PowerSwitch

Yanis Varoufakis wrote:This is the first time in the history of technology that more jobs are being destroyed than created. Technological progress has led to a decrease in well-paid jobs, which decreases the middle class. That again leads to even more concentration of income and wealth in the upper class. That is why I fight for sociopolitical reforms such as the basic income.

http://www.basicincome2016.org/blog/yan ... s-vote-yes

Seems like the only sensible thing he has said.

People ignore technological change.

There are two key economic issues:

a) Resource depletion (aka peak oil).
b) technological change.

All the drivel about the one percenters is basically irrelevant.

johnhemming2 wrote:Seems like the only sensible thing he has said..

John, may I ask what made you decide to try to be a politician ?

johnhemming2 wrote: All the drivel about the one percenters is basically irrelevant.

Or so says a one percenter.

What is fundamentally wrong with people existing who have an income of more than £25K per annum?

The idea that you should attack people who have an income of the top 1% in the world as causing all the world's problems is absurd.

What is fundamentally wrong with people existing who have an income of more than £25K per annum?

The idea that you should attack people who have an income of the top 1% in the world as causing all the world's problems is absurd.

Is £25k in the 1%?

The problem isn't just that these people have an income of over £250,000 but that they, along with the major multi national corporations, don't reinvest that money in the general economy as is used to be invested. Most of it now goes out of the country into the financial economy to be spent on bits of useless paper called derivatives. Yes, much of it comes back into the city and we get a small tax income from it but most of it is removed from the productive economy which used to be used to finance capital projects.

The very rich also used to finance charitable projects like Carnegie's libraries, we had one in Newbury, but now the very rich spend their "charitable" money on helping the rich make even more money. The Gates Foundation's activities in Africa where they try to influence African small farmers to buy GM seeds and the fertilizers to go with them to benefit other US corporations in which the Gates doubtless have shares is a case in point!!

It is the fact that money is effectively withdrawn from circulation by these people which impoverishes the rest of us and the economy in general. It is the massive amounts of money which are being withdrawn from our economy which is dragging the world economy down by causing a lack of cash in circulation. It means that central banks are having to print more and more money just to keep these leaches going while the rest of us just hang on in there.

These idiots are destroying the system that they rely on and which their precious pieces of paper require for their wealth. Once the system dies all those bits of paper and all that electronic money will die with it and they will be left on their desert island to starve or top themselves like many of their ilk did in the 20 and 30s. "Good riddance!" I say.

kenneal - lagger wrote:The problem isn't just that these people have an income of over £250,000 but that they, along with the major multi national corporations, don't reinvest that money in the general economy as is used to be invested. Most of it now goes out of the country into the financial economy to be spent on bits of useless paper called derivatives. Yes, much of it comes back into the city and we get a small tax income from it but most of it is removed from the productive economy which used to be used to finance capital projects.

The very rich also used to finance charitable projects like Carnegie's libraries, we had one in Newbury, but now the very rich spend their "charitable" money on helping the rich make even more money. The Gates Foundation's activities in Africa where they try to influence African small farmers to buy GM seeds and the fertilizers to go with them to benefit other US corporations in which the Gates doubtless have shares is a case in point!!

It is the fact that money is effectively withdrawn from circulation by these people which impoverishes the rest of us and the economy in general. It is the massive amounts of money which are being withdrawn from our economy which is dragging the world economy down by causing a lack of cash in circulation. It means that central banks are having to print more and more money just to keep these leaches going while the rest of us just hang on in there.

These idiots are destroying the system that they rely on and which their precious pieces of paper require for their wealth. Once the system dies all those bits of paper and all that electronic money will die with it and they will be left on their desert island to starve or top themselves like many of their ilk did in the 20 and 30s. "Good riddance!" I say.

Yes, yesser and yessest.

kenneal - lagger wrote:The problem isn't just that these people have an income of over £250,000 but that they, along with the major multi national corporations, don't reinvest that money in the general economy as is used to be invested....

Yes

Yes, quite. Most of it sinks into land prices, making life more difficult for the rest of us.

Meanwhile, there's a Parliament petition about Basic Income:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/200045

With ever more jobs becoming automatable, risking vast unemployment, a regular unconditional dividend should be paid to every citizen to provide a decent standard of living and stimulate the economy from the bottom up.

This will also reduce crime, healthcare costs and improve education outcomes.

RenewableCandy wrote:Yes, quite. Most of it sinks into land prices, making life more difficult for the rest of us.

Meanwhile, there's a Parliament petition about Basic Income:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/200045

With ever more jobs becoming automatable, risking vast unemployment, a regular unconditional dividend should be paid to every citizen to provide a decent standard of living and stimulate the economy from the bottom up.

This will also reduce crime, healthcare costs and improve education outcomes.

Coo. It's got a long way to go, clearly. 916 signees.

I signed but it will take quite a few more to get this going.

The problem is capitalism.

So long as there is a requirement to make an ever increasing profit due to the higher level requirement of fractional-reserve-banking-based perpetual economic growth, any technological innovation will always tend to create increased unemployment.

The only thing that has, hitherto, offset the above trend, is the expansion of the capitalist system into new territories, in turn creating new industrial sectors that soak up the unemployed from other more established sectors that have become more automated over time. But, in a finite world where we have hit the physical limits to growth, this trick wont work anymore.

Making a universal payment to all citizens in the context of a capitalist system will always be undermined by that requirement for capitalist profit. In other words, it is papering over the symptoms instead of addressing the cause. Which is capitalism.

It would make more sense to give each family a few acres of land, but when they did that in Afghanistan in the 70's every vested interest including the US and Arabs turned it into a civil war.

Little John wrote:The problem is capitalism.

The alternative to capitalism is Communism. Nuff sed.