Comments

1

Yang 2020. Yang Gang came out and supported our boy. Thanks for the coverage.

2

Yang Gang, dude. No bots. No Russians.
He was the 2nd person to announce, ffs.

You're late.

3

it takes sharp political sense & open mind to see how a grassroots movement may turn into a revolution that changes the course of the history. so thank you for your report. if Andrew Yang ever goes far, you'll be proud that you reported him first! :D

4

I’m a real fan of Andrew Yang. I live in Houston, and ‘discovered’ him on the Freakonomics podcast. We want to see his big, and better thought out, ideas discussed in the Democratic primary debates. Check him out at https://www.yang2020.com

5

No such thing as earning $1K a month without working for it. He must mean redistributed extortion payments from other people's money.

6

Keep pushing that UBI, my man. Get it in the public consciousness. That said, I won't vote for you. Can't trust any newcomer to politics from industry. Sorry, dude. Good luck though!

@5 Yeah, you're only for the rich taking from the poor. Don't worry. There's plenty of candidates for you to vote for in every election in every year.

7

@5,

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”

― Buckminster Fuller

8

Seems like an alright dude. He's probably better personally qualified to be president than most of the competitors, but I don't think he has what it takes to win a campaign. The people who make the best leaders almost by definition don't want to do the things that are required to get into the position to lead (at least, on a national basis - you have to have a hunger that most well-tuned people lack)

9

Yang seems like a very nice guy. He seems like a very smart guy. He is also thoughtful, and creative. Good for him. That doesn't mean he is qualified to be President. Buckminster Fuller, was a brilliant visionary, well ahead of his time. But he would make a poor President.

To be an effective President you need to be able to manage the political apparatus that is the U. S. government. Experience is essential. Yang wants to be President even though he has never had a government job. It is a ridiculous leap, and one that no one in 100 years has accomplished well. The only guy that has even attempted that is a buffoon, and hardly a good example of how to run a government.

I keep going back to the basketball example. Imagine if Howard Schultz -- also a smart, relatively nice guy (although probably not as smart, nor as nice as Yang) -- decided he wanted to coach the Knicks. He is a big basketball fan, after all. He is passionate, engaged, and really cares about the players. Would he make a good coach? Fuck no! He is completely unqualified. He has never coached little league, let alone anything as complicated as college or the NBA. He would suck as an NBA coach, and so would Yang.

Which begs the question -- why do people think experience is more important when coaching basketball than it is when you are President of the United States?

10

Lol Raindrop are you really trying to tell us you've never heard of capital gains?

11

I must be missing all the sweat running off these hard working investors making money because they have money to invest

12

$1000 and free weed and I'm in!

13

"The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.” --Bucky Fuller, via Urg

Then what business will those worried about others not working do?

@11 -- They may not be breaking much of a sweat, but, at least, they're taxed
at a Much Lower Rate than are those who MUST work, sweat and toil are.

I wonder whose bright Idea that was...

14

@9 Yes yes yes. Why not run for senator or even congress for fucks sake? Get some experience first.

15

@12 until the rest of us can get legal recreational cannabis at any price, Evergreen State residents might want to consider being content with having weed so cheap it might as well be free.

16

@10: Only the very wealthy live off of capital gains, most of us liquidate assets only when necessary.

LOL yourself.

17

@7: Typically, such utopias exist in the afterlife. I trust Bunkminster is contemplating immortality in a celestial geodesic dome, perhaps conversing with Plato over ice tea and cucumber sandwiches.

18

@5 Actually, while he suggests initially making capital gains, carried interest, and labor-earned income to be taxed at equal rates, he'd like to phase out those forms of taxes altogether in time. The dividend would rely primarily on a value-added tax, allowing us to generate revenue from those companies operating in America who hide their profits offshore to avoid taxes, and a financial transaction tax aimed at those using automated trading algorithms. This would be accompanied also by replacing food stamps, welfare, disability, homelessness services, prisons, etc. It's essentially a libertarian approach to providing a social safety net, putting spending power directly into our pockets rather than filtering it through 500+ separately administrated welfare programs. It's not terribly different from the revenue generation that Bernie Sanders suggests, but instead of putting it towards school tuition which would only benefit about 30% of the population, it goes to everyone. And we haven't even started talking about the economic growth opportunities. Imagine any rural town of some 50,000 citizens, and consider if their economies wouldn't benefit from an additional $600 million dollars annually in consumer spending power.

