Would (Freedom Dividend) Universal Basic Income work?

Recently I listened to a 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate on episode #1245 of the Joe Rogan Experience on YouTube.

Andy Wang was the candidate and he spoke at length about upcoming job shortages. He said that automation would make two jobs obsolete in the next 5-10 years. Those jobs being sales and Trucking with others to follow due to Ai.

His solution for Ai job reductions was to offer Universal Basic Income. Specifically his plan is called the Freedom dividend.

THE FREEDOM DIVIDEND
BRIEF

Andrew would implement a Universal Basic Income, ‘The Freedom Dividend,’ of $1,000/month, $12,000 a year for every American adult over the age of 18. This is independent of one’s work status or any other factor. This would enable all Americans to pay their bills, educate themselves, start businesses, be more creative, stay healthy, relocate for work, spend time with their children, take care of loved ones, and have a real stake in the future.

• Any change to The Freedom Dividend would require a constitutional amendment.
• It will be illegal to lend or borrow against one’s Dividend.
• If one does not graduate from high school, your dividend does not begin until 20.

A Universal Basic Income at this level would permanently grow the economyby 12.56 to 13.10 percent—or about $2.5 trillion by 2025—and it would increase the labor force by 4.5 to 4.7 million people. Putting money into people’s hands and keeping it there would be a perpetual boost and support to job growth and the economy.

https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend

Listening to the plan all I could think is how putting more money in the economy would lead to inflation. If landlords for example knew their tenets had 1,000 extra dollars what’s to stop them from upping the rent? Whenever their is an artificial supply of government money (welfare, Medicare) prices in those industries seem to increase for everyone.

I’m I mistaken about his Freedom dividend causing inflation?

 

No UBI won't work. Not only would it crash the economy, but it can't be paid for.

 

Does that include basic income for all the illegal aliens pouring across our borders?

What would Wang do about them?

 

He talks about his immigration policy on JRE as well I believe it’s amnesty. Ya you would think a policy like that would increase immigration. I just don’t think Universal Basic Income will help poor people but increase the prices for everyone

 

It seems to me there has always been some new emerging technology that will make workers obsolete (cotton gin, gas engine, computer etc) and historically that never seems to happen. The new technology forces jobs to shift somewhere else. In our system it’s fundamental that people have jobs so I have no doubt that the jobs will shift elsewhere or else the system collapses. I do think the AI is different than all the other technological advances in that in most/all ways it’s better a human but I think that just means that the jobs coming will be more obscure. Like wanting to hire a human to cook for you because you like a human touch better than Ai or having a human workforce produce your good as your products niche.

As far as UBI I know that a lot of people worry that it will take away worker incentive but to me that’s a secondary problem. The large problem that I see in 2020 presidential candidate Andy Wangs Freedom Dividend is lots of inflation. Maybe there are ways around that but I don’t believe I heard him speak about his ideas to curtail inflation.

 

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I think it will bankrupt the nation when Wang gives amnesty to 42 million latin Americans and puts them on the dole

 

People in the comments were loving the guy and maybe he has good intentions but UBI just doesn’t make sense from an economic standpoint

 

In fact Americans will end up sitting on their couches eating Cheetos and watching TV or playing video games.

 

You said it

 

If they can afford a couch Cheetos or video game after inflation lol

 

I’m pretty critical of UBI, but that doesn’t change the fact that Automation is going to replace allot of people. Transportation, and retail are going to be the two biggest industries affected.

 

Not manufacturing? Automation and other technologies will open up new career fields and expand existing ones. The only people that are going to be left behind are those that choose to ignore education and technical training. In other words, the same type of people will be left behind as are today.

 

Here's more:

 

Better plan:
1. Require time-and-a-half pay for all work past 40 hours per week and all workers, including contractors. Reduces unemployment and increases demand for labor, and will raise wages.
2. Require that all companies post their pay scales for all of the positions, the pay they are offering for all of their positions, and the pay for all positions people are interviewing for. In addition, the time off, healthcare benefits, etc, must be made available for all positions. Will increase wage competition and raise wages.
3. Ban and severely penalize all no-poach corporate policies. Will increase demand for labor and raise wages.
4. Require that companies provide 401K matching for all contributions up to 15% of salary and this apply to contractors. Will help employees retire and give them a share of the economic growth.
5. Remove tax loopholes for the wealthy.
6. Remove the Social Security income cap so all people pay the same social security rate.
7. Impose a 3% wealth tax on all wealth above 50 million and a 1% wealth tax on all wealth above 10 million. These taxes will help fund social security retirement, healthcare, and education.
8. Remove all business taxes for all businesses except the largest corporations, and keep the Trump tax cuts for the largest corporations. Will help small businesses and reduce monopolies.
9. Provide interest free income deducted loans and scholarships for relevant courses in in-demand majors to close the skills gap.
10. Remove the layers of red tape of building new housing, only allow building condos in cities, have a 5% rent increase limit, and a cap on interest on houses banks can collect.
11. Move to a cost-effective universal healthcare system.

 

All are better and more tangible ideas than UBI. I like 5-10 on your list. 11 is iffy for me but the way healthcare is set up now it’s doomed to fail, it’s between government funded and free market. I’ve learned in life halfway doing something is worse than doing nothing.

 

How will a study of 100 people be useful data?

 

My goals are to increase employment, increase demand for labor, increase wages, help smaller businesses and businesses in general, give ordinary people a strong share of company investments, help people afford retirement, close the skills gap, make healthcare, housing, and education affordable, reduce the wealthy's share of the economy by having them contribute more to public programs that help the country, and reduce the amount people pay in taxes or supporting excessive regulation.

As for healthcare, I think we should have a system with cost-effective public tax-payer funded insurance, and private insurance for anything fancy. We can have public hospitals that are more cost-effective and allow more expensive private hospitals.

 

I think your correct but I really think Ai in transportation is still kinda a ways off.

“Soon, we may well see the road filled with AVs. over 90 million autonomous-capable consumer vehicles, cars and light trucks will be on the road worldwide by 2023.

In order for this to happen, a fully functioning, safe AV needs an enormous amount of computing resources, power and AI that can sort through large amounts of data in milliseconds. The biggest challenge facing AVs is to improve the software powered by machine learning and AI to correctly interpret data that is fed through the car’s sensors. It needs to safely drive a vehicle through various weather scenarios and identify and respond to other cars, animals, pedestrians, bike riders and more. In other words, the AI that controls self-driving cars needs to be error-free.”

If they don’t already do solely AV roads they need to as human drivers seem to be hard to program for.

 

once AI is totally intrenched into society there will probably be less human interaction and Therapists who teach how to interact better with other people my be a necessary field to be in.

 

And one more MORON enters the race.

You will NEVER see job losses in trucking due to AI in your lifetime.

Any other job lost to AI can easily offset by DEPORTING 30+ MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS.

The CURE for poverty is the abolishing of all welfare programs. Sink or swim. Work or starve.

 

Yang? Who?

It is a Crackpot Idea, and Yang is NOT a serious candidate.

 

I agree that welfare raises food prices for everyone more money means suppliers can charge more. The people on welfare benefit where the people right above the cutoff suffer and really just anyone else buying groceries.

About Ai in transportation I agree the only way I could see it is if they had highways dedicated solely to AV travel minimizing human error programming imo

As far as deportation I would be ok with amensty and serious read serious immigration reform and border security. Deportation would be difficult because of political climate, logistics.

 

That was my take listening to him. Even if we come to a place where UBI is possibly necessary due to Ai I don’t think it will be anytime soon. I also don’t see a way around inflation that will hurt the people he wants to help.