by Dave Clegg | Feb 24, 2017 | News
The 2017 World Economic Forum – WEF – being held at Davos Switzerland is where some of the world’s most influential figures meet to discuss the state of the world and, in particular, the economic concerns and opportunities that lie ahead. This year, Jamie Dimon CEO of JP Morgan offered his support for a negative tax – NT – as a means of raising the income of low wage earners.
A NT was promoted in the 1930’s by Premier ‘Bible Bill’ Aberhart in Alberta Canada and the 1950’s by Milton Freeman in the U.S. as a means of toping up a person’s income if it fell below a certain point. Of course, a NT is the poor cousin of a Basic Income since the NT only looks at last year’s income to determine the supplement to be granted this year. As a consequence, the added income a person required last year, does not arrive until a year later. Unfortunately, looking at last year’s earning will, invariably, be far too late to help, as well as being totally irrelevant to this year’s earnings in these uncertain times. A BI, on the other hand, is current, consistent and more realistically focused on the immediate needs of its recipients.
However, just the idea that the CEO of a major financial institution wants tax dollars to top up low wages also suggests willingness to pay the higher taxes that will be required to do so. For yet another WEF perspective from the Davos summit check out Scott Santens enlightening analysis of the numbers involved in implementing a Basic Income in the U.S.
by Dave Clegg | Dec 26, 2016 | News
A CBC news report offers a clarion call regarding the increasing demand being placed upon Canadian food banks who are attempting to address the hunger and nutritional needs of Canada’s most vulnerable citizens. Surely there is no better reason for a BI than the need for food banks in one of the richest nations on the planet?
Food Banks Canada, a national umbrella organization, has released its HungerCount2016 report on food bank use in Canada and includes numerous recommendations, the most crucial of which is the creation of a nation-wide Basic Income.
To accomplish this important goal, FBC has provided 4 policy recommendations in its report which the organization believes essential to accomplish this important goal namely:
1. a National Poverty Reduction Strategy by Oct 1. 2017
2. a Basic livable Income with steps leading to its creation
3. rethinking welfare towards a more supportive process
4. investing in Northern Canada’s food security.
Perhaps the most significant beneficiaries of a national BI would be the children who, the CBC report indicates, account for 35% of food bank use across the country. The CBC report also points out that the latest food bank figures show double digit spikes in food bank use in many parts of Canada.
While the CBC report indicates that Toronto is still the “…child poverty capital of Canada”, it also includes links to a number of related CBC items in which the Ontario government has recently announced a BI pilot program and Quebec has expressed interest in the feasibility of a BI, while three other links discuss what a BI might look like in Canada.
The Food Banks Canada full report can be found here: HungerCount2016.
Food Banks Canada has previously called for a BI in their HungerCount2015, which BIEN acknowledged here at that time as well.
by Dave Clegg | Dec 25, 2016 | News
UC sociology professor Fred Block, and CUNY political science professor Francis Fox Piven, author of Challenging Authority, are scathing in their indictment of “…archaic economic ideas…” in the online opinion journal article on The Nation. Yet they also insist that a Basic Income – an idea as old as the Capitalistic system that dominates the world today – is an idea whose time has truly come.
B&FP applaud the broad appeal to both left and right political spectrums, support from influential economists, advocates for social reform and, most importantly, the technological community who understands the dramatic changes coming to the workplace as robotics and automation continue to free human beings from the office cubicle and the assembly line.
B&FP decry the right’s vociferous claims that ‘free money’ will demoralize the poor and offer, instead, that a BI does just the opposite by empowering people with a modicum of financial security in their lives during fiscally challenging times.
B&FP rail against the imposition during the last few centuries of the premise that one’s life must be dependent upon the exchange of one’s labour for wages or become destitute. B&FP see the holding of this premise as religious-like in the unflinching devotion of so many of its modern day adherents.
B&FP offer no illusions about how difficult implementing a BI will be. But they are confident that a BI would result in a significant transformation of our existing class relations. What that transformation will look like is dependent upon each and every one of us.
by Dave Clegg | Dec 18, 2016 | News
Finland’s Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has issued its latest and apparently final press release outlining its long awaited Basic Income pilot project slated to begin Jan 1st, 2017. Near the end of the first year the project will be assessed for the feasibility of a second year as well.
This project will be narrowly focused on a small, random sampling of employable adults and the ways in which a BI might improve their employment chances. This project will not be looking at any other populations, vulnerable or otherwise, which might benefit from a BI. However, Finland’s government sees this pilot as the beginning of a “… culture of experimentation” designed to identify and then help address the most pressing needs of their citizens in the years to come.
Photo: “Colors of Finland” CC BY-NC 2.0 Mariano Mantel
by Dave Clegg | Dec 17, 2016 | News
In the Online Project Syndicate economist, academic and former Greek finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, succinctly analyses the pros and cons of a Basic Income and cuts right to the heart of the issue, how to fund it! Taxation is too controversial and the amounts involved are staggering. However Varoufakis suggests a fresh, creative solution.
Every stock market Initial Public Offering becomes “public” because it involves a private company offering to “share” its profits with others from the public domain – much like the sort of 3P Private, Public Partnership, being considered by a number of governments around the world these days. In this way, every IPO can be considered an extension of The Commons, namely that which a community shares in common. Using a portion of every IPO to fund the nation’s BI offers an excellent opportunity for the population of the nation to both support and commonly share in that nation’s investment opportunities.
