Quote: (04-11-2019 08:51 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  

Quote: (04-11-2019 08:28 PM)eradicator Wrote:  

We’ve already displaced human workers for entire industries such as farming, mining, and manufacturing. Trucking, phone reps, retail employees are up next. A ten percent vat would cover the cost for UBI , according to yangs math at least.

You really think 1K/month of government welfare is enough for these displaced people to live on? Especially if everyone is having to pay an extra 10% for everything they consume? Like I said, that 1K will get eaten up having to pay an extra 10% for everything. Yang is trying to build a perpetual motion machine which won't work.

Step 1: lose your job as a trucker.

Step 2: Move to Wyoming or anther state with 300/mo rent costs.

Step 3: cash your yang bucks and check out from society.

That is a lot better than some of the options

Step 1: lose your job as a trucker.

Step 2: Rage

Step 3: organize with other displaced workers to burn down and riot at the major financial centers and go after the elites that you blame for the loss of your livelihood(this will be a long list). If a man loses everything, he likely will look at the world a bit differently. He has already lost everything, and has nothing to lose.


I see the VAT/UBI as a straight wealth transfer from the most wealthy americans to the poorest. I guess it depends how we set up the VAT, if it is like Australia where food, basic health care and education are exempt from VAT, then I don't see how the VAT will be the catastrophe you make it out to be. Suddenly the poorest americans can pay off their debts and use the extra money on other things, as their costs won't change with VAT but they get an extra 1000/month.

I'm in New York City and have a rent stabilized apartment, but I fear for people without stabilized apartments in such a scenario.

Quote: (04-11-2019 09:09 PM)Kid Twist Wrote:  

Quote: (03-22-2019 10:28 PM)Kid Twist Wrote:  

You forget that Trump came along after a 2 term president. Trump as incumbent, having been successful in many ways, and himself the first outsider, makes any newcomer like Yang, already a super longshot.

Throw in his physically weak appearance and presence, and he essentially has no shot. Add a dash of totally chaotic Democrat Party, and he's got what we all know, but what I'm still surprised you don't get --- he's got no chance.

Why do I have to re-post this?

Man, there's a lot of kool aid drinking going on here

Bernie was very much an outsider in 2016 and probably should have won if not for the rampant cheating within the democrat party. Trump successfully won the Republican nomination and the general election because your average voter is sick of career politicians and want to vote for a populist candidate. The democrat field is full of swamp creatures and most voters(democrat, republican, independent) are sick of it. I think Yang and Bernie have a decent shot at winning the Democrat nomination, a lot of it will depend on how much cheating they do.

Quote: (04-11-2019 06:39 PM)eradicator Wrote:  

Quote: (04-11-2019 06:33 PM)911 Wrote:  

Quote: (04-11-2019 05:50 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  

Ummm am I missing something here or isn't UBI just another fancy term for welfare? For us all? Oh wait, I forgot, guys like me who make too much won't be eligible for it but I'll sure get to pay for everyone else to get it. Oh goody, like I don't pay enough in taxes already.

White males pay close to 80% of taxes, but only get back ~20% back. With UBI, we'd pay a slightly smaller percentage, and get $12,000/yr back.

Right, the more I think about it, I have a hard time believing even a democrat controlled congress would pass the sort of UBI that Yang is advocating for. It largely benefits straight white men and straight couples that do not currently benefit from welfare or food stamps.

Currently, the extreme left such as Kamala and Castro are advocating for slavery reparations to fire up the democrat base. Yang bucks don't really benefit the democrat base as they are already mostly on some sort of government hand out(a lot of people, a lot of democrats in particular are on food stamps)

UBI is basically a middle class positive welfare reform, in a system where the bottom and minorities get welfare and the top get tax breaks. It takes out the current imbalance in the system, which penalizes working/middle class.

Quote: (04-11-2019 09:15 PM)911 Wrote:  

UBI is basically a middle class positive welfare reform, in a system where the bottom and minorities get welfare and the top get tax breaks. It takes out the current imbalance in the system, which penalizes working/middle class.

