Posted: Jun 22, 2016 6:27 pm
Wow, nobody has actually figured the real reasons why out of all the years past, the Finns specifically chose this particular time to discuss a basic income. They could have easily picked up 2006 or 07 to discuss. But why didn't they?
The entire Western world - with the exception of a few countries - is stuck in massive debt levels that no orthodox policies are able to attack. No matter what the central banks throw, and the government does, people are not spending more, they are not going out to purchase things which they don't need and are devoting higher shares of their incomes to pay down their debt and increase savings.
What you're seeing in Europe is what has been going on in Japan for the last 20 years: debt deflation.
GDP by definition is the net spending in the economy by consumers and government. To increase it, spending has to go up. But consumers after decades of borrowing from the future, have hit that future and now are devoting greater share of their incomes to pay this debt down, which is causing a deflationary pressure. Comsumers cut back on spending to pay their debt, this reduces the spending level in general across the board, which either shrinks the GDP or causes it go sideways and not up or down. Meanwhile more babies are coming into the labor force, which means they will be looking for jobs. But the economy is not growing, which means addition of these people will either lower incomes even more (burdening the income levels from which the people are paying their debt), or unemployment running high (which is what is happening).
The government can either increase its spending to offset the deflationary pressures, but given how this is a panacea, the alternative to start awarding everyone a basic income, which can be used by people to pay their debts down.
That is what is happening. This is nothing about progressivism, or automation or any other oversold, simple concept popular with the people who run to them when they can't understand complicated stuff.
Basic income is nothing about what the media and everyone else is talking about, it is about the disaster that the neoliberal policies have caused across the world.
The entire Western world - with the exception of a few countries - is stuck in massive debt levels that no orthodox policies are able to attack. No matter what the central banks throw, and the government does, people are not spending more, they are not going out to purchase things which they don't need and are devoting higher shares of their incomes to pay down their debt and increase savings.
What you're seeing in Europe is what has been going on in Japan for the last 20 years: debt deflation.
GDP by definition is the net spending in the economy by consumers and government. To increase it, spending has to go up. But consumers after decades of borrowing from the future, have hit that future and now are devoting greater share of their incomes to pay this debt down, which is causing a deflationary pressure. Comsumers cut back on spending to pay their debt, this reduces the spending level in general across the board, which either shrinks the GDP or causes it go sideways and not up or down. Meanwhile more babies are coming into the labor force, which means they will be looking for jobs. But the economy is not growing, which means addition of these people will either lower incomes even more (burdening the income levels from which the people are paying their debt), or unemployment running high (which is what is happening).
The government can either increase its spending to offset the deflationary pressures, but given how this is a panacea, the alternative to start awarding everyone a basic income, which can be used by people to pay their debts down.
That is what is happening. This is nothing about progressivism, or automation or any other oversold, simple concept popular with the people who run to them when they can't understand complicated stuff.
Basic income is nothing about what the media and everyone else is talking about, it is about the disaster that the neoliberal policies have caused across the world.