Basic Income - The first step to end poverty?

reply to post by Slave NO MORE


It's a nice idea, but the problem is that you'd have a massive increase in inflation. Imagine if the entire globe suddenly started using energy like Americans, buying disposable crap, eating like pigs, etc. The planet would be strip mined in no time. You may be able to achieve this gradually, maybe starting a fund which brings people to the $10/day threshold or so. Then use other resources to build infrastructure such as sewers, water, modern habitats, healthcare, etc.

The other problem is distribution - rarely does aid cash get to the needy in the way intended. It's skimmed off by corrupt governments and workers - half the nations of Africa are shining examples of this, whether you are talking about aid or nationalized oil revenue supposedly "shared" with the people. To make it worse, the cash tends to prop up corrupt governments rather than make them targets for overthrow.

I also agree with somebody else that billionaires tend to invest in big projects that push forth humanity, so I think you need to have truly exceptional people have access to exceptional resources. Maybe tax inheritance more, but I think the world needs the Mozarts and DaVinci's with access to insane amounts of capital.

Originally posted by Slave NO MORE

I stand for a NEW system global wide. My thought about this is: combine all the positive points from each system to make a new system.

- Democracy: people should be able to vote not only for representatives but also on laws.

that is pure democracy and is mob rule. i will never support such a system. it means 51% can take away the rights of the 49%.

our representative republic works well. it would work spectacularly if we instituted mandatory term limits to curtail career politicians and a maximum pay of no more than 100,000 dollars a year and got rid of all their time off.(like 3 weeks paid vacation, 30plus paid holidays or whatever it is etc..).
and instituted a charge of treason with life in prison for taking bribes or creating legislation to benefit individual companies.

who would work if everyone received $60,000 a year, to do nothing?

who would build homes, if you receive $60,000 a year, to do nothing?

who would farm, if everyone received $60,000 a year, to do nothing?

yes, you have the right to live, but not at the expense of someone else's labor.

People will never accept someone else taking their money who doesn't work.

Never - not in "this" age (which may be collapsing?).

People will also never accept that a happy, productive, society requires that a given populace is not afraid of dying hungry and/or sick on the streets (no matter how lazy some are). People will also never accept that their will always be lazy people wanting to sit while others provide. That, however, does not mean that people should die for their lazyness and at the same time others should work to the point of mental and physical distress to provide an excess of wealth to those not willing to overwork as most do.

IMO people need a living wage.

It's not an answer to everything, but I think people deserve at least that much and nothing more to advance a given populace as a WHOLE for the better of ALL because every human has value to give no matter if they work or not.

/IMO

Communism/Socialism, in its true form, is something I've studied intensively. And if it were implemented in its true form, it would work and the majority would be happy. Every time one of these systems was going to be implemented, it was hijacked by tyrants. There should be basically no government once socialism has been reached, which in its original form was the second stage of communism. Communism, the first stage, is supposed to have the remnants of a government, but nothing like China or the former USSR.

I believe it could work honestly. One of the reasons it will work is because justice will be swift. This is because the people will mete out punishments for breaking the rules, not a judicial system. The idea however is that people will be fair when they need to be, and tyrannical when the need arises. I think people are more than capable of this, and if everyone truly participated, out of service for the greater good, or out of fear of punishment, it could work. Plus, anyone who didn't want to follow the rules would be dealt with. But there are many problems with a system like this as well, since investigations ensure innocent people aren't persecuted for something they didn't do, etc. But points like this are all surmountable.

Capitalism doesn't work, and I think that is the main thing. There needs to be some other system implemented, as capitalism is doomed to fail in the long run, because people are corrupt. Plus, America is not a democracy, direct or indirect...It hasn't been for a long time.

reply to post by Slave NO MORE


You are having pretty much the same thought that I have. Capitalism is done. More than done. However what we see now unfolding is what I would call the real "big rip". They now want to get all our money and the thing unfolds very quickly. This is not fear mongering. This is the truth. And TPTB seem to be in a great hurry.

Look at these threads e.g.:

www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Also in Europe there is now the thought of having ONE monetary government for all European countries. To "prevent another crisis". And banks are now backed up by BILLIONS and BILLIONS (close to a TRILLION) of tax payers money. But who asked us if we want to "rescue" them??