19

So the easily manipulated poll did push me to check this guy out. And I do like his ideas.

But I've learned lessons from 2016. One is this: I don't want a political neophyte in the White House. I want someone who not only can come up with good ideas, but can actually make them happen.

Look at Trump and his signature issue: his wall. Bad, dumb policy, yes. But just as significant is the fact that he can't make it happen. Part of that is because Trump is dumb and lazy. But part of it is also the simple fact that he doesn't know how the federal government works.

From my brief look at him, I think Yang has a place in a Democratic administration. Perhaps as a cabinet secretary. Or maybe he should run for the Congress or Senate and get some of his policies enacted. Or maybe he should run for governor of wherever he lives and gain executive experience.

After Trump, anyone who thinks a career in business (by itself) is a good preparation for the highest office in the land is a moron.

20

@9: William Randolph Hearst made an attempt for the presidency in 1904.

Or maybe it was Charles Foster Kane?

21

@19 That's a perfectly respectable position :) I think the goal for many of us, Andrew included, is to present these ideas to the country. It deserves a debate, and if given fair hearing, we believe many will agree that it finally provides an approach to providing a social safety net that is fairly distributed, cheaply administrated, and provides a foundation for real economic and social empowerment. Regardless of which candidate proceeds to the general election, we only stand to benefit by having this conversation as a people.

22

Thanks for the well-written article, I want Andrew Yang on the Debate stage, so American people will have a chance to get to know more about him & Universal Basic Income. Many career politicians are outdated, they cant see that Automation will bring drastic changes to our society.

Many people are concerned that Yang didnt hold public office before, Yang has great knowledge about governing, also very good people skills--that's what a leader needs. We have had at least 5 Presidents who had never been elected to public office before becoming President: Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Donald Trump. your Junior Senator Obama had less executive experience than Yang.

I do think Yang is a qualified candidate, but its up to him to prove to the whole Nation.

I will not vote for anyone who is over age of 70. I set Age limits: 35-70. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Donald J Trump are eliminated from my book.

23

His platform supports fighting climate change and he is also into "human-centered capitalism." This would seem to align with United Nations Agenda 2030, which is financed by the world's richest, most powerful people -- central banking families. They finance these efforts since they own most of the world's resources that we consume. Research the history of the Black Venetian Nobility since they created the first central bank in history -- the Fondo in Venice, Italy -- and they are still in power today, owning and controlling the 162 private corporate central banks worldwide. They coordinate the efforts of these 162 central banks via the most powerful corporation on the planet -- the Bank for International Settlements, in Basal, Switzerland. These are the people who own and/or control perhaps 95% of the planet.

24

He's cute. But UBI is libertarian bullshit .he intention of UBI is not and has never been to alleviate poverty. It can't, as in any market-based economy, the prices of goods, rents and services will rise in response to the increased income that UBI provides to those who would otherwise have no income at all. In other words, if an apartment in a heavily impoverished area- say, Tilicum- costs $700 per month now, introduce UBI sat a rate sufficient to ensure survival such as maybe $2100 per month, and the rent will rise in response to that as landlords in Tilicum realize they can charge $1400 a month and still get people to pay that much, thereby negating whatever beneficial effect the UBI has.

The problem isn't the income of the recipient, its the market itself. So long as there is an incentive to raise prices, or even the perception that by doing so you can get more money by charging higher prices, prices will rise. UBI is like placing a band-aid on a cancer patient. It does nothing to help the patient (the poor) survive the cancer (markets).

25

"libertarian approach to providing a social safety net"

There is no such thing, Safety nets exists thanks to redistribution of wealth that is antithetical to libertarianism (or what has become to be known as libertarianism in the US ,i.e. anarchocapitalism)

"economic growth"

for how long considering.finite resources and ecosystem limits?

