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Automation’s Future in Idaho Is Considered

Automation’s Future in Idaho Is Considered

In Idaho, a researcher at the state Department of Labor looked into automation and how it may play out locally. His overall estimate is based on that of the Oxford analysts , that nearly half of state jobs are susceptible within a couple decades.

But there’s no mention that workers are shoppers and are the engine of America’s consumer-driven economy. Nobody is discussing how the financial system is supposed to function without a healthy population of shoppers.

Or that the automation revolution makes immigration obsolete . The robots haven’t taken over — yet. Technology already is changing work force and how […]

Guaranteed Income for Every Citizen – Best Way To Revitalize Humanity

In June 2016, Switzerland voted in a referendum on the topic of introducing a basic income. If it had passed, all Swiss citizens, working or unemployed, would have received about $2,500 Swiss francs for adults and 625 francs for children per month as a guaranteed stipend from the government. Image credit Switzerland would have become the first country in the world to implement such an idea. Although the Swiss Federal Council rejected the initiative in August 2014, the rejection was more of a symbolic suggestion to vote against the basic income than a consequential political action: the Swiss people […]

Elon Musk says robots will push us to a universal basic income

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/18/elon-mus … -work.html

Elon Musk says robots will push us to a universal basic income—here’s how it would work

Burger flippers, truck drivers, and cashiers are going to be out of work in the coming decades, thanks to the accelerating pace of robotics and automation technology, some experts warn.And as large swaths of the population lose their jobs, the only viable solution might be for the government to institute a universal basic income, which would mean paying every resident a fixed amount of money to cover their needs.There’s a lot that’s still unclear about universal basic income, but here is […]

What I Learned from the No Year

What I Learned from the No Year

Tallulah is so done with 2016 On January 1st of this year I vowed to have a Happy No Year : a chance to reassess how I ought best to spend my time. It was hard. The better part of my academic life has been saying yes to as many things as possible to get a job, a better one and then tenure.

Now tenure may no longer matter (but that’s another post or ten).

I learned a lot in saying no. I’m still learning. I said yes to things I truly wanted to do. Of course I didn’t know that […]

BIEN Stories: Jan Otto Andersson

BIEN Stories: Jan Otto Andersson

Jan Otto Andersson (Åbo Akademi)

Several texts were momentous at the start of my BI journey, even though they did not always fit a strict definition of an unconditional basic income.

The first text was a pamphlet written by my acquaintance Gunnar Adler-Karlsson. In Danish it was called “No to Full Employment”, but it was not published in Swedish until renamed as “Thoughts on Full Employment”. Adler-Karlsson set out a vision of a three-layered society: the necessity economy, the capitalistic economy and the free economy. The vision included a “life income” or “citizen’s wage”, but everybody was supposed to take […]

Looking Back on 30 Years of BIEN: Stories from Life Members

Looking Back on 30 Years of BIEN: Stories from Life Members

This year, BIEN celebrated the 30th anniversary of its birth . In commemoration of the occasion, founding members reunited at its birthplace–the Université Catholique de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Beglium–for a series of talks on the past and future of BIEN and the basic income movement.

At the end of the year, all Life Members of BIEN were invited to reflect on their own personal histories with the organization and movement. Read their stories here:

• Hyosang Ahn (Director of Basic Income Korea Network; South Korea): “The first time I encountered the idea of basic income was the summer of 2007. I […]

Apple manufacturer Foxconn to convert its workforce into robots

Apple manufacturer Foxconn to convert its workforce into robots

Foxconn , One of Apple’s Original Equipment Manufacturers, plans to automate its workforce in their factories in China in the upcoming years, according to the company’s General Manager for the Automation Technology Development Committee, Dai Jia-peng.

A report from Digitimes established that this large manufacturer plans the automation in a three-phase program, Jia-peng said. In this scheme, the objective is to replace the human workforce for what they have called “Foxbots.” These robots will use a special unique software and will function as in-house robotic equipment. Foxconn plans to replace its human workforce for what they have called “Foxbots.” Photo […]

If Foxconn’s Chinese Factories Are Now Automating Then Those Apple Jobs Are Never Coming Back

Some years back President Obama asked Steve Jobs about all those Apple assembly jobs being done in those vast sheds in China. More specifically, he wanted to know whether those jobs would come back to the United States, was there some way they could be brought back perhaps. And Steve Jobs’ response was simply that those jobs are never coming back. This is not something specific to Apple, nor China, either. Mass employment in assembly of anything is just not something that is ever going to happen in a rich country any more. It’s cheaper to use machines to […]

BIEN Stories: Steven Shafarman

BIEN Stories: Steven Shafarman

“Toward Basic Income and a Peaceful Democratic Revolution”

By Steven Shafarman

My drive to enact a basic income – and most of my ideas about how to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize allies – arose from exploring the way young children learn to walk and talk.I first wrote about these ideas, though without the term basic income , in the mid 1980s, inspired by the analogy of “the body politic” and Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs.” Young children, as they learn to walk, outgrow crawling and leave it behind. Their basic needs are provided by parents or other […]

A Canadian Province Just Passed a Resolution for Universal Basic Income

IN BRIEF The four political party leaders in PEI unanimously supported the decision to establish a program that would guarantee all citizens a basic income.

A UBI could potentially decrease poverty, improve health, reduce crime, and raise education levels at a time when increased job loss is imminent due to advances in technology.

UBI FOR PEIThe government of Prince Edward Island (PEI) has taken a major step forward toward the implementation of a universal basic income (UBI) for citizens of the small Canadian province as state legislature has approved the proposed initiative .The four political party leaders in PEI […]