No. All they want is total control and all our money!

The following very very bad things have happend due to capitalism and money:

- Money is power. You have no money? You have no power.
- There are a few super rich people how can buy armies, countries, government, technology as they are pleased to do. And they do.
- Public things are more secret than ever before. There is NO transparency. If you don't have enough money to buy yourself some power you will not know what their agenda is. It should be the other way round! Everything regarding public decisions must be known!!
- Private data (addresses, etc.) are being exposed more and more. We will loose our very last piece of privacy soon. It should be the other way round! Your private life should remain secretly yours!
- We are spammed every day by tons of emails which want to sell us something.
- Patents are being used not to protect but to destroy / eliminate market sections.
- More and more monopolies are installed. In fact smaller companies almost have no chance of surviving on their own. Either they will be killed by market prices or the biggest competitor buys them or kills them with law suits.
- Corruption is EVERYWHERE. Even the ranking table of corruption is corrupted. The most corrupt courties in the world do their corrupt stuff in secrecy. Politics is bought and so are elections.
- Due to insider knowledge the market is controlled by the richest. They KNOW when the next collapse will come. No wonder the richest became richer when 2008 the markets crashed! But the poor become even poorer. This will continue forever until the rich have everything.
- Health is not important as a healthy person does not need to buy drugs. Bad for business. Therefore the quality and the effects of drugs gets worse and worse. Instead of making you healthy they prefer stuff that makes you rather sick but you will not die immediately so they can sell more drugs to you to "help" your suffering.
- More and more communication is based on microwaves. These are known to damage DNA and create all sorts of effects like fatigue and depressions. This market is so big that it must be continued no matter what. On the other side sick people need drugs which helps the pharmaceutical industry.
- Oil companies dominate the world. We still use petrol to drive our cars where other technologies were possible but are being supressed as they would bring the big monopoly in jeaopardy.
- There is total dominance on the energy market. We have a centralized enetry grid in every country. Instead of going for the goal to make each and every household independend energywise they enforce us to use this insane grid. Here in Germany they want the tax payer to pay for the expansion of the grid by the billions of Euros and nobody is asked and no other strategy is suggested.
- Nature is destroyed everywhere at an increasing speed due to profit greed.
- Quality is sinking as bad products need to be replaced quicker and you have to buy new ones. Good for business.
- Wages are sinking as the workers in a company are only an undesired "resources" (ever heard of "Human Resources" - its a real business term!). Wait until roboters can do what you can do. Then you're fired.
- Wars are good for business and profits: (a) use your weapons and stuff so that new weapons and stuff can be buildt (b) build up the destroyed areas with companies that give you money - win-win for the warmonger (c) install your political system in the country to gain control over resources (d) install your companies in the countries, get cheap workers and sell even more of your crap.

I could go on forever. Maybe I will myself create a thread regarding this topic.
Capitalism and corporatism MUST end or we will go straight to hell. Do you want that??

And there ARE other possiblities we have yet to look at. The "Venus Project" is one of them.

I hope that more people are waking up to the fact that we need a VERY different system and we need it soon!!!

Please have a look at this video to give you a starter:


Thanks.

Originally posted by JiggyPotamus
Communism/Socialism, in its true form, is something I've studied intensively. And if it were implemented in its true form, it would work and the majority would be happy.

this is what every communist/socialist says.
they always think they are smarter than the last commie.

there is no such thing as a perfect system.

capitalism is the most compassionate system there is.
although not perfect, free will is natural, and has created more wealth and prosperity than any other system ever in the history of man.

Originally posted by optimus primal
that is pure democracy and is mob rule. i will never support such a system. it means 51% can take away the rights of the 49%.

our representative republic works well. it would work spectacularly if we instituted mandatory term limits to curtail career politicians and a maximum pay of no more than 100,000 dollars a year and got rid of all their time off.(like 3 weeks paid vacation, 30plus paid holidays or whatever it is etc..).
and instituted a charge of treason with life in prison for taking bribes or creating legislation to benefit individual companies.

