Inauguration Day, Inauguration Hooooooraaay!

[Jon`C]

The meanings have changed in contemporary usage here.

Yeah, technically, if you consider a total loss of meaning, that leaves the words with no useful or constructive purpose, to such great extent that Americans are not capable of even reading their own commonplace and most celebrated literature on the subject... sure, they’ve changed.

You know, like how “f**” used to mean bundle of sticks.

I really can't fathom why a Canadian socialist gets so bent about it.

Look, I’m here to ****post and occasionally educate. You’re the ones with sandy *******s telling me that I should be using the words all retarded and ****.

A quick perusal of Wikipedia and a google search suggests this is incredibly doubtful.

I mean, you can listen to the famous 1964 speech by Reagan where he bemoans his "liberal friends".

Im referring more to this stuff: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...elcome/570832/

Like Gingrich saying as majority leader that they shouldn’t ever refer to the democrats as democrats, call them liberals or left. Clearly Reagan was foremost talking about social liberalism, which I will not comment further on.

[Reid]

Andrew Yang's policies seem okay. Interesting that apparently Medicare for all is a base Democrat platform. Which I obviously agree with, I think it's the best solution. His "Human-Centered Capitalism" seems a bit handwavey in some areas. Like he says:

Human Capitalism has a few core tenets:

1. Humanity is More Important Than Money
2. The Unit of an Economy is each Person, not each Dollar
3. Markets Exist to Serve Our Common Goals and Values

There’s a saying in business that “what gets measured gets managed for.” We need to start measuring different things.

He mentions a few specifics here which I find a bit weak. Such as: "Artistic and Cultural Vibrancy", "National Optimism / Mindset of Abundance", "Design and Aesthetics". It also is a massive list. I'm a bit doubtful government policy can do much to improve everything which is mentioned. So it's a bit unrealistic. Ultimately I don't see any real policy here, it's more just a statement of values (ideology).

It seems the main two concrete policies are UBI and Medicare for all. I don't have much of an opinion on UBI. I can say I'm pretty sure that such a policy will result in high inflation. But sure, he seems to have decent policies on his website. Better than nothing.

[Reid]

Hey, did you guys hear that Adolf Hitler considered himself a Christian? I bet Jesus was a terrible person.

I wasn't trying to imply something.

[Reid]

Actually, I was interested in the answer because I already knew that the countries he was asking about were not socialist. It would have been a more effective question had he just asked for an example of a socialist country that had tried the things he was asking about.

Democrats stole the term "liberal" years ago and somehow managed to stick their opposition with "conservative". The meanings have changed in contemporary usage here. I really can't fathom why a Canadian socialist gets so bent about it.

It's the Democrats fault, yet again.

So, DPRK-Russia summit next week, DPRK testing a new weapon today. Not good for Trump, I suppose.

Trump is Dunning-Kruger incarnate, the fact he thought he'd solve the NK situation is a testament to that.

[SMLiberator]

To be fair, I don't really think there is such thing as a "DPRK situation" to solve. I feel like the situation pretty much comes from trying to solve it. It's paradoxical. The situation only exists if you try to solve it.

Or in other words, I don't think there's any good (as in "not evil") reason to keep hostilizing the DPRK and believing they would rather keep making weapons than to normalize relations with the US. I mean, does anyone actually believe they plan on eventually invading south Korea or Japan or something? Or that Kim really is an evil cartoon character that wants to have weapons of mass destruction built just for the sake of it?

[Krokodile]

I don't have much of an opinion on UBI. I can say I'm pretty sure that such a policy will result in high inflation.

He's addressed this. The crux of his argument is that the money will come from the current circulation so it won't increase inflation. As far as companies increasing prices as a response to increased purchasing power, he says that's likely to happen but that competition will still keep prices down (which I guess sounds a bit libertarian?). There was something about technology and automation in this context too but I've forgotten it. Oh, and he proposes a value added tax to I guess fund the plan or something I don't know.

[Reverend Jones]

I wasn't trying to imply something.

Ah OK.

[Jon`C]

He's addressed this. The crux of his argument is that the money will come from the current circulation so it won't increase inflation. As far as companies increasing prices as a response to increased purchasing power, he says that's likely to happen but that competition will still keep prices down (which I guess sounds a bit libertarian?)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Jon`C]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So here's the thing.


