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@thett3
Say we decide that we want to guarantee all citizens a minimum income of $20,000 a year. So someone who made only $10,000 in income would get an additional $10,000 from the government, an unemployed person would get $20,000, etc. We know how most Americans spend money. While the average person could (barely) get by on a stipend of $1700 a month, there's no way they are going to make it through the year if you gave them twenty grand cash on January 1st. There's just no way. However this is the only way I could see a NIT put into practice unless we went started assessing taxes on a month to month basis which would be a complete nightmare for so many reasons and would probably cost hundreds of billions in overhead a year.The more I think about it, UBI might be better even though it does have the issue of cutting Bill Gates a check every month because it is just so simple. This is probably why someone as smart as Andrew Yang is pushing for it over NIT. There has to be a middle ground, but I'm not sure exactly where it would fall
Maybe just do it through the Social Security system instead of the tax system? Send monthly checks to everyone who qualifies, with the size of the check being determined by a formula. I propose naming it the $ocial $ecurity $tipend (abbreviated to $$$).
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There are two realistic options here:
(1) allow the total number of jobs to continue declining, as an increasingly large portion of the population subsists off the social safety net
(2) actively intervene to ensure that there are enough jobs to sustain the population
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@ResurgetExFavilla
It's not labor that I'm against or see as unnecessary, it's employment. The state of selling one's labor for a wage. Typically peasants didn't do that; they worked to pay rents and were able to keep a portion of their harvests directly. Laboring is part of being human, and I don't think that most people would stop if the condition of employment ended. Rather, I see the institution of employment as a restriction on human labor because it depends on the exclusive control of the means of production to propagate the power of the ruling class. I think that if we don't start looking at alternative models, we're going to slide into a horrifying, senseless techno-dystopia.
You're not wrong, but what you're advocating is a fundamental restructuring of the way our society is organized -- it's never gonna happen unless some sort of large-scale catastrophe burns the current structure to the ground. I guess I just prefer to think within the bounds of the current structure.
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@ResurgetExFavilla
I don't think that full employment is attainable or even desirable; you were right when you said that it was largely drilled into us through conditioning. There's nothing fulfilling about working and not owning the product of your labor because a vanishingly small caste of plutocrats control the means of production.
Potential counterpoint: the psychological benefits of employment go well beyond "fulfillment" -- it's more about (1) providing a sense of routine & structure in people's day-to-day lives, and (2) forcing people to get out of their houses and interact with the outside world.
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@Tejretics
i hereby invite u to the thread
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@thett3
I totally agree that working sucks, and that it would be a benefit to people if they could do something meaningful with their lives instead of working. But for every out of work, UBI supported person who would do stuff like go on month long backpacking trips, volunteering constantly, and helping fix up his church, how many others would spend 12 hours a day watching television? I just don’t know how it’s going to shake out. Working at McDonalds flipping burgers sucks but it is way better for the mind and spirit than watching 12 hours of television a day.
Yeah, it's basically impossible to predict how such a drastic lifestyle change would play out on a societal level. That's why it's much safer to stick with what we know and pursue a full employment economy (to the extent that doing so is possible).
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@thett3
Stopping technological advancement is a good way to get curbed stomped in a few decades by countries that don’t. There is no easy solution
Yeah, that's a risk for sure. Ideally, though, these regulations would represent more of a temporary slow-down than a permanent ban. And hopefully we can also count on those other countries getting fucked over by technological unemployment.
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I believe that employers should have to bear the full burden of occupational training & credentialing. The government doesn't need to be involved in post-secondary education at all.
If the goal is full employment, then this obviously wouldn't work. The government would need to coordinate with employers to create a new post-secondary education system that actively prepares American workers for the jobs that exist (which the current system doesn't do at all).
The K-12 education system (which should be expanded to include Pre-K as well) should focus exclusively on general life preparation -- social intelligence, physical fitness, survival skills, English literacy, financial literacy, civic awareness, etc... and it should also rely far more on project-based assessments, rather than test-based assessments. I think such a system would produce much healthier, more well-rounded adults than the status quo does, and it would also probably end up costing substantially less per student.
I still stand by all of this, though.
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If the goal is a full employment economy, then heavily regulating technological advancement is an absolute necessity. If it turns out we were wrong and there actually are more jobs getting created than automated, then we can always loosen up the regulations in the future.
Wow, I actually didn't think of it that way before. I'm really insightful and persuasive.
Friendship ended with UBI utopia. Now: full employment is my best friend!
