Basic Income and Universal Healthcare: A Perfect Pair

One of the largest obstacles to the transition to single-payer, universal healthcare in the United States is the huge portion of the economy- and the labor market (read: jobs)- dependent upon the existing health insurance industry. It’s one thing to say you want single-payer healthcare but it’s another to find solutions for the million who's lives would be affected with the effective dissolution of the health insurance industry. Sure, costs may go down when the government is paying, but part of those costs support paychecks for insurance industry workers. As legislators in California work on a bill for single-payer healthcare in the state the real question is what is going to happen to the employees of the huge health insurance companies that would be all but cut out of the picture should single-payer become the law of the land? One such company is the largest private employer in the state- what’s going to happen to the 160,000 workers it employs?

Problem

Healthcare in America may be a giant, convoluted mess but millions of Americans depend upon it for their employment and thus survival. Streamlining the process by implementing single-payer healthcare would lower costs for consumers but, in cutting out insurance companies, would jeopardize the futures of the hundreds of thousands of Americans employed in the health insurance industry. So far, proposals for single-payer have failed to present adequate solutions for those workers.


Solution

As the US continues to look to make the transition to a single-payer system, lawmakers should consider co-implementation with a basic income guarantee. Such a large transition in the economy will be majorly disruptive and everyone should be offered a guaranteed income until they find an alternative occupation. The Living Income Guaranteed scheme presented by the Equal Life Foundation is a good framework for making something this massive work.



Reward

Despite employing hundreds of thousands of people, the health insurance industry is, as most other advanced countries have shown, largely redundant, making health care unnecessarily expensive. Transitioning to single-payer is a solution but it needs to be coupled with a basic income guarantee that supports those workers as the economy recovers from such a large change. Under such a program, everyone would be guaranteed an income sufficient to cover their basic needs as they search for alternative ways to earn a living.

Credit Scores- Why do they Exist?

A headline read 'Credit Scores Hit Record Highs' but a single company develops the formula used to calculate every American's credit score. Thus, while general trends mentioned in the article such as people's past bad credit decisions falling off their reports are contributing to improving credit scores, another factor that could cause peoples' scores to go up is if the formula itself changed. And in fact, that is what happened.

You see, because the financial industry is profit-based and so when the banks have more money, they have more money to give to the credit rating agencies. Thus, it is in the rating agencies' interest for the perception of increased credit ratings to be created in the market so more loans are given and banks make more money. If they believe that by ignoring certain factors previously thought important by the agency in rating credit, they can increase loans without incurring significant risk, that's the move they are going to make. The point is, when we see a headline that talks about increasing credit scores, we have to make sure we get the whole picture.


Beyond the inherent problems with the ways these scores are calculated, demonstrated in our little example, the power credit scores can have over people's lives is problematic. To understand that problem, however, we must understand how problematic it is that the average person is not guaranteed an income in this economy while simultaneously being subject to unreliable credit access. Now you are transferring power over this individual's life from themselves to a profit-driven organization that actually views their financial status as a product rather than a key to a tolerable life.

Problem
Credit agencies issue arbitrary credit scores that can have profoundly negative effects on our lives.

Solution
With a living income guaranteed, we can insure that we always have access to the resources we need to survive. Thus, credit extended for various projects is much more likely to be used for the actual project at hand and thereby carry a low risk of default.


Reward
By securing an adequate income for everybody, we will not only gain the positive benefits of a massive injection of income virtually guaranteed to be spent, but entrepreneurial endeavors will be more successful overall. This will lower the risk of defaults and generally make credit more available. An economy where nobody is below poverty and lots of people have access to credit is the healthiest kind of economy.





Investigate:
Living Income Guaranteed
Equal Money System
EQAFE 

Self-Reliance and Helping Others

After reading a comment under an article about a small community in a U.S. region with a reputation for being liberal dealing with aftermath of a landslide that said something to the effect of "Self-reliant Democrats? Who'd have thought? If they were urban liberals they would be whining and waiting for the government to come help them" I realized that self-reliance has been claimed by conservatives, championed by libertarians who argue against welfare as character-destroying. So I thought, why do liberals have a reputation for being dependent upon big government to help them?

I've been familiar with self-reliance since growing up in a small, rural, but liberal town. While there are problems with strict adherence to conservative ideologies that justify disregard for the suffering of the needy, even I can recognize the tendency to label liberals dependent.

Desteni, in walking what's best for all as this applies to the current conditions in which humans suffer due to a lack of access to resources, while simultaneously promoting tools with which individuals can strengthen and improve upon internal weaknesses, provides a balance between serving others (which can be achieved through the simple mechanism of a living income guaranteed) and expressing self-reliance (which can be built and expanded through the tools of self-forgiveness and self-writing).

Investigate
Desteni.org
Desteni Forum
Eqafe
DIP Lite
7 Year Journey to Life
Living Income Guaranteed
Living Income- The Proposal
Equal Money System

Activist Shareholders

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals made news recently when they purchased $4000 worth of shares in an apparel company for the purpose of using their position to bring attention to and stop the company from using unethical sources, specifically mentioning "cruelly trapped coyotes and down feathers from slaughtered geese."

Problem

Animals are abused in our reliance upon them for consumer goods. While the law increasingly protects animal rights, there are still companies that profit at the expense of animals and leave us little to do. Creative solutions for getting into the press such as buying shares in unethical companies may temporarily increase attention on certain issues. However, the amount of abuse that goes on is unthinkable.

Solution

Recognize constitutionally guaranteed equal life rights in the regulation and expression of businesses to ensure abuse is not tolerated in any step of the processes upon which we depend.

Reward

As if stopping animal abuse is not reward enough on its own, we won't have to read news stories about obnoxious/heroic NGOs pulling stunts to create publicity for their causes. If we as a society can come together to stop animal abuse imagine the other things we could accomplish

Further research:
equalmoney.org

What is Economic Nationalism?

The recent Brexit of the UK from the European Union and the election of Donald Trump in the US has given way to the rise of the term economic nationalism to describe the tendency of these countries to focus more on the economic success of domestic citizens and their businesses than, say, globalization or the overall health of the global economy. Basically, the currently elected leadership of the UK and the US have decided to prioritize their own countries above those involved in trade agreements or other international organizations.

This shift in focus appeals to nationalists and those who view globalization as a threat to their personal economic security. On the other hand, globalists believe protectionist economic measures are kneejerk reactions to the inevitable march towards global integration and a single, global society. The media, of course, portrays these two sides as fundamentally opposed and locked in a partisan battle for the future shape of the global economy. As with many things in this world, we shall see that, despite smart people and extensive propaganda supporting both sides, both the globalists and nationalists have proven quite short-sighted when it comes to the best way to reorganize economies.

In reality, a basic income guarantee would support the goals of both parties: to ensure economic stability for as many people as possible so we can truly unleash our potentials as human beings. If you believe your first priority is to your fellow countrymen, then a basic income guarantee would not only end poverty for all those with whom you share citizenship, but would amount to a huge economic stimulus with largely domestic effects. The only thing better than a basic income guarantee within a single country would be if it were extended to all the world's citizens. Actually, this would not even be against an economic nationalist's goals as the result of ensuring a decent income for all the world's people is essentially giving 7 billion people spendable income with which to buy your country's products (providing they are the best available). So, let's get together and make a move that will help all economies, global and domestic, let's support a basic income guarantee.