2020 US Elections | Biden certified as President | Dems control Congress

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The Firestarter said:
Can someone summarize how Yang is suggesting to find money for UBI again?
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From what I gather he said there are 200+ social programs being run by the government. UBI’s fund will simply be taken from the money already funding those, the programs would still exist but since people have a choice between UBI and those, there’ll no no extra cost.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
From what I gather he said there are 200+ social programs being run by the government. UBI’s fund will simply be taken from the money already funding those, the programs would still exist but since people have a choice between UBI and those, there’ll no no extra cost.
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Huge assumption.
You need structural changes.
Asking the top earners to pay more is simply being fair. There needs to be fairness in the tax structure.

Currently many social programs exist at State/County level. Federal laws have no impact on them.

Universal health Care is logical.
He is worth listening to though.
 
DavidDeSchmikes said:
Yang I think has appeared more times on Fox than CNN
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Which is crazy because he will say himself that all his ideas are progressive and align with the Democratic Party, and the responses at least from YouTube comments are all positive. And these are coming from republicans and trump voters. I’m sure the other networks in CNN and msnbc will give him airtime eventually, but you know how much they want to ride the Kamala Harris train.
 
Raoul said:
Fox likes him because he avoids criticizing Trump which gives him a bit of an apolitical aura. If he were to in any way gain political traction to where he gets anywhere near the nomination, you can bet the house the knives will be out about UBI, single payer etc.
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Should also be pointed out that he will and does criticize Trump, but doesn’t do much of it while on Fox.
 
Red Dreams said:
Huge assumption.
You need structural changes.
Asking the top earners to pay more is simply being fair. There needs to be fairness in the tax structure.

Currently many social programs exist at State/County level. Federal laws have no impact on them.

Universal health Care is logical.
He is worth listening to though.
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He also suggests a VAT for any type of transaction from the big technology companies, though I forget how comprehensive it will be. In the recent video, he mentions he would exclude common everyday goods I think. Part of it also pays for itself because people will spend it, which goes through sales tax or possibly a VAT, and it will help local economies as well as generate revenue. Would it balance the budget? I don’t know, but I think it’s worth the extra spending if it stimulates the economy and improves most people’s lives.
 
Florida Man said:
He also suggests a VAT for any type of transaction from the big technology companies, though I forget how comprehensive it will be. In the recent video, he mentions he would exclude common everyday goods I think. Part of it also pays for itself because people will spend it, which goes through sales tax or possibly a VAT, and it will help local economies as well as generate revenue. Would it balance the budget? I don’t know, but I think it’s worth the extra spending if it stimulates the economy and improves most people’s lives.
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VAT hits everyone. VAT on super expensive goods perhaps. But I think the rewards will be minimal.
Not just raising taxes. But closing the loopholes of money escaping US taxes by being kept in places like the Caymans needs to be closed. We talking Trillions.
Bernie has mentioned this.

We need to divert the gravy trains
 
Red Dreams said:
VAT hits everyone. VAT on super expensive goods perhaps. But I think the rewards will be minimal.
Not just raising taxes. But closing the loopholes of money escaping US taxes by being kept in places like the Caymans needs to be closed. We talking Trillions.
Bernie has mentioned this.

We need to divert the gravy trains
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How effective is VAT in Europe? And how easy would it be to close the loopholes and prevent the wealthy from gaming the system again? Genuinely asking.
 
I don’t know how it’s implemented but a tax on every google search and Facebook ad and amazon transaction seems like it could generate a lot of revenue.
 
Florida Man said:
I don’t know how it’s implemented but a tax on every google search and Facebook ad and amazon transaction seems like it could generate a lot of revenue.
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It would be a nightmare to track given that searches happen from all countries. A better way to raise revenue would be through Sanders' wall street speculation tax. There's loads of HFT and Algo driven trading that takes place in high volumes every day so taxing that sort of thing would raise a fortune.
 
Raoul said:
It would be a nightmare to track given that searches happen from all countries. A better way to raise revenue would be through Sanders' wall street speculation tax. There's loads of HFT and Algo driven trading that takes place in high volumes every day so taxing that sort of thing would raise a fortune.
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There’s no way google doesn’t track which search comes from where so the analytics should exist. But I don’t personally know how that translates to effectively establishing a VAT so...

I’m a fan of Bernie’s tax policies too btw.
 
Red Dreams said:
obviously you have not followed what happened in 2016.
You give it up.
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I followed it, that's how I know she beat him handily in the south and ran up the numbers there and elsewhere. Superdelegates were a factor yes but even without them she got way more votes and more delegates. Move on.
 
I wouldn’t class it as cheating. Hillary has the advantage though because of the Clinton machine and the high probability her “campaign” for president started the moment she conceded to Obama. If true, she’s had a 7 year head start on Bernie, where the latter was completely grass roots. He did well to get as far as he did last time.
 
Do people in the US realize that VAT is an end consumer tax ? All prices would just go up 20 or whatever per cent.

