Category: Basic Income

Universal Basic Income: Now With 12.56 Percent More Economic Growth! If you do not know what a universal basic income is, it’s an idea that the government gives every citizen a fixed sum of money on a monthly or yearly basis. Think social security for all. A number of prominent proponents of the idea are former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, Elon Musk, Keith Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg. While it is argued we will need a universal basic income in the future to provide financial security for citizens, according to a new report conducted by Marshall Steinbaum of the […]

Full Post at www.dailykos.com

CommonSpace columnist Ben Simmons makes the case for a radical redesign of the welfare system and how we view it

AT THE recent Scottish Independence Convention conference , Jim Stamper of Pensioners for Yes gave an excellent account of the challenges facing the independence movement when it comes persuading pensioners to vote for change.

One of the most shocking points was that No voters are over-represented among pensioners because those disadvantaged by the status quo simply die much sooner.The extent of this health inequality is a criminally neglected part of the national discussion and should be a source of […]

Full Post at www.commonspace.scot

Techies safe, but you may have to endure a robot co-worker

So, robots are coming to take your jobs after all* but techies shouldn’t be scared, not in the slightest. This is the opinion of the Centre for Policy Studies, which today released the paper Why Britain Needs More Robots , a report that claims Britain doesn’t have enough automatons in its workplaces yet – at least not of the mechanical kind.

But even as those dead-eyed bastards proliferate, the flesh-and-bone workers among us will still be in a good spot, author Daniel Mahoney said.In some cases, you might get […]

Full Post at www.theregister.co.uk

In an interview with BBC News, Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz warned that basic income (citizen’s income) should not be the current priority of the Government of Scotland.

On September 5, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that the Scottish Government would provide funding for basic income trials in the regions of Fife, Glasgow, North Ayrshire, and Edinburgh, where pilot studies of the policy had received the support of local authorities.

During October’s Inclusive Growth Conference , Sturgeon reaffirmed the government’s commitment to supporting trials of basic income, despite acknowledging that the policy might prove infeasible in the end: Despite the […]

Full Post at basicincome.org

Developers should learn economics and cultural anthropology on top of technical skills, according to Stack Overflow CEO Joel Spolsky .

“Developers should learn ethnography and how to study people. Increasingly software intermediates between people. All of the software getting created today is a social thing,” Spolsky tells Techworld . © GeekWire “You can’t use Snapchat unless you have friends on there. So as a developer you should learn how people use software and watch them in context,” he adds.

In terms of programming languages, Spolsky had the following advice: “Python is growing in importance. We’re increasingly seeing programmers use modern trendy […]

Full Post at www.techworld.com

If anything, we need more robots, the report argues (Source: Getty) Labour’s plans to impose a "robot tax" would impede productivity growth, depress wage growth and cause a brain drain from the country, a new report claims.

Think tank the Centre for Policy Studies argues that a tax as mooted by Jeremy Corbyn at last month’s Labour conference would dissuade businesses from developing new technologies, but claims that "if anything, the UK’s problem is too few robots, not too many".

The report notes that in the UK there are only 71 robots for every 10,000 employees in manufacturing, compared with more […]

Full Post at www.cityam.com

(File photo)

While it was slightly cheaper to eat healthy food, one in 10 households in the Kingston area still face food insecurity, according to a report released Tuesday.

The Cost of Eating Healthy Report from Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Public Health showed a family of four — two adults and two children — would have to spend about $888 per month of to eat healthy. That showed a drop of about $14 from the $902 it cost in 2016. The 2016 result was a increase of $21 from the previous year.“I don’t think it is very […]

Full Post at www.thewhig.com

(Igor Stevanovic/Dreamstime) Universal Basic Income is a progressive policy currently being piloted in a variety of ways in several nations around the world. Icons like Mark Zuckerberg and Bernie Sanders have openly praised it.

From Wikipedia, Universal Basic Income “is a form of social security in which all citizens or residents of a country receive a regular, unconditional sum of money, either from a government or some other public institution, independent of any other income.”

John Zogby Strategies asked a question about a variation of Universal Basic Income to determine whether or not this hotly debated issue has any traction on […]

Full Post at www.newsmax.com

Market advocates usually tend to reject any sort of system that seeks to rob from one individual in order to give to another. Yet, when it comes to the welfare state, some who align themselves with free enterprise support the idea of a universal basic income (UBI).

It is believed by some that a UBI would be the best possible way to limit the welfare state without clinging to the more idealistically pure view that it should be abolished altogether. It is reasoned that since the government is likely to continue taking from us anyway, we may as well mitigate […]

Full Post at fee.org