by Josh Martin | Jan 19, 2016 | News
Tom Ashbrook’s radio show On Point at WBUR Radio in Boston held an hour-long discussion on basic income on January 14, 2016. Ashbrook invited four guests onto his show to discuss some of the key topics for discussion in the basic income debate, including technological unemployment, income inequality, work disincentives, and previous pilot projects. His guests were Karl Widerquist, co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network; Megan McArdle, a columnist at Bloomberg View; Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University; and Albert Wenger, a managing partner at Union Square Ventures. While three of the guests support the idea of a basic income—McArdle does not—the callers into the show varied in their reactions to the idea, with one caller imagining a basic income would help her go back to school and another caller asking how it is any different from communism.
To listen to the full episode, click here.
by Josh Martin | Jul 24, 2015 | News
Ferro discusses Hilary Clinton’s recent speech on the economy and notes that two venture capitalists from Union Square Ventures’ agreed with Clinton’s claim that society needs to have a discussion about on-demand economic forces like the emergence of Uber. One of the VCs, Albert Wenger, went so far as to recommend a universal basic income as a solution to this labor market shift.
Shane Ferro, “Two top venture capitalists think Hillary Clinton is right about one thing”, Business Insider, 14 July 2015.
by Liam Upton | May 2, 2015 | News
Basic Income advocates around the world celebrated Basic Income Day yesterday, May 1st. The day was marked by an online social media ‘Thunderclap’ to spread the idea to as many people online as possible via platforms including Facebook and Twitter. As this campaign turned out to be so successful, it’s likely that it will happen again next year. Hopefully, the campaign will be able to take over other social media platforms too, such as Instagram. This campaign could use hashtags to gain more people’s attention on Instagram, especially if they got in touch with the professionals at TaskAnt to help them find the best hashtags. Social media can be a great place for making things go viral, so it can be beneficial for businesses.
The campaign was started by Scott Santens on the Reddit Basic Income community with a goal of gaining 500 supporters. With 4 days to spare, the campaign reached it’s goal and finally ended with over 720 supporters, 227 more than the initial aim. The result was the spreading of the Basic Income message to over 710,000 people.
Some of the larger supporters include political activist group Occupy Wall Street, environmentalist group Moving Mountains for Nature and venture capitalist Albert Wenger.
The campaign also received media attention from the Motherboard section of Vice online magazine. This year’s Thunderclap follows a similar successful Thunderclap last year for Basic Income which aimed for 250 supporters and ended up with 399.
For more information, see:
Thunderclap, “Basic Income Day is 1st of May”