Taxing Google searches is such an unbelievably terrible idea, I am surprised people are even discussing it.
 
The Firestarter said:
Do people in the US realize that VAT is an end consumer tax ? All prices would just go up 20 or whatever per cent.

Taxing Google searches is such an unbelievably terrible idea, I am surprised people are even discussing it.
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if google start charging people for searches people will use something else, they'd just raise their ad pricing
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
From what I gather he said there are 200+ social programs being run by the government. UBI’s fund will simply be taken from the money already funding those, the programs would still exist but since people have a choice between UBI and those, there’ll no no extra cost.
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What is the budget of those programs ? The UBI in his idea would be close to 3 trillion per year which is close to 20 per cent of the US GDP.
 
Raoul said:
I'm no fan of superdelegates but he did know the rules before choosing to become a participant in the process, so its hard to feel sorry for him in that regard.
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perhaps he should also have expected the DNC to rig the debate times, prevent voters from being registered and rig even the Caucuses in certain states. Yes. he was cheated.

Now the DNC has changed the method. Fox Lite (CNN and MSNBC) are doing the work for the Republicans.

Forget the Polls though. Watch the presenters and guests anxiety.
 
Red Dreams said:
perhaps he should also have expected the DNC to rig the debate times, prevent voters from being registered and rig even the Caucuses in certain states. Yes. he was cheated.

Now the DNC has changed the method. Fox Lite (CNN and MSNBC) are doing the work for the Republicans.

Forget the Polls though. Watch the presenters and guests anxiety.
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He lost, get over it and focus on 2020.
 
Red Dreams said:
The DNC did not get their person in.

The American people lost.

Accept it.

We are over it.
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There's no such things as we. You're one person with an opinion. There are another 130 million or so voters who may have varyingly different views on a variety of different policies that they care about.
 
Raoul said:
There's no such things as we. You're one person with an opinion. There are another 130 million or so voters who may have varyingly different views on a variety of different policies that they care about.
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235 million*
 
Raoul said:
There's no such things as we. You're one person with an opinion. There are another 130 million or so voters who may have varyingly different views on a variety of different policies that they care about.
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Hmmmmm.

Either those who voted for Bernie in the primaries voted for Hillary or they did not in the GE
We are talking about 2020.

It is not logical to be looking back.

All I am stating is Bernie was cheated of a fair chance by the process being rigged. Are you seriously suggesting the process was fair? Not talking of the Super delegates.
 
Raoul said:
I meant among people who actually bother to vote. It would be great if the 235m voted.
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Its not that simple.

Its not like there are 130 people that vote in every single election and 105 million that never ever vote in elections. Just glancing at my facebook friends I see huge percentage that voted anywhere between 1-3 of the last 4 presidential elections. Even some of my closest friends who are politiphiles have missed voting in one of the last few presidential elections due to heavy workloads that week or simply being so disgusted with a choice between HRC and the Don they just didn't vote

So one error is dividing these people into two distinct groups when in reality the lines blur. In fact that was one of the biggest flaws of modern polling which the USC/Dornsife polling method proved far more robust than the outdated metrics for measuring "likely to vote".

Another problem is again, the media needs to stop blaming the people and start blaming the parties for regurgitating the two most shite candidates of all time (or at least since WW2). I can't blame anyone for not wanting to vote for Clinton and Trump. I blame the system and the two overly corporate parties for actively working against more people voting because that goes against their interests. Republicans know the higher the voter turnout the worse they do so they suppress it on numerous levels. And ironically the establishment democrats do the same in the primaries.
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
Its not that simple.

Its not like there are 130 people that vote in every single election and 105 million that never ever vote in elections. Just glancing at my facebook friends I see huge percentage that voted anywhere between 1-3 of the last 4 presidential elections. Even some of my closest friends who are politiphiles have missed voting in one of the last few presidential elections due to heavy workloads that week or simply being so disgusted with a choice between HRC and the Don they just didn't vote

So one error is dividing these people into two distinct groups when in reality the lines blur. In fact that was one of the biggest flaws of modern polling which the USC/Dornsife polling method proved far more robust than the outdated metrics for measuring "likely to vote".

Another problem is again, the media needs to stop blaming the people and start blaming the parties for regurgitating the two most shite candidates of all time (or at least since WW2). I can't blame anyone for not wanting to vote for Clinton and Trump. I blame the system and the two overly corporate parties for actively working against more people voting because that goes against their interests. Republicans know the higher the voter turnout the worse they do so they suppress it on numerous levels. And ironically the establishment democrats do the same in the primaries.
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Corporate Media bringing up this same crap again.
Get ready to blame the voter if their candidate does not win.

I know friends who voted for Bernie who either ended up not voting at all or even voting for Trump in the GE.

Its not their fault though.
 
