by Spencer P. Morrison Word on the street is that Andrew Yang—a Democratic presidential hopeful—has a fat bag of cash that he’s willing to give out to all American citizens if he becomes president. Traveling with my staff, I told someone to secure the bag. — Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) March 15, 2019 Although I have yet to see the bag, I trust Andrew Yang without reservation. The bag is secure and stuffed with paper. We can all look forward to getting a universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000 per month if he wins. Scratch that—when he wins. Who doesn’t want $1,000 a month? I do, and I know that you do, too. The question is: do we need UBI? Andrew Yang certainly thinks so, as do many economists. Yang’s case for UBI is simple: robots have taken millions of jobs from Americans, and they will take tens of millions more. Estimates suggest that the introduction of autonomous vehicles could eliminate up to 5 million driving jobs virtually overnight. Furthermore, no job is safe. Artificial intelligence is now threatening the employment of highly-educated professions like doctors and lawyers. Yeesh. Journalists keep telling ordinary Americans to “learn to code”—but what happens…
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