That is a contradiction if I ever saw one. You can have direct democracy within a constitutional republic with a system of checks and balances. The popular veto would just be another check.

You have .000183% (Executive, legislative and judicial branches) taking away the rights of the rest. How is that in any way better than 51%?

As for instituting what you suggest. It might work under direct democracy but do you really expect legislators to pass legislation that is equivalent to them slipping a noose around their necks? I sure don't.

Originally posted by bjax9er

Originally posted by JiggyPotamus
Communism/Socialism, in its true form, is something I've studied intensively. And if it were implemented in its true form, it would work and the majority would be happy.

this is what every communist/socialist says.
they always think they are smarter than the last commie.

there is no such thing as a perfect system.

capitalism is the most compassionate system there is.
although not perfect, free will is natural, and has created more wealth and prosperity than any other system ever in the history of man.

This is what every capitalist says. And "compassionate"?? Are you kidding???

Capitalism is the most corrupt, greedy, heartless, senseless, moralless, non-caring, selfish and egocentric system that has ever existed.

Please have a look at the list above that I have provided to show you just what capitalism means.
At the core of these problems you have MONEY and greed and a few thousand people who have exzessive amounts of both. These two factors were also present in all communist systems and are the reason why they have failed. And they are the reason why capitalism will also fail.

Did you know that it were the communists and the socialists in the US who made Roosevelt install an income tax for rich people of 94%(!) during World War II to solve the massive problems the financial collapse and the war had brought? And I am not even American and know that it worked. But the capitalists did this in fear that the communist mind could take over America - which would have been better than anything else! In the follwing years the capitalist pigs did everything to destroy the socialist and communist parties and their reputation. Your oppinion about communism shows that this propaganda works.

Rich people may have a million dollars. I wouln't mind 3 million dollas. But billions?? No one should ever have that much because it only does harm to our society. And look how some corporations do not pay any taxes at all and even get tax refunds although they make a hell lot of money (e.g. General Electric).

We need something new. Something that reinvents money in a world where everything already is possible and available and is just extremely badly distributed. So that no Chinese worker must work for a few dollars a month and that no Chinese worker must die because of radioactive waste they throw just everywhere. If you now say: who cares about the Chinese? Then you have not understand a thing about how the world works and what's right and what's wrong.

Capitalism will epically fail as it is the worst system we ever had in its final consequences. This is guaranteed.
So you'd be better thinking yourself about alternatives NOW before you have to accept yet another system that is not yours.

I agreee with you 1,000,000% that every human being deserves the right to food/water/shelter. I have debated this many times over with people who can only see our concept as taking from one and giving to another. There has never been a shortage of resources and the appearance is given by those who control and take more for themselves. I am not saying that everyone deserves Iphones but there is no reason in the world that people should be left out in the cold or go to bed hungry.

We are the cusp of technology becoming so advanced that the majority of the population will not need to work so the system and our way of thinking need to change drastically. The problem is society deems these people as lazy and there is allot of people that would rather the "Extra" people die rather then them get anything for free.

What happens when we have artifical intellegence that can go plow a field and plant 100,000 plants a day?
Are we only going to allow the AI to plant 10,000 a day instead of 100,000 so we can control the value of the crop? This is what CORPORATE AMERICA will try to do. They would rather control the value of the crop by letting people go hungry even though the technology would not cost them a cent more to plant 100,000.

The problem lies in HUMAN GREED.

Our society has taught everyone that some pepole are better than others and some people deserve more than others which is so far from the truth. The truth is we are all the same and we use differences like race, religon, color skin tons of other things to separate ourselves from one another so that we can justify our actions of treating some one way and other another.

Something is going to happen in 2012 to change our attitudes and WE THE PEOPLE are going to make it happen in one way or another. Are we going to let corporations dictate our actions or are we going to finally realize there is enough to go around and say no to profits and yes to humanity.

They want to start the income at $10 a month per person and ramp it up to a hefty $1 a day by 2014.

I better get on that ferrari waiting list before all the folks getting this do!

www.globalincome.org...


