Warning! Big Tech might be drawn into a too close too dangerous for us relation with Big Brother.

Sir, Ms. Rana Foroohar writes: “Whatever their size, the winning companies will be those that are profitable. That may sound obvious, but it hasn’t been for the past decade, as easy money has dulled investor senses.” “Activist’s critique of M&A is right” September 16.

But where did that “easy money” come from? Was it not central banks injecting immense amounts of money, and which effects were much distorted by the risk weighted bank capital requirements, which low capital requirements allowed that liquidity to multiply manifold? Has Ms. Foroohar tried to put the breaks on such easy money, or the contrary has she not been egging it on? 

And Ms. Foroohar concludes: “Meanwhile their Big Tech competitors are already being circled by regulators… Attorneys-general from 50 US states and territories in the US have launched an antitrust investigation into Google’s dominance of search and advertising, while New York is leading a probe of Facebook’s monopoly power… in Europe, the EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager… has been given a broader remit that includes digital policy.”

Should we cheer that? Absolutely not! For two reasons:

First that it might lead to Big Tech entering into too close too dangerous relation with Big Brother.

Second we, whose personal data is being exploited by Google, Facebook and similar, should be compensated long before redistribution profiteers and neo-ambulance chasers… for instance by having 50% of their ad-revenues to help fund an unconditional universal basic income.

@PerKurowski

The battle between capital and labour may be surpassed by the battle between the working class and the not working class.

Rana Foroohar announces, “The age of wealth distribution is coming and will have major investment consequences”, “The age of wealth accumulation is over” August 5.

Indeed, but two questions stand out. 

First, for wealth to be redistributed some assets of the wealthy must be sold and, since precisely because of that there might be less interest among other to acquire those assets, the value of these could fall… with unexpected consequences. Here’s an example, what is best for New York City keeping property taxes and property values at current values, or increasing the taxes running the risk that property values fall and wealthy property owners run away somewhere else?

The second question is who is going to redistribute? Will a mechanism like an unconditional universal basic income be used, or will the usual redistribution profiteers be in charge of it?

Foroohar also announces, “Another battle will be between capital and labour.” That battle will always be present but, in these times when robots and AI seem to threaten jobs, the real battle could end up being between the working class and the not working class.

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2012/04/we-need-worthy-and-decent-unemployments.html

@PerKurowski

So if the taxman/(Big Brother) is now to get a share of the revenues some Big Tech obtain exploiting our personal data… who is going to defend us citizens?

Sir, you deem “The ability of some of the world’s most profitable companies to escape paying fair levels of tax…unfair both to other businesses which do not trade internationally and to governments, which lose substantial revenue” “France leads the way on taxing tech more fairly”, July 12.

It might be unfair to us taxpaying citizens but “unfair to the government”, what on earth do you mean with that? That sounds like something statist redistribution profiteers could predicate but, frankly, the government has no natural right to any income.

And since Big Techs like Facebook and Google obtain most of their revenues by exploiting us citizens’ personal data, then if there were some real search for fairness, a tax on ad revenues from such exploitation should better be returned directly to us, perhaps by helping to fund a universal basic income.

But what ‘s the worst with these taxes is that now effectively governments will be partners with these companies in the exploitation of our data. With such incentives do you really believe our interest will be duly defended? We, who are afraid of what all our data could feed with information a Big Brother government, must now recoil in horror from that we will also be suffering an even richer and more powerful Big Brother.

PS. Sir, it is not the first time I have warned you about this.

https://teawithft.blogspot.com/2018/03/our-need-to-concern-ourselves-about-use.html

https://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2019/05/i-have-some-ideas-about-what-could.html

@PerKurowski

A Universal Basic Income deserves to be implemented fast but carefully, little by little.

Sir, Lex writes:“Either the Universal Basic Income (UBI) has to be unrealistically low or the tax rate to finance it is unacceptably high. Suppose the US provided its 327m inhabitants with $10,000 a year. That would be less than the 2018 official poverty threshold of $13,064. But it would cost 96 per cent of this year’s federal tax take.”“{Universal basic income: } money for nothing” May 20.

