Why we should all have a basic income. Spotify is causing a major problem for economists - Business Insider Nordic. The world's biggest hedge fund thinks the next radical change in central-bank policy is almost upon us - Business Insider Nordic. What happens if we pay everyone just to live? Stephen Wilkes/Getty By Hal Hodson EACH month, Nathalie Kuskoff repeats the process that ensures her family’s security. Her two young children both have chronic illnesses, so their apartment in southern Finland is mostly paid for by the government, which also helps with childcare, medical bills and education. “I get a lot of different social benefits because of my situation – I mean a lot,” she says. They come at a price: relentless form-filling. Most developed economies have some form of welfare state to redistribute wealth from the economically active to those who are unemployed or can’t work. But as Kuskoff and many others find, welfare on the basis of need is a cumbersome, bureaucratic affair.
At its simplest, the premise is to replace welfare with a contract promising everyone the same money unconditionally, covering basic human needs – food, shelter, clothing – which people can add to by working. Universal basic income has a long history. Working Hours. Hours of Work in U.S. History. Robert Whaples, Wake Forest University In the 1800s, many Americans worked seventy hours or more per week and the length of the workweek became an important political issue. Since then the workweek’s length has decreased considerably. This article presents estimates of the length of the historical workweek in the U.S., describes the history of the shorter-hours “movement,” and examines the forces that drove the workweek’s decline over time. Estimates of the Length of the Workweek Measuring the length of the workweek (or workday or workyear) is a difficult task, full of ambiguities concerning what constitutes work and who is to be considered a worker.
Estimating the length of the historical workweek is even more troublesome. The Colonial Period Based on the amount of work performed — for example, crops raised per worker — Carr (1992) concludes that in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake region, “for at least six months of the year, an eight to ten-hour day of hard labor was necessary.” Tutti i numeri sulle retribuzioni in Italia. For the first time, less than 10 percent of the world is living in extreme poverty, World Bank says. The World Bank provided some relief from bad news this week with some fresh, positive data: For the first time ever, it estimates that the number of people around the world living in extreme poverty will fall below 10 percent.
Using an updated international poverty line of USD $1.90 a day, the Bank estimated that global poverty has fallen from 12.8 percent of the world's population in 2012 to 9.6 percent of the global population in 2015. The new figures raise hopes that extreme poverty could be eliminated in the near future, the bank said. “This is the best story in the world today — these projections show us that we are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty,’’ Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, said in a statement. The new figures are certainly remarkable when you consider that just 25 years ago more than a third of the world was living in extreme poverty, according to the Bank's figures.
More on WorldViews. As tech threatens jobs, we must test a universal basic income. Robotics is still muscling in on manufacturing (Image: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Not so long ago, the idea that technology would destroy jobs and leave us unemployed was considered a fallacy. Economists believed technology always creates new opportunities, and hence new jobs. Today, with the rise of machine-learning algorithms and advanced robotics, many of them have changed their view. It’s possible that within 20 years almost half of all jobs will be lost to machines forever, and nobody really knows how we are going to cope with that. Those who still adhere to technology’s power to create jobs fail to recognise the shift to a “superstar economy”, where a handful of companies disrupt markets, make billions and employ very few people, while the rest fight for the scraps. So how would the millions of telemarketers and taxi drivers, for example – whose jobs are at high risk of being automated – survive in this new landscape?
It’s a simple idea with far-reaching consequences. Why welcoming more refugees makes economic sense for Europe. Help is at hand (Image: Mauricio Lima/The New Times/Redux/eyevine) A PICTURE really is worth a thousand words. For more than a year, world news has reported desperate refugees, most from war-torn Syria, dying in their attempts to reach Europe. Most governments refused to let them in. That changed last week with the photo of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi, dead on a beach in Turkey after a boat taking his family to Greece capsized.
