Many people have given far more thought than I have, but I've given
some thought to how it might be implemented. Here in Canada, it could
be done through the federal income tax system. If family's members'
combined income tax returns indicated that its income falls below the
poverty line, it would be eligible for a refund plus compensation that
would bring its income up to the poverty level or some appropriate
legislated level. Doing it via the federal income tax process would
eliminate the need for doing something compensatory via the large
number of provincial and municipal welfare systems and bureaucracies
that now exist. It would likely be more efficient than the present
plethora of systems and save the nation money.
And yes indeed people should be encouraged to work, but what if
nothing is available?
Ed
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Ed Weick <mailto:[email protected]>
*To:* RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Friday, June 22, 2012 10:06 AM
*Subject:* Re: [Futurework] Gloomy America [1]
I agree, but I doubt that the Harpers of this world would.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Arthur Cordell <mailto:[email protected]>
*To:* 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'
<mailto:[email protected]> ; 'Keith Hudson'
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Cc:* [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Friday, June 22, 2012 9:58 AM
*Subject:* Re: [Futurework] Gloomy America [1]
So now may be the time to consider some form of basic annual
income. A BAI may be cheaper in the long run than creating
jobs that are really not needed.
arthur
*From:*[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of
*Ed Weick
*Sent:* Friday, June 22, 2012 7:38 AM
*To:* RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; Keith
Hudson
*Cc:* [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [Futurework] Gloomy America [1]
Since I was the guy who started the 'gloomy America'
discussion, perhaps I'd better say a little more.
IMHO, it's not something at the demand end that promotes
growth and development, it happens at the supply or really
technological end. Consider the enormous impact that the
development of steam power, electrical energy power and the
growth of the factory system have had. Consider the growth of
railroads, highways and air transport and their capacity to
enable billions of people to improve their lives. Consider
the energy developments needed to make such things possible.
Even events that have not obviously been growth promoting have
had an impact -- yea, we've done it, we've landed on the
moon! I don't think the mobile phone has had much of an
impact because it's little more than an add on to what was
already there.
I would agree that we've reached something of a hiatus now and
we seem to be going in a reverse direction. When I began
working in the Canadian public service some fifty-odd years
ago, there were no computers and there was no internet, but
there were plenty of young women to type memos and plenty of
young guys to take them to where they were supposed to go.
All those girls and guys are gone now. And you see technology
being intruded into the lives of the working class wherever
you look.
I'm not saying we're totally stuck, but we do seem to have
reached a point where redistribution, not growth, has become
the primary interest of business and government. Over the
past few decades, I attended many meeting in which the
objective was not how to make things more abundant -- growth
-- but how particularly groups such as the oil industry might
get a larger share of the pie. If what Giroux is saying is
that what's important now is how to collude, press your case,
and get more out of the system, I would agree with him. The
growth of the lobby industry demonstrates this.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
*From:*Keith Hudson <mailto:[email protected]>
*To:*RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION
<mailto:[email protected]> ;
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:*Friday, June 22, 2012 3:14 AM
*Subject:*Re: [Futurework] Gloomy America [1]
Mike,
The paradox is that the most popular consumer product ever
-- the mobile phone -- and also spreading among the
world's poor as well as the rich -- is also turning out to
be the most impenetrable by advertisers. If it was ever
true that ". . . centralized commercial institutions . . .
tell most of the stories that shape the lives of the
American public", Henry Giroux (Galbraith revisited) is no
longer correct. But it was never true anyway. If an
economy looks as though it's demand-led it can only be so
if there happens to be something tempting at the supply
end. No matter how much cash and credit governments and
banks throw at the general public, unless new
status-friendly products are in sight the economy stalls.
The world may beat a path to Emerson's better mouse-trap,
but the thing has to be invented first.
Keith
At 18:45 21/06/2012, Mike wrote:
Following up to my own post (mea culpa) where I quoted
Henry Giroux
thus:
For the first time in modern history, centralized
commercial
institutions that extend from traditional broadcast
culture to the
new interactive screen cultures - rather than parents,
churches or
schools - tell most of the stories that shape the
lives of the
American public.
I commented
mds> ...any corporation that's playing in [the $700
billion] price
mds> range will be prepared to spend a $100 million or so
on salaries,
mds> bribes, support for favored educational or other
institutions --
mds> in general for subversion of the public interest
wherever that
mds> kind of return can be anticipated (hoped for?) in the
short- or
mds> medium-term future.
Here's a piece on "stealth lobbying".
http://truth-out.org/news/item/9889-exposed-the-other-alecs-corporate-playbook
Clearly, the corporate playbook in the statehouses
extends far
beyond the tentacles of ALEC, which is but a small
part of a vast,
complex network of nonprofits.
The multilayered, dynamic system of corporate
representatives
mingling with state legislators and public officials
in a network
of quasi-governmental nonprofits, allows the small
number of
people who are part of the interlocking directorate to
wield a
huge amount of power in shaping public policy. Under
the guise of
conducting educational activities, the stealth
lobbyists of the
"other ALECs" reduce the choice of citizens to which
version of
the corporate agenda to accept.
Will citizens, then, continue to accept such a scheme?
Time will
tell.
Not precisely congruent with telling "most of the stories
that shape
the lives of the American public" but parallel. The same
arborization
of intentional, coordinated corporate/big-business agenda and
viewpoint, fed from the same financial wells and using the
same
ingenuous techniques of persuasion (if not more aggressive
ones)
permeates media, penetrates public and post-secondary
education and
tilts the "the stories that shape [our] lives".
In YADATROT [2], those ingenuous stories essentially mask
out much of
what meaningful work, meaningful career or just
availability of
adequately-paid and adequately-respected jobs and replace the
masked-out portions with a Disneyland version of reality
to which we
are expected to aspire. Critical thinking, actually seeing
"what is on
the end of your fork" is anathema to the Disney-fied
version of your
life and aspirations. The above-cited article reflects the
propagation
of the corporate Disneyland stage set into local and state
products of
the legislative process. As the author writes:
Will citizens, then, continue to accept such a scheme?
Time will
tell.
- Mike
[1] Jeez, the "Gloomy America" subject is getting a lot of
mileage.
Are we having fun yet?
[2] Yet Another Desperate Attempt To Remain On Topic
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
.~.
/V\
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
/( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/
<http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0%A0>^^-^^
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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