1.) Economic studies have repeatedly shown that house prices are dictated by exactly two things: down payment size and debt service capacity. Down payment size is effectively zero here, not sure what people are looking at in the United States, but if it's not zero it will be again soon enough. That leaves debt service capacity. Obviously, if people have an extra $1000 a month income, then their debt service capacity goes up $1000 a month. Amortize that over 30 years. You're looking at instantly, like flipping a light switch instantly, turning every $200k house in America into a $450k one. I'm not exaggerating. I'm not making this up. We know for a fact that this is how **** works. It's possibly the most settled question in economics.

2.) Residential rental rates are dominated by investment opportunity cost, not competitive market pricing. Why? Because residential real estate isn't a product, it is capital. Or maybe a better way of thinking is, the renters are in price competition against all other investments, to provide the greatest rate of return. Here's what happens. Suppose you're a landlord, and you're making $833 a month renting out a $200k house (after taxes and other expenses). That's fine. That's a 5% return. It's not blowing your socks off, but the best mutual fund is only returning 5% these days so, yeah, it's fine.

Now President Yang flips his light switch. Suddenly your house is worth $450,000, and your return is only 2%. That mutual fund is still offering you 5%.... wyd?? The good news is, the answer is pretty ****in easy. You know your tenants can afford a $1000 a month rent increase. Now you're back up to 5%.




Net result of this ****? As bad as you think things are now, with this GMI current property owners will be ****in' rolling in it like we've never even imagined before. They will capture quite literally 100% of the UBI, whether doled out over time in rent or in a lump sum by selling their house to a debt slave. And then if that money gets clawed back by the government via much higher tax rates, all you've managed to do at the end of the day is create a pointless accounting exercise.

You can't bolt this **** onto capitalism. Just ****in do socialism or don't bother, jesus christ.

[Jon`C]

More but from a different device:

So, basically, reiterating the above, all of this UBI is going to end up with rich people. Okay, it won’t all be consumed by housing alone (in isolation it would tho) but it definitely will be divvied up among lenders. House, car company, credit card company, dunno exactly how it would shake out, but that’s how debt financed consumption works y’all.

Now what about.... you know, the bill? Americans don’t know what a VAT is so I’ll explain. It’s a national sales tax. VAT is just a way of calculating it, but it is a sales tax, a consumption tax. I already posted about this earlier in the thread, so I won’t expound on it too much. Part of a VAT is paid by the company, part of the VAT is paid by the customer. VAT increases marginal cost and decreases consumption, leading to a short term reduction in production (and eventually layoffs). Meanwhile, rich people don’t consume much more than working class people do, outside of their more conspicuous consumption for which they have ways of evading taxes. Destitute people consume much less. So really, workers are gonna pay for all of the UBI, because they do basically all of the consumption, and they’ll pay for it again by reduced consumption (reduced standard of living) and layoffs.

So yeah. Working people pay VAT. VAT pays poor people. Poor people pay rent/interest to rich people. Transitively? Working class pays rich people. And then housing costs twice as much. And then people suddenly can’t buy as much nice stuff anymore, all because of a tax that they THINK is being sent to the poors to be frittered away (but is actually going to rich people, which the media may or may not tell people)

Holy ****, you think you have a fascism problem now.

[Krokodile]

https://www.yang2020.com/blog/ubi_fa...ant-inflation/

Here's the response from the campaign itself to make sure I didn't misrepresent it.

[Wookie06]

It's the Democrats fault, yet again.

Well you used the word "fault" but, yes, FDR was a Democrat.

[Jon`C]

https://www.yang2020.com/blog/ubi_fa...ant-inflation/

Here's the response from the campaign itself to make sure I didn't misrepresent it.

You represented it very well. What I posted stands.


Here’s a fun thing:

“In monetary economics, leading theory states that inflation is based on changes in the supply of money.”

Really velocity, but there’s an unfounded assumption that the velocity doesn’t change unless savings rates (supply of money) does. And the assumption that the metric (supply of money) IS inflation. A false one, turns out, because like he pointed out two sentences earlier the US government [effectively] printed trillions of dollars and it didn’t budge inflation. They increased money supply and it didn’t cause inflation. So, how sure are you that the monetarists are right? Personally given the last 12 years I’m preeeeeeetty sure they aren’t, both in general and in this particular case.

