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Paul Krugman
@paulkrugman
, 3 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
Andrew Yang isn't a serious contender for the nom, but is getting a fair bit of attention for advocating universal basic income, which he says is needed because automation is taking away all the jobs -- a common tech-industry view 1/ vox.com/2019/3/11/1825…
But it's a view that has zero support from the data. If the robot apocalypse were here, we should be seeing soaring output per hour worked. What we actually see is ... a slowdown 2/
This whole techno-fatalism thing is strange. I think it's popular among business types because it (a) plays into the techno-hype they love and (b) diverts attention from the role of power in wage stagnation 3/ nytimes.com/2019/03/14/opi…
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More from @paulkrugman see all

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Paul Krugman
@paulkrugman
New CBO report on raising the minimum wage. Most important takeaway is that it says there would be large gains for families below the poverty line and a reduction in the number of people below that line 1/ epi.org/press/cbo-repo…
The report also shows some significant job losses from a $15 minimum wage, which no doubt will get a lot of coverage. But I agree with EPI that CBO has given too much weight to dubious research. 2/
There is a diehard faction of economists who refuse to accept the overwhelming empirical evidence for very small employment effects of minimum wages. This puts CBO in an awkward position, and they may have erred on the side of political caution. But you don't have to go there 3/
Read 5 tweets
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Paul Krugman
@paulkrugman
The policy debacle that followed the financial crisis was also an intellectual debacle for quite a few people, including famous economists, who threw their prestige behind opposition to policies that might limit the damage 1/ bradford-delong.com/2019/07/the-au…
And since then it has turned into a moral debacle. Everyone makes bad calls – God knows I have – but you shouldn't stay with them for years, as those who spent 2009-13 warning about runaway inflation and fiscal crisis did. And it got worse ... 2/
For to a first approximation nobody who got it wrong - who made specious arguments against monetary easing and for austerity in the face of mass unemployment – has admitted having been wrong, let alone tried to understand why they got it wrong. 3/
Read 4 tweets
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Paul Krugman
@paulkrugman
Very good from @sjwrenlewis. The Trumpets right and its equivalents abroad can only gain power with the collaboration of the establishment right. No Trump without the cynicism of a McConnell and the cowardice of a Rubio 1/ mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2019/07/unders…)
Er, TrumpIST right. Spell-check strikes again 2/
The one thing I think Simon may get wrong is suggesting that mainstream conservatives could have made different choices. Anti-immigrant hysteria and austerity mania weren't intellectual slips, they were part of a sustained strategy 3/
Read 4 tweets

Related threads

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Existential Comics
@existentialcoms
Universal Basic Income advocates want to give everyone $1k a month.

- your boss will use this as an excuse to cut your salary.
- your landlord will use this as an excuse to raise your rent.
- your congressmen will use this as an excuse to slash benefits and lower minimum wage.
It isn't a coincidence that billionaires love this plan. Workers will still have to work for them in order to live, and pay their landlords for shelter. Property values will go up. Business costs will go down. Workers will not be empowered.
The plan will cost three trillion, almost the entire federal budget, including social security and medicare. Every benefit that aids the poor will have to go, or your taxes will have to double. The poorest people who need the most help will end up worse off.
Read 4 tweets
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Claire Berlinski
@ClaireBerlinski
Andrew Yang, "The War on Normal People: The Truth about America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income is Our Future," is divided into three parts comprised of 22 short chapters. 246 pages + 28 pages of endnotes.
I hate endnotes. I want footnotes, at the foot of the page, so I don't have to search for them. But I understand mine's a minority view. In the acknowledgments he writes, "As an entrepreneur, I'm a big fan of borrowing."
That hint apart, he doesn't explicitly say that anyone else wrote any part of the book. He thanks his wife by saying, "You are to mothers what Universal Basic Income is to solutions."
Read 24 tweets
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It's Going Down
@IGD_News
#Automation will displace millions of jobs, solidify inequality, and transform cities as neoliberalism did the Rustbelt. In response, everyone from the Alt-Right to Silicon Valley is now backing #UBI. But is keeping capitalism afloat really the solution? itsgoingdown.org/against-automa…
Over the last 20 years, 85% of the jobs lost in the US have been due to automation, not outsourcing. Over the next 10 years, many are predicting that 50% of US jobs will be destroyed or impacted due to automation. Many are former positions within the so-called "gig economy."
Many economic and automation experts predict that "boom towns" of today, like Las Vegas, in 10 years could face upwards of 65% of jobs being automated out of existence, becoming "the next Detroit."
Read 26 tweets
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🧙🏾‍♂️🙅🏾‍♂️👩🏾‍🚀🌍
@BmoreDoc
The $15 per hour minimum wage that our mayor vetoed is precisely the sort of more systemic solution that would allow Black families in redlined communities earn enough so that kids don’t have to live off of cleaning windshields. That’s the reason for raising the minimum wage!
While I think elements of the Squeegee Corps have merit, we as a city still have not confronted our real issues of hypersegregation, deep poverty/no universal basic income, unaffordable housing/high evictions, toxic lead, and a dearth of living wage jobs in the Black 🦋.
Everything we activists have pushed for is what Black youth/families need:

-Affordable Housing Trust Fund (United Workers/BHR)
-Housing First (BmoreBloc’s Tent City)
-$15/hr. minimum wage (unions)
-Racially equitable schools (BMORE Caucus)
-Equity in Port Covington (PORT3)
Read 6 tweets
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ekklesiagora🔰🌹
@ekklesiagora
If you are libertarian, you have to be a prison abolitionist. The prison system is modern day slavery, the antithesis of liberty. 1 out of every 110 adults in America is incarcerated.
If we free all those people, there won't be enough jobs for them. This means that they must either be employed by the State or provided with a basic income in order to survive. And if you are libertarian, it is clear that basic income is the most libertarian of the two options.
But it would be preposterous to give a basic income just to ex-convicts, giving them an advantage over everyone else. No, we must go for a universal basic income, providing everyone with the minimum necessary for survival.
Read 8 tweets
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Yonatan Zunger 🔥
@yonatanzunger
Since it's a quiet Sunday evening and my allergy headache is finally passing, I thought it would be a good time to talk a bit about the discussion of "Universal Basic Income" and "Job Guarantees," and some things that have been churning in my head about them. 1/
This is going to be a Twitter ramble (not really a rant) rather than an article because my ideas are still in a pretty early stage, and I'm quite likely to be wrong about several things. But it's good to explore some of these ideas publicly, hear feedback, and think more.
Especially because I've found that Leftist and Conservative critiques of these ideas have been different, but both have been really thought-provoking. This is a complicated question, and none of the answers are simple.
Read 23 tweets

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