Since you don’t eat gold-bars, just redistributing of wealth solves very little, or even nothing.

The Guardian writes: “An alarming projection produced by the House of Commons library suggests that if trends seen since the 2008 financial crash were to continue, then the top 1% will hold 64% of the world’s wealth by 2030… equating to $305tn” “Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030”, April 7, 2018.

How awfully unjust… but… how do you productively convert that wealth into the products or assets that could be useful for the 99%, without unexpected consequences or without most wealth just going to a 1%, or less, of some new filthy-rich wealthy?

How much value of that $305tn of wealth would just evaporate by the redistribution? And what would that do to the value of the then projected $152 wealth in the hands of 99%?

For instance what would happen to the price of a Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi”, in which, someone very wealthy, agreed to freeze $450 million of his main-street purchase capacity? How do you turn that wealth into something the poorer of the 99% need?

Where would the stock market value head?

Where would the interest rate, for instance on public debt go?

Where would the prices of houses head?

And if wealth gets too much distributed, who is going to demand that which only the really wealthy 1% can afford to demand, and which creates a lot of jobs that would otherwise not exist?

It is amazing how much discussions there are about the need to redistribute wealth without any consideration to what that redistribution would entail. Could that be because that is not in the interest of any redistribution or polarization profiteers?

As I see it there is much more to be gained by capturing more income before it has been converted into wealth assets. Just redistributing existing wealth is a one-shot unsustainable top-down approach.

Much better is a very modest starting Universal Basic Income where you little by little begin to build up a societal dividend that will keep the redistribution and polarization profiteers at bay. And that is of course why the latter hate UBI… as it eats into the value of their franchise.

And of course, in order to fund that UBI you must find sustainable sources of income…like on the advertising revenues of Facebook and alike… like a special tax on revenues generated under the protection of an intellectual property right… like a special tax on revenues generated by those benefiting from close to monopoly high market shares… like a tax on whatever causes pollution and otherwise threatens our pied-a-terre… and so on

Here I will keep my up-today main comments on Universal Basic Income (UBI)

Years ago I wrote: “We need decent and worthy unemployments”. With ever growing structural unemployment threatening, I am sure that a Universal Basic Income is a fundamental tool for achieving that. 

Here follows my current thinking on UBI:

Universal Basic Income eats directly into the redistribution profiteers’ franchise value, and so they will be its strongest opponents. Their opposition can take many forms, like that of enthusiastically supporting UBI, but cleverly backstabbing it at any possible opportunity. We must always be alert!

There are some fundamental mistakes that could kill UBI, even after its inception, and so therefore we must see to that the enemy does not exploit any of its possible Achilles’s heels.

1. UBI is strictly for the population of working age. Children and elderly have their very specific needs that should be satisfied with different tools.

2. UBI shall strictly be related to working conditions, like 70% of the lowest fulltime salary; and NOT to any poverty related threshold.

3. UBI needs to be 100% funded with real and clearly identifiable sources of income, and not with any debts. One possibility is to apply to robots and similar automations those payroll taxes and similar that applies to humans. As am added benefit that would also allow for a more efficient allocation of labor/capital resources.

4. The more UBI is funded by sources linked to other socially relevant matters, like from carbon taxes to help stop pollution, the better.

5. UBI must always be kept as a citizen to citizens affair and so, ideally, it should be enshrined in some type of constitutional protection, so that populists trying to serve their own ambitions do not capture it.

http://myubi.blogspot.com

Canada: A Universal Basic Income, should never be more than a step-ladder to help reach up to the real economy.

Had Venezuela’s oil revenues over the last 15 years been distributed directly to the Venezuelans by means of a (in this case a variable) Universal Basic Income (UBI), instead of by redistribution profiteers, the poorest of my homeland would have received at least six times more of it, and the country would not be so close to being a totally failed state.

Be sure, the best way to increase the efficiency of our citizen-to-citizen solidarity, everywhere, is to avoid the redistribution profiteers’ tolls.

I am not a Canadian but I have two Canadian granddaughters, and so I have a vested interest in Canada’s future. I firmly believe that a UBI is a very important tool in order to meet many actual and future social and economic challenges.

But the number one objection to a UBI, and which your local redistribution profiteers will try to argue in order to keep their franchise, is that it could reduce the willingness for work.

In this respect, and referring to Andre Picard’s “Basic income is not just about work, it’s about health” Globe and Mail, November 8, I believe that the UBI to be tested, should not be set as is proposed as 75% of low income measure before tax (LIM-BT), $1,320, but as a percentage of the salary you could obtain working, for instance 60% at the minimum salary level. As I calculate it, that would yield $1,100.

For me the biggest benefit of UBI is as a step-ladder that facilitates reaching up to that gig-economy that seems to have arrived as a fixed feature. We do need worthy and decent unemployments.

UBI should never be seen as lifting anyone out of poverty but allowing millions to lift themselves out of poverty.

UBI has much less to do with human rights, "doing good", than with an intelligent society organizing itself for challenging times, "doing smart".

UBI should always be a beautiful citizens to citizens affair. At no moment should it be soiled by referring to it as a government handout. 

Of course UBI has to be funded with real money, no cheating paying it with inflation or public debt. Besides natural savings in the redistribution costs, one interesting alternative is the use of revenues from high carbon taxes. That would align the incentives between the fights for a better environment and against inequality.

PS. Joking but not really joking: Perhaps a payroll tax on robots and driverless cars could also be used as funding mechanism; that would also help us humans workers to be able to compete on a more level playing field.

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-wealthy-and-poor-should-all-be.html

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2016/10/how-to-start-discussions-and.html

Ideas on how to start discussions and implementation of a Universal Basic Income, or Societal Dividend

We must all be aware that the Redistribution Profiteers will be out on force trying to confuse the discussions on Universal Basic Income. 

Therefore I believe some very few principles needs to be established and firmly held on to.

First that we are always talking about a “basic” universal income that in no way should reduce the incentive of people to try earn some additional income. In essence it could initially be argued as a complement to the gig economy.

The UBI should start to be tested in low amounts that are slowly moved upward in line with the experiences.

It should be clear from the very start that all UBI needs to be funded with real money… no funny inflationary money. Initially it should be funded exclusively with taxes already collected; although special taxes like on pollution could also be useful to align UBI with other important objectives.

From the very beginning we need to identify who could provide the payment services in the cheapest way possible. 

And then of course it needs to be clear that UBI is NOT a government handout. It is a societal dividend decreed by all the shareholders, all the citizens.

http://perkurowski.blogspot.fr/2016/04/the-wealthy-and-poor-should-all-be.html

PS. Since corporate taxes only dilute citizen's representation, all such revenues should help to fund a Universal Basic Income.