Thread by @iammattwalters

This video is too good. @AnaKasparian

#YangMediaBlackout extends to progressives who refuse to compare ideas by the merits as well.

I've yet to have someone explain why a FJG + Guaranteed Housing + Inc Min Wage is better than straight cash w/ UBI.

@AnaKasparian While a housing guarantee sounds nice, I think the real problem is deeper. The problem with Bernie's policies is that they are based on the notion that a person making minimum wage should be able to afford a quality life equivalent to what they could have had in decades past #UBI

How many of the franchise retail stores you went into lately did *not* have automated checkouts? I'll bet the last pharmacy you went into did. In the 1970's a multinational telecommunications company would employ somewhere upward up 25,000 employees #UBI

Today, a $16 billion dollar multinational telecommunications company (WhatsApp) was created and run by 50 people. The reason this is important is that you can't make minimum wage and afford a home – even if it's raised – if no companies need your labor #UBI

So then the government should guarantee you a job, too, right? But what job should the government guarantee you? There aren't enough software, lawyer, doctor, administrator, clerk jobs to employ all the people who are currently not seeking work and all of those displaced #UBI

We need to repair our infrastructure. So everybody can rebuild roads and dams, right? No. We automate those things to increase their effectiveness and reduce their cost. Want to rebuild fast? Multiply human efforts with machines. We already do this #UBI

Will we purposefully give unfulfilling manual jobs to people that they know could easily be automated?
The three policies of Federal Jobs Guarantee, increased minimum wage, and housing guarantee are all related to the same symptoms but are all missing the problem #UBI

We don't have underhoused people because we're underpaid. Our falling Labor Force Participation rate indicates we just don't need as many people working. It's the same reason most new jobs in the last few years have been temp work #UBI

We have a lack of housing not because people aren't paid enough, but because not as many people are paid. Yes, lots of people make less than what gives them a better quality of life – but that's because they're just not as needed. They're cogs in a process, await replacement #UBI

Increase wages and you'll see workers replaced by automation in the business that don't go under. Automation isn't coming. It's been here for thirty years. We shipped manufacturing jobs to other countries in return for increased shareholder value. #UBI

Nobody cared those people lost jobs because 1) they no longer had collective bargaining voices and never landed jobs that gave them back, and 2) others got rich off increases in equity value or careers related to it #UBI

Then we outsourced services jobs. Then we had multiple rounds of increased productivity from software and business process automation. Some of this could have been curtailed if we had bailed out homeowners instead of banks in the financial crisis, but here we are. #UBI

At this point, the best solution is an economic stimulus to the poor and middle class. Give people $1000 a month, every month, and you'll stimulate new builds and place people into housing by giving them the means to help themselves. #UBI

Make financial literacy part of high school curriculum so people are prepared to get their first check. Steer more people toward trade schools, into jobs that are less automatable. #UBI

To keep housing cheap, UBI is funded by a VAT tax with exemptions on staple goods and services like housing, food, education, and sanitary supplies. Things that typically fall in price due to innovation, like TVs, get taxed. #UBI

It took NYC decades to turn failing projects from the 50's and 60's around. I'm sure lessons have been learned there, but even today ridiculous HOA rules favor the poor selling to rich trust fund kids with no income. #UBI

A $1000/mo Freedom Dividend can be signed into being on day one of a Yang Presidency. Zero Congressional approval required. It's the fastest route to eliminating poverty in our country. #UBI

But this can't be right. Record low Unemployment! Unemployment is not the right statistic. The Labor Force Participation Rate is. Unemployment tracks the percentage of people working, of those willing to work. The LFPR tracks the percentage working of all Americans. #UBI

Unemployment does not include those on disability or those not seeking work because they're in school or simply don't want to work. #UBI

We have had a huge increase of people on disability and not seeking work since the 90's. These are manufacturing workers who never retrained (because Fed job retraining programs have a 0 to 15% effectiveness rate), services workers in similar positions... #UBI

...and millennials saying fuck it I'm better off playing video games with my parents than having two minimum wage jobs for a shitty apartment. #UBI

Automation has driven enormous value to our markets and it was all captured by the rich. The elites of the US sold out the workers by shipping their jobs overseas and firing them. #UBI

As a result, elites shot themselves in the foot by decreasing the size of the middle class which decreases the dynamism of our economy. So now we have large structural issues to fix. And if it's not fixed soon, we'll have a real revolution that will make Occupy seem tame. #UBI

I'd rather we just give people money now and fix the issue by returning purchasing power back to the middle class. UBI is the simplest way to 1) eliminate poverty and 2) return our middle class to the size and purchasing power it had in decades past. UBI makes America great again

I was a @SenSanders fanatic in 2016. Unfortunately, our problems have changed and Bernie's solutions seem stuck in the past. I fear Bernie's lack of understanding of business and economics is stifling him from evolving. Thankfully, @AndrewYang gets the problem right. #UBI

If someone can explain why part or all of this view is incorrect, please chime in. If someone can explain why Bernie's policies are a better solution, please let me know.

Thanks, @AndrewYang @SenSanders. You're both doing a great service bringing positive change to our country.