by Ali Mutlu Koyluoglu | Sep 15, 2020 | News
‘UBI-Talk on our Walk’: A Zoom based (due pandemic) Basic Income March; ‘UBI-Talk on our Walk’, which will be facilitated by ‘Worldwide Meetings of UBI Advocates and UBI Networks’ and organized by UBI Networks, to be held on 19th of September 2020, Saturday, at GMT 12:00, or at GMT 14:30, or at GMT 19:00, as a participation in the 2nd Basic Income March (an initiative by; Income Movement), during the 13th International Basic Income Week.
UBI Advocates, together with their friends and networks, are all invited to this event to participate with a shoe of them. During the event, screen shots in groups will be taken and these will be used for promotion of the UBI idea. During the events, as time permits, limited number of participants will be able to give their short messages regarding UBI, too.
Considering different time zones and in order to host more number of participants from different corners of the World; there will be three separate Zoom sessions, whose details are given at the end of this article. The participants may choose at least one of them,
Thank should be forwarded to our dear friends Alexander de Roo (Netherlands), Claudia Leduc (Canada), Peter Knight (Brazil) and Ali Mutlu Köylüoğlu (Turkey) for their contributions during development of this project, and to our dear friends Gerdur Palmadottir (Iceland) for her proposal regarding the title of the event (‘UBI-Talk on our Walked’) and Gaylene Middleton (New Zealand) for seconding the proposal.
Special thanks to our dear friends Klaus Sambor (Austria), Peter Knight (Brazil), Ivaylo Kirilov (Bulgaria), Sheila Regehr (Canada), Fabricio Bonilla (Costa Rica ), Marek Hrubek (Czech Republic), Jaanus Nurmoja (Estonia), Michaela Kerstan (Germany), Evamaria Langer-Dombrady (Hungary), Gerdur Palmadottir (Iceland), Shobana Nelasco (India), Paul Harnett (Ireland), Robin Ketelars (Netherlands), Kristine Endsjo (Norway), Claudia Leduc (Quebec, Canada), Annie Miller (Scotland), Angle Bravo (Spain), Ali Mutlu Köylüoğlu (Turkey), Barb Jacobson (United Kingdom), Stacey Rutland (United States of America), Paul Ettl (Austria), Cory Neudorf (Canada), Milus Kotisova (Czech Republic), Sabine Heisnerr (Germany), Mike Danson (Scotland), Kimberly Woods (United States of America), and Georg Sorst (Austria) for participation of them in the invitation message with their screen shots (photos).
The timing of the Zoom meetings are all announced as GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).
All the meetings will be recorded and will be shared partially or fully, especially for other UBI Advocates, who were not able to participate.
The capacity for the Zoom meetings is 500 participants and in case the sessions are full, please see the Facebook page “UBI Advocates and UBI Networks” for additional meetings (in addition to the below listed pre-scheduled ones.)
Hopes are to see as many participants as possible during the ‘UBI-Talk on our Walk’,
Details of the Scheduled Zoom Meetings on 19th of September, 2020, Saturday :
at GMT 12:00, Meeting ID: 881 0151 7059, Passcode: UBI4H
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88101517059?pwd=SjZFMG91WThXWGx1ZXdCaDZzRTdCUT09
at GMT 14:30, Meeting ID: 824 2830 2351, Passcode: UBI4H
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82428302351?pwd=bWlGVVdvSHl2cE9xWUI3bTFvM1g5UT09
at GMT 19:00, Meeting ID: 836 6318 8855, Passcode: UBI4H
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83663188855?pwd=ZVczNlBKZzcveHNQTWJ3LzFkZ2RDQT09
by Malcolm Torry | Sep 15, 2020 | News
A new tool for communication, interaction and collaboration among Universal Basic Income (UBI) Advocates and UBI Networks was launched on the 15th September as part of the 13th International Basic Income Week.
The tool, ‘Global Map of UBI Networks’, has been developed under the umbrella of ‘Worldwide Meetings of UBI Advocates and UBI Networks’. It is a digital map of UBI Networks, and at its launch there were 132 UBI Networks from more than 45 different countries participating in it’s first version.
At the moment, the map is still under construction: but you can see the current state of the working map at this link. (Click on the markers to see the details of the UBI Networks.)
The HTML Codes of and an explanatory text regarding the map will be shared with the participating UBI Networks so that if they wish they can embed the map directly into their website pages.
