OR HOW THE IDEAS GET ROTTEN BEFORE THEY EVEN START TO FUNCTION
This entry should not have been in Witchdoctors blog. Witchdoctor was planning to have some fun with the Collapse of the Wave Function (upcoming next entry), but, instead, he is writing about the Collapse of the Brain Function. We are talking here about the disputes concerning the Universal Basic Income, Basic Income Guarantee, Universal Citizen Income and the Job Guarantee.
The story started (before it was even applied in practice for real) as a classical dispute, so well described in the Monty Python movie – The life of Brian, where the insurgents divided them selves in as many fractions as many were the participants of the rebellion. Or the classical marxist -leftist Virus which normally divides the marxist left in as many fractions as is the total number of revolutionaries.
Basically it all started from the classic psycho moment ; why give somebody something for nothing,
Classically it evolved also in who is proposing what and the pure or noble or right origin of the persons proposing it and by this judging the validity of the proposal. A pure gossip and ego moment.
The first everlasting objection of the Universal Basic Income is, why give it for free?
It is closely linked to the famous ; there is no free lunch.
Why give it for free is now cleared, due to demographics,robotization, algorhitms, lack of purchase power and thus no selling on a mass scale, who is going to buy all this stuff produced, and consequently if will there be any profit left for the masters and the producers in the Debt Driven Economy (collapse), security reasons and , last but nor least, a basic decent survival for the multitudes. As for the; there is no free lunch, Witchdoctor has wrote about it. There are so many trillions of free lunches served, but the wrong people are eating them. Trillions of leverages based on debt and interest, trillions subsidizing the war and security as private enterprise, trillions in Quantitative easing going to the already well fed up. Trillions in corruptions and in the monopolies and the various Matrioskas.
And surely the Rich are proposing it, too. For security reasons, profit, and some are decent pals. Why the poor voted for Thatcher there is no free lunch or for Trump or Putin, only god knows,it is an unsolved enigma, but they are choosing the wrong horse for centuries.
Now, many say the poor will spend it on booze.Well, to be sarcastic, even booze spending means growth and the police (and the bars- double meaning) will grow to keep them calm. But the facts known until now show that this is not happening, the poor even start to save and invest, given the opportunity of some extra cash. The women factor, as in the Grameen Bank.
Next, the Universal Basic Income is not obligatory, you can give it back, do You?
Poor or rich ,for moral reasons you can give it to somebody else, cash out hand out.
Next, there is the economic multiplier linked to the Universal basic Income. Half of it returns back through taxes and VAT. Next the overall effect multiplier on the economy is way over 1,6 times, so, at the end the money given comes back with the profit and growth…The lazy buggers do not deserve it anyway is the last almost irrational stance. May be, but if we start to count who deserves what, it may end in tears, like under Pol Pot, yes,there are other means to fix that.
Next is the problem of the Public sector, the public administration. In many places it is growing out of hands, and it is just producing rules that are there to multiply their number in solving the rules they invent and wait for their pensions while you wait to get your problems solved. A classic socialist illness which can not be solved by the MMT principles of budget spending= net saving as in previous WD post. They deserve to join the Universal Basic Income or go private and show their real skills, like writing blogs or any debt driven economy fake news, hahah. The Rules they produce are not helping the planet became more green or sustainable, they write it mostly for the Big Corporations, and to distort the real market.They work for their big bosses, always.
Have you seen the I Daniel Blake movie? Well, it is disgusting what they do,. They are private companies subsidized with public money , so it is taxation at the end which perpetrates this neoliberal model of torture ..
Next is the Job Guarantee, so dear to the MMTers. It is nothing wrong with it if is not obligatory. If it is obligatory it is just a German Model Mini Job. When after three declines of the given job which may be anything and has nothing to do with one titles and skills,for a 2,3 euros per hour, one starts loosing the lousy 350 euros, or something like that, a month. Good way to exploit the workforce and be competitive on the Chinese scale? If this situation is the point of dispute and the proposal of the JG, than count WD out. Next thing about the Job Guarantee is that it can be even a way for mobbing, if the Officer (nice way to call a public servant, you are in the Army now?) dislikes the Job Mini Guarantee applicant (as in the link), and the “Officer” starts giving terrible jobs to a person applying, a way of revenge and ransom.And you have to be always at reach, same city, no moving for 24/24 hours a day till you die. Kind of work camp in you flat? Not yet a concentration camp?
The Job Guarantee may even look like any job in a Socialist system Witchdoctor has witnessed. Just a waste of time and constant harassment, non productive waste of time. Or it may not, but it must be freely chosen. The system will need lots of animators, like in a tourist resorts where the guests are lead to participate in various activities. Terrible, but if it is freely chosen…
The seeking of Perfection in any alternative model or even in the debt driven economy model as such always leas to hell.If this seeking of the Perfect Model starts even before the model is established, it leads in breaking and fractioning, petty dispute and the Brain Wave Collapse.
The Universal basic income and the job guarantee have two options. The first is to include it in the current neoliberal system, which is budget and tax constrained and the second is to include it in the Debt free money system , not budget or tax constrained.
The essential links how to include it in this system are in Simon Thorpe ideas.
There is even the calculator (one of the authors is Thomas Pikkety) of designing the taxation model by anyone, as a proposal.
DO not forget also the link on Financial Transaction Tax as a way of financing the Universal Basic Income. Why not to , if there is no free lunch, put a fraction of the tax on the Financial transactions and so finance the UBI?
The second, in the Debt free money system ,is already been explained by Witchdoctor. There can or may be no taxation at all in such economic environment,or better, the minimal tax as a way of forced acceptance of the fiat currency by the participants, with the rule that the balance of payments must be at least neutral, the imports have to match the exports because of inflationary risks ( if not a taxation to counterbalance must be enforced, lets put aside the geopolitical military status and situation of the USA and of the dollar here , they have and need to solve it differently, can be even easier…). This model guarantees by default the Universal Basic Income, and excludes all the Public Administration which is there to arbitrary provide for it, let them dream at home, or enter freely the Job Guarantee.
And grateful Thanks to Ellen Brown, the Big Sorceress which opened WD eyes
In 2008.
But we do not need to worry, the USA is already way ahead, communist or Mussolini type corporate power per definition and rule as this news in the Guardian newspaper;
British travellers to the United States face the uncomfortable choice of handing over personal information, including social media passwords and mobile phone contacts, or running the risk of being denied entry to the country, under a new “extreme vetting” policy being considered by the Trump administration.
Tourists from the UK and other US allies including Germany and France, could be forced to reveal personal data, as well as disclose financial information and face detailed ideological questioning, according to Trump administration officials quoted by the Wall Street Journal.
the bad bad moon rising
for decades, and rising on and on….