Let’s face it, the UBI, being an unconditional payment, eats into the franchise value of the redistribution profiteers, and so there are many out there wanting it never to be launched or, if it is, to be unsustainable. The usual way to sabotage it, is precisely arguing that if it is too small it does not solve anything, or if it is too large, it is fiscally unsustainable.

In my mind UBI, the basing building block for the decent and worthy unemployments we need before social order starts to break down, and therefore such an immensely valuable social experiment, deserves to start small, but fast, and grow, slowly, to where the future will and can take it. 

The tricks for a successful launch of a Universal Basic Income are:

1. That it helps all to get out of bed but that it never is so big so as to allow anyone to stay in bed. In other words that it is a stepping stool that helps everyone to reach up to whatever there is in the real economy.

2. That it starts small enough and grows little by little so as to guarantee its absolute revenue sustainability. It should never be an UBI for the current generation paid by future generations.

3. That its revenue sources should as much as possible be aligned with other social interests, like a carbon tax that helps fight climate change; or sources aligned with the new times, like taxes on robots, intellectual property and exploitation of citizens’ data.

Sir, the UBI should have as little as possible to do with government and politics, that because it should foremost be as a citizen to citizen’s affair.

PS. In countries blessed with high natural resource revenues, these should feed a much larger UBI, but that is because of the importance of reducing the concentration, in the hands of a centralized government, of income that does not come from taxes paid by citizens.

@PerKurowski

Sooner or later redistribution profiteers will meddle with any wealthy sovereign wealth fund.

Sir, with respect to “the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund” Norway’s, Richard Milne writes: “The danger is that one of the few sovereign wealth funds based in a democracy could be weakened by political meddling.” “Wealth fund’s abode at risk of becoming Norway political saga” May 9.

I quote from my book “Voice and Noise” from 2006. “My name was put forward as a candidate for the post of Diversification Manager in the Venezuela Investment Fund that was being created in 1974 to handle the oil income surpluses of the nation. I entered the Fund its very first day, and I left a couple of weeks later the same day my desk arrived, utterly frustrated when the Fund was requested [by the politicians in government] to analyze, and obviously endorse, [in one week] the economic feasibility studies of a 4 billion dollar investment known as the Fourth Plan of SIDOR, the big Venezuelan iron and steel complex. With an “if something goes wrong with this project the Venezuelans might have the right to hang us in Plaza Bolívar, and I’m much too young for that” I slammed the door on the public sector …”

Sir, sometimes politicians (redistribution profiteers) will meddle with a sovereign wealth fund after just two weeks, sometimes it will take decades for that, but sooner or later that will always happen, you can bet on that.

@PerKurowski

“Mommy, what’s worse, murder or Brexit?”

Sir, Bronwen Maddox writes: “Britain’s Parliament Square has returned to a kind of peace. MPs are off on their Easter break, thanks to the latest Brexit deadline extension. Most of the protesters are taking an Easter break too, it seems, and have suspended their pageantry of 12-foot banners and elaborate costumes, competing for the world’s attention. “Brexit has broken the political parties, not the constitution” April 16.

But Maddox predicts the peace is just temporary, because “the deadlock of Brexit is a political failure”.

Sir, I absolutely do not know enough about Britain’s constitution or political systems to opine on the article, but what I do know for sure is that in the Brexit vs. Remain type of deep divisions you are not alone. These odious divisions are happening everywhere, with all type of issues, as a result of polarization and redistribution profiteer being able, often anonymously, to send out their messages of hate, envy or fake news, on the web, at a marginal zero cost.

On April 13, briefly visiting London, while walking on Fleet Street, I heard a 7-8 years old girl ask: "Mommy, what's worse murder or Brexit?” “Thank God, in this case, the mother was at least very clear about the answer, but how could that question have popped in this girl’s mind? 

And I know that many children around the world might ask similar questions about for example: murder or Trump, murder or climate change, murder or filthy rich, murder or etc.