26

@24 -- Nonsense. You are basically describing a devaluation of the dollar (i. e. inflation). If suddenly people have twice as many dollars, then prices will double. But that is not what is proposed. This is a set amount of money that goes to everyone. For many people, it won't matter. The plan is to pay for it with taxes, which means it would simply be a redistribution of income measure. The landlord in Detroit doesn't want to raise prices, because someone else would keep them low. Any area that has a surplus of housing (like Detroit) will continue to see low rents.

27

@24 -- By the way, housing is a terrible example, because it is often artificially constrained by zoning regulations. This is certainly the case in Seattle, where only a fraction of housing can be built to meet the demand.

A better example is fast food. A lot of low income Americans spend a substantial amount of money on fast food. If suddenly they were given a lot of money, a business like Taco Bell might raise their prices. But they won't, because then they will lose business to McDonald's. McDonald's is afraid of losing business to Burger King, and so on.

That is why Social Security, for example, has not lead to big increases in food prices. Social Security has been a huge success, and the money that goes out to seniors and those on disability has not been eaten up by general inflation, or inflation on low income based goods. There is just too much competition. Too many businesses willing to lower their prices (and still make a profit) while customers still want to pay lower prices.

28

@5 Yes, we know you're just an ignorant drip, but no, taxation is only theft when the workers who actually do the work are takes more than their employers who grow rich of their labor. Yang is not a Socialist, not even remotely. He is, however, intelligent enough to know that "taxation is theft" Libertarians are complete morons, and taxation is the price we pay for society. He's also informed and tech savvy enough to see where automation and expert systems are going. He recognizes that with the technological changes we will see in the near future, we will see the normal rate of unemployment (the rate when everyone who wants a job has one) rise from its current 4-5% rate to over 50%, as jobs vanish to automation. Universal Basic Income is not a liberal hand-out, it is capitalists paying Guillotine Insurance to save their necks. You, more than others should be supporting this, as it is a measure to keep the workers content, and not ripe for organization by those of us on the Far-Left who would gladly use their fears for their children to rally them to the Revolution, and radicalize them as Marxist Revolutionaries.

29

28

"Universal Basic Income is not a liberal hand-out, it is capitalists paying Guillotine Insurance to save their necks.

You, more than others should be supporting this, as it is a measure to keep the workers content, and not ripe for organization by those of us on the Far-Left who would gladly use their fears for their children to rally them to the Revolution, and radicalize them as Marxist Revolutionaries."

Well said, Greenwood_Bob.

30

@22,

"5 Presidents who had never been elected to public office before becoming President: Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Donald Trump."

Interesting! Hadn't thought about that before (and I read a fair amount of presidential history). It really does speak to experience. Of those 5, only Eisenhower has a favorable rating, though to be fair, he was president during a time when the US truly was a superpower and had an incredibly strong economy. Taylor died early in office, but he probably resembled Trump more than any other president... obnoxious, stubborn, and couldn't get along with anyone. Grant was easily manipulated and fooled (RE: lack of political experience) and his administration was wracked by scandals. Hoover was completely out of touch with the country and stubborn as well, clinging to economic strategies to fix the depression even when they were proven failures. And of course, Donnie. Too early to tell what his legacy will be (though it certainly doesn't look very rosy right now). Maybe he'll follow the path of Taylor and die in office from food poisoning? Probably would be the best ending we could hope for.

31

@22 & @30 As far as Eisenhower goes, yes, he wasn't elected to anything prior to his Presidency, but he did spend an entire career in the DoD (along the way playing an instrumental role in winning WWII).

I'd argue that that constitutes significant experience with how the federal government works.

32

@7 ahead of his time. The majority of human labor is make-work.

33

@30: Note that of those five, three had military experience and Hoover was a Secretary of Commerce - only Donald Trump only had total "civilian" experience.

34

@31 I would add that Eisenhower's remarkable success as "supreme commander" of Allied forces in Europe in WWII was as much political as military. To in anyway compare Eisenhower with a empty shell of a human being like Trump is laughable in the extreme. And I'm a Democrat!


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