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@ResurgetExFavilla
Why don't we just set a bunch of nukes off in the upper atmosphere?
This is a very innovative policy proposal, and I certainly hope one of the 2020 presidential candidates adopts it.
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@thett3
Yeah, I think even Yang understates the issue long term. Some jobs, like an HVAC technician, I don’t see being automated away for an extremely long time...but what people are missing is that the issue isnt just automation. The kind of work my dad does (he’s a technician for some pretty advanced equipment) isn’t something that can realistically be automated for an extremely long time. However the newer stuff is far less mechanical are far more electronic, so there’s a lot less labor in fixing stuff. It’s more about swapping out components that can no longer be fixed. Subsequently it takes a lot less labor so for every two older guys that retire they usually only hire one young guy. I think this is the story in a ton of fields, as things get more advanced there is just less work to go around.Im hoping that we are just wrong about this (after all 90% of people worked on farms 150 years ago) but it does seem like this time is different. You can already see an extremely stratified economy because of this. And $1000 a month isn’t nearly enough without even mentioning the issue of what people are going to do all day. It might be rough in a few decades
If the goal is a full employment economy, then heavily regulating technological advancement is an absolute necessity. If it turns out we were wrong and there actually are more jobs getting created than automated, then we can always loosen up the regulations in the future.
And I still am sympathetic to the idea of striving for a full employment economy. It would be the most socially constructive and fiscally responsible system of income distribution. I just don't know how realistically attainable it is.
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@ResurgetExFavilla
Do you believe that nude wrestling should be included in the curriculum?
Absolutely it should!
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@thett3
What does your ideal healthcare system look like?
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@thett3
I fully support your proposed education reforms, except for the vocational stuff at the end. I believe that employers should have to bear the full burden of occupational training & credentialing. The government doesn't need to be involved in post-secondary education at all.
The K-12 education system (which should be expanded to include Pre-K as well) should focus exclusively on general life preparation -- social intelligence, physical fitness, survival skills, English literacy, financial literacy, civic awareness, etc... and it should also rely far more on project-based assessments, rather than test-based assessments. I think such a system would produce much healthier, more well-rounded adults than the status quo does, and it would also probably end up costing substantially less per student.
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@thett3
@bsh1
I think the mainstream obsession with employment is totally misguided. Jobs are merely a byproduct of business operations. There has never really been any guarantee that the economy will generate enough jobs for everyone, or that all those jobs will pay enough to sustain a decent standard of living. And that's only going to become more and more true as labor-automating technologies continue to advance. Instead of uselessly trying to manipulate businesses into creating jobs and raising wages, the government should simply offer an unconditional financial safety net to all its citizens. Those who want to work for additional income are free to do so, whereas those who don't want to work (or are unable to find work) can survive regardless. Meanwhile, businesses are left alone to do what they do best -- competing against one another to sell goods and services at the lowest possible prices.
So the real question is: what's the best way to structure the safety net?
I'm undecided, but I don't support Bsh1's proposal because it would ensure that no one ever works any job that pays less than $40,000. Any viable safety net needs to preserve the incentive to earn additional income. It's also worth noting that the "Bill Gates" criticism of UBI fails to recognize the reality of progressive taxation. Anyone who earns more than $60,000 or so at their job would end up having their entire UBI taxed away, so UBI isn't actually wasteful at all, and it would also end up costing way less than critics are claiming with their rudimentary estimates.
As for the question of what unemployed people are gonna do with their lives... Spend time with family and friends. Attend religious services. Participate in volunteer-based community projects (e.g. farming, public works). People can come up with socially constructive things to do. I really don't buy into the idea that employment is necessary to find meaning in one's life. Seems like the prevalence of that idea is mostly just a product of societal indoctrination.
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@thett3
My score went down from 5 to 4 cuz you added the question about growing your own food >:-/
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@DebateArt.com
@bsh1
STOP SENDING NOTIFICATIONS FOR THIS SHIT
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@Analgesic.Spectre
yet racial in-group bias remains the most important factor when it comes to voting.
