The way we get @AndrewYang's #FreedomDividend of $1k/mo for all citizens signed into law is to have a Congress full of reps who will get it through the House + Senate. We need to vote for pro-UBI reps & we need to give the boot to anti-UBI reps. Ask Congress candidates about UBI.
If you live in New York's 13th district, @JFKii is running on UBI. He would sign the Freedom Dividend of $1,000/mo into law.
If you live in Massachusetts, @BriannaWu is running for Congress in District 8. She is very pro-UBI, is very informed about technology, and has followed me for years.
If you live in Ohio's 3rd District, @mh4oh is pro-UBI and sees it as "a dividend from the economic productivity we are all creating," that will provide a "baseline of income" for necessary stability.
If you live in South Carolina, @TinubuGloria is running as a Democrat to replace @LindseyGrahamSC in the Senate, and she has endorsed the Freedom Dividend UBI as proposed by @AndrewYang.
If you live in New York's 6th Congressional District, @MelforProgress is running on a platform that includes Universal Basic Income. As a member of Congress, he would vote YES on UBI.
If you live in New York's 15th Congressional District, @ChivonaRNewsome is running in support of the #FreedomDividend of $1,000/mo. She's even helping with the @IncomeMarch happening on Sept 21st.
If you live in Maryland's 5th Congressional District, @KevinJonesForMD is running for Congress in support of @AndrewYang's #FreedomDividend of $1000/mo. Given the opportunity, Kevin would vote YES on UBI.
"People perceive national debt as a negative, Grey said. But instead, he argues, you can think of it as a savings account, because people are earning interest through the bonds that they hold."
It is a choice we make to issue Treasury securities $1 for $1 of federal spending that exceeds taxes. We don't have to do that, but it's popular because people like earning a US government guaranteed rate of interest.
The US issues USD. We choose to also issue securities that pay USD interest. Our 14th Amendment says we can't default on any of our promised payments. Just keep making the payments, and we may as well also issue a $1 trillion coin to demonstrate we don't have to issue securities.
This is good but I wish it also included how Medicare Part D doesn't even carry the same issue as the rest of Medicare because it was set up to use general revenue. It's the example that proves all that's required to "fix Social Security" is just a legislative change in wording.
If we decide to reduce Social Security payments in the future, that's a political choice. We certainly don't have to do that. We can keep making 100% of payments, and no we don't even have to lift the cap on payroll taxes. We can just spend the money.
It's really harmful how wide and how strong the myth-based belief is that the national "debt" is some big scary loan of some kind instead of being more like a savings account and how running a deficit is somehow bad regardless of what the spending is for.
At their annual meeting, the Southern African Quaker Community voted in support of the introduction of a universal basic income for all people legally in South Africa. Here they explain the reasons behind the resolution.
"The poverty-stricken masses have nothing going for them, see no hope for their future, and have nothing to lose. South Africa is a tinderbox that will catch fire if a match is thrown into it... South Africa may be considered a real-world example of where the world is going."
"In our view as Quakers, unconditional universality is pivotal. First, this emphasizes the equality and worth of all. Second, it avoids introducing a massive bureaucracy and associated procedures, often carried out by uncaring officials and involving lengthy waits."
Pre-pandemic, employment increased quite a bit in the basic income group, but the increase did not remain significant during the pandemic. It's possible that this and other non-significant results were due to unexpected attrition by the end of the experiment. (more on that later)
Income volatility was another measure that decreased significantly pre-pandemic, but did not remain significant, as did psychological distress. People in the basic income group moved from "likely to have a mental health disorder" to "likely to be well" in year one, pre-Covid.
Universal basic income? But where does the money come from? I hear that all the time. The better question to ask is how best to remove newly created UBI money from circulation? This simulation says it's a transaction tax, which is one of my own favorites.
If you want to mess with the settings of this simulation yourself, here's where it's located. Definitely try turning off the universal basic income and transaction tax toggle and watch society break as one person eventually ends up with all the money.
I think it's important to recognize that the flow of money in a free market is always upwards. It will always lead to concentration of money into fewer and fewer hands, destroying the market. There has to be a mechanism for money to come up at the bottom and vanish as it goes up.