# The Andrew Yang Presidential Campaign thread
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [February 14, 2019, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555 "2019-02-14T21:16:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 16
### Author:  [@aesop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aesop)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/301 "2019-03-13T15:57:44Z")
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> Saying a VAT will make Google pay its fair share is a lie, not a point of view.
What makes you think it is a lie?
---
### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/302 "2019-03-13T16:24:41Z")
Because, as no doubt Yang with his BA in economics knows, a VAT has nothing to do with profits. Google would only pay VAT on its purchases which will be either written down or passed on to the consumer. VAT on Google products will be paid directly by the consumer.
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### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/303 "2019-03-13T18:30:39Z")
Just to be clear:
Let’s say Google is selling birdhouses. You walk in and buy a $50 birdhouse, the cash register rings up at $55. So you have just paid $5 in VAT and Google owes that to the government. But Google bought $10 worth of wood to build it and so gave $11 to their wood supplier, cost + VAT. At the end of the year they get to subtract what they paid in VAT from what they collected and only owe the government $4 VAT on that purchase. Thus, the entire tax is on the end user.
---
### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/304 "2019-03-13T18:40:55Z")
> [@aesop](#):
>
> You didn’t answer my question from before. What else could he do to convince you he’s serious? And kindly stop using your opinion as the metric for what qualifies as serious. Objectively speaking, what makes any candidate a serious one?
>
> My response to your question, above, is if a man spends 18 months of his life campaigning for president (not just saying that he is but putting in the long hours and the hard miles) but doesn’t attract the attention of pundits because they view his ideas as too far outside the mainstream, that in no way detracts from the seriousness of his effort.
>
> And lo, in the 19th month he has sprang fully clad in seriousness upon the pundit conscious. Mirabile dictu!
>
> Or perhaps he was serious all along and now he’s getting more notice. Which is entirely different.
>
> Now you’re just being disingenuous. You know I used Trump to make a point, not to liken Yang to him. A campaign presents a point of view and attempts to influence people to support it. Pick any plank in any platform and the party on the other side will scream that it distorts the truth. You know, the way you are with VAT/UBI.
What counts as serious?
Sorry you don’t like my answer. I don’t care at all if a person thinks they are serious about running if they have no chance of winning. And I do not think that Yang is serious about thinking he has a chance at doing anything more than possibly getting his ideas discussed.
So serious to me is measured by polling or having some (yup in my opinion, just like being serious is yours) path to winning. That can be having a current position that has a track record of leading to a nomination (which includes generals as well as various elected positions) or enough money that they can buy attention, or enough celebrity that they will get it.
No not disingenuous. Yang is selling bills of goods like Trump does. Worse because he is smart enough to know he is saying things that are false. You endorse that behavior.
I have heard here that he is using the regressive distribution to sell giving money to those who need it. My impression increasingly is that the goal is the regressive distribution and undercutting safety nets with the verbiage otherwise to sell a few progressives on it. YMMV.
---
### Author:  [@aesop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aesop)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/305 "2019-03-13T21:32:51Z")
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> Because, as no doubt Yang with his BA in economics knows, a VAT has nothing to do with profits. Google would only pay VAT on its purchases which will be either written down or passed on to the consumer. VAT on Google products will be paid directly by the consumer.
I was hoping you would clarify this in a subsequent post because it didn’t make a lot of sense to me.
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> Just to be clear:
>
> Let’s say Google is selling birdhouses. You walk in and buy a $50 birdhouse, the cash register rings up at $55. So you have just paid $5 in VAT and Google owes that to the government. But Google bought $10 worth of wood to build it and so gave $11 to their wood supplier, cost + VAT. At the end of the year they get to subtract what they paid in VAT from what they collected and only owe the government $4 VAT on that purchase. Thus, the entire tax is on the end user.
Sorry, friend, that was not the clarification I was hoping for. Your point seems to be that the end user pays a higher price at the end due to VAT. You are right. That is true. That’s how it is in the U.K., the end price is 20% higher than it would be without a VAT. No argument. The tax was actually collected at each point along the value chain but the end user pays more than he would with no VAT, no question.
The tradeoff for VAT and those higher prices is free healthcare for everybody. Does that put it into context for you? The pizza at the restaurant that used to cost £10 now costs £12. But if you get run over by a bus on the way home from the restaurant, your hospital stay, your doctor consultations and your medicine are free. In the US the pizza at the restaurant costs $10 and you only pay 50 cents in sales tax, but after the bus accident you owe $250,000 for the hospital stay.