On what basis do you continue to assert that? Neither of the two largest racial groups in the U.S. (whites and latinos) demonstrate any consistent sense of solidarity in their voting patterns. The evidence simply doesn't support the narrative that racial in-group bias reigns supreme.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
I'll address the other sources when I find some more spare time -- this is very time consuming
Let me save you some time, man -- I'll go ahead and concede that point for the sake of argument. Even if it's true on a theoretical level that race is the most important component of personal identity, that doesn't necessarily tell us anything about the prevalence of interracial conflict in the real world. The fact is that there really isn't that much interracial conflict happening in the United States. There is substantial political division within every racial group in America (except for blacks), and the political division among whites actually serves as the country's primary source of social instability: https://www.axios.com/political-polarization-whites-america-left-right-e2d8ba14-535f-4439-84f6-3ff60324beee.html
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@Analgesic.Spectre
Race is by far the most important thing in politics
It's difficult to empirically demonstrate the paramount importance of culture because there's no way to explicitly define and categorize cultural groups. However, what we can do is look at cultural proxies like religion, geography, and partisan affiliation, and there are tons of studies showing that they all tend to be more important than race/ethnicity. Here are just a few:
I could go into more detail, on how like Blacks voted for Obama despite being Republican
Black loyalty to the Democratic party is a unique phenomenon with a lot of complicated historical reasons behind it. If it were simply a matter of racial tribalism, then we'd expect to see similar levels of political solidarity among other racial groups... but we don't. There is substantial political division among literally every other racial group in America, including whites, latinos, and asians.
In fact, rising political polarization in America is being driven almost exclusively by conflict between whites, which completely undermines the narrative that interracial competition defines American politics.
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Ethnonationalism is dumb. Cultural differences are infinitely more relevant than racial/ethnic differences.
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@thett3
I was giving up on the idea of universal employment mainly because it felt pointless to try ensuring that everyone has a job if most jobs don't actually pay enough to afford a decent standard of living. But that doesn't necessarily have to be the case -- as you've said before, simply finding ways to control the skyrocketing costs of standard fixed expenses (e.g. housing, healthcare, education, childcare) would make it much easier to live a decent life despite low wages, and there are plenty of policy steps that can be taken to increase wages themselves as well.
I also did a lot of research into the types of jobs where demand for labor is expanding, and it helped me regain faith in the idea that there are more jobs getting created than automated. I know we like mocking the idea of retraining with the "Learn to Code" meme, but I think that's a strawman -- there are more than enough medium-skilled, non-programming jobs that I can easily see former blue-collar workers getting retrained into.
Also, like you just said, we can literally just ban certain types of automation under the pretense of "safety" if needed.
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I've wavered on this issue a lot in the past, but I think I've finally come to the conclusion that it isn't possible to achieve universal gainful employment.
It is with a heavy heart that I must announce I change my mind on this again.
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There's plenty I disagree with Yang on, but none of it is disqualifying. I agree with him on all the most important issues, e.g. economics, healthcare, foreign policy, immigration (kinda), rejection of identity politics (kinda). That's enough to earn my vote.
Also add free speech to that list. I really hope Yang was serious when he said he'd regulate Big Tech companies as public utilities.
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There's plenty I disagree with Yang on, but none of it is disqualifying. I agree with him on all the most important issues, e.g. economics, healthcare, foreign policy, immigration (kinda), rejection of identity politics (kinda). That's enough to earn my vote.
Add climate change to the list. Yang has the most sensible views on climate change I've seen from any politician so far. His top two policies focus on innovative ways to fundamentally reverse climate change, rather than marginally reducing future carbon emissions at huge economic costs.
I'm legitimately blown away by Yang's positions on immigration and identity politics. He's far from perfect on those issues, but he's saying things I didn't think I'd hear any Democrat say ever again. It's incredibly refreshing. He explicitly recognizes the importance of immigrant assimilation, and he advocates a vision of border security that's honestly more coherent than Trump's (although he also supports a substantial increase in H1B and F1 visas, which I think would undermine the goal of assimilation... but whatever). He refuses to smear Trump supporters as racist and sexist, and he doesn't play into rhetorical tropes about the victimization of women & minorities anywhere near as much as the rest of the Democratic party.
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@thett3
I would vote for Andrew Yang over Donald Trump.
Yang is the only 2020 candidate who has proposed a viable solution to the widespread economic insecurity in this country. I've wavered on this issue a lot in the past, but I think I've finally come to the conclusion that it isn't possible to achieve universal gainful employment. It never has been, and it never will be, regardless of what automation does or doesn't do to labor markets in the future. Ultimately, income redistribution is the only way to ensure a decent standard of living for everyone. I don't support universal basic income as the mechanism for doing that, though -- I prefer negative income taxation because the phase-out would keep the total fiscal cost under control while allowing unemployed people to receive much more than $12,000 p/year.
