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Given everything that is going on, the case should be fairly straight forward to build. In fact, Yang has bene on top of it since Covid19 took hold in America.

• Ididntdothis 6y ago
  UBI has a lot of practical problems. Why not start at universal health care or wider affordability of affordable housing and education? Without that any UBI will immediately be eaten up by rising prices in these areas.
  • JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    That's a common urban legend. The free market drives prices down, when demand goes up for flexible markets. It's easy to throw one or two economic terms around, but its a lot more complicated than 'people have more money == prices rise'.
    • ketanmaheshwari 6y ago
      I am really curious to learn more about why UBI will not drive the prices up. Could you indicate any articles that elaborate on this?
      • JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        Better question: why would it? Economics is complicated. In a free market there's no way to distinguish 'UBI money' from any other kind. Try jacking your price up - somebody else will have a sale and eat your lunch.
        • MiroF 6y ago
          But if everyone has more liquidity access, that drives prices up. You don't have to do something like distinguish UBI money for this to be true.
          • JoeAltmaier 6y ago
            Again, more buying means more production and reduced costs due to volume. Driving prices down. This happens too. As well a a dozen other things. Economics is complicated. Playing dot-to-dot across the space with cherry-picked examples is not very useful.
            • deleted 6y ago
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            • Ididntdothis 6y ago
              “more buying means more production and reduced costs due to volume. “ Not in housing, not in health care and not in education. In other sectors, yes.
              • JoeAltmaier 6y ago
                Not clear. They build new houses. Health care hires and expands. New schools open all the time. And volume decreases cost in those areas too. Now they may be over-regulated and broken; no argument there.
                • Ididntdothis 6y ago
                  Are you saying that housing, education and health care haven’t seen massive price increases over the last few decades?
                  • drunkonpappy 6y ago
                    He didn't say that at all He alluded to how those systems being over-regulated and broken prevent the usual economic factors from working. E.g. if you don't allow people to build new houses in certain places then that makes it quite easy for housing prices to go up in those areas
                    • Ididntdothis 6y ago
      • ImprobableTruth 6y ago
        It's not directly UBI, but strong welfare programs don't seem to drive up rent prices. Since UBI with a corresponding progressive tax is equivalent to welfare, I'd assume it'd have similar results.
    • MiroF 6y ago
      > That's a common urban legend. Try foundational macroeconomic principle. But it wouldn't even get that far, the Fed would just raise rates to offset the would-be increase in aggregate demand.
      • JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        What principle? Mistaking "money supply vs interest rates" for something else?
    • Ididntdothis 6y ago
      “people have more money == prices rise'.” I believe in markets with scarce goods and no alternatives this is the case. In healthcare you have no alternatives. And as long as housing supply is short, you have no alternatives there either. So people end up paying whatever is being asked for. In other markets more money won’t raise prices because the purchase is optional and there are competing alternatives.
  • happytoexplain 6y ago
    It seems to me that many people are trying desperately to push all of these proposals, and it's been a borderline immobile uphill battle on all fronts. If any of these gain traction, we should celebrate, rather than accusing people of not yet achieving the others. It also makes sense that UBI would be the first to reach the staging phase, since it's the easiest to explain and the easiest to implement. Of course, your concern is still totally valid if UBI will indeed be pointless without the other problems solved. I just wanted to point out how easy it is to say "start with universal health care and affordability of housing and education". That's a huge thing to "start with", and in fact we're already deep into the fight for them.
    • pessimizer 6y ago
      > It also makes sense that UBI would be the first to reach the staging phase, since it's the easiest to explain and the easiest to implement. As opposed to socialized healthcare, which has a long track record and a variety of implementations in every industrialized nation to use as inspiration? We would literally just have to expand programs that we already have (such as the VA or Medicare/Medicaid) to start. Healthcare free at the point of service also takes no effort to explain - the "Medicare For All" marketing is actually designed to explain how easy it would be to implement.
    • Ididntdothis 6y ago
      "Of course, your concern is still totally valid if UBI will indeed be pointless without the other problems solved. I just wanted to point out how easy it is to say "start with universal health care and affordability of housing and education". That's a huge thing to "start with", and in fact we're already deep into the fight for them. " If you can't solve these issues, UBI simply can't work. It's basically a distraction from urgent problems that should and could be solved now but may cost money. Considering that UBI is often pushed by billionaires I wonder if that's the secret plan.
  • yboris 6y ago
    A response to what happens to markets when people have more money: More people enter and participate in markets, which makes markets work better. Markets behave better with more participants than with fewer participants. UBI is a net positive on this point.
    • MiroF 6y ago
      Basic macro says this policy would increase AD, which would increase inflation in a vacuum. What would really happen is that the Fed would raise rates, which would increase the barrier to market participation and we would be back to where we started.
  • LAMike 6y ago
    Health is a spectrum. Mental health & physical health are problems easier solved with money. Most major cities have rent control of some sort, if not, it's not that hard to start new towns with nation wide UBI. There are other places in this country other than SF, LA and NY
  • alexashka 6y ago
    Because Andrew Yang is a people pleasing demagogue, who operates under 'everyone deserves the same number of basic goodies' and 'I am here for the under-privileged' as his core messages. Facing reality without cherry-picking problems the rich create while ignoring the problems the poor create would undermine his ability to people please the poor and get elected. It's all bullshit - I don't know how many Obamas and Yangs it'll take for people to realize that there is no benevolent politician that can make the problems of the poor go away without having the poor change their ways, the same way there is no trainer that can make you get in shape without you working your ass off. UBI or not - smart/creative people would rather not live among or deal with self destructive, dangerous dummies. Self destructive, dangerous dummies are being very actively replaced by robots who don't have the downsides of human beings. The only bargaining chip the dummies have, is that they are still necessary for the infrastructure to function. This power will be eroded away, until one day, the dummies' only argument will be that of a street beggar - won't you spare some change? And the smart/creative class will throw some change their way, they'll call it UBI.
• LAMike 6y ago
  "the case should be fairly straight forward to build" Jack built an app for this exact use case.