Also, who is going to fund this? For the world (which is what they say on the site, everyone gets it) at the $10 a month figure its over 70 billion dollars. at the $1 a day amount its over 210 billion per month, and over 2 trillion a year!

reply to post by mrMasterJoe


you denounce capitalism, praise communism, then complain that chinese workers get paid dollars a day,and die.

you do realize china is communist, right?

the progressive income tax was set into law in 1913, long before fdr.

fdr was a communist. if you think he was a capitalist, you are highly mistaken.

name a capitalist country that is more compassionate, more charitable, more wealthy, more technologically advanced. has a more advanced infrastructure. than America.

oh thats right. there are no other capitalist countries.

though America is not purely capitalist anymore, has not been since 1913.
it was founded on free will, and capitalism.
that's why it has become so rich, and powerful.

reply to post by bjax9er


First, China is not really communism. I can call myself a zebra but will never be one. Same is true with China. China now is the biggest lender of money to the US. Think about that. Without your so called "communist" country the US would have already been bankrupt. Great wealth, indeed.
And this wealth is also founded on the explotation of other regions of the world. Namely Africa and Asia, especially China. If there were no Chinese workers who work for almost nothing - the so called wealth of the capitalist countries would be gone in an instant. And just wait a few years and China will no longer be as cheap as it is now. It will become indeed the world's biggest player around. Just because someone labels it communist doesn't mean it is communist. To the outside world China operates exactly the way a capitalist country would do.

And the so called "wealth" of America is a joke. The gap between the rich and the poor is the biggest there in the whole world. How could that be a success? And this country also holds the lonely world records of having the most debt of all countries in the world. So this "wealth" is indeed borrowed. Too sad that a so called "communist" country like China has helped out the US not to collapse right here and now and is now the biggest lender of the US.
Additionally the US ONLY had such a boom following after the two world wars because they were the only country (of the big ones) who were not totally detroyed by these wars. Why? Because they bombed all the others in WW 2! I would never be proud of something that should in fact make every single American ashamed of his country forever.

Closing one's eyes might be a nice thing for some time. But understanding the true relations and reasons behind what's going on in the world makes your arguments look like null and void.

Originally posted by Slave NO MORE
As a human being we live in a society. We need other people to get food, work, recreation, communication, transportation, innovation and so on.
I sincerely believe that everyone in this society has the right to live no matter where you are on the globe, how smart / less smart you are, how rich / poor you are. It's our given right to live our life!
Unfortuantly in the world we live in now, most pets have better life then a lot of people living in poverty.

I agree.

Originally posted by Slave NO MORE
There is this foundation who is reasearching the possibility to provide every human being in this world a basic income to fulfill the primary needs (food and shelter). If you wish to read about their ideas check the following site: www.globalincome.org...

Before you call me a communist or what sort of left / right type of person i will tell you the following:
We have / had all sorts of goverment types, democracy, monarch, communism, socialism and so on.
I do believe that they all have flaws.
I stand for a NEW system global wide. My thought about this is: combine all the positive points from each system to make a new system.

- Democracy: people should be able to vote not only for representatives but also on laws.
- Kapitalism: there must be difference in income so that people are motivated to compete in achieving goals while they study / work.
- Communism: there must be a MAXIMUM income so that the difference in wealth can't be like it is nowadays.
I mean it's unbelievabale that the 1% own 95% of all the money in this world (I'm not aware of the real statistics but it gives u an idea.)

You're assuming that money is a tangible item with intrinsic value. IMO money is an illusion. It carries value only because we consent to it representing something of value. But it can be devalued or manipulated very quickly by TPTB. I don't have an alternative, since gold and silver value can be manipulated. I am saying that money being part of your solution is already flawed. IMO what people need is not money but self sufficiency. They need true independence. As long as they are reliant on the "government" they will be controlled by the government.

Originally posted by Slave NO MORE
It isn't my goal to rip off all the millionairs / billionairs. They have the right to own more then others based on their achievements and / or inheritance. But i think there must be a law that says for example: A person is allowed to earn as much as 5 million dollars a year. Everything on top of that needs to be taxed. So that everyone else can have a basic income like for example 60000 dollars a year (The communism way).