The map references not only networks with the sole purpose of advocating UBI, but also all organizations (networks, foundations, platforms, political parties, working groups within political parties, societies, study groups, etc.) that advocate for UBI.
If a UBI Network wishes to participate in the ‘Global Map of UBI Networks’, the details of the network should be filled in in the Google Form accessible from this link.
The working group carrying out this project is composed of Hannes Mehrer (Germany), Ali Mutlu Köylüoğlu (Turkey) and Peter Knight (USA and Brazil). Also, special thanks to Luc Gosselin (Canada) and Robin Ketelars (Netherlands) for their help.
For further information, see the UBI-Advocates website.
by Karl Widerquist | Sep 11, 2020 | News
March for Universal Basic Income in at least 40 cities worldwide, Saturday 19 Sep. 2020, from the upper left of a world map:
Edmonton, Canada
Calgary
Kawartha Lakes, ONT
Montreal
Seattle, USA
Tacoma
Portland
Oakland
Los Angeles
Los Vegas
Phoenix
Salt Lake City
Dallas
Austin
Des Moines
Kansas City
New Orleans
Louisville
Nashville
Atlanta
Orlando
Parkersburg, WV
Raleigh
Washington, DC
Woodstock, NY
New York, NY
Montpelier, VT
Boston
Bogotá, Colombia
Akureyri, Iceland
Reykjavík
London, UK
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Haugesund, Norway
Norderstedt, Germany
Berlin
Stockholm, Sweden
Helsinki, Finland
İstanbul, Turkey
If there’s no UBI march near you, please start one. A march of one person is better than a march of zero. Let’s get some more pictures on the map.
You can find more info about the march at this link.
I’ll be at the march in New Orleans, Louisiana. Meet me there.
-Karl Widerquist, on my front porch in New Orleans, 11 September 2020
by Malcolm Torry | Jul 29, 2020 | Opinion
The Canadian Sayout newsletter has printed an article about Basic Income:
… At present government is paying out vast sums of money. In effect, we have a new and large-scale experiment by government in directly providing people with incomes. This gives us some indication
of how a guaranteed income plan could work. Such a plan would be universal. And, as is now being demonstrated, it actually can be done.
A guaranteed, universal, and livable income programme would be transformative for our society. It would directly address income inequality. It would diminish and possibly eliminate poverty once and for all. …
The author, Robyn Peterson, has clarified his use of terms in the article:
a proper BI should be unconditional with the same amount being paid to every citizen or legal resident. This would avoid the somewhat cumbersome issue of establishing who should benefit and by how much, with a progressive income tax system evening things out.
by Malcolm Torry | Jul 16, 2020 | News
75,000 artists have signed a letter calling on the Canadian government to implement an income guarantee.
We, the undersigned, are calling upon the Government of Canada to honour its
commitment to poverty reduction and instate a Basic Income Guarantee to
make a historic investment in a better tomorrow;
We call upon the Government of Canada to hereby reduce the inequities
exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic: to remove the financial obstacles
faced by our most vulnerable, to alleviate gender-based poverty, and to address
the economic inequality based in persistent racism and colonialism;
We call upon the Government of Canada to implement a universally accessible
and unconditional basic income program that guarantees an income floor to
anyone in need.
To read the letter, click here
And here to read the press release.
Clarifications
We asked the letter’s authors to clarify a number of definitional matters left unclear in the letter.
- BIEN’s definition of a Basic Income is ‘a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement’.
- The letter is clear that the payments envisaged would be ‘regardless of work status’, so there would be no work requirement.
- The letter asks for an income that ‘guarantees an income floor to anyone in need’. Such an income floor could be provided by an income-tested benefit rather than by a Basic Income. The authors have written to clarify that in the Canadian context a ‘means test’ is a test that covers a variety of assets, incomes, and behaviours, and that the income proposed in the letter would be income-tested, but would not suffer from the other tests associated with a Canadian means test.
- Most of the global Basic Income debate assumes that a means test necessarily includes an income test, so the normal assumption is that a Basic Income paid ‘without means test’ would be paid without an income test, and so would be paid at the same amount to everybody of the same age. The income described in the open letter is income-tested, and so is not a Basic Income according to the normal assumption.
- The letter is not clear whether the payment would be paid on an individual or a household basis. The authors have written to say that this issue ‘was not discussed at any time by the authors of the letter’.
We can conclude that if the income envisaged by the letter were to be paid on an individual basis, and if it were to be paid without an income test, then it would be a genuine Basic Income according to BIEN’s definition.