There's plenty I disagree with Yang on, but none of it is disqualifying. I agree with him on all the most important issues, e.g. economics, healthcare, foreign policy, immigration (kinda), rejection of identity politics (kinda). That's enough to earn my vote.
As for Trump, I'm honestly just bored of him. I agree with him on a lot, especially immigration and foreign policy, but he hasn't meaningfully accomplished enough in those realms for me to care. He's a thoroughly ineffective politician.
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@Tejretics
What are your thoughts on 16K's responses to you here, on work incentives? https://www.debate.org/debates/Universal-Basic-Income/1/
I'm too sleep deprived to read through a 16K debate right now.
Also, Scott Alexander compares unconditional cash transfers to job guarantees; a lot of his analysis responds to your premise that we should try to get everyone into decent-paying jobs and that should be the goal of the welfare system. https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/16/basic-income-not-basic-jobs-against-hijacking-utopia/
It's a very persuasive critique of the "universal employment" model... there is definitely a substantial portion of the population that simply lacks the capacity to hold down a well-paying job. That alone makes it very difficult to continue believing in the idea of universal employment. And then there's also my previously stated concern that the economy might not be able to generate enough well-paying jobs for everyone anyways.
I'm undecided about this issue, to be clear.
Now I am too :(
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@Tejretics
I oppose a UBI as well, but I think it'd probably be better than the status quo, and I don't think its net effect is negative, I just think there are better ways to structure the welfare system.
I think it might be one of the worst possible approaches to welfare policy. If the goal is to get every working-age American into a well-paying job (and I do think that's possible... for now, at least), then the welfare system should be geared towards facilitating that goal. UBI would actively undermine that goal by rendering employment unnecessary, and it would eat up the entire federal budget in the process. I won't support UBI or any other mass-redistribution mechanism until it becomes clear that the economy can no longer generate enough well-paying jobs to sustain the workforce.
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Thoughts on Andrew Yang?
I like him as a person. But the centerpiece of the platform is UBI, which I don't support anymore.
Why do you support Trump over Biden? I think I'd support even Sanders over Trump.
I would support virtually any Democrat over Trump... but only if they reject identity politics. Democrats (on balance) tend to have better policies than Republicans, so I wish I could vote for them. But I view identity politics as a cultural cancer that poses a serious threat to domestic social stability. It's just as dangerous as wage stagnation, healthcare unaffordability, or climate change. Identity politics is a deal-breaker for me.
Biden has shown some hopeful signs, but I'm just gonna wait and see for now. Sanders is basically all-in on identity politics, which is very annoying because I know that wasn't always the case. Even as recently as 2016, he was much less obsessed with it than he is now.
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@DebateArt.com
@David
That being said Mike could make a feature to turn off announcement notifications.
pls & ty
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Eventually you are going to realise just who the hell you are intimidating and realise it is you who should fear me.
We're all eagerly waiting for your big scary revenge plot to actualize.
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@DebateArt.com
@bsh1
STOP SENDING ME FUCKING NOTIFICATIONS FOR EVERY SINGLE FUCKING ADMINISTRATIVE UPDATE YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS
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@Tejretics
That's weird, I thought this was your AMA :P
Who would you ideally like to be US president?
Tucker Carlson. He has a healthy skepticism of laissez-faire economics (without taking it too far as many Democrats do). He has non-interventionist instincts on foreign policy. He's one of the only mainstream figures who's willing to talk about the negative sociological impacts of immigration. And of course, he fully rejects identity politics. That's everything I'm looking for in a presidential candidate.
Of the current likely candidates or people who've expressed interest in running, who would you support?
I was a fan of Richard Ojeda (the only Democrat who didn't seem obsessed with identity politics), but he dropped out, so I guess that leaves me with Trump.
Also, what would your preferred healthcare system in the US look like?
Socialized healthcare, Norwegian-style. It's the most simple, efficient, and reliable way to ensure universal healthcare access.
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But then again, i wonder how many politicians that are higher up in the food chain are just as corrupt or even more. I wonder what it would take to get them in trouble.
