by Karl Widerquist | Aug 30, 2014 | News
The Basic Income Subreddit
The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) has announced the list of speakers for its “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) series of internet interviews, which will take place on the Reddit website. The interviews will be text only and open to everyone. Anyone in the world can type in a question. The AMA series will take place during the Seventh Annual International Basic Income Week, September 15-21, 2014.
Reddit is one of the world’s most popular websites, last year receiving 731 million unique visitors and 56 billion page views. The Basic Income community on Reddit has recently experience enormous growth, rising from 50 users last summer to over 16,000 today
Participants in BIEN’s AMA series include:
- Karl Widerquist, co-chair of BIEN, Associate Professor at SFS-Qatar, Georgetown University, editor of Basic Income News, and author of A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No
- Peter Barnes, author of Who Owns the Sky?, Capitalism 3.0, and With Liberty and Dividends for all
- Barb Jacobson, Stanislas Jourdin, and Enno Schmidt, of Universal Basic Income Europe and leaders of people’s initiatives that raise a total of more than 400,000 signatures for basic income in 2013-2014
- Mike Howard, editor of Basic Income Studies, coordinator of USBIG, and a socialist philosopher at the University of Maine-Orono, with expertise on the Alaska dividend & the cap-and-dividend approach to global warming
- Ann Withorn, of the University of Massachusetts-Boston and USBIG and Shawn Cassiman, of USBIG
- Jeff Smith, of the Geonomy Society
- Jason Murphy, philosopher at Elms College and Gaura Rader, philosopher at Ohio University and of the Socratic Diablogues,
- Pablo Yannes, of Red Mexicana Ingreso Ciudadano Universal (BIEN’s affiliate in Mexico)
- Juon Kim Télémaque Masson of Basic Income Generation
- Mike Munger, Libertarian economist at Duke University
- Toru Yamamori, of Doshisha University and BIEN-Japan
- Hysong Ahn, of the Basic Income Korean Netowrk
- Louise Haag, co-chair of BIEN and Reader in politics and the University of York (UK) and Anja Askeland, Secretary of BIEN and member of BIEN-Norway
- Adriaan Planken, of UBIE-the Netherlands
- Mark Walker, of New Mexico State Univesity, and James Hughes, of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Oxford University
- Marshall Brain, founder of HowStuffWorks.com, entrepreneur, and author
- Ed Dolan, author of Economics of Public Policy
- Charles M.A. Clark, of St. John’s University
- Michael Bohmeyer, entrepreneur and founder of “My basic income”
The Basic Income Subreddit is online at: https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/
Information about the grown of the BI Subreddit is online at: https://redditmetrics.com/r/BasicIncome
The IAMA subreddit is online at: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA
More information about the AMA series will be announced soon.
Reddit
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 23, 2014 | Research
-Foreign Affairs
SUMMARY: Without using any familiar terms for Basic Income Guarantee, this article argues for a temporary BIG as a response to the Great Recession (or recessions generally). The U.S. Federal Reserve usually tries to stimulate the economy during recessions through monetary policies (such as reducing interest rates or increasing the money supply). These policies favor large financial institutions and according to authors, Mark Blyth and Eric Lonergan, “stimulating the economy in this way is expensive and inefficient, and can create dangerous bubbles — in real estate, for example — and encourage companies and households to take on dangerous levels of debt.” Instead, the authors argue that the government should simply give cash unconditionally to citizens. They argue, “In the short term, such cash transfers could jump-start the economy. Over the long term, they could reduce dependence on the banking system for growth and reverse the trend of rising inequality. The transfers wouldn’t cause damaging inflation, and few doubt that they would work. The only real question is why no government has tried them.”
Blyth and Lonergan suggest building up a sovereign wealth fund (SWF) capable of paying dividends, much like the Alaska Dividend, funded by its SWF. They claim, “The Bank of England, the European Central Bank, and the Federal Reserve already own assets in excess of 20 percent of their countries’ GDPs, so there is no reason why they could not invest those assets in global equities on behalf of their citizens.” They even suggest that government could take advantage of current near zero interest rates to spend another 20 percent of GDP buying equities, which would be likely to return 100 percent in 15 years. It is uncertain then whether the fund would pay dividends regularly or distribute them only during recessions. In either case, this plan would be a significant step toward a BIG.
Mark Blyth and Eric Lonergan, “Print Less but Transfer More: Why Central Banks Should Give Money Directly to the People.” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2014 Issue.