I don’t know the details of Yang’s VAT proposal but in the U.K. VAT is not applied to all goods and services and not applied uniformly to those that are in scope. Most groceries, all children’s clothing and a lot of other things are exempt from VAT. Many other things have sharply reduced VAT - like 5% vs. the standard 20%. VAT is more heavily weighted on discretionary than nondiscretionary spending. So the idea that the poor are disproportionately impacted is quite overstated. A lot of their spending is exactly what it would be without a VAT. And everybody gets free healthcare.
Substitute UBI for free healthcare and that’s what Andrew Yang is proposing to do. That is the scale of the benefit he hopes to bring to the US. (And he’s also proposing Medicare for All, but let’s not confuse the issue.) Your pizza down at the restaurant that used to cost $10 is now going to cost $11. In exchange you get $1,000 per month. As long as you spend less than $10,000 per month, you’re going to have some UBI money left over.
As for how we get a Google to pay for it? It depends on what’s in scope. I am speculating here, ok? I would expect as a minimum they would have to pay VAT on all physical plant & equipment purchases and refreshes, any time they make a substantial business investment, build and equip a data centre, cloud computing, AI, automation bots, outsourcing of services, etc. I’m not up on how their ad revenue model works but if VAT applies there it will be captured as well. In re: their data centres - if Uber is renting computing resources from Google they will pay VAT. Same with Amazon, Facebook, Apple and on down the tech giant line. There are lots of potential places to take a tax bite from revenue generating behemoths that currently pay far less tax on a % basis than you or I. Yes, there are many details to be worked out, and many successful implementations of VAT around the globe to learn from.
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### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/306 "2019-03-13T21:44:21Z")
Dude, I live in Canada. We had universal healthcare before we instituted our VAT (called Goods and Services Tax).
And you are quite clearly and verbosely dodging the point. You asked me how it was a lie and I told you.
Yang’s estimate of $800B in tax revenue implies a VAT that doesn’t exempt household staples like in the UK and Canada.
As my birdhouse example inferred, VAT taxes on Google ads would be paid by advertisers, not Google.
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### Author:  [@aesop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aesop)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/307 "2019-03-13T21:53:34Z")
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> Dude, I live in Canada. We had universal healthcare before we instituted our VAT (called Goods and Services Tax).
>
> And you are quite clearly and verbosely dodging the point. You asked me how it was a lie and I told you.
>
> Yang’s estimate of $800B in tax revenue implies a VAT that doesn’t exempt household staples like in the UK and Canada.
>
> As my birdhouse example implied, VAT taxes on Google ads would be paid by advertisers, not Google.
I thought I pointed out a few examples of tax opportunities at Google and the tech industry. Perhaps you missed them? Also, I missed the place where he said household staples are included in VAT. Can you point it out?
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### Author:  [@aesop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aesop)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/308 "2019-03-13T22:07:17Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> What counts as serious?
>
> Sorry you don’t like my answer. I don’t care at all if a person thinks they are serious about running if they have no chance of winning. And I do not think that Yang is serious about thinking he has a chance at doing anything more than possibly getting his ideas discussed.
>
> So serious to me is measured by polling or having some (yup in my opinion, just like being serious is yours) path to winning. That can be having a current position that has a track record of leading to a nomination (which includes generals as well as various elected positions) or enough money that they can buy attention, or enough celebrity that they will get it.
>
> No not disingenuous. Yang is selling bills of goods like Trump does. Worse because he is smart enough to know he is saying things that are false. You endorse that behavior.
>
> I have heard here that he is using the regressive distribution to sell giving money to those who need it. My impression increasingly is that the goal is the regressive distribution and undercutting safety nets with the verbiage otherwise to sell a few progressives on it. YMMV.
Yep, you’re onto him. You’ve uncovered Yang’s nefarious plan to give everyone $1,000 per month to enjoy a better life. You win this round, DSeid, but he’ll be back, and then you’ll see!!
Also, I may be misreading you, but despite what you wrote, you don’t sound the least bit sorry. You wouldn’t be stating things that are false, would you? Because you strike me as someone smart enough to know when he is saying things that are false. And I know you don’t condone such behaviour. 😉
I think we’re done here. Good luck to your candidate, may we get a D in the White House and peace be with you.
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### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/309 "2019-03-13T22:13:08Z")
You asked me how “a VAT will make Google pay its fair share” was a lie. I told you how Google wouldn’t pay extra taxes with a VAT.
Back a few pages [DSeid noted](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21521676&postcount=235) that a CBO study concluded that a 5% VAT, that did not exempt food, would yield $252B. I extrapolate from there that his $800B would also require not exempting food.