Florida Man said:

Another great interview on the Breakfast Club. Check out the comments, nothing but positive remarks, and I bet most commenting lean more Democrat. Go to his videos for Joe Rogan and Fox News where the people commenting lean right or Republican and they are positive about him too.
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I like him on a lot of issues but ironically I really dislike the way he talks about UBI. He sounds like a market idealist when talking about UBI to me and not grounded in pragmatism at all.

For instance, when asked about corporations just raising prices he naively makes the same market fundamentalist analogy - "well if everybody starts charging 10 bucks for a hamburger then someone will charge 5 bucks and kill all the competition blah blah"

That is some naive idealism. It ignores that many important aspects of how markets really function in this era. We have things like private utilities (like PGE) that have local monopolies. Telecoms the same. Then you have planned obsolescence - raising prices is not the only way to graft more out of consumers, you can also make things last shorter. Or just give a little less in the first place like how the American alcohol companies redefined a pint to be a smaller size to squeeze more money out. Then you have big pharma and how they can price gouge for drug prices with their influence over the laws and regulations and their patents that prevent competition.

So I find it remarkably naive that Yang actually believes there is no way that corporations (which are fundamentally immortal profit maximizing entities giving the rights but not legal responsibility of a person) aren't going find ways to try to tap into that 1000/month increase. When I think of some of the company owners I have had the misfortune to work with I know their minds would be thinking "how can we get at that extra 1000=/month in any way possible".

In fact his arguments have basically sold me against the idea of UBI at this time. Its really pie in the sky market idealism and not what the US needs right now. Focus on medicare for all, special interest money out of politics, long term green new deal, greater corporate responsibility first. Then revisit UBI after smaller countries that already have established universal health care have experimented with minor UBI in about 10-12 years. His UBI idea is not right for the US right now until other underlying conditions have been met first. His reasoning really sounds like some naive high school market idealism.
 
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oneniltothearsenal said:
I like him on a lot of issues but ironically I really dislike the way he talks about UBI. He sounds like a market idealist when talking about UBI to me and not grounded in pragmatism at all.

For instance, when asked about corporations just raising prices he naively makes the same market fundamentalist analogy - "well if everybody starts charging 10 bucks for a hamburger then someone will charge 5 bucks and kill all the competition blah blah"

That is some naive idealism. It ignores that many important aspects of how markets really function in this era. We have things like private utilities (like PGE) that have local monopolies. Telecoms the same. Then you have planned obsolescence - raising prices is not the only way to graft more out of consumers, you can also make things last shorter. Or just give a little less in the first place like how the American alcohol companies redefined a pint to be a smaller size to squeeze more money out. Then you have big pharma and how they can price gouge for drug prices with their influence over the laws and regulations.

So I find it remarkably naive that Yang actually believes there is no way that corporations (which are fundamentally immortal profit maximizing entities giving the rights but not legal responsibility of a person) aren't going find ways to try to tap into that 1000/month increase. When I think of some of the company owners I have had the misfortune to work with I know their minds would be thinking "how can we get at that extra 1000=/month in any way possible".

In fact his arguments have basically sold me against the idea of UBI at this time. Its really pie in the sky market idealism and not what the US needs right now. Focus on medicare for all, special interest money out of politics, long term green new deal first. Then revisit UBI after smaller countries have already experimented in about 10-12 years. His UBI idea is not right for the US right now until other underlying conditions have been met first. His reasoning really sounds like some naive high school market idealism.
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These are all good points and he should be challenged with these. I disagree with you that UBI is not what is needed but I do agree to the extent that there needs to be more checks and balances to deal with the potential price gouging and greed of companies. There’s more to it than just which burger shop someone’s gonna eat at. He does well to explain many things, but there’s plenty of time to fine tune it more. Him and Bernie together would be a force if that can happen.
 
Florida Man said:
These are all good points and he should be challenged with these. I disagree with you that UBI is not what is needed but I do agree to the extent that there needs to be more checks and balances to deal with the potential price gouging and greed of companies. There’s more to it than just which burger shop someone’s gonna eat at. He does well to explain many things, but there’s plenty of time to fine tune it more. Him and Bernie together would be a force if that can happen.
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I just meant right now for the US. I am not opposed long term just at the moment until other things get fixed first which would make it less exploitable. I see it more in Europe or Japan or Australia first before coming to the US.
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
I just meant right now for the US. I am not opposed long term just at the moment until other things get fixed first which would make it less exploitable. I see it more in Europe or Japan or Australia first before coming to the US.
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Let’s say we can’t implement it as soon as 4 years but the problems of automation still exist and people still lose jobs in large numbers. What kinds of solutions could help deal with those effects that are achievable in our political climate? Im also asking generally and not at you specifically.
 
Florida Man said:
Let’s say we can’t implement it as soon as 4 years but the problems of automation still exist and people still lose jobs in large numbers. What kinds of solutions could help deal with those effects that are achievable in our political climate? Im also asking generally and not at you specifically.
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Affordable higher education is the only solution to that.
 
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