Economics: Shorter Work Hours vs UBI

Richard Wolff gives lots of awesome speeches and explanations, but sometimes he also skips over vital points like probably all of us. Here is one such case:

Economic Update: Beyond Universal Basic Income
Democracy At Work

Comment: Richard Wolff is probably right that reduced full-time workweek hours could be used less well by sociopathic demagogues than a UBI to divide people because the current weird ideology of our right to live deriving exclusively from us working paid jobs would continue as before. No shaking of the boat. There would be less risk of misleading people into thinking that they work shabby jobs and pay painful taxes only to keep lazy other people from having to work (while always overlooking that this is exactly what we are doing in the current system, although not really for under-supplied poor people who get very little help, but rather for all those super-rich people who own most of what can be owned and swim in a huge stream of money flow they do NOT earn by work). 

European Thoughts Fitting our Fourth of July

Independence Day is a special holiday held high and celebrated in different corners of society. For some it is just a brief relief from a never-ending money-earning drudgery. For others it is the holiday of their nationalist notions easily linked to fascist white supremacist ideas stuck into their heads from the top by the rich ruling class and their demagogic minions in politics and the mass media to divert (with xenophobia and hate speeches) their justified anger away from the true culprits and causes of their mutilated lives, thus turning them into a duped army of violent right-wingers and idiot voters. For others, like myself, it is an annual reminder of the great ideals of some of our heroic founding fathers whose liberating ideas spread around the world causing awe and love and hope, and even change — change from monarchies and dictatorships to democracies or even attempts at socialist economies (a natural consequence of the life, liberty, and happiness for all concept).  

Political Awakening Video Weekend 04-07-2019 (20 videos) — Biggest Topic: UBI

This weekend’s video collection of political, economic, and societal issues – both problems and their solutions – is mixed with significantly more written commentary than usual, basically merged with an article. The writing is added to tie the clips together and also enhance the understanding they bring. This particular compilation is also dominated by a heavy focus on one big major theme that is growing in popularity and public discourse: the concept of a Universal Basic Income. Here are many of the pros and cons and how a UBI fits into the big picture. Other topics: an ethical society, news on the corporate media, healthcare, Tulsi Gabbard, liberty, whistleblowers (Manning & Assange), top-run dividedness of the people, Venezuela’s economic reality, and a political comedy session.

Topics:

1. UBI: Introduction
2. UBI: Active & Passive Incomes, Taxed or Not
3. UBI: Just Printing Money for a UBI is not the Correct Way
4. UBI: Social Context and Effects of a UBI
5. UBI: A panel discussion with further insights
6. UBI: Here is another pretty good discussion
7. UBI: The UBI-Scam-Worry on the Left
8. UBI: Well Made Point Concerning the Ethics in Our Society
9. Lee Camp Exposes Our Ayn-Rand-Style Corporate Media
10. Healthcare: An American Tourist’s Healthcare Experience in Europe
11. Tulsi Opposes Torture and Regime Change Wars
12. Where is our Freedom Party?
13. Talk: Chelsea Manning, Grand Juries, College, Mega Corporate Non-Free Market
14. Our History: The Divided Poor Utilized by the Rich
15. World, Corrupticians, & Media: Backstabbing Assange
16. World: Venezuela’s Economic Crisis Explained
17. Comedy: Jimmy, Graham, Ron, Stef…

Video Weekend 11-25-2017 (12 Videos)

Twelve great videos befitting our Thanksgiving week. The first is a report on the current GOP tax scam and the near future our oligarchs are planning for us. Ack! The other 11 videos are thoughts from around the world about the UBI portion of the great future we must fight for. Various angles, differing views… I left out the bogus status-quo-worshipping and economic-evil-justifying claims from disgusting people since I don’t want to spoil anyone’s weekend… luckily I didn’t come across a lot to begin with. Phew! — So, let’s move on to a bunch of thoughtful and uplifting, yes uplifting (except for the 1st one, I suppose), weekend videos.

 

I. The Present Mess:

The future the current lords are planning for us:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Bankers Unwittingly Admit Tax Cuts Don’t Help Workers“)

 

II. Thinking About the Future — Various Views on a UBI

In my “holy trinity” proposition[1][2][3] of a great economic system forming a shared assets economy using these three parts – a universal basic income (inherited citizen’s dividend), an earned (through work) assets dividend, and a public monetization of needed work (federal job guarantee) – the UBI is one of the currently most discussed measures:

Even the rich see sense in a UBI (mostly a safeguard against our pitchforks, for sure):

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Why the World’s Richest Say a Universal Basic Income is Good Policy!”)

A Beautiful Future (Happy Thanksgiving)

The beautiful vision of an achievable future, this Thanksgiving, is one that goes beyond merely resisting Trump or the GOP’s tax heist. It even goes far beyond merely installing Medicare for All or getting money out of politics. The beautiful vision for this Thanksgiving is one of a Star-Trek-like economy of the “live long and prosper” mantra, in which we all live lives of plenty.

Contrary to the doubts of many, it is eminently achievable in a modern economy where we overproduce and waste food and things like there was no tomorrow, there being produced enough for everybody’s needs (although many never get it), and where the rapid rise of automation will soon make most human labor unnecessary to produce everything we need and want.  

The Shared Assets Economy – Part 2

Yesterday, I introduced Yanis Varoufakis’ proposal of work compensation via shared assets as a means to end the division between an owner class and a working class. These assets would provide an earned residual income combining perfectly with an inherited Universal Basic Income (UBI) and a Federal Job Guarantee, to create a virtually Utopian society of prosperity for all, a society in which everybody would be financially secure and, if they so wished, could earn a desired raise of their income in a fair and reliable fashion.

In this combination of a quasi-holy trinity, the UBI — which is a citizen’s dividend based on our national economic resources that we all, not just a few plutocrats, deserve to inherit upon our birth — would provide a safe minimum income for everybody, gainfully employed or not, while the asset-based work compensation would provide a raise for those who want more money, and the federal job guarantee would provide paid work opportunities often missing in a purely profit-driven “free” market — as the millions of un- and under-employed wannabe-workers who are desperately looking for properly paid jobs these days clearly show.

Since the article was getting a bit long, I decided to perform further elaborations in a second article, which is the one on hand. Basically, in this article, I want to flesh things out a little more, both the current system and the one we can aim for, and also what we must do to get there.  

What if We Were Paid for Work in Assets rather than Ephemeral Wages?

Something that Yanis Varoufakis proposed in a speech I previously shared on a Video Weekend got stuck in my mind, making me want to dedicate an entire article to it. An article I have announced and promised a view times. Today, I finally fulfill that promise to me and you.

Besides explaining the mechanisms of democracy’s decline, in his speech, Varoufakis also proposed an amazingly fair economic system, one that would end the division between an owner class (from which arise the robber billionaires who ruin this world for the rest of us) and a working class. In this model, we would all become owners. If you want to skip to this part of Varoufakis’ recorded speech, it stretches from 10:00–11:49 minutes:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Capitalism will eat democracy – unless we speak up | Yanis Varoufakis”)

Varoufakis lays out an ingenious alternative to – or variant of – capitalism, a kind of fairly shared capitalism or universal ownership society, a fairly shared assets society — a Star-Trek-like utopia instead of the Matrix-like dystopia where we are currently headed. It is an intriguing economic system where there is no more disparity between wage-based and asset-based income, a system where we all become asset holders and will no longer be ordered around by a few ownership lords who condemn us to live out our lives as their oppressed serfs and puppets.