In an ideal scenario, yes. I could easily see how this doesn't pan out, that democrats won't want to vote for their own presidents bill because it doesn't effect their constituents if they are in a largely poor district, so they add amendments to his UBI bill and it gets completely fucked. I can easily believe that congressmen like AOC could try to fuck up a Yang presidency because it isn't in line with what she wants, so they try to change it. And then we are all fucked.

Currently, many American jobs are fucked regardless, I'm willing to risk it. If Yang doesn't win, yes I would vote for Trump because the rest of the field, except for Tulsi, who is already being shut down, is a train wreck.

I think those of you who think the Dems won't support UBI are wrong. Besides Yang, at least Gabbard, Sanders, and Buttigieg have all indicated their open to it. Here is video of all of them speaking about it:






With Yang's popularity, the UBI concept will only gain more and more traction. Meanwhile, Dems will be supportive because the progressive wing will be for it, the minorities who aren't receiving welfare (yes, they exist) will be all for it, and many of the minorities who ARE receiving welfare would still prefer this because it won't have all the strings attached. $1000 strings free > $800 - $1200 with all kinds of monitoring requirements.

Quote:[url=https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1116522509338337280][/url]

From the article:

Quote:Quote:

Widespread closures have roiled the retail industry, but many more stores are likely to shut down in coming years to keep up with a shift to online shopping, according to a report by investment firm UBS.

An estimated 75,000 stores that sell clothing, electronics and furniture will close by 2026, when online shopping is expected to make up 25 percent of retail sales, according to UBS. Roughly 16 percent of overall sales are made online.

Analysts said the closures would affect a broad variety of retailers, affecting an estimated 21,000 apparel stores, 10,000 consumer electronics stores and 8,000 home furnishing stores.

Already this year, retailers have announced plans to close thousands of stores as they keep up with changing consumer habits. Payless ShoeSource, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February, is closing all 2,100 of its U.S. stores, while Gymboree is shuttering its 800 locations. Sears, which has closed 1,300 Kmart and Sears stores since 2013, is scrapping an additional 80 locations. A number of other retailers, including Gap, have hinted that store closures are on the horizon.

I just walked by a closing Payless Store, too. Had the dude standing outside with the big sign saying "Big sale! Everything must go!"

Ok so what happens when people decide 1K a month isn't enough anymore, they want a raise to 1500 because the rampant inflation that has been caused by this scheme has rendered the 1K insufficient for their needs. It's human nature to always ask for more. What then? Raise the VAT to 20%? This how socialism fails every time which is what this is.

Also,

Quote:[/url]

Hadn't occurred to me that Uber/Lyft are basically fighting to hold on long enough until autonomous driving tech becomes proficient enough to cut out drivers. Considering the drivers get 80% of the fare and all the tip, Uber getting rid of the people behind the wheel would be very beneficial for them.

[url=https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/11/uber-spent-457-million-on-self-driving-and-flying-car-rd-last-year/]https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/11/uber-s...last-year/

Quote:Quote:

Uber spent $457 million last year on research and development of autonomous vehicles, flying cars (known as eVTOLs) and other “technology programs” and will continue to invest heavily in the futuristic tech even though it expects to rely on human drivers for years to come, according to the company’s IPO prospectus filed Thursday.

R&D costs at Uber ATG, the company’s autonomous vehicle unit, its eVTOL unit Uber Elevate and other related technology represented one-third of its total R&D spend. Uber’s total R&D costs in 2018 were more than $1.5 billion.

Uber filed its S-1 on Thursday, laying the groundwork for the transportation company to go public next month. This comes less than one month after competitor Lyft’s debut on the public market. Uber is listing under the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “UBER,” but has yet to disclose the anticipated initial public offering price.

Uber believes that autonomous vehicles will be an important part of its offerings over the long term, namely that AVs can increase safety, make rides more efficient and lower prices for customers.

Quote: (04-11-2019 09:53 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  

Ok so what happens when people decide 1K a month isn't enough anymore, they want a raise to 1500 because the rampant inflation that has been caused by this scheme has rendered the 1K insufficient for their needs. It's human nature to always ask for more. What then? Raise the VAT to 20%? This how socialism fails every time which is what this is.