The leading theory in “not stupid” economics is that inflation is created by labor. Why? Because that’s the only supply of money that can bid up consumption goods. If you give labor a lot more money, it creates inflation because consumer spending increases, but nothing has been done to decrease the scarcity of the consumer goods they want to buy (or the factors that are used to make them). More money chasing after the same quantity of goods = universally higher prices for goods = inflation.

The page then completely handwaves away housing as something that can be improved through automation. Um, yeah, the construction of the literal durable good can be, but they aren’t making any more land dude.

[Krokodile]

That's one name I'm crossing off my list.

Where are we on Bernie?

[Reid]

Just because the money would be spent elsewhere doesn't mean little would change. Taking money from a corporation and putting it in the hands of a person, even if the money would be spent on something either way, would change the shape of the economy.. alot. People and corporations buy different things. Consumer good demand would skyrocket; demand would outstrip supply in the short term resulting in inflation.

That's assuming ceteris paribus conditions, refer to Jon`C's post for why simply giving people more money would hardly effect much.

[Reid]

That's one name I'm crossing off my list.

Where are we on Bernie?

Some good some bad.

[Reid]

Well you used the word "fault" but, yes, FDR was a Democrat.

Polio man bad

[Jon`C]

None of this is to say a GMI can’t work, but you need price controls and possibly even multiple currencies just to get the math to work out. Maybe you could start with food where we’re already doing kind of this stuff (food stamps and price fixing) and just make it universal.

[Eversor]

Democrats stole the term "liberal" years ago and somehow managed to stick their opposition with "conservative". The meanings have changed in contemporary usage here. I really can't fathom why a Canadian socialist gets so bent about it.

I’m pretty sure that TR and Wilson both called themselves liberals.

[Spook]

None of this is to say a GMI can’t work, but you need price controls and possibly even multiple currencies just to get the math to work out. Maybe you could start with food where we’re already doing kind of this stuff (food stamps and price fixing) and just make it universal.

Next election a candidate will run on doing all of that stuff with Blockchain. I mean they won't have specifics, and they won't do it, andit won't work, but they will.

[Reverend Jones]

You should run!

[Spook]

Except my platform is occult based not computer based. I mean there is some computer occult stuff in my platform but it's very minimal and text only and nobody will go or a predominantly text only internet

[Eversor]

I’m pretty sure that TR and Wilson both called themselves liberals.

So did FDR, for that matter.

I’m not convinced that I buy her argument, but Helena Rosenblatt argues that, while liberalism is often associated with American and British traditions of thought, in its modern usage as a term that marks a political identity centered on an ideology (rather than its pre-French Revolution usage, where was term liberal was associated with a political affiliation, but with various cultural elements of aristocracy and aristocratic virtue, under the broader umbrella of liberality) was primarily used in a French context, and also in Germany. (In fact, the first US dictionary that contained the word liberal in the late 19th century explicitly defines it as term associated with French politics.) It wasn’t often used as a politician identification in the US until the earl 20th century. It was originally used as a derogatory term in the context of the French Revolution.

[Eversor]

I think her book is full of inconsistencies and selective treatment of primary sources but it’s still interesting. It contains a helpful account of the 1848 Revolutions that made me better appreciate the historical context of the Communist Manifesto, which in turn helped me appreciate a lot of contemporary socialist rhetoric about class warfare.

[Eversor]

More but from a different device:

So, basically, reiterating the above, all of this UBI is going to end up with rich people. Okay, it won’t all be consumed by housing alone (in isolation it would tho) but it definitely will be divvied up among lenders. House, car company, credit card company, dunno exactly how it would shake out, but that’s how debt financed consumption works y’all.

Now what about.... you know, the bill? Americans don’t know what a VAT is so I’ll explain. It’s a national sales tax. VAT is just a way of calculating it, but it is a sales tax, a consumption tax. I already posted about this earlier in the thread, so I won’t expound on it too much. Part of a VAT is paid by the company, part of the VAT is paid by the customer. VAT increases marginal cost and decreases consumption, leading to a short term reduction in production (and eventually layoffs). Meanwhile, rich people don’t consume much more than working class people do, outside of their more conspicuous consumption for which they have ways of evading taxes. Destitute people consume much less. So really, workers are gonna pay for all of the UBI, because they do basically all of the consumption, and they’ll pay for it again by reduced consumption (reduced standard of living) and layoffs.