Sir, I do believe we should declare a worldwide emergency, before we lose all possibilities of a civilized social cohesion.

What to do? I don’t have a complete answer, but I would suggest the setting up parallel social media, in which no one that has not been completely identified can participate, so as that we can at least shame anyone producing excessive divisions.

To instate also a very small payment for each web contact produced by anyone that might be looking for some type of political funding, could be helpful.

PS. Yesterday I went to Speakers' Corner. There was no one speaking there.

@PerKurowski

The “having just enough” opens the door for a discussion on relevant and irrelevant inequalities

Sir, I refer to Janan Ganesh’s “The holy grail of having just enough” April 6.

It is a great article, though because of its honest shadings, those who want to see all in black or white will criticize it. But its real importance could be in helping to put the finger on the need to redefine all discussions and measuring of inequality, by allowing these to focus much more on the relevant existing inequalities, and much less on the irrelevant inequalities.

That some “filthy rich” has decided to use his purchase power to buy a yacht, something which makes yacht builders happy, or to contract a yacht crew, something that gives those crew members a job, or freeze $450m of it in a painting, such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which should make the one who sold him that painting very happy, does not make me feel one iota unequal to him. But, I can perfectly understand that the fact I own a house, a car and a reasonable amount of money, can make many owning much less feel unequal to me, and many who have nothing feel unequal to all.

And clearly those without a job must feel unequal to those with a job… and in that case unequal to the yacht crew, not unequal to the yacht owner.

In these days when redistribution and polarization profiteers seeding so much hate and envy, at zero marginal costs, create so much odious societal divisions, it behooves us to, as a minimum minimorum, make sure those divisions are in reference to something real and relevant, and not just fake divisions that can lead to absolutely nothing good.

PS. My generous feelings towards what the “filthy rich” own, are of course based on that they have obtained all that wealth in legal and decent ways.

Instead of looking out for fake news, which is a mission impossible, go after what motivates and facilitates it.

Pilita Clark writes that “Britain’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, later warned social media companies could be banned if they failed to remove harmful content [and] ministers were looking at new laws to force social media companies to take down false information about vaccines spread by ‘anti-vaxxers’”. “Facebook is not our friend, no matter what their adverts say” March 29.

Ok, they identified one fake-news. Congratulations! 

But let me assure you that for each one of these you are able to track down, at least one hundred new ones will be spreading like wildfire.

To stop fake news, as well as to stop that odious messaging of hate and envy by polarization and redistribution profiteers, you have to be able to identify who is making money on it, and make it harder for them to make money on it.

Two things are needed for that. First to set up a parallel social media in which only duly identified individuals can participate, so that they could be individually shamed; and then place a minimum minimorum access fee on each social media message, so that they can not operate with a zero marginal cost.

Where should that access fee go? Clearly to us citizens whose data is being exploited and not to some other redistribution profiteers, and much less to some on the web-ambulance-chasers.

Pilita Clark also refers to George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. Rightly so, we need to read and reread it so as to fully understand that the worst that could happen to us citizens, would be these mega social media enterprises teaming up with Big Brothers here and there.

@PerKurowski

If universities and professors had in payment to take a stake in their student’s future, you can bet students’ merits would mean more than parents’ wallets.

Sarah O’Connor writes: “Those in the top 1 per cent of the income distribution complain that the growing wealth of the “0.1 per cent” has priced their children out of the sort of private education and housing that they themselves enjoyed.”“We must stop fighting over scarce educational spoils” March 27.

They are wrong! All the income of the growing wealthy “0.1 per cent”, is immediately returned to the real economy, when they buy a lot of assets, like yachts, and services, like yacht crews, which are all really not of much real interest, or use, to the 99.9 per cent rest of the economy.

And if there is anything that really has helped price out private education and housing, that’s the excessive availability of financing. For instance if the risk weights for the bank capital requirements when financing residential mortgages, 35%, were the same as when financing an unrated entrepreneurs, 100%, houses would be more homes than investment assets, and people would have more jobs with which service mortgages or pay utilities.