This is a fair question, I think it would have to go up a little bit each year and be tied somehow to gdp.

1000 is fine for 2020, but what about 2030? 1000 dollars in 2030 or 2040 won't be worth as much.

And why do you keep saying that UBI will create massive inflation and increases in prices? We spend almost a trillion dollars in various safety nets now with ss, welfare and food stamps and we are not seeing the massive amounts of inflation that you are describing, despite a trillion in spending on safety nets. Why would that suddenly change with a 10% vat? The short answer is that it won't change inflation at all. No one is suggesting that we print up a lot of money and pass it out.(that is what would indeed cause massive amounts of inflation)


So far most of the arguments I'm seeing against the UBI are "inflation! you just want to print up money and pass it out, that will break the economy!" Except no one is saying we should print up money and pass it out...

And for what it's worth I don't think Yang ever claimed a UBI would create a net positive revenue effect.

It's socialism where the redistribution goes back to the people actually paying taxes.

If you're rich enough that a VAT would cost you more than 1k per month then I suppose there's something to cry about.

The weird irony in all this is that if Yang proposed to reduce everyone's tax by 1k per month then fiscal conservatives would be lining up to suck his dick.

Well Eradicator, over the last 30-40 years we have actually seen a large degree of inflation which would correspond to the large increase in these various government programs of giving out money. With the massive increase in payments from the government to individuals via these social programs, the easy mortgage money backed by the government, the explosion in student loan money backed and given out by the government and the quantitative easing that we had during Ayatollah Obama's reign of terror, we have had a massive inflation of housing costs, college tuition costs, healthcare costs. Hell even going out for drinks at a nice bar or for dinner in a nice restaurant is far more expensive than it was 10 years ago. Why? Because the demand for all of these things has far outstripped the supply of these things. What caused the demand for these things to increase so much? Was it because people's wages increased so much over these years, allowing people to spend more on this stuff? No, we sure know that isn't the case. It's because the government artificially created more demand by giving out all this free money and keeping borrowing costs stupidly low.

Same thing will happen here but worse. Right away you have a huge inflationary event with a 10% increase in the cost of goods and services from the VAT. This large of a tax will also kill productivity because all businesses will face a huge 10% increase in the cost of doing business so they will respond in two ways: passing the 10% increase in costs to the end consumer and getting rid of more workers. In fact, many more people will lose their jobs because with UBI, employers will feel less guilty in laying people off to save cost since the government is going to take care of them. So you have a 10% tax, another 10% increase in the cost of goods and services passed on to consumers by businesses and the increase in demand for stuff once people have this extra money in their pockets, all of which is going to lead to flat out shortages of many consumer items. There's a reason places like the Soviet Union and Venezuela failed after implementing this type of socialism. In fact, Finland had a UBI program that they just scrapped after 2 years because it was a dismal failure.

As inflation goes on and on, of course people will demand an increase in UBI and when it doesn't come, or god forbid the UBI decreases then you will see massive riots and flat out civil war. This Yang and these tech assholes (god I despise all of these tech fuckheads) want this UBI in order to basically control and own people but they couch it in such benevolent terms. Ben Franklin said it best: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Quote: (04-11-2019 10:08 PM)eradicator Wrote:  

And why do you keep saying that UBI will create massive inflation and increases in prices? We spend almost a trillion dollars in various safety nets now with ss, welfare and food stamps and we are not seeing the massive amounts of inflation that you are describing, despite a trillion in spending on safety nets. Why would that suddenly change with a 10% vat? The short answer is that it won't change inflation at all. No one is suggesting that we print up a lot of money and pass it out.(that is what would indeed cause massive amounts of inflation)

So far most of the arguments I'm seeing against the UBI are "inflation! you just want to print up money and pass it out, that will break the economy!" Except no one is saying we should print up money and pass it out...

Given the current national debt (now over 100% of GDP) and deficits that are being generated during a boom, deficits will explode even further during the next recession. Without a default or austerity (which involves massively cutting defense, medicare, medicaid, SS) which will never happen, then we will monetize the debt through massive printing by the Fed to buy bonds. Serious inflation is coming, whether or not we have UBI.