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 7, 2014 | News
Reddit
BIEN will organize a series of Internet events on the Seventh Annual International Basic Income Week, September 15-21, 2014. Each event will be an “Ask Me Anything” (also know as AMA or sometimes as “As Us Anything”). In these events, an expert in a given topic promises to be available for a given amount of time to type answers to questions submitted from anyone around the world. The AMAs will appear on Reddit, which calls itself, “The Front Page of the Internet.” Reddit is one of the world’s most popular websites, last year receiving 731 million unique visitors and 56 billion page views.
For the 7 days of Basic Income Week, BIEN, together with the Basic Income community on Reddit, plan to promote an expansive series of AMAs including participants from around the world, in various languages, and on various different topics related to basic income.
Reddit is a website where people can post discussion or link to texts. Users can vote and comment on all content. It is divided into about 500,000 different communities (called “subreddits”) of varying sizes and topics. Each subreddit is a continuing discussion, going 24 hours a day, with people posting and responding. The Basic Income subreddit has recently experienced enormous growth, rising from 50 users last summer to over 15,000 today, and now ranking 1,626th out of over 5,400 active subreddits.
AMAs are hosted on a subreddit called IAMA, one of the most popular of Reddit’s subreddits with over 5.9 million subscribers. The popularity of the AMA lies in its anything goes nature. It’s like having an interview with thousands of people; any question can be asked and candor is greatly valued. A successful AMA can be read by hundreds of thousands of people and draw thousands of comments.
BIEN will schedule at least one AMA per day, perhaps several a day, throughout Basic Income Week, starting September 15 and concluding September 21. Some of these will take place in the IAMA subreddit and BasicIncome subreddit, but most will take place in some of the many other subreddits available, based on location like (perhaps Ireland, Europe, Korea, etc.), or focus of interviewee (perhaps Economics, politics, Psychology, etc.) or by language (perhaps French, German, Japanese, etc.). More Information will be released soon.
The Basic Income Subreddit is online at: https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/
Information about the grown of the BI Subreddit is online at: https://redditmetrics.com/r/BasicIncome
The IAMA subreddit is online at: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA
Reddit
by Josh Martin | Jul 26, 2014 | Research
Introduction:
“We do economy as if we were not part of the world. And in a terrifying sense, we are not. But accepting this means to abandon all hope that capitalism might be reformed or some other kind of economy might step in instead.
Many try to envision means to supplant or expand capitalism in order to reduce its harmful effects. Besides discussions on growth, monetary systems, taxation, there is one on “Basic Income” or “General Living Income”. Trying to revamp capitalism with a guaranteed “income” that without claim or justification provides the essential needs for everybody struggles with conceptual problems of how even to describe the allocation and its systemic position. One problem is that the concepts used stem from full-fledged capitalism itself and enshrine their negative connotations. An other is that within the given economic system those means cannot but cushion the worst consequences. They do not seem to have the potential to “transform” the system as a whole.
We need an economic system that not only provides but equally rests on mutual welfare. The reasons for this are manifold, and it seems fit to start with some observations, to “beat the neighbouring bushes”, as Wilfried Sellars once famously said.”
Simsa0, “Towards an Economy of the World-Ingrained Self”, Simsa0’s WordPress, 13 March 2013.
by Karl Widerquist | Jul 13, 2014 | News
Dean Capone, from the Independent Political Report
Dean Capone, an active member of the Socialist Party of the United States of America, has announced his intention to seek the Party’s nomination for President of the United States with the intention of making Basic Income a major issue in his platform. Capone told BI News, “The Basic Income Guarantee is a crux of my proposed candidacy.”
A proponent of public ownership of primary heavy industry, a strong and unionized workforce, a National Basic Income and advocacy of civil and human rights at home and abroad, Capone considers himself part of a new generation in democratic socialist leadership. In an interview with the Independent Political Report, Capone said, “Implementation of an unqualified basic income would foster economic growth by leveling the playing field to a degree, and provide stability to meet the needs of every adult, while replacing most other entitlements.”
More information about Capone’s candidacy is on the campaign’s website at: deancapone.com.
Specific information about his position is on this page of his website: National Basic Income Guarantee.
See also: Joshua Fauver, “Interview With Declared 2016 Socialist Party USA Presidential Candidate Dean Capone.” the Independent Political Report, July 8, 2014.
Socialist Party, USA