Now Europeans are demanding more help for asylum seekers. EU governments had agreed to resettle only 32,000 across Europe; on Monday 14 September they will debate upping that to 160,000. Already this year 362,000 illegal migrants have arrived in Europe and thousands continue to pour in, says the International Organisation for Migration. Yet Europe – and the rest of the world – are giving precious little. The EU’s asylum laws were designed in the 1990s to handle small numbers of people. “Nearly all refugees want to go home. Germany has no doubts. Smartphone lifeline. Businessinsider. Falling meteor may have changed the course of Christianity - space - 22 April 2015. Read full article Continue reading page |1|2 The early evangelist Paul became a Christian because of a dazzling light on the road to Damascus, but one astronomer thinks it was an exploding meteor NEARLY two thousand years ago, a man named Saul had an experience that changed his life, and possibly yours as well.
According to Acts of the Apostles, the fifth book of the biblical New Testament, Saul was on the road to Damascus, Syria, when he saw a bright light in the sky, was blinded and heard the voice of Jesus. William Hartmann, co-founder of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, has a different explanation for what happened to Paul. . , in 2013. Hartmann has detailed his argument in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science (doi.org/3vn). "Everything they are describing in those three accounts in the book of Acts are exactly the sequence you see with a fireball," Hartmann says. But the Bible is not just any ancient text. That's not as strange as it sounds. Promoted Stories. It's time to let national happiness guide political policy - opinion - 26 April 2015. The real feel-good factors must be allowed to guide government decisions alongside economic measures, says an economist and Labour peer MORE than 200 years ago Thomas Jefferson declared: "The care of human life and happiness... is the only legitimate object of good government.
" The third US president's advice was finally taken in 2011, when the UK began the continuous measurement of national well-being. Since then all rich countries have followed suit. Has this made any difference? Making improved well-being the focus of policy would have produced very different priorities. Professional help for people experiencing domestic violence and family conflict, as well as children in difficulty, must be provided. Some of this will be in party manifestos. This was suggested by a high-profile, independent assessment last year and repeated in the third World Happiness Report. This article appeared in print under the headline "Feel-good factors" Share on tumblrShare on emailShare on gmail. Interview: Neil Jacobstein Discusses Future of Jobs, Universal Basic Income and the Ethical Dangers of AI.
Interview: Neil Jacobstein Discusses Future of Jobs, Universal Basic Income and the Ethical Dangers of AI As part of Singularity Hub's Future of Work series, I had a chance to sit down with Neil Jacobstein, the co-chair of the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics track. Neil has worked on AI applications for Fortune 100 and government customers for over 25 years. Neil also has deep interdisciplinary roots ranging from environmental sciences to nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing.
Neil has spent significant time researching the ethical implications of exponential technologies. Machine learning and robots are going to create a lot of wealth, but they will also replace a lot of human labor. We saw many types of jobs disappear in the Industrial Revolution, but we also saw jobs created that had never existed before. In the Industrial Revolution you could jump off of any unskilled labor job, take some courses, learn some new skills, and find a new, likely higher paying job. Absolutely. From capitalism to consensus.
Today the Swarm launches the first basic income program. Join now and participate in a network of abundance designed to replace those broken hierarchical systems which are only holding us back. Natural Dynamics as a Force for Good With many forms of capitalism, the state is seen as merely another actor that seeks to extract as much value as possible from the populace. This is often compounded by the idea that all value can be reduced to numbers, meaning that people’s lives are perceived as nothing more than a string of calculations. At the same time, a science of complex systems and ecology has emerged that points towards a set of natural dynamics. It’s these same network effects that Swarm is now committed to bringing forth. A Flat World Many types of organizations adopt a naturally hierarchical or pyramidal structure. Circle of Abundance? Despite its prevalence in the tech world, this structural paradigm has hardly effected the financial bottom line.