Whether or not the UBI causes extra inflation on top of the already certain massive inflation is totally dependent on where the money comes from. If it's from a wealth tax, then asset price drops could offset a slight rise in consumer prices. If it's from a VAT, then it will cancel out and you probably won't see too much inflation beyond the immediate tax increase on goods. If it's from Fed printing, then sure we will have more massive inflation, but that is how we will be paying for current deficits now so what's the big deal? Might as well have productive middle class workers and nuclear families get some benefits too since their money will be eroded regardless.

Quote: (04-11-2019 08:57 PM)Kid Twist Wrote:  

I can tell you a lot about this because I am one of these people and I have thought a lot about it --- and debated it.

Quickly, Yang has no idea what he doesn't know. I fear that you all are in the same category. I can explain, we just need to have a proper dialogue and discussion.

As an aside, the future of medicine is questionable for reasons you state (length of training, crazy loans, crazy interest rates, etc) but not at all because of AI.

And yes, a majority of physicians know very little about nutrition and working out. But that's not what you are going to them for, is it?

I'm very interested to hear your take on which aspects of medicine will not be automated and can never be automated. I've heard plenty of doctors say "a robot can never do X" but they don't explain why.

A decade ago, the vast majority of truck drivers thought that driverless cars were impossible. I myself am multilingual (and put in lots of study time) but I am under no illusions that in the Google Translate era that speaking another language, even at a professional level, is the path to long term career stability in this era.

This is why automation is so scary - people think about their own jobs and their decision making process and emotional range over the course of a workday, and believe that their work is so nuanced and complex that it could never be automated. However, skeptics fail to realize that they are relying on factual information and experience to make decisions, areas in which AI has an advantage through advanced sensors and big data. New algorithms are making AI more intuitive as well so that will take away the "human touch" secret sauce that AI skeptics think robots will never master. Many white collar workers will be hit as hard as the drivers and cashiers though it may take a few more years.

Regarding the diet and fitness advice, a significant portion of modern health problems are metabolic in nature and related to poor diet choices (exacerbated by big Ag screwing up the food supply and poor advice from doctors). An AI would have a massive advantage over a doctor in terms of advising the right mix of foods for someone given their genetics and lifestyle. An AI would also make it easier to incentivize people (via cheaper health insurance) to follow a healthier lifestyle. For emergency medicine, I'm headed to the ER, but for anything chronic and lifestyle related I'm skeptical of what big pharma doctors want me to ingest - I'd be open to hearing an opinion from an AI.

Quote:[/url]

[url=https://itep.org/notadime/]https://itep.org/notadime/

Good lord, look at all the taxes that these corporations aren't paying. Yang should print that list out and hand it out as flyers at rallies.

Quote: (04-11-2019 11:56 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  

Well Eradicator, over the last 30-40 years we have actually seen a large degree of inflation which would correspond to the large increase in these various government programs of giving out money.

nope




If there was any truth to what you were saying we would see an explosion in the inflation in the 1960s(with the start of LBJs great society) to the present.

We certainly did see a spike in inflation in the 70s due to a number of factors, the oil embargo and jacking up of gas prices, taking the dollar off of the gold standard, and Nixon and the federal reserve drastically lowered interest rates.

But it didn't last beyond the 1970s, if the increase in taxes to pay for safety net programs was causing inflation, we would see it in the numbers. It hasn't happened.

The government doesn't print up money and give it out. The fed does that. (the fed is not controlled by any branch of the government, it is made up of privately owned banks)

Who said a while back that if Yang gained some steam, they (the corrupt MSM) would try to do hit jobs on him saying he was tied to white nationalists and/or the alt-right?

He is only polling between 1 to 3% right now and someone upstairs is scared that he has real potential and is trying to cut him off at the knees before really getting big. His CNN townhall is Sunday night I thlnk; right before Game of Thrones. It figures that the MSM would try to piss in the pool before he has a chance to introduce himself on a larger stage.

This was at the top of the page at NBC News:

Quote:Quote:

"Andrew Yang's campaign and supporters struggle to push away extremists, leaked chats show.

In one chat room, moderators have had to post rules like “no slurs, no racism." Other users discussed whether to allow anti-Semitic comments.".

