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Solutions needed to make India’s youth employable

Solutions needed to make India’s youth employable

With services contributing to 66.1% gross value-added growth in FY15-16 based on data from an India Brand Equity Foundation report, it’s clear that burgeoning progress is firmly entrenched in the waves of the services sector. India’s employment scenario has experienced a pendulum-like shift, from an agricultural towards a service-rich economy, corroborated with a boom in employment for sectors like IT, insurance, finance, infrastructure, retail and telecom.

With services contributing to 66.1% gross value-added growth in FY15-16 based on data from an India Brand Equity Foundation report, it’s clear that burgeoning progress is firmly entrenched in the waves of the services […]

The Robot Rampage

The Robot Rampage

Donald Trump tends to present the labor market as a zero-sum game: companies have shifted production to China and other emerging markets. He’s going to bring those jobs home.

Put aside for a moment how moving jobs back to a country with high costs gives companies an incentive to automate . There’s a bigger problem: After displacing U.S. manufacturing workers, robots are poised to do the same in developing economies, too. It will be hard to re-shore jobs that no longer exist.

It took 50 years for the world to install the first million industrial robots. The next million will take […]

Why a universal basic income is the answer to complexity

Why a universal basic income is the answer to complexity

At the turn of the year, I stumbled upon an intriguing article by the columnist John Harris in The Guardian . Harris, who builds upon the ideas of historian Joseph Tainter, suggested that the underlying factor of many societies which leads to their collapse is their overwhelming complexity: societies create complex systems for economic benefits, but they eventually become overstretched and end up offering little benefit to ordinary citizens. These citizens resent and attack the system, which inevitably leads to its collapse.

Harris, quoting Tainter’s work, lists examples of societies where complexity was a major factor in their downfall: ancient […]

How Finland’s Exciting Basic Income Experiment Will Work–And What We Can Learn From It

Could Finland become the first country in the world to introduce a universal basic income?

It’s quite possible: The Finnish government likes the concept, and it’s putting serious resources behind a national experiment. Starting in 2017, up to 100,000 Finns could get up to 1,000 euros a month, in lieu of other benefits. These lucky souls won’t have to work. They won’t have to prove they’re in poverty to get the money. For two years, they’ll get a fixed amount to do with what they will.

The idea of giving away public money, no strings attached, sounds crazy at first. But […]

Basic income: a good idea, or Big Brother writ large?

Readers are probably aware that Finland has just begun an experiment to see whether paying a basic income to citizens might replace its current patchwork of welfare programs and systems. The Guardian reports : Finland has become the first country in Europe to pay its unemployed citizens an unconditional monthly sum, in a social experiment that will be watched around the world amid gathering interest in the idea of a universal basic income.

Under the two-year, nationwide pilot scheme, which began on 1 January, 2,000 unemployed Finns aged 25 to 58 will receive a guaranteed sum of €560 […]

A CES Takeaway: Don’t Fear Robots And Artificial Intelligence–Fear Politicians

A CES Takeaway: Don't Fear Robots And Artificial Intelligence--Fear Politicians

Maroon 5 keeps popping up on my Pandora stations, so artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning still have a ways to go. Even if AI can beat us at Go .

But, wow, that aside, the technologies showcased at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (#CES2017, actually the 50th annual, sponsored by the Consumer Technology Association [CTA]), from countless robots to Hyundai exoskeletons, are incredible.

Voice recognition, virtual and augmented reality, smart home technologies and drones are everywhere. AI and machine learning comprise major threads.Which raises the question; will all that AI be Democrat or Republican?Just kidding. But a new concern has […]

Sayōnara, Humans: Japanese Company Replaces Its Workers with AI

Sayōnara, Humans: Japanese Company Replaces Its Workers with AI

34 workers at a Japanese insurance company are being laid off and replaced with an artificial intelligence (AI) system . Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance , seeking greater efficiency in calculating their payouts to policyholders, will soon replace many of its office workers with an AI system based on IBM’s Watson Explorer ("a cognitive technology that can think like a human").

In a recent press release , Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance stated an expected increase in productivity by 30% from their "Diagnostic document assessment automatic coding system."

The AI system will be used to read and understand medical certificates, hospital stays, surgical […]

Targeted basic income transfer scheme

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Why in news? What PM Modi’s speech of December 31 made clear was that India was firmly moving away from the anti-poverty policies pursued by all previous governments.

The new approach, made possible by technology, is to get away from the Amartya Sen-advocated in-kind income transfers to some version of cash transfers. What is an in-kind poverty alleviation policy? Two major in-kind poverty alleviation policies in operation are the PDS and MGNREGA. Both involve largescale government involvement . PDS – the government (FCI) involved in procurement, storage, transport and distribution of food. MGNREGA – the government […]

The Scottish pioneer whose plan for a basic income could transform Britain

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Who Are the Candidates in France’s Left-Wing Presidential Primary? Four years in power have not been kind to France’s left. The sitting Socialist president Francois Hollande has been called the most unpopular since World War II. Polls suggest that no left-wing candidate will make it to the second round of voting in the presidential election in the spring. But 2016 reminded us that politics is unpredictable and nobody can be ruled out for a shock victory. So as the French left gears up for a primary to choose its presidential candidate with the first round on January […]

Category: Universal/Guanteed Basic Income/Helicopter Money (BI)

Category: Universal/Guanteed Basic Income/Helicopter Money (BI)

Canada’s ‘Basic Income’: Progressive Dreams Meet Neoliberal Realities — David Icke latest headlines

‘Up until now, the concept of Basic Income (BI) has enjoyed a greater history of being proposed than of being implemented. We may well be approaching a period, however, when this changes. The Ontario Government is holding consultations on setting up a BI pilot project. The Legislature in another Canadian Province, Prince Edward Island, has… via Canada’s ‘Basic Income’: Progressive Dreams Meet Neoliberal Realities — David Icke latest headlines Elon Musk says people should receive a universal income once robots take their jobs: ‘People will […]