Prediction: UBI won't go anywhere, because it has a branding problem. If we rebrand it as a Negative Income Tax it may actually go somewhere.
back
8 comments
In Wisconsin we have zero corporate taxes, so they tried to explain the Foxconn "tax incentives" to us as a "negative income tax" for corporations.
Just saying that there may be some branding problems with that in the critical states. (And by critical, I mean the states that aren't going to just vote liberal or conservative anyway. Basically just a handful of states in the upper midwest. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, maybe Ohio and Iowa.)
That's what the "Freedom Dividend" branding is all about!
Dividend implies a share of the revenue. What happens when people start thinking about where the revenue comes from?
Nobody will ever think about that.
Does anyone think about where the "dividend" on their stock funds comes from? Free money!
It comes from taxes. Most Americans are supportive of taxing the rich if they get some sort of fair benefit, which a across the board dividend will be.
Why don't we try to increase tax revenue and pay down debt for a couple of years first, see how that works?
You can't win elections without giving stuff away, if there ever was a weakness of democracy in America, it would be that.
I don't think that's good enough. Dividend still have a connotation that you are getting a handout.
Yang says flat out that he calls it "Freedom Dividend" because that's the phrase that polled best. Maybe you can come up with a phrase that would poll better, maybe not.
Dividends have a real capitalist connotation, and who doesn't like freedom right? It's a dividend for being a US citizen, in theory you're contributing to civic life.
UBI is a handout is it not?
Not necessarily. If you think of resources as something we all own as citizens - like air, water, broadcast frequencies, patent offices, etc - then it's quite reasonable for Americans, as the owners of these resources that businesses profit from, to charge rent for the use of those resources.
This is how the Alaska Permanent Fund works. The oil underneath Alaska is considered the property of all Alaskans, both current and future. The state charges a substantial fee for its extraction, and redistributes it to all Alaskan citizens every year (about $1k-2k). And it's in a trust, so it will still be there for Alaskans even when the oil runs out.
I'm quite okay with my government charging a fee for the use of scarce common resources, and cutting me a check.
300M people x $1000 per month.
Where does that money come from? (taxes?). What will stop inflation from just negating that 1000 gain?
UBI doesn't have a political problem. It has a math problem.
Let's look at the other side. 65% unemployment.
Everyone is homeless, or starving or both.
These people used to spend 100% of their paycheck at Walmart, local grocers, fast food. Now they spend 0.
So big retail/fast food shops close, more jobs lost.
UBI puts money in people's hands --the people who spend it all in their own local economy.
They can do more to get some of that back through taxes so it's more like 'recycling'. People with money aren't going to commit crimes to feed their family. People w/ rent/food/health ins are happier, more productive, less stressed, and more motivated to work on self-betterment.
Hell, if I had an extra 2-3k/month from a UBI program, I'd quit freelancing and go all in my SaaS I'm building which if it's successful could have at least 10-20 new jobs created. How many other entrepreneurs could have better success if they didn't need to put in 50-60 hours a week on their day job?
You can say it'll never happen, because you think everything will always stay the same, but that's just not the case. 40% of jobs never to be replaced by 2030 is a solid estimation.
What is your suggestion with what we should do w/ that sector? You can't retrain when there aren't jobs for them to retrain to. Should we just euthanize anyone who hasn't worked in the past year or two?
He has answered this question a lot.
Yup. Cheerfully supporting those "unwilling to work".
Compared to the US, Montreal seems to have a larger proportion of people with “weird jobs”: artists and performers, but also small, non-VC backed startups with unusual ideas. I think part of the reason is the more generous social safety net: you can follow your dream of becoming a circus performer or building highly-instrumented clothes for athletic training, without worrying about ending up sick and broke. As a result, people are happier, the city is more interesting, and some of the innovations seem to be panning out.
I don’t actually know of anyone who is out-and-out abusing the system. I’m sure there may be some, but I think a lot of people seem disproportionately worried about someone, somewhere eeking out a meager existence vs. the possible benefits.