I know that this new type of government is a sort of NWO, but i think it is better then the NWO that the TPTB is planning to place in our world.
If we are ahead of them then we can maybe achieve a NWO without the totalitarian goals that the TPTB have.
If there was a global gov. then the "military industrial complex" can be supressed and the money that comes free out of it can be used in sience, free public transportation, free telecommunication, free internet and so on.

And we shouldn't call it New World Order but New World Acceptance.

I'm curious about your thoughts on this. Let's hope that with this discussion we can find sollutions / ideas to the sick & polluted world we live in today

Unfortunately, what you ARE describing IS the New World Order, albeit in a pretty package.

While I know what you are saying seems just and right, that is how a lot of what we have now was started. In other words, you want laws to dictate minimums and ,maximums earned and kept. You want taxes to redistribute wealth from the "haves" to the "have nots". Why should should a few people have so much and so many have virtually nothing?

It is a slippery slope. There will always be someone or a group of people that will promise you anything and everything, if you relinquish your power and give it to them. The problem is that power corrupts. So what happens? They consolidate their power. They introduce laws with pretty sounding names and hide the fact that a lot of what is in the laws benefit those that contribute to them.

So is the answer to have more laws to control how wealth is redistributed? Is the answer give the government more power and ownership of all businesses? It sounds great, but I haven't really seen it work in practice.

IMO what we need is less central control and more local control. We need to be careful about the laws that are enacted. I think it would better that every law be reviewed every 5 years and see if it works, if not get rid of it. We need to always ensure that the individual's inalienable rights are never subordinate to the state. If you relinquish power to the government, people in the government will use it to THEIR advantage and they will never give that power back to the people.

"the gap between the rich and the poor"

number one argument used to promote communism.



it's kind of hard to borrow from a capitalist nation, when there are none.

china owes the u.s. just as much as we owe them.

looks like germany owes the u.s $299 billion
us holdings of foreign securities
it's just a big dog and pony show.

Originally posted by daskakik

Originally posted by optimus primal
that is pure democracy and is mob rule. i will never support such a system. it means 51% can take away the rights of the 49%.

our representative republic works well. it would work spectacularly if we instituted mandatory term limits to curtail career politicians and a maximum pay of no more than 100,000 dollars a year and got rid of all their time off.(like 3 weeks paid vacation, 30plus paid holidays or whatever it is etc..).
and instituted a charge of treason with life in prison for taking bribes or creating legislation to benefit individual companies.

That is a contradiction if I ever saw one. You can have direct democracy within a constitutional republic with a system of checks and balances. The popular veto would just be another check.

You have .000183% (Executive, legislative and judicial branches) taking away the rights of the rest. How is that in any way better than 51%?

As for instituting what you suggest. It might work under direct democracy but do you really expect legislators to pass legislation that is equivalent to them slipping a noose around their necks? I sure don't.

they have to work within the framework of the laws to do so. if we want it to change we have to vote in someone who will change it. direct democracy is mob rule, representative republics are rule by law. you want direct democracy? when 50% or more don't vote, have no idea what's going on with the world and couldn't economics their way out of a wet paper bag? that would be brilliant.

our system works, it could work better. stop voting in the two parties, vote someone else in. it takes time but we can change our system for the better. direct democracy is not the answer, our founding fathers knew that and that's why they were disdainful of it, that's why they set up our governance system as a representative republic.

reply to post by mrMasterJoe

! I would never be proud of something that should in fact make every single American ashamed of his country forever.

This is particularly hypocritical coming from a German. Are you ashamed of your country? After all, it was your country that perpetrated one of the biggest genocides known to mankind in the history of the world....
Just curious....

I know this is about a major side topic that popped up and not the main one, but I think representative government could be fixed with some changes. They'd be drastic, but I think it would would be for the better.

Get rid of elections for representatives. No more of this party crap and monied interests and the completely useless and semi-fraudulent B.S. media-blitz popularity contest. It's really not in the public interest. Instead, legislators are picked just like people are for jury duty. Each district has it's lottery every two years, if you get picked, you get the legislator's salary and get to propose, pass, and review laws. (That's your job and duty for that term, and if you neglect to do it - you could be punished if forced into a recall followed by a new lottery.) One term you could have richie-rich. (As is way too often the usual now.) But next year it could change drastically. That guy handing out flyers and preaching from the soap-box by the project housing that everyone tries to ignore could very easily become your representative. Heck, by the luck of the draw it could even be your job!