That's my main issue with all this. If this super-high standard of legal accountability were evenly applied to everyone, I'd be totally fine with what's being done to Trump and his associates. But it's not evenly applied at all, so Mueller and the FBI can go fuck themselves.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
People like you really don't belong on a debate site. Sites like these specifically exist for people wishing to discuss important things, with the odd non-serious post to blow off steam. Moreover, I come here to *escape* idiots and shallow thinkers, because they are numerous irl. I have PLENTY of acquaintances irl whom can't think much beyond their immediate needs -- I don't need to find anymore in my free time. All you seem to do is use this place to demonstrate your weird, unfunny sense of humour by posting an endless stream of empty, light-hearted comments, probably because you drive everyone away with it irl. You don't post anything thought provoking which is, you know, the whole point of coming to a place like this. If you want to make friends, go to Facebook or something like that. Stop polluting this site with inane nonsense masquerading as political discussion.
R.I.P. Castin
I'll be honest: I really miss DDO. It still had these junk threads back in the day, but at least it had enough worthwhile content to satiate. I'm not bashing the owner or mods for this site, because they're arguably better than they were on DDO, but a decent chunk of Dart's userbase leaves a lot to be desired. I know I complained about this before, but it's just so disappointing that this place has yet to replace DDO adequately.
I agree. For what it's worth, this site does have a small handful of intellectually worthwhile users. But that group isn't large or ideologically diverse enough to sustain a forum. I find it easier to just specifically seek those people out via PM when I have something I want to discuss.
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@Tejretics
Oh, I agree with him on that 100%. When I say "universal free education," I don't mean just funneling more money into the current system. America's higher education system is utter garbage. It should be burnt to the ground and replaced with something else. But that "something else" needs to be publicly financed in order to ensure universal access. Government funding isn't the problem in and of itself -- the problem is what's being funded.
College doesn't need to provide a "well-rounded" education. That's what the K-12 system is for -- teaching students everything they need to know to be generally educated citizens of the country (and it totally fails at that, btw... but that's a separate conversation). College should be about nothing more than teaching occupational skills as quickly and inexpensively as possible. As Scott pointed out, even the most specialized occupations can be taught within a couple years. Less specialized occupations can be taught within a matter of weeks. I studied my own college degree plan, and I found that it would take me a single semester to take all the courses I truly need for my intended line of work (logistics management).
The government should coordinate directly with employers to craft new vocational certification programs for all the most in-demand occupations. Regular degree programs should be stripped of all their funding, and the freed-up funds should go towards the new certification programs (with stringent regulations on what the money can be spent on, i.e. no administrative bullshit, no unnecessary amenities). It should be illegal for employers to require a regular degree.
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Marketing.In the past it has been Information Technology, Public Policy, Economics, Supply Chain Management, and Economics again.
lol jk, now it's Business Administration (with a minor in Economics!)
I think I might be the only person who has ever graduated early after 6 major changes.
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@Tejretics
Even if a $15 minimum wage were to cause a significant decline in low-wage employment (which I remain skeptical of), it's not like the displaced workers would have nowhere to go. There's a massive shortage of skilled labor in the U.S. -- a well-designed education / retraining system could help transition those workers into jobs that pay much more than $15 an hour. Regardless of minimum wage, developing such a system needs to be the U.S. government's top priority, in order to address all the labor displacement that will inevitably be caused by automation and globalization.
You said you don't support universal free education. Why is that?
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@Tejretics
Alternatively, just expanding Obamacare -- reforms similar to the ones you used to support in your earlier blog -- by (1) allowing Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, (2) setting up a public option, (3) putting in place tougher antitrust legislation, and (4) gradually expanding Medicaid coverage.
A lot of that sounds like it's designed to move towards a single-payer system, by increasing the number of people being covered by the government.
I'm not sure if any of this would work, and I think a single-payer system would probably be better if the only objective was increasing access to healthcare, but I'm too worried about the opportunity cost and about ensuring that the quality of public healthcare is good.
I think a lot of the "high quality" of American healthcare is superfluous. Yeah, receiving medical care tends to be a much more pleasant experience in the U.S. (if you can pay for it) than in other countries, but according to most metrics, our healthcare system produces worse public health outcomes than most of the single-payer countries. The fact is that a lack of affordability/access is far more damaging than a lack of quality.
I think I oppose UBIs; it seems to me that a sufficiently high UBI -- rather than a means-tested solution -- would require placing distortively high income taxes
I agree. If we were to pursue large-scale income redistribution, my preferred mechanism would be negative income taxation. There would be a base stipend of $15,000, and it would have a 15% phase-out rate (i.e. you lose 15 cents of stipend income for every additional dollar of earned income -- the stipend would reach $0 at $100,000 earned income). But I'm not sure if I actually support the idea of large-scale income redistribution. If it's possible to make employment the primary source of sustenance, then I'd definitely prefer that instead.