I think another reason is the cost of living in Quebec/Montreal is low because they don't allow foreign real estate speculators. You can still rent a one bedroom for ~$800 in Montreal in an area where you don't need a vehicle, or a studio for ~$600 that includes tennant insurance. It's even cheaper in Quebec City, $900 for a large 2 bedroom. In Vancouver or Toronto that same studio in an area where you don't need a vehicle would be well over $1k/mth which is probably why it seems more people with wacky jobs like street juggler live there and not in Vancouver or Toronto despite having a similar safety net.
It's not just speculators. Toronto and Vancouver have large foreign student populations who obviously need a place to live in. Most of them are not the cash-and-cars-flashing millionaires the newspapers constantly feature. Many are middle-class and had to take out loans from their community to afford the tuition.
In general, the major landing points for Canadian immigrants are Toronto, the GTA or Vancouver. The GTA is where the jobs are, so that's where people congregate.
There are some big employers based in Montreal, but you usually need to know French unless you're a developer or in an otherwise non-client facing role. You don't need French to get around in Montreal though, although of course it's appreciated if you make an effort.
Sure, there are a lot of reasons for cost-of-living differences. I think Quebec might have a stronger safety net: childcare and college tuition are considerably cheaper, for example, than in Toronto, and those are major expenses for many people.
I still think the broader point stands though: th city is fun because the cost-of-living (including fallback plans) is low enough that people don’t feel compelled to chase only income-maximizing careers. If I lived in New York instead, I think it’s much more likely that I would be in finance or something similar because I’d be only a few bits of bad luck away from destitution. In Montreal, I feel like I’ve got a reasonable life on a research scientist’s much lower salary.
What's stopping the U.S. from making it illegal for foreign real estate holdings? Take back all the real estate, and auction it off at reasonable values, would go a long way to fix the rent issues. We don't owe foreign nationals anything, you should have to be a U.S. citizen or legal resident living stateside to hold/own land in America. If you live in the house as a legal resident that's one thing, but if you live in mainland china, or hong kong, and are just 'holding onto the real estate' - they should give 1 year to sell or your property will be auctioned and you'll receive 50/50 split -- govt getting the other 50.
A dividend is something you get for owning an asset, actually. But yes, if we view payments for passive asset ownership as "handouts", well, yes, a "Freedom Dividend" would indeed be a handout.
And so would actual dividends for equity ownership, as accrued by the capitalist class.
So, if we want a Marxist take, your comment is pretty fair.
But doesn't the word "tax" already have an extremely strong negative connotation to much of the country? I think Universal Basic Income is already the most polished way of saying wealth redistribution.
Technically, a negative income tax is actually a different but similar policy proposal. It has the advantage that it requires a smaller increase in taxes overall and uses existing governmental infrastructure.
Yeah, I'm a much bigger proponent of a negative income tax, mainly because it doesn't disincentivize work as much as just giving everyone the same amount of money.
I don't think the incentive structure is all that different. You're still guaranteeing a certain amount of income to each individual. Where you set that income is probably the bigger deal. If you set it just below a living wage people will still be incentivized to work whether it's a UBI or negative income tax.
Milton Friedman called it that 50 years ago. Nixon proposed it to Congress in 1971. I don’t think associating with Friedman and Nixon is going to help with the branding.
Depends who you are trying to convince.
I would hazard to say many democrats are already convinced and that the GOP has drifted so far in the intervening years that you'll never convince it that UBI is anything but a scheme to turn the U.S. into Venezuala.
Much like other libertarian leaning candidates, a lot of supporters learn right (like, very far right). https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/9/18256622/andrew-yang-2020-...
That's the term evil neoliberal Milton Friedman used.
“Progressive Refund Adjustment”
Also because it’s a bad idea. I like Yang, but I would not vote for UBI.
Maybe mention what aspect you find bad (I mean there are definitely weaknesses and unknowns), and why the explanations on his policy site don't have you convinced: https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/
It goes over the common ones like how will we pay for it, is this too soon, will this cause inflation, will people not be incentivized to work, etc.
In short, $1000 isn’t anywhere close to enough to fix the problem, and if it was an amount large enough to fix the problem, I believe it would be extremely destructive to society.
The how to pay for it, while important, isn’t even a big concern for me. I think how to pay for it is a moot point.