Mother Jones posted this:

Quote:Quote:

"Here’s Why Andrew Yang’s Alt-Right Supporters Think He’s the 2020 Candidate for White Nationalists

After chatting with Tucker Carlson and tweeting about demographic change, the Democratic long shot garners racist backing."

If there is a white pill to all of this, what people here had hope would happen is happening: Non-Trump supporters seeing the corruption in the system.

I can't find the original highest upvoted comment from Reddit regarding the Mother Jones article but to paraphrase:

"Now I know how Trump supporters feel like."

Most of the other comments on Reddit and other MSM outlets I read RIPPED the authors to shreds for trying to do a hit job on Yang; trying to tie Yang to white nationalist is just too beyond the pale nor is remotely accurate.

This is good. Very good.

THIS is EXACTLY what some of us are hoping to accomplish with Yang. Even if he fails to win anything, the more globalist/establishment rot he can expose to a different segment of people, the better it is for the country.

Again, if they are doing this to him NOW, that tells you that the establishment are scared of his potential. Hopefully he has learned something from Trump about how to counter the bullshit.

Quote: (04-11-2019 09:09 PM)eradicator Wrote:  

Step 1: lose your job as a trucker.
Step 2: Move to Wyoming or anther state with 300/mo rent costs.
Step 3: cash your yang bucks and check out from society.

If the UBI ever gets closer to reality, which it really could, I plan to buy as many cheap hotels as possible. Give the people WIFI, TV, and perhaps even meals. Charge $600 to $800 a month and they'll be completely taken care of plus they will still a little spending money.

Quote: (04-11-2019 09:09 PM)eradicator Wrote:  

That is a lot better than some of the options

Step 1: lose your job as a trucker.
Step 2: Rage
Step 3: organize with other displaced workers to burn down and riot at the major financial centers and go after the elites that you blame for the loss of your livelihood(this will be a long list). If a man loses everything, he likely will look at the world a bit differently. He has already lost everything, and has nothing to lose.

There are already people attacking Waymo driver-less vehicles that are being tested here in Arizona. People are throwing stuff at them or maneuvering their vehicle and trying to cause them to crash. Millions of unemployed truck drivers will be this but much much worse.

Damn, my boy went into the lion's den.

Quote:[/url]

He took some fire in this interview, but he stayed on message and made good points (especially at the end where the lady). This is good practice for the debates. This is also why we need to refine the metrics we look at. She says, "Jobs are up, GDP is up, the economy is good, so what are you fixing?" Most of the jobs created a temp/contract shit, most Americans have no savings or wealth, and GDP is a scam, and good for Andrew for pointing it out both here and in all his other interviews.

Quote: (04-12-2019 04:33 AM)username Wrote: [url=https://rooshvforum.network/post-1964482.html#pid1964482] 

There are already people attacking Waymo driver-less vehicles that are being tested here in Arizona. People are throwing stuff at them or maneuvering their vehicle and trying to cause them to crash. Millions of unemployed truck drivers will be this but much much worse.

This made me curious so I Googled.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/us/wa...tacks.html

Quote:Quote:

CHANDLER, Ariz. — The assailant slipped out of a park around noon one day in October, zeroing in on his target, which was idling at a nearby intersection — a self-driving van operated by Waymo, the driverless-car company spun out of Google.

He carried out his attack with an unidentified sharp object, swiftly slashing one of the tires. The suspect, identified as a white man in his 20s, then melted into the neighborhood on foot.

The slashing was one of nearly two dozen attacks on driverless vehicles over the past two years in Chandler, a city near Phoenix where Waymo started testing its vans in 2017. In ways large and small, the city has had an early look at public misgivings over the rise of artificial intelligence, with city officials hearing complaints about everything from safety to possible job losses.

Some people have pelted Waymo vans with rocks, according to police reports. Others have repeatedly tried to run the vehicles off the road. One woman screamed at one of the vans, telling it to get out of her suburban neighborhood. A man pulled up alongside a Waymo vehicle and threatened the employee riding inside with a piece of PVC pipe.

