ANDREW YANG 2020: Warns of Robots 'Coming For Your Jobs,' UBI Advocate

[appalachiablue]

"Andrew Yang: The 2020 Candidate Warning Of The Rise Of Robots," The entrepreneur says Trump won the 2016 election because the US automated away jobs- so he wants to become president to do something about it. David Smith, The Guardian, Feb. 24, 2019. *EXCERPTS: (Reposted from 'Editorials' Feb. 25, 2019)

Donald Trump won 2,584 counties in the 2016 presidential election; Hillary Clinton carried only 472. But the Democratic nominee’s accounted for nearly two-thirds of America’s economic output, according to a study by the Brookings Institution. This is one vivid illustration of America’s great divide. Glittering coastal cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Washington are becoming richer and more influential, attracting more jobs, better hospitals and schools, and technology. Small towns and rural communities are falling further behind, feeding a sense that, to paraphrase LP Hartley, the coasts are a foreign country – they do things differently there.



Andrew Yang is a New York and Silicon Valley entrepreneur and in the Democratic race for the White House in 2020. The two historical time periods that are comparable to where we are now in terms of polarisation and division are the French Revolution before the revolution and the United States before the civil war,” he said. So far Yang has raised $250,000 from 14,000 donors and has chapters in more than 35 states. He has no doubts about the gravity of his mission. Life expectancy in the US has declined for the past three years for the first time since the flu pandemic of 1918 because of a surge in suicides and drug overdoses, both of which are at record highs, Yang notes.

And like a time traveller from the future, Yang has a warning about more to come: the rise of the machines – robots that will put millions of more people out of work. As it happens, it is an army of automatons conceived and created by tech firms on the coasts and unleashed on middle America, potentially spurring a deepening us versus them mentality. Yang has written: “I am writing from inside the tech bubble to let you know that we are coming for your jobs.” Yang wants to become president so he can do something about it.

He asserts that Trump won the election because the country automated away 4m manufacturing jobs in the critical swing states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri and Iowa. “Now we’re about to do the same thing to millions of retail jobs, call centre jobs, fast food jobs and, most destructively, trucking jobs in the coming years." “So the hollowing out of the interior of the country is going to be amplified many times over by the automation of freight. It’s going to be disastrous for many Americans and many communities.”

No one could accuse Yang of lacking big ideas. Under his administration, the government would provide a universal basic income of $1,000 a month, or $12,000 a year, for all US citizens between the ages of 18 and 64, paid for by a new tax on automation.
Before you suggest he is mad, Yang contends that Thomas Paine, Martin Luther King, Richard Nixon and Milton Friedman all endorsed similar ideas, and oil-rich Alaska has paid an annual dividend to citizens for the past 37 years with great success...

MORE, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/24/andrew-yang-2020-candidate-robots-machines

Website *ANDREW YANG 2020* https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/

(3 mins.) A Campaign of Ideas | Andrew Yang - Well done video.

[WeekiWater]

1. One of the issues in your subject line is why I can't go for him.

His thoughts on technology don’t settle well with me. At all. I am glad he is running and love a large part of his platform. I think some of his positions on technology are horrible and his fear tactics will work on those easily swayed. Other than that one area he has more depth than anyone in the field.

[Blue_Tires]

2. Yet another wealthy elitist demagogue from the big city

who wants to tell Angry White Middle Americans that it's ok to be bitter, whiny and racist because their problems are solely the fault of some nebulous "other" -- Trump said it was Wall Street and the Mexicans and the people of Peoria lapped it up, and now this asshole says it's the big cities and Silicon Valley and the same yokels would lap it up, but I'm thinking Yang is WAY too "ethnic" for the people of Peoria to jump on his bandwagon.


Evidently there is a LOT of meat on this "Rich guy in the city tells poor folks in the country that rich guys like him are the problem, but if you ignore that and vote for him he'll keep the other rich guys in check" -hustle...

[appalachiablue]

3. So somebody better contact Brown, Klobuchar, Buttigieg and any

other Dems in Middle America, especially those who don't worship Big Tech and the Coasts to let them know that the Big Tent is full up- for the year. Seriously, people want to know more about the candidates and their agendas, including Yang who has some interesting ideas and approaches. The way it is.