This would balance out a lot if every representative district did this, as each would have a randomly drawn person from that district seeing to it's interest. But it still might not be enough. Hopefully there would be enough oversight such that the lotteries are truely random and not fixed in any manner. The best part I think though is that it would weed out a lot of corruption that comes with vetted office holders gaming the system and taking advantage of revolving doors with private interests.

But still, even lottery based representation isn't going to be perfect. To help balance out the oddness caused by the occasional population outlier getting assigned to office, there'd be another thing which would be veto or repeal petitions. If a petition is brought up that gets enough signatures, questionable proposed laws would go to public ballot instead of handled by the lottery representative. Likewise old laws that are dated or cater too much to specific interests could be struck from the books in similar regard. A tougher petition and public ballot would also be in place to recall lottery representatives if they neglect their duties.

More details would need to be worked out, but I think such a thing would make for a republic much more representative of the actual public and their interests than the current (and somewhat rigged) election system.

Originally posted by optimus primal
they have to work within the framework of the laws to do so. if we want it to change we have to vote in someone who will change it. direct democracy is mob rule, representative republics are rule by law. you want direct democracy? when 50% or more don't vote, have no idea what's going on with the world and couldn't economics their way out of a wet paper bag? that would be brilliant.

Direct democracy can also be implemented to work within the framework of laws, it would also be rule by law. Direct democracy is majority rule but representative government is minority rule and in the current form that minority is for sale.

our system works, it could work better. stop voting in the two parties, vote someone else in. it takes time but we can change our system for the better. direct democracy is not the answer, our founding fathers knew that and that's why they were disdainful of it, that's why they set up our governance system as a representative republic.

No they didn't. They knew that the people would hand over their vote and this would create an elite class made up of them. It worked to. The only difference is that it isn't a closed club because "anyone" can run for office. Of course that anyone is in quotation marks for a reason.

reply to post by Slave NO MORE

I stand for a NEW system global wide. My thought about this is: combine all the positive points from each system to make a new system.

- Democracy: people should be able to vote not only for representatives but also on laws.
- Kapitalism: there must be difference in income so that people are motivated to compete in achieving goals while they study / work.
- Communism: there must be a MAXIMUM income so that the difference in wealth can't be like it is nowadays.
I mean it's unbelievabale that the 1% own 95% of all the money in this world (I'm not aware of the real statistics but it gives u an idea.)

This was a bit confusing because you put a point from "kapitalisim" under communism and then you just put in the whole 1%, was that just to gather support?
The problem with putting a cap on income is that it defeats the purpose of motivating people to make more. So in the end all you do is punish the people who wish to produce more, innovate or whatever else they do to make money.
What you describe is really just communism with voting and instead of everyone making the same, you either make the same as everyone else or less. You would have to nationalize everything or just tax the people who make money to the point where they are making enough to meet this "maximum". Say you own a grocery store, after you hit the "maximum" do you close the store for the rest of the day/week/month/year or does the government just take all the "extra" money? Or does the government own the store?

It isn't my goal to rip off all the millionairs / billionairs. They have the right to own more then others based on their achievements and / or inheritance. But i think there must be a law that says for example: A person is allowed to earn as much as 5 million dollars a year. Everything on top of that needs to be taxed. So that everyone else can have a basic income like for example 60000 dollars a year (The communism way).

What you basically just said was "It isn't my foal to rip off all the millionaires / billionaires but we should just rip them off. So how does taxing everyone who makes money make everyone else make 60,000 a year? You just give them that money? Are you saying we should punish rich people for being rich and reward poor people for being poor?
You clearly do no understand money and I would venture to say you probably do not have much. There are HUGE problems in relying on the rich to pay your way. One of the major problems is their income is not dependable but they UNDERSTAND money which is why they have so much of it. A "rich" person can go a couple years not making a penny or go years LOSING money, but they are good with it so they know how to get back up on their feet .
So lets say a guy makes your 5 million dollar cap but the next year he ends up losing 2 million overall, does he now get 60,000 dollars?