In one of the more harrowing episodes, a man waved a .22-caliber revolver at a Waymo vehicle and the emergency backup driver at the wheel. He told the police that he “despises” driverless cars, referring to the killing of a female pedestrian in March in nearby Tempe by a self-driving Uber car.

“There are other places they can test,” said Erik O’Polka, 37, who was issued a warning by the police in November after multiple reports that his Jeep Wrangler had tried to run Waymo vans off the road — in one case, driving head-on toward one of the self-driving vehicles until it was forced to come to an abrupt stop.

His wife, Elizabeth, 35, admitted in an interview that her husband “finds it entertaining to brake hard” in front of the self-driving vans, and that she herself “may have forced them to pull over” so she could yell at them to get out of their neighborhood. The trouble started, the couple said, when their 10-year-old son was nearly hit by one of the vehicles while he was playing in a nearby cul-de-sac.

“They said they need real-world examples, but I don’t want to be their real-world mistake,” said Mr. O’Polka, who runs his own company providing information technology to small businesses.

Quote: (04-11-2019 10:03 PM)Sumanguru Wrote:  

Also,

Quote:[/url]

Hadn't occurred to me that Uber/Lyft are basically fighting to hold on long enough until autonomous driving tech becomes proficient enough to cut out drivers. Considering the drivers get 80% of the fare and all the tip, Uber getting rid of the people behind the wheel would be very beneficial for them.

[url=https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/11/uber-spent-457-million-on-self-driving-and-flying-car-rd-last-year/]https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/11/uber-s...last-year/

Quote:Quote:

Uber spent $457 million last year on research and development of autonomous vehicles, flying cars (known as eVTOLs) and other “technology programs” and will continue to invest heavily in the futuristic tech even though it expects to rely on human drivers for years to come, according to the company’s IPO prospectus filed Thursday.

R&D costs at Uber ATG, the company’s autonomous vehicle unit, its eVTOL unit Uber Elevate and other related technology represented one-third of its total R&D spend. Uber’s total R&D costs in 2018 were more than $1.5 billion.

Uber filed its S-1 on Thursday, laying the groundwork for the transportation company to go public next month. This comes less than one month after competitor Lyft’s debut on the public market. Uber is listing under the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “UBER,” but has yet to disclose the anticipated initial public offering price.

Uber believes that autonomous vehicles will be an important part of its offerings over the long term, namely that AVs can increase safety, make rides more efficient and lower prices for customers.

Quote:article Wrote:

Uber almost doesn’t feel like a business, but rather some essential service that investors believe should exist, so they’ve continued to inject money into it. Something so useful would have to make money at some point, right?

This is simply outrageous. It's not even about the automation, it's about the business model - do we truly have an economy where the only way to be profitable is to suck on venture capitalist money until you become a global monopoly and can extort everyone? What's wrong with the entire system?

The worst offender in this area is Amazon: after 20 years in business, the company still doesn't have almost any profits.



What's going on here?

People attacking driverless vehicles (or enraged unemployed former truckers, let's say)
=
UBI proponents


I'm not even saying UBI is wrong or bad or whatever, I'm just saying we've had technological jumps before that displaced human workers.

In the meantime, I drive around my city and see old run-down houses. Cluttered lawns. Potholes that need filled. Etc Etc. There is still plenty to be done by humans, even in the Phoenix area.

I love the Fox & Friends clip from this morning. Wow those Boomers are really clueless, they are like walking TV sets just repeating silly things they hear on the TV. I have not heard much from Andrew in interviews, I am extremely impressed with how polite, rational, calm, deep voice confident, and his charisma. Definitely had more reach with the common American than I would have previously guessed. Democrats are going to have trouble removing him from their short list.

Those cars are mobile surveillance platforms. Each one packs more sensors than the entire CIA had in like 1960. They have to for the autonomous tech to work.
Couple that with a facial recognition database and you couldn't pay me enough money to try and fuck with one of them.
(Occasionally you see people who say that autonomous trucking will never work because the trucks will be forced off the road and their cargo stolen. This is why that won't happen.)