But that truth does not stop polarization and redistribution profiteers from stoking the envy levels in the society, especially when it can often be done on social media in an anonymous way, and at zero marginal costs.

Now if you really want less discrimination against those who poor might use education better, align the incentives better, and don’t let universities and professors collect all upfront.

@PerKurowski

My tweet on why the world is becoming a much angrier place than what’s warranted by the usual factors.

Sir, Chris Giles writes “Britain is an angry place: furious about its politics, unsure of its place in the world and increasingly resigned to a grinding stagnation of living standards” “Anger and inequality make for a heady mix” March 1.

Giles analyzes the increasing discontent as a function of the economy, in terms of economic growth, inflation, income inequality, weak productivity and employment rates, whether existing or expected.

That is certainly valid but, sadly and worrisome, there is much more to the much higher levels of anger brewing than could seem be warranted by that. That goes also for the rest of the world. 

Sir, what is happening? Here is my own tweet-sized explanation of that.

“Shameless polarization and redistribution profiteers, sending out their messages of hate and envy through social media, at zero marginal cost, are exploiting our confirmation bias, namely the want or need to believe what we hear, up to the tilt. It will all end very badly.”

https://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2010/05/speakers-corner-speakers-have-moved-to.html

@PerKurowski

Will there now be opportunities for gig unionists?

Sir, Sarah O’Connor thinks the unions might have a good chance to adapt to the gig economy “Gig economy deals promise a brighter future for trade unions” February 27.

I am not so sure. There is a de facto class war in the real economy between those with jobs wanting better conditions and those just wanting a job. And that is what nourishes the gig economy.

Imposing on the gig economy benefits, is just like raising minimum wages, it just raises the bar for the offer of jobs. An unconditional universal basic income would instead provide a step stool to better reach up to whatever jobs are offered.

Of course those who benefit, politically or financially, from a conditional redistribution, or from negotiating on behalf of workers, do not like that option as it clearly erodes their job opportunities. 

How will unions handle it? I have no idea; perhaps there will be some gig unionists.

PS. In the same vein, perhaps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a gig politician. We’ll see if she lands a second term. Having helped New York lose Amazon’s 25.000 well paying jobs does not bode well for here there. Perhaps she will get a call from another state.

PS. Amazon is one of those entities automating and robotizing the most. So it is a bit surprising to read that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez opines “We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work. . . . We should be excited by that”

@PerKurowski

More than between left and right, the division is between tax paying citizens and witting or unwitting possible redistribution profiteers

Sir, Wolfgang Münchau writes, “Liberal democracy is in decline for a reason. Liberal regimes have proved incapable, of solving problems that arose directly from liberal policies like tax cuts, fiscal consolidation and deregulation: persistent financial instability and its economic consequences” “The future belongs to the left, not the right” February 25.

The risk weighted capital requirements placed on top of any natural risk aversion distorts the allocation of bank credit in favor of what is perceived as safe and against what’s perceived as risky, has nothing to do with liberal policies. The risk weights of 0% the sovereign and 100% the citizens, just puts crony statism on steroids.

Münchau also “The euro, too, was a liberal fair-weather construction.” That could be but when EU authorities assigned a 0% risk weight to all public debt of eurozone sovereigns, denominated in a currency that is not their domestic (printable) one no one could call that a liberal construction. It was idiotically dooming the euro to failure.

Sir, I feel left or right labels do not really define what we citizen are up against. Our real adversaries are those I have come to call redistribution profiteers. In my home land Venezuela, where the central governments some years has received 97% of all export revenues, that is easy to see. But even in the rest of the world that is happening, unfortunately without being sufficiently understood. Much of it is the result of citizens lacking the most basic societal information, namely how much their central and local government receive in income, from all taxes, per citizen. 

Of course taxes are needed but such per citizen data, published regularly, would also put pressure on improving the day-to-day quality of government bureaucracy. I mean we want our taxes to be spent well. Don’t we?