What do you think about raising the minimum wage? It doesn't seem to me like an issue that'll be resolved among economists anytime soon.
It should be raised to a "living wage". I don't think its true that businesses would necessarily end up hiring fewer workers. Higher revenues from increased consumer demand would at least partially mitigate the higher labor costs. And there are plenty of pro-business policies we could pursue to further mitigate labor costs, like corporate tax cuts, deregulation, and single-payer healthcare.
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@Tejretics
I disagree about single-payer healthcare (I think)
What would your ideal healthcare system look like? I dislike the idea of socialized healthcare, but I haven't seen any viable alternative so far.
In the US? I think so; if I'm not wrong, many economists think the US is pretty close to full employment now and is on a good trajectory.
I know there are enough jobs for everyone. I was asking if there are enough *well-paying* jobs for everyone. Considering that roughly 40% of all jobs in the U.S. pay less than $15 an hour, I'm not sure how much "full employment" really matters. The reason I ask is that it has massive implications on welfare policy. If there are enough well-paying jobs for everyone, then the goal of the welfare state should be simply to help people find and fill those jobs; it should provide nothing more than temporary financial assistance and access to educational resources. However, if there's a fundamental shortage of well-paying jobs, then the welfare state must be expanded and restructured to serve as a source of permanent financial support for those who can't support themselves; that might involve implementing something like universal basic income, and it would probably result in severe social disintegration over time.
I'm being very unrealistic. In terms of politicians who're actually likely to run
Yeah... I'm gonna go ahead and predict that Kamala Harris wins the Democratic nomination. Which sucks cuz she's probably my least favorite Democrat.
I have a stunning lack of knowledge on foreign policy issues
Honestly, I don't know much about foreign policy either. It just seems to me that a lot of the "bipartisan consensus" on foreign policy doesn't actually advance U.S. national security interests in any meaningful way, possibly even undermining those interests by inflicting gratuitous harm on the rest of the world. What are your general inclinations regarding foreign policy? You've made a lot of threads asking others about their views, but never really shared your own.
I think you're pretty knowledgeable, have a lot of epistemic humility and willingness to change your opinions, and actively try to form opinions. Your perspective is always interesting to hear.
Aww thanks, buddy <3
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@Tejretics
no it doesn't, and respond to the questions I asked in your political ama !!!
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@Alec
Over the course of American history, the Democratic and Republican parties have both developed their own unique strengths and weaknesses. It's really difficult to weigh them against each other and determine which party is better overall. I think the Democrats generally tend to have better policy positions, but I also view their embrace of identity politics as unforgivable, which is why I vote Republican.
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@Tejretics
Who are your top three picks for the next U.S. president?
What is your least favorite policy position of the Democratic party?
Is there anything you agree with the Republican party on?
What is the #1 worst thing Trump has done so far?
Is there anything Trump has done so far that you support?
Is there any major U.S. political figure who you think would make a worse president than Trump? Who? Why?
On a 1-10 scale, how racist is the United States? 1 is the utopian ideal of zero racism. 10 is the height of the Jim Crow era.
Do you think it's possible to create enough well-paying jobs for everyone who wants to work?
Is it immoral to work for a company whose product is a net detriment to society?
Why do you keep asking for my opinions on stuff? I literally don't know anything.
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@Tejretics
Should the West continue to militarily cooperate with Saudi Arabia, given the humanitarian situation in Yemen, and only resume cooperation on the condition that the naval blockade is lifted? (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/opinion/saudi-arabia-arms-sales.html)
We should be facilitating a de-escalation of tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran. I think temporarily ending weapons sales to Saudi Arabia could be an effective way of triggering that process. But we need to tread carefully. As I said in the other thread, Saudi Arabia's cooperation is essential in our fight against radical Islam, so we need to maintain good relations with them.
Given that Saudi Arabian relations with Russia (https://www.ft.com/content/aa39b74c-4f0c-11e8-ac41-759eee1efb74) and China (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2168849/china-may-seek-boost-ties-saudi-arabia-it-cant-fill-us-arms) are getting better, if the West does place military sanctions on Saudi Arabia, would they be willing and able to f ill that gap, allowing the Yemeni intervention to continue?
Russia's alliance with Iran would probably prevent them from doing that, but China would certainly try to take advantage of the situation. That's why any military sanctions should be temporary, accompanied by diplomatic outreach and a clear set of realistic conditions for ending the sanctions.
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