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### Author:  [@aesop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aesop)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/310 "2019-03-13T22:16:24Z")
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> You asked me how “a VAT will make Google pay its fair share” was a lie. I told you how Google wouldn’t pay extra taxes with a VAT.
>
> Back a few pages [DSeid noted](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21521676&postcount=235) that a CBO study concluded that a 5% VAT, that did not exempt food, would yield $252B. I extrapolate from there that his $800B would also require not exempting food.
Your extrapolation skills are surpassed only by your skill at elucidating how VAT works. 😉
We, too, are done. Peace.
---
### Author:  [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/311 "2019-03-13T22:26:40Z")
Reading through (part of) this very long thread confirms my belief that Andrew Yang is the Ron Paul of the 2020 Democratic primaries—loved, even venerated, by a few, and ignored by the many.
Either Yang or Tulsi Gabbard, anyway.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/312 "2019-03-13T22:29:47Z")
And peace to you as well!
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### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2019, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/313 "2019-03-13T22:32:40Z")
I explained the VAT pretty well I thought. Here’s another source if you need it explained differently:
> **[Value-Added Tax (VAT)](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/valueaddedtax.asp)**
>
> Value-added tax (VAT) is collected on a product at every stage of the supply chain where value is added to it, from production to point of sale.
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### Author:  [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2019, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/314 "2019-03-14T12:23:19Z")
I don’t like Yang’s main platform item, but I do like the man. I would certainly support him over Donald Trump without reservation.
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### Author:  [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2019, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/315 "2019-03-14T13:33:35Z")
Another Nate Silver [tweet](https://twitter.com/PhilipKHoward/status/1105799251756544001):
> [@Nate Silver](#):
>
> Yang and Buttigieg getting roughly as much Google search traffic as alleged “frontrunners” Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders over the past 24 hours.
which is retweeted by Philip K. Howard who adds:
> [@Philip K. Howard](#):
>
> .@AndrewYangVFA is an original thinker, and understands that fixing Washington requires structural changes, not just new leaders.
There’s a [change.org](http://change.org) petition someone started to get Yang a CNN town hall. Someone else on twitter wrote a tweet to Jim Acosta. He claims to have heard from him, but so far, no proof. It might be a joke account. It would be nice to see Yang in a CNN town hall to compare with the others though.
I’m enjoying the energy going on there and some of it is pretty funny. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad at this point. Here’s a tweet about [robots in Walmart](https://twitter.com/AndrewYangVFA/status/1105532783219408908). Just after I wrote that, I stumbled on some really gross inappropriate stuff in those threads. Will they have to clean that stuff up? I don’t know. I’m not a big Twitter follower.
The [NY Times](https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/03/12/us/politics/12reuters-usa-election-2020-candidates-factbox.html) has a blurb on him. I wondered why he was on the bottom. It’s alphabetical. Then I wondered why it was so tangential. But they all are.
> [@](#):
>
> ANDREW YANG - The entrepreneur launched his long-shot candidacy back in November 2017 around a single issue: the future of work in a post-industrial society and the threat that automation will eliminate millions of jobs. To deal with that challenge, Yang has proposed a Universal Basic Income of $1,000 a month for every American over the age of 18. Yang, 44, has no experience in politics and ran a series of startups before launching a nonprofit that helps aspiring entrepreneurs create jobs.
[Vice](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvynnp/meet-the-tech-loving-presidential-candidate-promising-free-money-for-all?utm_source=vicetwitterus) has a piece that was described as positive. It didn’t seem all that positive to me.
> [@](#):
>
> Yang’s platform has its critics, even among progressives. UBI is apparently too out-there for Bernie Sanders, who tends to hem and haw when asked whether he supports it. And while Hillary Clinton flirted with the idea, she ultimately considered it economically infeasible. No other candidate for 2020 has embraced UBI, though many Democrats back a plan to give cash to working-class families. Some leftists have argued that a jobs guarantee—like the one contained in the Green New Deal—is preferable to giving people money for nothing. But Yang worries that creating “a new underclass of government employees who are doing make-work” could be, at worst, “a dystopian nightmare.” Chabot, like Yang, is worried about the proliferation of “bullshit jobs.” And Almaz Zelleke, a political science professor at NYU Shanghai, said that the effects of a jobs guarantee wouldn’t be as sweeping as for UBI.
I’d like to see more discussion from the Progressives about how guaranteed jobs compares to UBI.
[Vox](https://www.vox.com/2019/3/11/18256198/andrew-yang-gang-presidential-policies-universal-basic-income-joe-rogan) has a pretty negative article about Yang. Ezra Klein questioned Yang’s UBI plan in his interview linked in the beginning of this thread. This article adds to the negativity. They got most of their points from “Jeremiah Johnson, host of The Neoliberal Podcast and a Yang skeptic” Oddly, Ezra Klein mentioned in the interview that his wife was writing a book on UBI. Her book makes UBI sound like a panacea.
[Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World](https://www.amazon.com/Give-People-Money-Universal-Revolutionize/dp/1524758760/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=annie+lowrey+book&link_code=qs&qid=1552569640&s=gateway&sourceid=Mozilla-search&sr=8-2&tag=mozilla-20) by Annie Lowrey (Ezra Klein’s wife)
Even Yang isn’t that positive on it. He admits that it’s just a start to deal with the structural problems in the economy.
---
### Author:  [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2019, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/316 "2019-03-14T13:37:23Z")
UBI is a fine idea as a replacement for the welfare state. As an add-on it’s just silly. Jobs guarantee is an even better replacement for the welfare state.
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### Author:  [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2019, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/317 "2019-03-15T06:45:20Z")
Well, a Monmouth University poll from earlier this month has him at 1%, beating out Gillebrand and Inslee, among others. This could be just the break the Yang campaign has been waiting for!
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### Author:  [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2019, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/318 "2019-03-15T11:21:55Z")
Yang had a satire piece done on him on [Trevor Noah](https://twitter.com/AndrewYangVFA/status/1106435025954693120). (starts at minute 8:20) It’s a mocking piece, but Yang seems pretty pleased with his participation in it.
It reminds me of a gif someone put up about him laughing at the YangGang memes. [Andrew catches up on Yang Gang memes](https://streamable.com/0p7sb) from [here.](https://old.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/b0ny0x/andrew_catches_up_on_yang_gang_memes/)
More silliness. [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUolzAltwKI) of Yang on Fung Bros’ channel. He’s eating Taiwanese food and playing basketball. He speaks about UBI while eating and playing basketball back in Nov. 2018.
Some positive tweets.
[Peter Daou](https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/1106199562748919809), former Clinton and Kerry advisor on digital media
> [@](#):
>
> I haven’t backed any candidate this cycle yet, there are so many good ones. Though I’ll repeat: @AndrewYangVFA deserves a more serious look. If I’m not mistaken, he’s the only one advocating a #UniversalBasicIncome and talking in great depth about economic displacement.
[Eric Weinstein](https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1105867038457618432), managing director at Thiel Capital
> [@](#):
>
> “This economy is making liars of us all.”
>
> My model of the universal corruption of our institutional experts via “Embedded Growth Obligations” (or E.G.O.s) is finally getting a political hearing. This, after decades of being ignored.
>
> Thanks to Andrew Yang for taking a risk.
Somewhat related, [a Vox piece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUmyygCMMGA) on the debate on the future of work and what will happen in the robot economy. The economists say that in the past, work has always reinvented itself when one industry went obsolete, so there’s no reason to think that this time will be different. The economists and futurist/tech people disagree on that. Some tech people think that this is different, that the pace grows exponentially. The economists counter that if that were the case, the productivity gains should be evident in the data, and it’s not. What is evident in the data is that wealth inequality has widened immensely. Both sides agree that something needs to be done about that, and the government has the power to do it.
I’m not sure I understand the productivity argument. If robots are taking human jobs, 1 robot replaces multiple human jobs. If 1 robot replaced 1 human, then maybe productivity would be evident. But like Yang notes in his human-centered capitalism model, is that measuring the right side of that equation?
---
### Author:  [@Monocracy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monocracy)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2019, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/319 "2019-03-15T13:35:06Z")
PredictIt finally put Yang on their Democratic Nomination market a couple days ago. He debuted at about 10 cents! I thought it was just his hardcore supporters driving the price up at the “IPO”, but he has kept that price point since then. He’s currently ranked 5th among the nominees.
Do the gamblers on PredictIt know something we don’t, or is he ridiculously overpriced?
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2019, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/320 "2019-03-15T13:38:41Z")
> [@adaher](#):
>
> UBI is a fine idea as a replacement for the welfare state. …
I’m not getting why you don’t like the way he’s doing it.
He is proposing doing that as much as is reasonably possible in that the total of benefits plus “freedom dividend” will equal the UBI with the presumption that many will take it all as “freedom dividend” - leading to a dramatic contraction of the welfare state. (And that includes benefits that most of the lower half currently get.) That dramatic contraction of the welfare state, from food stamps to disability and much more, is a key aspect of his plan.
The plan also creates substantial new (regressive) taxes on those who currently receive benefits and are in the lower income brackets.
I would have thought this would be something you would have liked Addie.
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