PS. As a self declared radical of the middle, or extremist of the center, I feel the best hope we now have to improve our societies is by means of an unconditional universal basic income. That UBI should be 100% paid for, be large enough to help all reach up to jobs in the real economy and be small enough so as not allow anyone to stay in bed.

@PerKurowski

For social harmony, in our time, we need a big enough and a small enough universal basic income.

Sir, Chris Giles refers to a “1994 OECD study [which] contained a warning of the dangers in store for countries that failed to tackle problems in their labour markets. “It brings with it unravelling of the social fabric.” “Improve employment rates to tackle inequality” February 15.

Giles opines, “Flexibility and social protection is a winning combination for advanced economies. While it does not prevent all employment problems, whether you take a right-of-centre “work not welfare” attitude or a left-of-centre “a hand up not a handout” stance, in general the combination works.”

I agree! An unconditional universal basic income, large enough to allow many to reach up to whatever jobs are available, is “a hand up not a handout”.

And an unconditional universal basic income, small enough so as not allow many to stay in bed, is also “work not welfare”.

So what’s keeping an UBI from being implemented?

To begin there’s not sufficient recognition of the real conflicts, basically a class war, between those who having a job want better pay and those who want a job at any pay.

But, first and foremost, it is those who profit, politically and monetary, on imposing their conditionalties when redistributing tax revenues, who strongly oppose a UBI, since it, naturally, would negatively affect the value of their franchise.

PS. The Chavez/Maduro regimes are clearly outliers among the redistribution profiteers but just as an example I once calculated that the 40% poorest of Venezuela had received less than 15% from the Bolivarian Revolution than what should have been their allotment had Venezuela’s net oil revenues been shared out equally to all. On the other side many of the odious profiteers pocketed many thousand times what should have been their share.

@PerKurowski

Redistribution profiteers have a vested interest in us ignoring the wealthy already redistribute their purchase capacity.

Sir, Tim Harford writes “One academic paper produced by Emmanuel Saez (a star in the study of inequality) and Peter Diamond (a Nobel laureate and colleague of Mirrlees) estimated that the combined rate of tax on the income of high earners could be 73 per cent in the US without proving counter-productive…[for that they] assume that a dollar is 25 times more valuable to a person on about $50,000 a year than to a person on $500,000.” “The super-rich are an easy target for tax rises” February 2.

Indeed, and that‘s why those with much higher income sometimes buy shoes that are 25 times more expensive than those earning much less. But, where does that type of analysis take us? Should jobs producing expensive manually produced shoes be prohibited? Should we have dollars with sensors that measure the value we assign to them? 

The problem with all the “resolve poverty and inequality by taxing the wealthy” is that it ignores the fact that all the purchase power that the income of the wealthy contains, is immediately returned to the real economy when purchasing assets and services. 

In this sense those prescribing higher taxes on wealth are, at the end of the day just arguing, they are better redistributors than the wealthy. Are they? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. In Venezuela those redistributing wealth have clearly done so in order to get their hands on the wealth. In Venezuela we have a saying that goes “The one who cuts the cake in order to distribute the cake, keeps the best part of the cake.

PS. Thomas Piketty should visit the Museum of Louvre in his Paris, and make a checklist of how much would not have existed there, had it not been for some “filthy rich”

@PerKurowski

One country, setting the example of a very high carbon tax, and sharing out all its revenues equally among all its citizens, would be a real game changer, in so many ways.

Sir you correctly argue, “Time is running out for us to halt dangerous rises in temperature…this is no longer a scientific or technological challenge, it is far more a political and social one.”, “How to rescue the global climate change agenda” December 27.

But when you hold “The depressing reality about climate change is that we could solve the problem, at manageable cost” that is not necessarily so. Sir, let’s face it, the truth is that there are way too many whose real interest, more than solving the challenges of climate-change, is to profit from the process, whether financially or politically, whether they are aware of it or not.

I’m as concern as anyone with the problem but in my case I really did not mind so much president Trump’s blindness, since I have always thought of the Paris agreement in terms of being just an interesting photo-op that would serve as a very dangerous pacifier.