So yeah. Working people pay VAT. VAT pays poor people. Poor people pay rent/interest to rich people. Transitively? Working class pays rich people. And then housing costs twice as much. And then people suddenly can’t buy as much nice stuff anymore, all because of a tax that they THINK is being sent to the poors to be frittered away (but is actually going to rich people, which the media may or may not tell people)

Holy ****, you think you have a fascism problem now.

Okay, so a VAT is regressive. (But not particularly rare, either. The US is one of only a tiny handful of countries in the world that doesn’t have a VAT, and it isn’t the world’s only successful economy.) But wouldn’t a consumption tax have a deflationary effect on prices that would counteract the inflationary influence of UBI?

Also, this, from the Yang site, really is hysterical in its naïveté:

It is likely that some companies will increase their prices in response to people having more buying power, and a VAT would also increase prices marginally. However, there will still be competition between firms that will keep prices in check.

[Jon`C]

Okay, so a VAT is regressive. (But not particularly rare, either. The US is one of only a tiny handful of countries in the world that doesn’t have a VAT, and it isn’t the world’s only successful economy.) But wouldn’t a consumption tax have a deflationary effect on prices that would counteract the inflationary influence of UBI?

Also, this, from the Yang site, really is hysterical in its naïveté:

Consumption taxes increase prices, not decrease them. A portion of the tax is paid by firms up the supply chain as value is added, and a portion is paid by the final consumer at the point of purchase. Manufacturers will respond to their share of the tax like an increase in marginal costs, and will decrease production. Consumers will respond to their share of the tax like an increase in price, and consume less. These effects together in the long run cause higher prices and lower production, even in excess of the cost added by the tax itself.

So consumption taxes aren’t just regressive, they’re also self-limiting because people will consume less in order to avoid the tax (usually because they just cant afford to buy as much stuff anymore). I will say that I think it’s an important portion of a holistic taxation policy, especially when rates are adjusted for different kinds of consumption. But if you think you can finance general consumption by taxing general consumption you are on crack.

[Reid]

I was definitely surprised to see he wants to fund UBI with a VAT tax. Seems counter-intuitive. Would make more sense to slap on capital gains and progressive income taxes.

[Reid]

I know Wookie was being smarmy before, but is there anyone who seriously doubts this man's guilt?

The real issue to me is that the entire Republican Party is still aligned behind this guy.

[Reverend Jones]

What I find amusing is the idea that Trump might not know that he's guilty, but probably suspects he must be, simply because it was never something he took into account in his actions throughout his life in the first place.

So it's not that he is worried that he might be found out for something specific, but that the idea that he is being investigated in the first place that freaked him out. Like the really bad kids in school who acted guilty at the slightest suggestion of being found out, because they lost track of the number of bad things they did and assumed that at least one of them had been discovered (even if it hadn't).

[Eversor]

I know Wookie was being smarmy before, but is there anyone who seriously doubts this man's guilt?

The real issue to me is that the entire Republican Party is still aligned behind this guy.

I believe that he’s flighty, emotionally undisciplined, passive and imprecise with language. So I have to ask: guilty of what?

I’m not blaming you, but we just got the Mueller Report, which supposedly is full of tangible evidence of actions of the president that may in some cases be criminal, and the one thing that’s going around as a meme is when he gave an overblown response in confidence? It’s hardly a confession. If this were the best that the Mueller Report has to offer as far as reasons why Trump should be impeached, it would be pretty clear that he shouldn’t be impeached. (I suspect, however, that there’s more in there just does provide a better justification.) I can imagine countless other than being guilty things that might’ve been going through his head that could have led him to say that he’s “****ed.” (What Jones just said is a pretty good example. Having a guilty conscience isn’t proof of guilt.)

[Reid]

I believe that he’s flighty, emotionally undisciplined, passive and imprecise with language. So I have to ask: guilty of what?

