One other common theme from the "Democratic" debates tonight

His plan would be amazing in Norway or Qatar. Not so much in a country like ours.

I am a fan of yang - was first drawn to him as a genuine, smart person with a focus on the future problems. Thought a lot of his ideas were insane at first but the more I read and listened, the more he made sense. (If it matters I'd never vote for bernie or warren or the like and am more of a conservative leaning moderate / independent)

I'll paraphrase a few of his talking points - and will also see if I can find a good YouTube of where he goes into this. His long interviews are much better and give you the sense that he has has a lot more substance to his policies than most people.

- he says that generally speaking, the main "inflation" that has been killing the average american lately has been seen in rising housing costs, healthcare and education. I dont look at this board much but I believe most people would agree the costs 2nd two have been increasing due more to business practices than true inflation (he also has mentioned plans to make sure landlords dont price gouge I think) 7Prices on many consumer goods and things like that typically have been falling with tech and other advancement.

- disregarding those three itema for this discussion, because the VAT will be implemented along with his UBI proposal, the majority of americans purchasing power will increase even if the VAT causes 10% inflation as a person who spends $120,000 annually on consumer goods would essentially break even (as the $12,000 ubi would offset their 10% increase in UBI).

- he also notes that competition for our dollars would still exist and if your local restaurant decided to upcharge all the sudden most people would be price conscious and go to the restaurant around the corner.

Long story short, the VAT will cause some forms of inflation and would be a problem without UBI; however, since he plans to put that money into consumers hands - the result will be an overall increase in purchasing power for most americans (which will help spur the economy, particularly in small towns and local businesses)

ETA: he also makes some commentary about how we arent actually increasing the money supply and some of the total sticker price of his UBI is already being paid out in current welfare programs so the actual increase in dollars in our economy would result in only minor inflation. That sort of discussion is above my understanding and I thought the first bullets were more to your point.

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Again I'll see if I can find a good video explaining, he also has a lot of his policy stuff outline on his website unlike most candidates. Also happy to try and answer any questions from curios people - I've become a big fan of his and am happy he has at least moved the govt conversation about automation into this century.

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I'm not a fan, but in the closing remarks he said he will be doing a 10 hour Q&A on Friday.

How do more taxes improve purchasing power?

Do you realize the average length of a mortgage in Sweden is 140 years?

Here's what Yang and most Lefties don't seem to grasp; Government/taxes destroy purchasing power, they don't create it.

Government spending (and yes, taking from some to give to others is government spending) isn't what creates purchasing power. Capital investments do.

Having government take even more money out of the productive sector's hands so they can spend even more on vote harvesting schemes will hurt, not help, the very people they claim to care about.

You want to help poor people? Then advocate for policies that lead to more capital investments, not more power in politician's hands.

So his argument is he is putting more money in people's hands so they can make choices. However my point is that every good rises wiping out this surplus for 90+% of the population. Yea i guess for a very extreme few who are wise enough not to spend it and save it and find ways to invest it, it could be good. But the amount of young entrepreneurs who go this route are so few and far between.

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Any Yang fans in here? So ive heard him talk a few times. The most lengthily on JRE. I have yet to really hear him pressed, so not answered on how implementing universal income would affect this country once inflation was accounted for. Has this ever been answered? I just imagine all goods would just be increased therefore making the universal wage increase meaningless to actual net income. Im open to learning why im wrong just havent heard it answered yet. Thanks.

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Supposedly it's getting funded with a national sales tax. If it truly did (doubtful) then obviously you wouldn't see price inflation, though in practice for the consumer there's not much difference between a sales tax or price inflation.

More to the point though, even if prices did go up (and they probably would, with or without a sales tax), some people are going to gain more than they lose in the exchange. The average American makes roughly $40,000 a year, so Yang's UBI would increase their income by 30%. Prices would have to increase 30% before they've lost out in real terms. If they only go up 10% (which would be quite the spike) then you're better off if your income went up 30%. Better to make $52,000 a year and have $33,000 in expenses than to make $40,000 a year and have $30,000 in expenses. For half the country the deal is even better, and you have to be spending quite a bit of money before it costs you unless the inflation is really high. For instance, if the spike were 10%, you'd need to be spending $120,000 a year for inflation to offset your $1,000 a month.

And I don't mean to say that's how it would actually play out. I have no idea how much inflation you'd actually see. Maybe you would see enough to offset any realistic gains for most people.
Further, Yang's made what was in my mind a ridiculous statement--that he would punish "white supremacists" and other double plus ungood thinkers by rendering them ineligible for UBI--which completely ruins the whole idea. Since inflation affects everyone, tying the force that's supposed to offset inflation to adherence to certain political views is odiously coercive.
All in all, I'm not big on it or him.

But that's the theory behind it. I don't think it's fundamentally unsound, which I did going into it. I do not trust the implementation at all though.

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The same line of thinking was started in the industrial revolution. It didn't happen then and it won't happen now because automation ends up creating new jobs too. Agricultural machinery didn't put us on our asses, it paved the way for once-preoccupied humans to become computer programmers. Thus the problem is not unemployment but displacement as older jobs stop existing but much of the labor force is too old to start a new career.

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This really is different in one big respect. The creation of more efficient tools and ultimately of mass production didn't invalidate people as an economic input. Agricultural machinery didn't put people on their asses because people were still needed to work the machines. You just only needed 1 guy instead of 10. The other 9 figured out something else to do. In that respect this form of "automation" of a sort was a boon, because someone somewhere needed to hire workers, so freeing up workers to do something else was ultimately good.

The difference here is that we're not talking about the car rendering the horse carriage obsolete, we're talking about robots rendering people obsolete. Aside from a few select jobs which will always need people and which generally require some kind of above-average cognitive ability, there is no "freeing up to do something else." People are increasingly becoming economic dead weight.

That doesn't necessarily mean that paying them $12,000 a year is the answer, but I'm glad Yang is at least out there bringing attention to the issue, whatever one might think about the solution he proposes.