exchange for signing over that UBI to the creditor?
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On August 09 2019 09:35 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 09:18 Dromar wrote:On August 09 2019 08:53 farvacola wrote:
The prices of simple goods targeted to and frequently consumed by the lower class would naturally rise in response to the sudden disposable income increase, ... Do you believe the above because you think that poor people are not price-sensitive, or do you believe that the sellers of all consumer goods would simultaneously conspire to gouge consumers rather than compete for them by undercutting their competition? Is there a third option I've missed that leads you to believe the above? To be clear I'm thinking things like food, appliances, etc, goods and services that are NOT housing, education, and medical costs. Those 3 are a completely separate topic from what I'm talking about (and what I think you're talking about here). If you believe what I've quoted above, do you believe that poverty is impossible to eliminate, because there will always be a group with the least money, and they will always be preyed upon (relative to groups that have more money)? ... and all kinds of easy credit would have their offer terms adjust in response the same way. The margins of poverty are not denominated in terms of sums like $1,000.00 a month, rather in 72+ month loans, 25+% interest rates on consumer credit, and 0% down adjustable rate mortgages Sure. Do you think that people having more money makes them more susceptible to these types of things? Do you think poor people are just financially stupid and can't help themselves from falling for these types of scams, so giving them money is just giving the scammers money, but with more steps? I really don't understand why you think people become more susceptible to scammers when they have more financial freedom. The examples you cite take advantage of poor people precisely because they have few financial options. Because they are poor, their only option to acquire a home/car/whatever is to take a bad deal. Imagine you're a door to door bullshit salesman. You sell some worthless product for exorbitant prices so you can get a small slice of that profit. You think your job gets easier or harder the month everyone's got a fresh $1000 in their pocket and credit offers up the wazzu in exchange for signing over that UBI to the creditor?
In Yang's theoretical UBI, that second part is not legal. You cannot borrow against your UBI payment.
Surely the bullshit salesman's job gets easier, if by no other virtue than having more customers. And I wouldn't argue against the idea that the very first month of people getting their UBI payment has a real chance of having some weird shit happen.
But overall, if the person sells that much more, then perhaps the product isn't as worthless as we are assuming. The only other option, as I see it, is to essentially say that poor people are stupid and incapable of making sound financial decisions. And I am very far from ready to subscribe to that.
edit: In fact, I'll go one further and say that the alternative to UBI does no better. Do you know how many people buy food with their EBT card, and then buy cigarettes and lotto tickets with their cash? Even if you really feel deep down that poor people are incapable of making sound financial decisions, the same problem exists with service-based welfare programs.
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On August 09 2019 09:42 Dromar wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2019 09:35 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 09 2019 09:18 Dromar wrote:On August 09 2019 08:53 farvacola wrote:
The prices of simple goods targeted to and frequently consumed by the lower class would naturally rise in response to the sudden disposable income increase, ... Do you believe the above because you think that poor people are not price-sensitive, or do you believe that the sellers of all consumer goods would simultaneously conspire to gouge consumers rather than compete for them by undercutting their competition? Is there a third option I've missed that leads you to believe the above? To be clear I'm thinking things like food, appliances, etc, goods and services that are NOT housing, education, and medical costs. Those 3 are a completely separate topic from what I'm talking about (and what I think you're talking about here). If you believe what I've quoted above, do you believe that poverty is impossible to eliminate, because there will always be a group with the least money, and they will always be preyed upon (relative to groups that have more money)? ... and all kinds of easy credit would have their offer terms adjust in response the same way. The margins of poverty are not denominated in terms of sums like $1,000.00 a month, rather in 72+ month loans, 25+% interest rates on consumer credit, and 0% down adjustable rate mortgages Sure. Do you think that people having more money makes them more susceptible to these types of things? Do you think poor people are just financially stupid and can't help themselves from falling for these types of scams, so giving them money is just giving the scammers money, but with more steps? I really don't understand why you think people become more susceptible to scammers when they have more financial freedom. The examples you cite take advantage of poor people precisely because they have few financial options. Because they are poor, their only option to acquire a home/car/whatever is to take a bad deal. Imagine you're a door to door bullshit salesman. You sell some worthless product for exorbitant prices so you can get a small slice of that profit. You think your job gets easier or harder the month everyone's got a fresh $1000 in their pocket and credit offers up the wazzu in exchange for signing over that UBI to the creditor? In Yang's theoretical UBI, that second part is not legal. You cannot borrow against your UBI payment. Surely the bullshit salesman's job gets easier, if by no other virtue than having more customers. And I wouldn't argue that the very first month of people getting their UBI payment has a real chance of having some weird shit happen. But overall, if the person sells that much more, then perhaps the product isn't as worthless as we are assuming. The only other option, as I see it, is to essentially say that poor people are stupid and incapable of making sound financial decisions. And I am very far from ready to subscribe to that.
I haven't bothered to entertain his proposal enough to find every point it fails at but is it protected from bankruptcy? If not, then it's not protected from such a scheme other than rhetorically.
You're ascribing stupidity for what I think farv as well as myself would describe as a rigged game. It's not that they are too stupid and biologically incapable of making sound financial decisions, it's that their choices are rigged to start with. Which is one reason why other cash programs have similar issues.
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EPT
