Rabbi Michael Lerner gives us all a lesson in Speaking Truth to Power at Muhammad Ali’s funeral – much to the discomfort of front row audience member Bill Clinton. Touching on justice for Palestinians, a basic income, and challenging Hillary Clinton to reverse America’s murderous foreign policy, Lerner wasn’t ever going to just go after Trump, but spoke of universal […]
Basic Income
Topshop protests over Living Wage and suspensions
Cleaners at Topshop are sub-contracted to a company, Britannia Services Group, that made £1.34m profit after tax. Philip Green, worth nearly £5bn, runs the Arcadia Group that owns Topshop. Arcadia made more than £250m profit last year, but it is registered to Philip Green’s wife, who lives in the Monaco tax haven. Mr. Green recently bought a £100m yacht. The […]
‘No man is an Island’
This year the Dutch government intend to introduce a universal basic income (UBI) paid to the residents of Utrecht and 19 other Dutch municipalities. Each person will receive the equivalent of about £150 a week whether working or not. The unemployed won’t be penalized for finding work because they will receive their employment income in addition to the universal income payment.
Ex-World Bank chief economist exposes “failure” of austerity, deregulation
Joseph Stiglitz, a senior OECD expert, slams OECD’s own policies to prevent global slowdown.
In a little-known speech at the United Nations University, renowned Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz criticised Western approaches to addressing the global economic crisis for being obsessed with market solutions that cannot work.
Quantitative Easing Was a Bust; Let’s Try Higher Wages Instead
The global economy faces so many headwinds at present that it’s hard to know where to begin. China’s real estate bubble has popped, capital flight has put emerging markets into a nosedive, commodities prices have plunged triggering fears of deflation, the economic data is increasingly bleak, and the Fed’s plan to “normalize” rates has sent stocks gyrating like never before.
Quantitative Easing for People: The UK Labour Frontrunner’s Controversial Proposal
One would hope that Cameron and Osborne fully understand the mechanics of modern money creation (although a recent survey by Positive Money shows 90% of their fellow MPs do not). Most of our money is created by private banks when they make loans. It doesn’t have to be this way. Another world is possible.
Jeremy Corbyn is not leading a campaign he is leading a movement
The ideas and vision that Jeremy Corbyn represents, for so long buried beneath a ton weight of Thatcherite ideology, have risen from their slumber and are now part of the mainstream political discourse again, breathed new life by thousands of young people who demand a real and humane alternative to the thin gruel that passes for reality today.
“The dogs bark, but the caravan passes on.”
Only when Mark Carney, Christine Lagarde and Prince Charles start talking about the abolition of privately created debt-based money should we even begin to take them seriously. Of course such an affront to the obscenely wealthy would have seen even Prince Charles ejected from the Mansion House soiree.
Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Solution to Poverty
King wanted the government to eradicate poverty by providing every American a guaranteed, middle-class income—an idea that, while light-years beyond the realm of mainstream political conversation today, had actually come into vogue by the late 1960s.
Could We Afford a Universal Basic Income?
That the funds the government already spends on antipoverty programs, if cashed out, would be more enough to raise everyone above the official poverty line. For example, in recent Congressional testimony, Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation presents data that suggest that the cash equivalent of total means-tested government spending is enough to raise the incomes of all low-income households to double the poverty level.
The Economic Case for a Universal Basic Income
The news that Switzerland will hold a referendum on a proposal to provide every citizen with an unconditional grant of 2,500 Swiss francs a month (about $2,800) has sparked renewed interest in the old idea of a universal basic income (UBI). Under such a program, the government would not just top up the incomes of the poor, but would give a subsistence-level grant to everyone, regardless of wealth, work status, or anything else.
Swiss to Vote on Guaranteed $2800 Monthly Income for All Adults
Switzerland will hold a vote on whether to introduce a basic income for all adults, in a further sign of growing public activism over pay inequality since the financial crisis.
A grassroots committee is calling for all adults in Switzerland to receive an unconditional income of 2,500 Swiss francs — about $2,800 — per month from the state, with the aim of providing a financial safety net for the population.
Organizers submitted more than the 100,000 signatures needed to call a referendum on Friday and tipped a truckload of 8 million five-cent coins outside the parliament building in Bern, one for each person living in Switzerland.