Quote: (04-12-2019 08:50 AM)heavy Wrote:  

I'm not even saying UBI is wrong or bad or whatever, I'm just saying we've had technological jumps before that displaced human workers.
In the meantime, I drive around my city and see old run-down houses. Cluttered lawns. Potholes that need filled. Etc Etc. There is still plenty to be done by humans, even in the Phoenix area.

There's work to be done but in most midwest states (Dunno about Phoenix) there's no money to pay the workers. Winner take all economics like we have in the late 2010s means that all the money leaves the heartland and heads for the coast, where it goes into the pockets of whoever owns Uber, Amazon, etc. stock.

Quote: (04-12-2019 01:18 AM)eradicator Wrote:  

Quote: (04-11-2019 11:56 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  

Well Eradicator, over the last 30-40 years we have actually seen a large degree of inflation which would correspond to the large increase in these various government programs of giving out money.

nope




If there was any truth to what you were saying we would see an explosion in the inflation in the 1960s(with the start of LBJs great society) to the present.

We certainly did see a spike in inflation in the 70s due to a number of factors, the oil embargo and jacking up of gas prices, taking the dollar off of the gold standard, and Nixon and the federal reserve drastically lowered interest rates.

But it didn't last beyond the 1970s, if the increase in taxes to pay for safety net programs was causing inflation, we would see it in the numbers. It hasn't happened.

The government doesn't print up money and give it out. The fed does that. (the fed is not controlled by any branch of the government, it is made up of privately owned banks)

Milton Friedman (Nobel Prize winning economist in case you didnt know) would disagree with you.

@23:00 "The government (sic) federal reserve failed and caused the Great Depression,...Just like the myth that a failure of labor and management caused The Great Depression you will hear today that its labor and management that cause inflation. This time the Fed Reserve is failing it is failing in a different way by causing inflation Inflation is caused in one place and one place only....Washington DC"






The video is relevant to this thread for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is that its a speech that was given in 1977. The 42 years since have provided additional evidence that more government isn't the solution.

By the way the concept of UBI isn't new. The idea has been kicked around in one way or another for decades. Here Milton Friedman and William Buckley Jr discuss a "negative tax" idea (which is essentially an alternative, better IMO, to UBI) in 1968






Government isn't the solution...its the problem. Always has been.

More government almost always and without fail makes things worse.

Quote: (04-12-2019 08:52 AM)It_is_my_time Wrote:  

I have not heard much from Andrew in interviews

Is that so? Let's fix that.

Here's the one that began it all, his long form interview with Joe Rogan, I highly recommend this one because it gets in the weeds in an informal setting and answers almost all the criticisms brought up in this thread:





Here he is in a short interview on Fox with Neil Cavuto





MSNBC





The Breakfast Club





The Ben Shapiro Show [another really good one, especially since Shapiro is a conservative who pushes back on lots of Andy's ideas]





Note the wide range of markets--online and radio, podcasts and old school news, liberal and conservative. He's the only candidate with the testicular fortitude to do that.

Quote: (04-12-2019 09:10 AM)PapayaTapper Wrote:  

Government isn't the solution...its the problem. Always has been.

Well, no. The problem, at least here, isn't "government", it's that technology, in the form of winner-take-all economics and automation, is making it so that large swaths of the population are going to have no meaningful way to contribute to society, and that large swaths of the country are going to become pits of misery and despair, Bakersfield CA or Gary Indiana writ large on a national scale.

In the absolute best case, this is a recipe for impoverishment and misery for over a hundred million people. In the worst case, it means civil war and collapse.

If we're not gonna do a UBI, how do we deal with this problem? If the labor force participation rate starts dropping the way I think it will, it's going to mean no good jobs, and no hope, for a giant chunk of the country. And if you just say to those hundred million impoverished, hopeless people in the heartland, "You have the right to pursue happiness, but you don't have the right to happiness," they're going to say, "I'm going to pursue happiness by shooting you with my gun and taking your shit." And since they've got 270 million guns, there's very little you can do to stop them, if they decide this is the way they want to go.

As somebody who doesn't want to be shot and have his shit stolen by an angry mob, I would verymuch like to find a solution to the problems we're discussing here, and the sooner the better.

