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Every redistributive program that gives the poor more money increases demand for goods that poor people want - that's the whole point! It's no problem because

Every redistributive program that gives the poor more money increases demand for goods that poor people want - that's the whole point! It's no problem because supply can adjust to compensate - the exception to this is land, which is why a UBI ought to be funded with a land value tax. This is why Yang's UBI isn't very good, because it is sales tax funded (he's too much of a centrist to tackle land and capital, touching either of these things upsets rich people's delicate feelings too much). An underdiscussed advantage of UBI is that it's good even for those that don't get more out of it overall than they put in, because it spreads income out more evenly over the whole lifecycle (people generally have not enough money early in their careers and during child-bearing, and too much during later life and death).

tells 7y ago
I think it's smarter to go after automation and consumption than land value tax as of this moment. It's a lot harder to measure the true value of land compared to consumption. Also, the VAT can also be adjusted for non essential goods. Consumption is quite strong in this country. It's wise to target that.
- djrobstep 7y ago
  Spoken like a person who wants to perpetuate inequality. To fix inequality we need to directly redistribute land and capital - the things that rich people use maintain the class system
- benjiwengy 7y ago
  Consumption and automation are beneficial activities. Not smart to tax them. Excluding others from a valuable natural resource is deeply immoral unless compensation to those excluded is paid. The difficulty(or not) of measuring the "true value" of that compensation isn't a justifiable reason that we should as close to it as is reasonably possible.
jostylr 7y ago
The real downside of Yang's plan is not including children in it which is odd because he talks a lot about a UBI funding the work of parents staying home with their kids. The ideal scenario in my mind is a property tax, of some kind, that funds a UBI for children. Ideally, this would be at the federal level, but unfortunately property taxes have been deemed unconstitutional. This is likely true for wealth taxes as well. But there is nothing to prevent states and cities for instituting a property tax -> UBI setup. It would no doubt help greatly with the problem of "buy properties and do nothing with them" aspect of rich foreign investors in some regions. One of the things that Yang seems focused on is stuff that can actually be done. A wealth tax sounds nice, and he agrees with the spirit, but that is simply not a federal level option at this time. A constitutional amendment would be great to fix this, but that takes a long time and would require people to get out of survival mode to make this happen. So Yang takes the practical approach of getting money in the hands of everyone now using a tax scheme that seems to be inoffensive to wealthy people. It probably is not, but the only way to really know is to do it. As for the children, I am hoping this is also just a pragmatic thing. While it is hard to get this country to accept giving free money to other adults, it is even harder to imagine this country supporting giving money to "those people" with "lots of children". This is why schools are funded locally and why a UBI for children would need to be locally funded as well for now, particularly if the desire, as mine is, is to use land taxes.

tells 7y ago

I think it's smarter to go after automation and consumption than land value tax as of this moment. It's a lot harder to measure the true value of land compared to consumption. Also, the VAT can also be adjusted for non essential goods. Consumption is quite strong in this country. It's wise to target that.

djrobstep 7y ago
Spoken like a person who wants to perpetuate inequality. To fix inequality we need to directly redistribute land and capital - the things that rich people use maintain the class system
benjiwengy 7y ago
Consumption and automation are beneficial activities. Not smart to tax them. Excluding others from a valuable natural resource is deeply immoral unless compensation to those excluded is paid. The difficulty(or not) of measuring the "true value" of that compensation isn't a justifiable reason that we should as close to it as is reasonably possible.

jostylr 7y ago

The real downside of Yang's plan is not including children in it which is odd because he talks a lot about a UBI funding the work of parents staying home with their kids. The ideal scenario in my mind is a property tax, of some kind, that funds a UBI for children. Ideally, this would be at the federal level, but unfortunately property taxes have been deemed unconstitutional. This is likely true for wealth taxes as well. But there is nothing to prevent states and cities for instituting a property tax -> UBI setup. It would no doubt help greatly with the problem of "buy properties and do nothing with them" aspect of rich foreign investors in some regions. One of the things that Yang seems focused on is stuff that can actually be done. A wealth tax sounds nice, and he agrees with the spirit, but that is simply not a federal level option at this time. A constitutional amendment would be great to fix this, but that takes a long time and would require people to get out of survival mode to make this happen. So Yang takes the practical approach of getting money in the hands of everyone now using a tax scheme that seems to be inoffensive to wealthy people. It probably is not, but the only way to really know is to do it. As for the children, I am hoping this is also just a pragmatic thing. While it is hard to get this country to accept giving free money to other adults, it is even harder to imagine this country supporting giving money to "those people" with "lots of children". This is why schools are funded locally and why a UBI for children would need to be locally funded as well for now, particularly if the desire, as mine is, is to use land taxes.