Should he sell is 1m house to pay his 50k credit card debt that is due in a week? How quickly can he sell it even if he wanted to and how much will he actually get for it?
I am a Gen X and so are most of my friends and nobody believes that, in fact I don't know anybody that does believe that. Who believes their own personal debt is secondary? I am not gonna continue to discuss this particular point because I don't want to derail this thread, I just could not ignore the premise.
We also had over 70 million americans who wanted 4 more years of Trump. The system is not what the hate is about.
Since the VAT method of taxation is being discussed, it occurred to me that showing modern developed countries in Europe, most being members of the EU, that have a VAT and showing their rates might be useful. These countries tend to have universal healthcare and a longer life expectancy than our own. They also tend to get longer annual paid vacations than places of work in our country give American workers, and they actually take them.
Speak for yourself I don't know anybody that thinks that way. Did you not remember how the Republicans kept using the checkbook as a way to complain about the national debt. I think the line was individuals can only spend how much they make or if familys have to have a balanced budget why not government. Something along those lines, it was a republican talking point before Trump used to go after cutting medicaid and social security.
Not knocking what they are doing but they also have longer waits for healthcare, don't eat as unhealthy as we do and live in much more congested areas and walk more. They are also used to getting by with much less. We need to start talking about the full picture and not just cherry pick the things that sound great.
You sure about that? If D trotted out a candidate who also says he’ll cut welfare and close borders, you sure that person wouldn’t win in a landslide? You act like this is the first time in America’s history that we wanted nothing to do with the rest of the world.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean? You think D's vote because of the alphabet? Is that your argument?
If BUILD THE WALL! and JOBS! aren’t why 70 million Americans are for Trump, please do tell why you think they are for Trump.
OK. We got another one of those “holier than thou” people. And you wonder why 1/2 of the country tune you out. But you just keep on believing those who do not see eye to eye with you are irrational. That’ll take you far in life.
You assume interest in winning them over. Rubes will always follow the next con man calling himself a politician.
Have you been there? I've been to Europe several times, starting in the 1960's, and while most of the countries I'm talking about are in the EU, they are quite different from each other. The UK from France, France from Germany, and those three from the Scandinavian countries, for example. That includes the kind of healthcare they have. Also, I'm not sure what you mean about "congested areas." The Netherlands has 1300 people per square mile and is ranked 20th in population density according to the United Nations, yet it has plenty of open countryside. It certainly has never felt "congested" to me. They live differently than we do in many ways. They have a highly developed transportation system, so the country isn't covered with massive freeways, like Houston is, for example. The country has one of the best healthcare systems in the world. Our lifespan averages 78.54 years (2017). That of the Netherlands is 81.5 years, a significant difference.
Some people here are overestimating the amount of people that would qualify for this, especially if you incentivized workers by making this for workers and the disabled. That would bring the cost down to the Yang estimated range. The other thing is people here are not grasping how a VAT is rolled out. This is not taking money from the poor to give it back to the poor, unless the poor start buying luxury items with it. If they are responsible with their purchases, and thinking hard about the added cost may lead them to avoid luxury purchases, they are jeep ng the money and spending it on items like healthcare or childcare.
Thanks for making this thread; I think it's a very important discussion. From the above and from your OP, it seems your idea of UBI is that only the employed would receive it? Because that's quite different from Yang's plan. A lot of you may not know that America almost got a sort-of UBI back in the 70's, under Nixon. No joke. Nixon and the republicans had a Basic Income plan ready to go but the democrats sunk it because they disagreed with the implementation. Although the UBI will be attacked as socialist/communist, there are some libertarians who feel that a Basic Income fits very well within their ideology. https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/libertarian-case-basic-income For those interested, I suggest you watch this interview of Yang on the Ben Shapiro Show: If you want to see a fiscal conservative politely attack Yang's Freedom Dividend from every angle, and watch Yang very politely and thoroughly reply to all points, give this a watch. Really makes you wish we could have more intelligent, good-faith debates. We're headed for a post-scarcity, post-labor economy and neither the social democrats nor the fiscal conservatives have answers for how we're going to manage existing there. I'm not convinced that UBI is the magic bullet but we have to research the hell out of it (luckily we'll have numerous interesting studies in Europe) and see what the potential is. Other than the obvious first question of how we can pay for it, my main concern is, if we implement it universally without conditions, how many people will drop out of the work force and subsist on the minimum. Some percentage will, but how many? I work in the arts and I'm surrounded by people who are very smart and capable but have foregone more lucrative careers to pursue their passion. There are countless millions of creative people, including entrepreneurs and inventors, who desperately want to leave their day job (or go part time) and focus on their passion. I think any nation that implements UBI will see their creative output, artistic output, and entrepreneurial risk-taking EXPLODE. Can you imagine the kind of revenue the retail sector would see if you put a trillion dollars into the hands of the poor? It would be record-breaking. Cash would FLOOD into the economy. Millions and millions of dollars pumping into every small town in the country, into the hands of people who would spend it. The positives would be huge, but the negatives could be huge too. Hard to sell a multi-trillion dollar idea when it's so hard to forecast what would happen.
@Nolen, I like Yang's plan, but I did intentionally slightly deviate from it, as I think it's a compromise for both sides in order to stimulate and incentivize being a part of the workforce, and also as a way to lessen the burden of welfare.
