BY BENJAMIN FEARNOW ON 12/24/19
Tech entrepreneur and Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang touted the benefits of a "trickle-up economy" that allows average Americans the ability to reinvest and spend a tiny portion of the profits pulled in by corporations such as Amazon and Google.
Yang's 2020 campaign has long focused on the "challenges of the 21st Century economy" and how to cope with automation displacing human workers. Speaking with CNN Tuesday, the lawyer-turned-tech businessman again touted the benefits of taxing multibillion-dollar corporations such as Amazon—which now pay zero dollars in federal taxes—to put some of that money in the hands of regular Americans. Yang said that companies benefiting from artificial intelligence could easily put in place a system to redirect that money down to people who will spend it on everyday, local economic necessities.
.@AndrewYang: "If we put a mechanism in place where we get our fair share, a tiny of slice of every Amazon sale, every Google search, every Facebook ad, and eventually every robot truck mile and AI work unit, we can generate hundreds of billions of dollars off the bat." pic.twitter.com/PxLPARrA26
รข€” The Hill (@thehill) December 24, 2019
"If we put a mechanism in place where we get our fair share, a tiny of slice of every Amazon sale, every Google search, every Facebook ad, and eventually every robot truck mile and AI work unit, we can generate hundreds of billions of dollars off the bat," Yang told CNN.
"And that number has a big 'up arrow' attached to it and then when we put this money into Americans' hands where does the money go? It goes right back into the local economy to car repairs and little league sign-ups and daycare expenses—this is a trickle-up economy," Yang added in the CNN segment called "Democrats vs. The Economy."
Yang's "trickle-up" economic platform has caught on among Democratic voters as he has flipped the long-held Republican Party concept of creating more jobs in a way critics say comes at the expense of workers' happiness and well-being. Speaking at a CNN Town Hall in April, Yang said, "We have to instead think about how we can make Americans prosperous through this time. The goal should not be to save jobs. The goal should be to make our lives better."
Yang followed up those comments in an April PBS News Hour segment in which he again targeted Silicon Valley companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google which are replacing humans with AI while simultaneously paying few, if any, taxes. Yang has previously touted how a value-added tax (VAT) on these Silicon Valley companies would not be "regressive" and would instead help increase the buying power of the bottom 90 percent of Americans -- the same people whose data is collected and sold by such tech giants.
"Right now, the biggest winners from artificial intelligence and new technology, Amazon and the biggest tech companies, are right now paying zero in taxes which is the case with Amazon, so we need to wake up to the challenges of the 21st Century economy and get more buying power in the hands of Americans, but also make sure our biggest companies are not benefiting without paying their fair share." Yang told PBS News Hour in April.
"The economy needs to work for everyone," Yang added.
Andrew Yang touted the benefits of a "trickle-up economy"
that allows average Americans the ability to reinvest and
spend a tiny portion of the profits pulled in by corporations
like Amazon and Google.
JUSTIN SULLIVAN / STAFF/GETTY IMAGES
No comments:
Post a Comment