So to align political and social incentives; to allow the market signaling how the problems should be best tackled; and to keep costly profiteering out of the process, I have for years thought the best alternative is a very high carbon/pollution tax which revenues are shared out in their totality equally among all citizens.

Why does that idea not meet more interest? The answer is clearly that the redistribution profiteers see that route as one that could very dangerously affect the value of their franchise, since there could be pressure for the revenues to be redistributed to all, a sort of unconditional variable basic income, should also for instance include all income generated by any existing gas/petrol taxes.

Our planet that I often refer to as our pied-à-terre needs a champion that decides to go down this route to set an example to follow. My grandchildren are Canadian so I would love Canada showing the way.

PS. This is exactly what I proposed how Mexico City should tackle its serious pollution problems in a letter you kindly published in May 2016.

@PerKurowski

What produces more bread? An economy with all consumers being equal, or one with some being filthy rich?

Sir, David Redshaw quotes John Kenneth Galbraith from his 1929 book The Great Crashwith: “The rich cannot buy great quantities of bread.” “Excess wealth can lead to speculative froth” December 13.

True, but when the rich transfer their purchasing power by buying assets that would often otherwise not be demanded, might that not be causing others to have job opportunities that would allow them to buy greater quantities of bread, than would have been the case without the rich?

And Redshaw goes on to say “The economy is motored by the regular and reliable spending of a confident workforce rather than by the mega rich, whose erratic and luxury-end spending always seems to end in boom and bust.”

Really? When has an erratic and luxury-end spending by the mega rich ended in a boom and bust? Last time I looked it was poor buyers of homes in the subprime sector in the US, empowered by being packaged into AAA rated securities, these securities in its turn empowered by regulators who allowed European banks and US investment banks to leverage more than 60 times their capital with these only because they had an AAA to AA rating, which ended in boom and bust.

Sir, never forget that a paper is also measured by what it allows to be published.

@PerKurowski

To understand how the west might be lost it is important to remember how it was won.

Sir, Martin Wolf when reviewing Paul Collier’s “The Future of Capitalism” titles it as “An important analysis of how the west was lost” December 3.

I have not read it yet, but I will be attentive to if Collier gave the film “How the West was won” or John Kenneth Galbraith’s “Money; whence it came, where it went”, or something similar, any consideration when writing this book. That because risk-taking is the oxygen of any development and current regulators, having imposed on banks loony and dangerous risk adverse risk weighted capital requirements, have helped set the west on a downward path.

Wolf does tell us that Collier is for some “updated Henry George type taxation of rent on land, [arguing] we need to tax more forms of rent, including that from agglomeration, which now goes to lucky individuals and businesses.”

I assume “agglomeration” refers here to land and other assets? Of course, if that agglomeration produces higher cash-rents then those rents should be, and already are, mostly taxed, but, if land and assets are taxed on their value, if taxed, land and assets would have be sold, at ever lower and lower prices. How would that asset value deflation solve any problems?

Wolf writes that Collier’s starting point is one on which surely everybody agrees: “Deep rifts are tearing apart the fabric of our societies.” 

Indeed, but as I feel it, much of it is the result of polarization and redistribution profiteers having been so empowered by social media to merchandize their products of hate and envy.

Sir, I’ll stop here until I have read the book.

@PerKurowski

It suffices for one single nation to set a high tax on carbon emissions and share out its revenues among all its citizens, to really begin saving our pied-a-terre.

Sir, Martin Wolf, whether it is true or not, is absolutely correct calling out: “It is five minutes to midnight on climate change”. We have no right to ignore that threat, even if its possibilities were low. “Inaction over climate change is shameful” October 23.

Wolf asks and answers: “So what needs to change? Net global CO2, methane and nitrous oxide emissions would need to fall to zero” though he also observes. “This is very unlikely to happen. That is no longer because it is technically impossible. It is because it is politically painful.”

