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Automation may curtail employment opportunities: Rangarajan

Hyderabad, Jan 24 Former Reserve Bank Governor, C Rangarajan today cautioned that automation which is part of "Digital Age" may curtail employment opportunities to people even though it is expected to create jobs at "higher" levels.

"Though the situation in India with regard to replacement of jobs by machines is not alarming, it should be noted for future considerations," Rangarajan said at the Seventh Foundation Day Lecture at the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE) here.

Lakshmi Narayana, vice chairman of Cognizant delivered the keynote address titled ‘Digital Way Forward’."Until recently, until the dawn of the digital age, the replacement of […]

Leonid Bershidsky: The latest bad idea from France: Tax those darned job-stealing … robots?

Leonid Bershidsky: The latest bad idea from France: Tax those darned job-stealing … robots?

The ideas of Benoit Hamon, the surprise front-runner in France’s presidential primaries of the Socialist Party, are far to the left of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and even the U.K. Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn. This, of course, is the era of the expanding Overton Window, with radical ideas bursting into the mainstream. One Hamon proposal in particular, however, should never make it: a tax on robots, based on the premise that their proliferation is bad for human employment.

Hamon’s most discussed proposal is a US$805 (750 euro) monthly universal basic income for the French. It doesn’t make much sense, primarily […]

Basic income could help resolve Hong Kong woes

Basic income could help resolve Hong Kong woes

Among the political turmoil experienced by Hong Kongers, there is another crisis that is eroding the societal foundations of the global financial hub: debilitating poverty.

Hailed as one of the freest economies in the world, Hong Kong now has a higher per capita income than its former colonizer Great Britain. However, they also have a high and persistent poverty rate at nearly 20 percent .

It is not just relative poverty compared to the lavish lifestyles of many Hong Kongers. Many locals have become homeless or McRefugees (those who sleep in McDonalds at night) due to the prohibitively high cost of […]

Finland – basic income trial

Finland - basic income trial

Finland – basic income trial Finland started to experiment with guaranteed basic income – for a trial it is only 2000 people who get €560 a month. This kind of support will remain even if person in question will find a job, though it will replace already existing social benefits.

More can be found here – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/j…unemployed

What are your thoughts on this? The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth. Mikhail Bakunin. […]

Ben Simmons: Basic income could increase divorce, and that’s a good thing

Ben Simmons: Basic income could increase divorce, and that’s a good thing

Campaigner Ben Simmons explains how a basic income could heighten "romantic mobility"

IT IS widely reported that Richard Nixon was scared of implementing a basic income in the United States in 1969 by the increase in divorce rates in Seattle and Denver trial schemes.

This finding was later debunked when the evidence was re-analysed, but I think that we should be optimistic that if we were to implement a basic income today we would see something like it come to pass.The fact is that society’s more permissive attitude to ‘living in sin’ and the implementation of civil partnerships has […]

Ben Simmons Basic income could increase divorce and thats a good thing

Ben Simmons Basic income could increase divorce and thats a good thing

Campaigner Ben Simmons explains how a basic income could heighten “romantic mobility”

IT IS widely reported that Richard Nixon was scared of implementing a basic income in the United States in 1969 by the increase in divorce rates in Seattle and Denver trial schemes.

This finding was later debunked when the evidence was re-analysed, but I think that we should be optimistic that if we were to implement a basic income today we would see something like it come to pass.The fact is that society’s more permissive attitude to ‘living in sin’ and the implementation of civil partnerships has led to […]

The Gradual Disappearance of Jobs

The Gradual Disappearance of Jobs

Stuck Between Fantasy And Reality
From the very beginning of industrial era, the idea of replacing humans with machines caught on and has persisted, to the point of appearing credible today. Indeed, breakthroughs in artificial intelligence are raising concerns about the significance of humankind in the future. That still far event horizon forecasts a society lead by strong artificial intelligences which may bring us to our obsolescence. Homo sapiens will be at best forced to the margins of active duty like the utopian post-work post-scarcity society in Iain M. Banks’s science-fiction The Culture Series,; and at worse, wiped […]

A Minimum Income For Every Indian? Arvind Panagariya Warns India May Not Have The Fiscal Resources To Do So

A Minimum Income For Every Indian? Arvind Panagariya Warns India May Not Have The Fiscal Resources To Do So

Adnan Abidi / Reuters India is toying with the ambitious and radical idea of a universal basic income which proposes to pay a certain income amount – in cash or in kind – to every single citizen regardless of willingness to work or any other pre-condition. However, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya, has warned that the country simply doesn’t have the fiscal resources to pay for such a massive exercise.

Panagariya told the Indian Express that the sum that would be required to pay every Indian at even the current poverty line rates cannot be matched by the country’s […]

Universal basic income in Budget? Here’s why it shouldn’t be disruptive like demonetisation

Universal basic income in Budget? Here's why it shouldn't be disruptive like demonetisation

Ever since Arvind Subramanian confirmed that the idea of universal basic income (UBI) would make its way into the upcoming Economic Survey back in September, speculation has been rife on its possible implementation in this year’s budget . UBI proposes to make unconditional cash transfers to all on an individual basis. In the context of the developing world, the basic premise of UBI is that, in a modern civilised society, it is unacceptable that a person is unable to fulfill his basic needs simply because he cannot find a job. It is one of those rare concepts where economists […]

Valls’s Last Chance to Stop Rebel Threat to His French Campaign

Valls’s Last Chance to Stop Rebel Threat to His French Campaign

Former Prime Minister Manuel Valls has one last chance to save his French presidential bid on Wednesday night when he tackles the party dissident set to claim the Socialist nomination in a televised debate.

Valls intends to hammer away at 49-year-old Benoit Hamon’s proposal for a universal basic income as he seeks to turn around a five-point deficit in Sunday’s run-off for the nomination. Hamon resigned from Valls’s government in 2014, claiming it had abandoned Socialist principles. Valls, 54, used an interview with France Info radio Tuesday to paint his rival’s platform as too leftist and unrealistic.

“Voters have a clear […]