Basic Income Reaching Global Consensus. The Industries Plagued by the Most Uncertainty. It’s a cliché to say that the world is more uncertain than ever before, but few realize just how much uncertainty has increased over the past 50 years. To illustrate this, consider that patent applications in the U.S. have increased by 6x (from 100k to 600k annually) and, worldwide, start-ups have increased from 10 million to almost 100 million per year. That means new technologies and new competitors are hitting the market at an unprecedented rate. Although uncertainty is accelerating, it isn’t affecting all industries the same way. That’s because there are two primary types of uncertainty — demand uncertainty (will customers buy your product?)
And technological uncertainty (can we make a desirable solution?) — and how much uncertainty your industry faces depends on the interaction of the two. Demand uncertainty arises from the unknowns associated with solving any problem, such as hidden customer preferences. Consider the 2×2 matrix below. Where does your industry sit? The bitcoin rush: Pioneers on the financial frontier - tech - 29 January 2015.
Meet miners, outlaws and sheriffs all striving to get ahead in the volatile new world of virtual money THE past year has seen a 21st century gold rush, and speculators have been falling over themselves for a piece of the action. The discovery of gold always brings a world in its wake and bitcoin – a virtual currency "mined" using a computer – is no exception. There are miners chasing gold, crooks targeting the naive, black market traders operating outside the law and regulators trying to bring order to an upstart community.
Read on to meet some of the movers and shakers in this brave new world. The coin rush (Image: Andrew Degraff) In late 2013, bitcoin miner Dave Carlson feared for the safety of his business. Paying everyone a basic income would kill off low-paid menial jobs | Paul Mason. You take a large chunk of a country’s tax revenues and pay people a few thousand pounds a year to do nothing. That’s the essence of an unconditional basic income scheme – and it took less than a day for the Green party’s version, at £3,744 a year, to be emphatically slapped down. One of its unlikely critics was the Citizen’s Income Trust, part of a global movement in support of the idea, who pointed out that, in the form proposed by the Greens, a third of families might lose out. The “unconditional basic income” has a long history in economic thinking, with proponents on both the left and the right.
For conservatives it is a way of radically cutting the administrative costs of means-tested benefits, and subsidising low-paid work. For those on the left, who embraced it after the 1960s, it is seen as a way to alleviate inequality. In 2013, researchers at the Oxford Martin School predicted that in the next two decades 47% of US jobs would be in danger of being lost to automation. As Robots Grow Smarter, American Workers Struggle to Keep Up. A machine that administers sedatives recently began treating patients at a Seattle hospital. At a Silicon Valley hotel, a bellhop robot delivers items to people’s rooms. Last spring, a software algorithm wrote a breaking news article about an earthquake that The Los Angeles Times published. Although fears that technology will displace jobs are at least as old as the Luddites, there are signs that this time may really be different.
The technological breakthroughs of recent years — allowing machines to mimic the human mind — are enabling machines to do knowledge jobs and service jobs, in addition to factory and clerical work. And over the same 15-year period that digital technology has inserted itself into nearly every aspect of life, the job market has fallen into a long malaise. Even with the economy’s recent improvement, the share of working-age adults who are working is substantially lower than a decade ago — and lower than any point in the 1990s. Photo Lawrence H. Mr. Nonemployed. Le 9 balle sull’immigrazione (smentite dai numeri) | EsseBlog. The Invisible Economy. Our techniques for measuring economic performance are obsolete, obscuring a complete picture of how we're faring.
Reuters Our techniques for measuring economic performance are obsolete. So we reach improper conclusions about the state of the economy. The economic recovery is probably more robust than we realize. It is possible that the standard of living for many members of the middle class is improving while their incomes shrink. Many economists, policy makers, and politicians think otherwise, because they are using 20th-century methods to analyze our 21st-century economy. The problem is caused by the fact that we live in two worlds, physical and virtual.