Quote: (04-12-2019 08:21 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

Quote: (04-11-2019 10:03 PM)Sumanguru Wrote:  

Also,

Quote:[/url]

Hadn't occurred to me that Uber/Lyft are basically fighting to hold on long enough until autonomous driving tech becomes proficient enough to cut out drivers. Considering the drivers get 80% of the fare and all the tip, Uber getting rid of the people behind the wheel would be very beneficial for them.

[url=https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/11/uber-spent-457-million-on-self-driving-and-flying-car-rd-last-year/]https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/11/uber-s...last-year/

Quote:Quote:

Uber spent $457 million last year on research and development of autonomous vehicles, flying cars (known as eVTOLs) and other “technology programs” and will continue to invest heavily in the futuristic tech even though it expects to rely on human drivers for years to come, according to the company’s IPO prospectus filed Thursday.

R&D costs at Uber ATG, the company’s autonomous vehicle unit, its eVTOL unit Uber Elevate and other related technology represented one-third of its total R&D spend. Uber’s total R&D costs in 2018 were more than $1.5 billion.

Uber filed its S-1 on Thursday, laying the groundwork for the transportation company to go public next month. This comes less than one month after competitor Lyft’s debut on the public market. Uber is listing under the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “UBER,” but has yet to disclose the anticipated initial public offering price.

Uber believes that autonomous vehicles will be an important part of its offerings over the long term, namely that AVs can increase safety, make rides more efficient and lower prices for customers.

Quote:article Wrote:

Uber almost doesn’t feel like a business, but rather some essential service that investors believe should exist, so they’ve continued to inject money into it. Something so useful would have to make money at some point, right?

This is simply outrageous. It's not even about the automation, it's about the business model - do we truly have an economy where the only way to be profitable is to suck on venture capitalist money until you become a global monopoly and can extort everyone? What's wrong with the entire system?

The worst offender in this area is Amazon: after 20 years in business, the company still doesn't have almost any profits.



What's going on here?

Its simple: Citizen's United

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/reports...united.php

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The Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission helped unleash unprecedented amounts of outside spending in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. The case, along with other legal developments, spawned the creation of super PACs, which can accept unlimited contributions from corporate and union treasuries, as well as from individuals; these groups spent more than $800 million in the 2012 election cycle. It also triggered a boom in political activity by tax-exempt "dark money" organizations that don't have to disclose their donors. You can listen to the decision (see "Opinion Announcement - January 21, 2010") as read by Justice Kennedy and the dissenting opinion read by Justice Stevens. Read on to learn more about how the Supreme Court transformed the campaign finance landscape with this decision, and how it is now affecting U.S. politics.

"Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Holding: Political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and the government may not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections."

So lets vote for more and bigger government for the multinationals to buy...thats a great idea!

Quote: (04-12-2019 01:18 AM)eradicator Wrote:  

Quote: (04-11-2019 11:56 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  

Well Eradicator, over the last 30-40 years we have actually seen a large degree of inflation which would correspond to the large increase in these various government programs of giving out money.

nope




If there was any truth to what you were saying we would see an explosion in the inflation in the 1960s(with the start of LBJs great society) to the present.

We certainly did see a spike in inflation in the 70s due to a number of factors, the oil embargo and jacking up of gas prices, taking the dollar off of the gold standard, and Nixon and the federal reserve drastically lowered interest rates.

But it didn't last beyond the 1970s, if the increase in taxes to pay for safety net programs was causing inflation, we would see it in the numbers. It hasn't happened.

The government doesn't print up money and give it out. The fed does that. (the fed is not controlled by any branch of the government, it is made up of privately owned banks)

You can't just dismiss the 20yr spike in inflation after the implementation of LBJs social programs. There's a reason inflation spiked after the 60s and this is part of the reason. Also that chart doesn't show the explosion in the cost of healthcare, housing and college that has occurred in the last 15 years. Are you going to deny that those things haven't exploded in cost just because this chart hides that fact?

This UBI is pie in the sky economics and it will destroy the US once and for all. If they couldn't make it work in Finland, how on earth will they make it work here? I suspect a lot of people here want this so that they can live out their dream of traveling to pussy paradises to chase pussy all day and get paid to do so without having to spend any time doing any work.