The real wealth of society is its people and our collective knowledge and resources. With Universal Basic Income, we can invest in everyone's human potential and unlock untold societal progress.
Why should simple existence still be tied to jobs? Many of us spend our lives in jobs we hate, just to stay alive amidst abundance. What if we could live without fear of hunger or homelessness? That's the essence of universal basic income—a basic right to life, regardless of job.
“Universal basic services can tackle both inequality and the climate crisis. It is a policy programme aimed at meeting everyone’s basic needs within environmental limits. The goal cannot be reached by individuals acting alone, but only through collective action: more and better public services, investment of public funds, and regulation in the public interest.”
I've always felt guilty by taking for granted the rare breed of virtuous humans that provide free excellent software without relying on advertising. Let's change that and pay, how much would I “lose” anyway?
Keep encouraging #DollarGeneral and all these other arsehole capitalists to hire more #workers and ditch the self check-out. The more jobs disappear that way wjthout #socialism or #UBI, the more we undermine our own #economy and #livingstandards.
The latest study on Universal Basic Income and other cash transfer schemes funds #UBI is effective and does reduce poverty and did not lead to increased laziness and drinking (more evidence against that nonsense).
Findings also suggest that larger lump-sum payments can be more beneficial than more regular payments as it can surmount investments with high upfront costs (like the cheaper in the long run metal roof).
Seit "#Liberaler" im deutschen Sprachraum nur noch mit "Wirtschaftsliberal" und in den #USA eigentlich nur noch abwertend verwendet wird, ist der Terminus für mich inzwischen verbrannt.
Ich habe nichts gelesen, aber ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, dass die #FDP ein #UBI unterstützen würde--die haben ja schon ein Problem mit dem Mini-"#Bürgergeld" und stellen viele Aufstocker als "#Sozialschmarotzer" dar...
...Grosskapitalphilantropen #Merz und Mir san Mir #Söder sehe ich auch nicht in dieser Ecke.
Wenn allerdings die #NoAfD mal aus dem selben Wählerpotential wie die #NSDAP nach der Weltwirtschaftskrise fischen wollte, könnte ich mir durchaus vorstellen, dass sie ein #UBI mit auf die Fahne schreiben würden--natürlich nur für "Urdeutsche", klar, mit #Migrationshintergrund--Fehlanzeige. 😉
I'll never forget that feeling from the beginning of the pandemic that a better world was possible. People had a moment to breathe and they started making changes. They quit their jobs, left toxic relationships, moved cities or left the city, relearned forgotten skills from generations past, and started to question their institutionally approved goals and values.
It scared the shit out of people in power, which is why they have been weaponizing our emotions and breaking and gardening our hearts ever since.
We have an instinct to protect the community and the system has been trying to degrade that instinct for decades with sophisticated propaganda, but the good side of people is still there. We just need a moment to breathe.
The good part of us is battered and bruised, but not yet dead. I don't think people forget. I think they've seen that something is wrong and that we could do better.
@PacificNic
I stayed up til 5am one night during the initial lockdown, talking to a friend on House party about the incredible opportunity in front of us, once we saw how the world kept turning with the capitalist machine put on pause.
It was SLOOOOOWWW.
The planes stopped.
The cars & trucks all but disappeared.
Nature came back, quickly.
Countries issued #ubi for the first time.
We were working together, globally.
It was the time to change it.
To retrain masses to build infrastructure.
Wind and solar power, highspeed rail, new safe hospitals, new safe schools.
Flood prevention, forest fire prevention.
A place for everyone to live.
A purpose for all.
We had the time.
We had the money.
We had the will.
We had oligarchs to contend with.
We got bullied out of it before we even knew what happened.
We were lied to.
We're dying and becoming disabled en mass.
It's almost as if the oligarchs won't go gentle into that good night.
"I do not believe in seizure. There are better alternatives, including regulation, taxation, and competition."
In principle, I agree. However, since last year, I did not believe that this is possible anymore in the US. It truly is a #plutocracy (I've written several threads on this during the past year. A tipping point was #CitizensUnitedVsFEC.*)
Elmo has become the most powerful fascist in history.
E.g. just #Starlink:
2024 Book 1: Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman.
Insightful but ultimately depressing because, despite #UBI seeming particularly realistic, it feels like we're even farther away from it ever happening at scale than when this first published in 2014. ☹️
Welfare and universal basic income are quite different. Welfare has the condition of keeping your income low and punishing you for raising it by kicking you off welfare. #UBI goes to everyone regardless of income. No one with UBI is punished for increasing their income by removing their UBI.
UBI is a permanent floor below which no one can fall and everyone can build upon to rise as high as they can.
Welfare, by being targeted, however well intentioned that is, can function as a ceiling.
It's so much easier to hate when you're constantly stressed out and barely scraping by. Seeing others get help while you don't only then makes it all worse.
This is why UNIVERSAL basic income is so important. It makes sure no one feels unseen and on their own.
Those who received the $750 monthly #stipend were less likely to remain #unsheltered and closer to having enough #money to meet all of their #basicNeeds as compared to a control group who accessed usual #homeless services.
More importantly, the initial findings dispels this #myth that people will use money for #illicit purposes.
Only about 2% of the $750 per month was spent on #alcohol, #cigarettes, or #drugs; the majority of that money was spent on cigarettes.
thanks. am seeing an uptick of laid-off people posting desperate pleas for money and it made me wonder: have they done their due diligence getting their unemployment benefits and finding out what services they have available?
given the demographics —most coming from high income industries in tech— and the toxic techbro culture, i don't think most young tech workers even know their unemployment rights.
Every single person deserves an unconditional basic income floor — enough money to afford food, housing, and other basic needs. Jobs should be for affording all the fun stuff beyond basic needs.
Jobs should be about discretionary income to thrive, not survival income to live.
It's the interaction between demand and supply that determines what an economy produces, including its jobs. This is why it's so important to issue Universal #BasicIncome, so that the market sees everyone's basic need demands FIRST. Then the market is oriented around meeting EVERYONE's basic needs.
Without #UBI, the only people the market sees are those with wealth and those who managed to get jobs working for them, which orients the economy from the beginning on those with wealth.
"Since 2017 U.S.-based charity GiveDirectly has been providing 1000s of villagers in #Kenya a "universal basic income" #UBI– a cash grant of about $50, delivered monthly, for 12 years. It is a crucial test of what many consider one of the most cutting-edge ideas for alleviating global #poverty. This week a team of independent researchers who have been studying the impact released their first results.
Their findings cover the first 2 years of the effort & compare the outcomes for about 5,000 people who got monthly payments to nearly 12,000 others in a control group who got no money. But, just as significantly, researchers also compared the recipients to people in 2 other categories: nearly 9,000 who received the monthly income for just two years, without the promise of another decade of payments afterward; &another roughly 9,000 people who got that same two years' worth of income but in a lump-sum payment." https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/12/07/1217478771/its-one-of-the-biggest-experiments-in-fighting-global-poverty-now-the-results-ar
OC What if I paid for all my free software? (www.cynicusrex.com)
I've always felt guilty by taking for granted the rare breed of virtuous humans that provide free excellent software without relying on advertising. Let's change that and pay, how much would I “lose” anyway?