I’m not blaming you, but we just got the Mueller Report, which supposedly is full of tangible evidence of actions of the president that may in some cases be criminal, and the one thing that’s going around as a meme is when he gave an overblown response in confidence? It’s hardly a confession. If this were the best that the Mueller Report has to offer as far as reasons why Trump should be impeached, it would be pretty clear that he shouldn’t be impeached. (I suspect, however, that there’s more in there just does provide a better justification.) I can imagine countless other than being guilty things that might’ve been going through his head that could have led him to say that he’s “****ed.” (What Jones just said is a pretty good example. Having a guilty conscience isn’t proof of guilt.)

If Bill Clinton's impeachment was justified, Trump's is. That point is not really debatable imo.

[Eversor]

If Bill Clinton's impeachment was justified, Trump's is. That point is not really debatable imo.

That’s a pretty big “if.” Do you actually think that Republicans were right to impeach Clinton? Would you have voted to impeach him back in 1998, if you had been a congressman? I doubt it.

And besides, Bill Clinton broke a law while he was president. He perjured himself.

What law did Trump break?

And I’m not saying that he didn’t break any laws. But part of impeachment is making a case to the public, and winning public support so that Senators won’t be punished electorally for voting to impeach. It’s not clear that Trump broke the law, or what laws he broke, and why they’d be impeachable. It’s deeply ambiguous. People can make all sorts of declarative statements about how, because he did X, Y, or Z, Trump has disqualified himself from being president, and how deserving he is to be impeached. But it’s much more difficult to present a case that is as clear as it was for Clinton’s impeachment, and upon which a consensus can be built.

[Jon`C]

I know Wookie was being smarmy before, but is there anyone who seriously doubts this man's guilt?

The real issue to me is that the entire Republican Party is still aligned behind this guy.

Doesn’t matter. The Republican narrative about the mueller report was already published weeks ago, none of their voters will ever see it.

[Reid]

What law did Trump break?

Obstruction of justice. The WaPo article states it clearly:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.fa01d991006a

Mueller is absolutely stating, indirectly but very clearly, that he has the evidence to prosecute Trump. He believes it is not his job to charge a sitting president.

[Jon`C]

And also Barr ordered him not to determine obstruction of justice.

[Eversor]

Doesn’t matter. The Republican narrative about the mueller report was already published weeks ago, none of their voters will ever see it.

Exactly. How is anyone surprised that the GOP still backs Trump? We all know that Fox News and all the conservative media organs give Trump supporters all the rationalizations and enable the cognitive dissonance required to disregard any accusation (no matter how well founded) that’s thrown at him.

Conservatives are unpersuadable. That’s all the reason you need for why he still has widespread support.

[Reid]

Exactly. How is anyone surprised that the GOP still backs Trump? We all know that Fox News and all the conservative media organs give Trump supporters all the rationalizations and enable the cognitive dissonance required to disregard any accusation (no matter how well founded) that’s thrown at him.

Conservatives are unpersuadable. That’s all the reason you need for why he still has widespread support.

Is this a real opinion? This sounds like the opposite of what you might normally say.

[Wookie06]

I know Wookie was being smarmy before, but is there anyone who seriously doubts this man's guilt?

The real issue to me is that the entire Republican Party is still aligned behind this guy.

Just out of curiosity, why would you not highlight the sentence that puts the ones you did highlight in context? It's of course not just you. I noticed the same thing this morning on my Google news feed.

[Reid]

Just out of curiosity, why would you not highlight the sentence that puts the ones you did highlight in context? It's of course not just you. I noticed the same thing this morning on my Google news feed.

What changes from having more context? Reads the same to me.

[Eversor]

Obstruction of justice. The WaPo article states it clearly:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.fa01d991006a

Mueller is absolutely stating, indirectly but very clearly, that he has the evidence to prosecute Trump. He believes it is not his job to charge a sitting president.

The WashPo article is fundamentally in agreement with the Barr report, stating that there’s evidence of obstruction but it’s inconclusive. The article is cautious about calling Trump’s actions “criminal.”

And also Barr ordered him not to determine obstruction of justice.

We’ve known for a long time now that it is Mueller’s personal belief that a sitting president cannot be indicted and it’s also the official position of the DOJ.