The physical economy is anemic, struggling, biased toward inflation, and shrinking in many developed countries. The virtual economy is robust, biased toward deflation, and growing at staggering rates, everywhere. Using the virtual economy in place of the physical economy enables consumers to save lots of money. Welcome to Forbes. The Invisible Economy. 10 Job Skills You'll Need in 2020. The Networked Economy promises to transform just about every aspect of how people live and work. No question about it: The Networked Economy is the next economic revolution. In the coming years, it will offer unprecedented opportunities for businesses and improve the lives of billions worldwide. In fact, the revolution is already under way. “Over the last few decades, we’ve grown beyond the industrial economy to the IT economy and the Internet economy, each of which led to significant inflection points in growth and prosperity,” says Vivek Bapat, SAP’s global vice president for portfolio and strategic marketing.
“Now we’re looking at the Networked Economy.” This new economy, resulting from a convergence of the economies that came before it and catalyzed by a new era of hyperconnectivity, is creating spectacular new opportunities for innovation. And, like any revolution, the Networked Economy is going to be big. “Over the next 10 to 15 years, it has the potential to double the size of the gross world product,” Bapat says.
Three Questions — and Answers — About the Networked Economy 1. A guaranteed income for every American would eliminate poverty — and it wouldn't destroy the economy. World's Second-Richest Man Calls For Three-Day Workweek. The Long-Term Unemployment Crisis Is as Bad as Ever. The Rich and Their Robots Are About to Make Half the World's Jobs Disappear. Il capitalismo è morto (guida in 6 punti alle aziende del futuro) Can the Crowd Run a Company? The secrets of success begin with equal opportunities - life - 07 March 2014. Greek austerity tragedy shows where not to make cuts - health - 26 February 2014.
50 Smartest Companies 2014. 7 Predictions For The Future Of Work. Base rate fallacy. China Becomes World's Third-largest Producer of Research Articles. Asimmetria informativa. La Grecia reinventa la sua economia: senza euro, senza intermediari e con autogestione operaia. The wonder year: Why 1978 was the best year ever - environment - 11 July 2013. Look to complexity theory to solve the aid problem - health - 16 December 2013. Bitcoin moves beyond mere money - tech - 20 November 2013. First sign that humanity is slowing its carbon surge - environment - 06 November 2013. World Development Report - World Development Report 2013: Jobs. Ratio of Job Seekers to Job Openings Slips Below 3-to-1 for First Time in Nearly Five Years, but Is Still as High as in Worst Month of Early 2000s Downturn.
Federico Pistono. Behind The Swiss Unconditional Income Initiative. Future factories let workers build a car from home - tech - 04 September 2013. Poverty can sap people's ability to think clearly - life - 30 August 2013. State of innovation: Busting the private-sector myth - opinion - 26 August 2013. These 31 charts will destroy your faith in humanity. » Fairphone ce l’ha fatta: lo smartphone “etico” ha raccolto abbastanza fondi e arriverà ad ottobre! » Smartphone. The Management Revolution That's Already Happening. Changes in Income Inequality Among U.S. Tax Filers between 1991 and 2006: The Role of Wages, Capital Income, and Taxes by Thomas L. Hungerford. AI gets involved with the law - tech - 17 May 2013. Adventures With Bitcoins. Three things you urgently need to learn about the crisis of scale. Cost of cuts: Austerity's toxic genetic legacy - health - 10 April 2013.
Cost of cuts: Austerity's toxic genetic legacy - health - 10 April 2013. Trade years of life to make the whole world healthier - opinion - 08 April 2013. Oxford University study suggests world poverty is rapidly shrinking. DataMapper. Il Pil italiano giù del 2,2% nel 2012 Per l'Eurozona il peggior trimestre dal 2009 - Economia e Finanza con Bloomberg. Australian Economists Predictions No Better Than Flipping a Coin. Get Ready for the New Era of Global Manufacturing - James Manyika, Katy George and Louis Rassey. Lavoro, un diritto in crisi - Anteprima Torino 2013 - Repubblica delle Idee. What Capitalism Can't Fix - Phil Buchanan.