It should not be! If only one nation went ahead and placed a big tax on carbon emissions, and shared out all resulting tax revenues equally, unconditionally, among all its citizens that would be a game changer… many would be politically pressured to jump aboard saving the planet that way.

Why does it not happen? Quite simply, the redistribution profiteers, those who profit from negotiating conditions, won’t touch with a ten feet pole an unconditional pay like this, less it spreads to other areas of their franchise, for instance by means of a Universal Basic Income.

Do I know? I come from Venezuela where nothing similar to its current tragedy would have happened had its oil revenues been shared out equally to all Venezuelans, and yet that possibility is rarely mentioned by the opposition, because there’s always an infinite pool of aspirants to be the next redistributors on turn.

Paris Accord? To me it was just a great photo-op for redistribution and fight against climate change profiteers that would do little to improve the chances for my grandchildren to live better.

More than a year ago the Climate Leadership Council proposed a carbon tax along the lines of what I describe here… seemingly they were silenced!

PS. For Mexico City, to combat pollution, I proposed just that..

@PerKurowski

The prime element of a Universal Basic Income is its unconditionality, and that’s why redistribution profiteers hate it the most

Sir, John Dizard titles“Sorry, but the world is not yet ready for universal basic income” October 11, but then he writes an article exposing exactly why we need a Universal Basic Income. Clearly he has not understood the real implications of UBI’s most important principle that of its unconditionality; never to be paid out because you are something different, like in jail.

I came to Universal Basic Income by means of my long fight for having all Venezuela’s net oil revenues shared out equally among all Venezuelans. That would have saved my homeland from its current tragedy. Instead those revenues fell into the hands of odious, besserwisser, corrupt redistribution profiteers… who paid it out generously to themselves and their friends… and with especially bad cheese to the rest of Venezuela.

“UBI…cannot be done within the bounds of the existing social contract in advanced countries.” Absolutely, as long as we allow redistribution profiteers to define those bounds.

Those redistribution profiteers who, circling their wagons in order to defend the value of their franchises, convinced Dizard of that “big tax rises and reductions in other benefits would be needed, even for a modest basic income”. Their most usual tool is using very high figures for that basic income. There is absolutely nothing that would stop advanced countries from beginning by paying out some US$ 200 per month to all its citizens. That would help oil the economy much more than a tax cut.

We urgently need something to help create decent and worthy unemployments in time, before all social order breaks down… and redistribution populists like Hugo Chavez and pals take over. 

@PerKurowski

The one most worthy and in need of a “teachable moment” is the European Union itself.

Gideon Rachman“fears that Britain is heading towards what counsellors call a “teachable moment”, otherwise known as a traumatic experience that forces people (or nations) into a fundamental reassessment.” “Britain is poised to learn a hard Brexit lesson” September 25

To that purpose Rachman mentions, “Greece experienced not triumph but humiliation – as its government was forced to accept the bailout that it had just rejected.”

Indeed, but the one who would best have been helped by a “teachable moment”, that would be the EU itself; which could have happened if only Greek citizens had sued EC, for allowing banks to lend to the Greek sovereign against zero capital of their own, which of course doomed the Greeks to their tragedy.

Does Britain or any EU nation really want to end up like Greece? I believe not. For that not to happen all Europeans need to call out their authorities on much more, instead of silently swallowing EU’s marketing efforts; thankful for being able to freely visit each other; something that when you get down to it does not really require a European Union for it, as neither does free trading, as neither does being able to work or reside in any EU nation for that matter.

How long will techno/bureaucrats, in EU or anywhere be able to extortionate more power for themselves, or increase the value of their redistribution franchises, by offering the citizens goodies these could obtain by other simpler means?

For instance the day an unconditional Universal Basic Income is adopted, that day we will be able to rebalance much more power in favor of citizens and lessen that of those all who engage in the crony statism that is killing us slowly. 

Does a teachable Brexit moment preclude something very good coming out from it? I don’t think so; I have too much respect for the Brits. Perhaps they can even help to save EU.

@PerKurowski