Category: Basic Income

Economists and tech leaders are warning that robots and artificial intelligence will lead to a huge number of jobs disappearing in the near future. Proponents of a universal basic income say guaranteeing a person’s livelihood by ensuring their income would address this jobless future. Critics say new jobs will be created and doubt a universal basic income can be implemented at scale. What do you think? 🤖

The logic behind a UBI is simple. In the near future, a large share of the population will be without a job because of automation. In order to address mass joblessness, tech […]

Full Post at thetylt.com

Yes, manufacturing continues to show productivity gains. However, manufacturing employment is now less than 10% of total employment. Total productivity gains can slow even though productivity gains in the manufacturing sector are strong. Other sectors also employ low skilled workers.

I’m sure you’ve heard that it seems harder to get productivity gains in services than goods, and an increasing percent of all workers are in service businesses.

(I have to wonder about a mix bias in the article. Suppose we measure productivity as dollars of value added per worker. Now, within an industry, let’s off-shore […]

Full Post at www.actuarialoutpost.com

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton. Bill Gates hosted a Q&A session on Reddit yesterday. A number of the questions related to technology, innovation, and other important economic issues. Here are some of the Microsoft co-founder’s most interesting replies:

— What kind of technological advancement do you wish to see in your lifetime?

The big milestone is when computers can read and understand information like humans do. There is a lot of work going on in this field – Google, Microsoft, Facebook, academia,… Right now computers don’t know how to represent knowledge so they can’t read a text book […]

Full Post at www.aei.org

Microsoft founder Bill Gates © Eric Vidal / Reuters Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates said it’s too early to dish out money to needy people, though the billionaire accepts the idea of universal basic income (UBI). ‘Basic income’ poll: 64% of Europeans would vote in favor, 4% would stop working “Over time countries will be rich enough to do this. However we still have a lot of work that should be done – helping older people, helping kids with special needs, having more adults helping in education,” he said, responding to users’ questions during an Ask Me Anything […]

Full Post at www.rt.com

A friend was making an inquiry on where their child, who had collected coins for a number of years, could cash them.

The little girl had coins from a number of former European Union countries who are currently using the Euro, as well as coins from the Middle East and the United States. There were a number of Kenyan coins that are not in circulation anymore, such as ten and fifty cent coins.

Now, the little girl felt that the coins, which amounted to almost Sh6000, were better of use to her as legal tender than as objects of curiosity.I work […]

Full Post at www.nation.co.ke

Written by: Michael A. Lewis
Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center

When I first became interested in the basic income, I was a graduate student studying welfare reform. For those who aren’t in the know, “welfare” is the more common name used in the U.S. to refer to a program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and which used to be called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). TANF and AFDC aren’t exactly the same programs, but they do have some key things in common: they provide financial support to […]

Full Post at basicincome.org

For both economic and spiritual reasons, a basic income guarantee isn’t the solution to widespread unemployment due to new technology.

In his inaugural address , President Donald Trump lamented, One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world. . . . We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead […]

Full Post at www.thepublicdiscourse.com

After conquering earth and space, superstar entrepreneur Elon Musk has his sights on a new goal – Universal Basic Income .

Elon Musk has accomplished many things in his life. His Tesla Motors has catapulted all-electric cars and large-scale electric battery technology into the limelight; Space X, his private spaceflight company, regularly catapults thousands of pounds of equipment to the International Space Station.

SolarCity, the solar power company founded by Musk’s cousins and which the billionaire serves as chairman, recently merged with Tesla in a multi-million dollar deal to become a solar-electric powerhouse.Even Musk’s Hyperloop project, his foray into high-speed mass […]

Full Post at www.playersmoney.com

Stopping in at the bank. ||| GiveDirectly Foreign aid has traditionally taken the form of in-kind assistance: sending meals or medicine, helping build houses or schools, and so on. This can lead to all kinds of unfortunate side effects, as when free food from abroad undercuts local farmers. There is also a recurring mismatch between what the planners in aid agencies think a community needs and what the people on the ground actually want. And so a small group of forward-looking aid workers has embraced a cheaper, more flexible, and less paternalistic approach: Just send people cash instead.

The leading […]

Full Post at conservativeangle.com