It's undeniable that since Bill Clinton in the 1990s the Democratic party has been a lot more comfortable with neo-liberalism. After getting NAFTA ratified, Clinton was asked about labor, which felt sold out by NAFTA, and his response was "who else are they going to vote for?" His wife found out. And calling Hillary Clinton an interventionist is not an unfair criticism. That didn't stop me from votiing for her, as I have no illusion that we are an empire and that role dictate that an American president will have to undertake some ghastly actions now and for the foreseeable future. The issue of having an empire, no matter how hidden it is from most Americans, is going to be a factor. It bugs me, but my experience is that Democrats manage it better than Republicans.
Not a pollster, but I don't believe it was NAFTA that swung some Whitelandian union members over to Trump. Might've been some Darker Force entirely
Obviously a shallow post on my part since I don't have the time (nor the expertise) required to write the book on how the Democratic party gradually lost ground with working class (and increasingly, out-of-working class) voters, and there is some evidence that their roll in Trump's election is usually overstated, but the charge of "elitism" has a lot to do with the Democrat's appeal to college educated classes who tend to have a more global outlook.
A few things from a bias website (they do not like taxes). One problem with Yang getting traction is his backpedaling on scraping the current welfare system. His funding plan counts on 600 billion per year saved from cutting many of those programs, if people stay in the programs, then the bureaucracy (smaller for sure) will still be there, so the savings will not happen. Some other hits. You know how republicans like to claim that economic growth will pay for tax cuts like magic. Yang uses some of that same Republican math. https://fee.org/articles/andrew-yang-s-math-doesn-t-add-up-on-universal-basic-income/
That's fair. For the WWC we know how big a role economic insecurity played. We'll see how insecure they are a year from now.
The question is what economic policies will work for the Working Class voter, since supporting unions loses votes. And per the NYT article of a couple of years ago, so do most government-sponsored programs. I don't know what the answer is, that was not a rhetorical question.
That's a new paradigm that may or may not work. There would have to be a major shift on our thinking, in terms of how we integrate ourselves to our society in order to feel useful. I find it very important to have a balance between my work, my time for family/loved ones, and my hobbies/time for personal development. If we deemphasize the importance of our work as contribution to our society, we would need to find other ways to look for identity.
Agreed. The capital vs labour paradigm has been at the centre of everything since the modern concept of jobs began to arise in the early 20th century, Prior to that, a job was normally simply enough to scratch out an existence. if we are heading back to a time when millions can't have a meaningful job, we need some other way to share wealth.
Awesome. First they took away my God, now they are taking away my meaningful job. What's left? Pass me a joint.
What kind of VAT is it? VAT is usually seen as a regressive tax, because it is levied disproportionately on the working class who also have no means to avoid it
It's the opposite. Short of actually taxing only the poor, a VAT is likely to be the most regressive form of taxation. As a general rule, as we make more and more money, the percentage of it that we spend on consumer goods becomes less and less. So, a VAT will affect the poor much more than the rich. A UBI supported by a VAT will most likely help the most poor at the expense of the slightly less poor and the middle class, especially those who live from paycheck to paycheck and don't save or invest much. At the risk of sounding facetious, I would argue that even deficit spending might be better as a source of funding than a VAT, because when the state keeps borrowing and interest rates rise (and at some point they will) the effect is likely to affect the rich as well as the poor, more than a VAT would.
I'm sure NAFTA wasn't a top factor, but to the extent that some described it -simplistically and cynically- as "sending our jobs to Mexico", it probably helped.
Interesting. Defining meaningful differently, I think there are a lot of folks who have careers, but their jobs aren’t meaningful. People can be paid handsomely to push papers, devise tax avoidance strategies, figure out how to get an extra point of market share in the toilet paper market, etc. those careers don’t do much to enhance productivity or improve quality of life. But if people had an extra 10-15 grand in their pocket through a progressive redistribution scheme, then some folks would undoubtedly choose different paths where they could have more of an impact. Teachers and social workers with an extra 15 grand in their pockets. And if healthcare was govt funded, then that would also remove the incentive businesses have to work folks into the ground. Companies tend to view the 60 hr/week worker as scalable “free” labor because healthcare costs are fixed. Rather than having a 60 hr/week person on 150k, wouldn’t it be better to have two people in at 35 hours/week making maybe 160k total? I think there are ways to reinvent this that probably enhance job meaning that work well for both employees and firms.
12K may not be enough, but get it closer to 36K and make sure I can cash that monthly check anywhere in the world and I am sold, my ass would early retire to the Caribbean, 36K (shit even 24K) can go a long way there.
Thank you both. That was my main point. Also, add in the current sales taxes (which in Chicago is 10.5%) and we are talking a significant burden on the less wealthy. If there is a "luxury" tax (cars over $50k, boats, planes, houses more than 3x the local average, etc.) to help pay for UBI, I might be able to support that.
A lot of this is covered in this book, which I assigned to my freshman writing class David Graeber is an anthropologist who uses the stories of "native informants" from the Land of Bullshit Jobs (which are not the same as bad jobs or shit jobs: a BS job is possibly well compensated but totally unnecessary. And they seem to be proliferating.
Yes. That is why Bernard does harm with his corrupt DNC stuff. I am fully OK with fighting to move policy left.
Still not sure what the Yanger's all about. But I can tell ya this doesn't look like any bodega I've ever been in A real bodega is simply not that well lit and its aisles are at the least half as wide. Also there’s a cat. https://t.co/nmKWPYqXyj— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) January 15, 2021
Paul Krugman took Andrew Yang to the woodshed today. Krugman's claim - 1) UBI is a $$$$ proposition, there are better ways to spend the money. 2) UBI gets too little money to those who need it, and too much to those who do not. 3) Yang is a poser. He's a high-concept guy who hasn't done the math. People think he's smart and like the idea of UBI, so they think he's a deep thinker, but he's really not. I was convinced. Yang Gangers, probably not so much.