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Scott Santens

Unconditional/Universal Basic Income (UBI) advocate with a crowdfunded basic income; Founder and President of ITSA Foundation, Author of Let There Be Money; Editor of BasicIncomeToday.com

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The Real Story of Automation Beginning with One Simple Chart

Robots are hiding in plain sight. It’s time we stop ignoring them. There’s a chart I came across in 2017, and not only does it tell an extremely important story about automation, but it also tells a story about the state of the automation discussion itself. It even

The Real Story of Automation Beginning with One Simple Chart
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Unconditional Basic Income is a Pigovian Subsidy for Unpaid Work

There's something about unpaid work that I've never actually seen discussed, and that's the cost of the work that's paid... Take for example the amount of unpaid care work in the US that's estimated as being around $700 billion per

Unconditional Basic Income is a Pigovian Subsidy for Unpaid Work
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Stop Teaching Students WHAT to Think. Teach Them HOW to Think.

For more than a century, we've been creating an industrial workforce of human automatons, built for the purpose of performing routine labor not yet doable by machines. And we've been operating with the mindset that we should teach students the same way we program actual machines.

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The Expanse's Basic Support vs. Basic Income

The Expanse is a series of science fiction novels [http://amzn.to/2fGiLas] that is also now a TV series [http://amzn.to/2wMJjwx] with two seasons available to watch so far. In this universe, in the not too distant future, humanity has moved beyond Earth to extend its reach

The Expanse's Basic Support vs. Basic Income
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If you think basic income is "free money" or socialism, think again

First, saying basic income is socialism is as absurd as saying money is socialism. It's money. It's all it is. What do people do with money? They use it in markets. In other words, basic income is fuel for markets. Markets are a wonderful invention that

If you think basic income is "free money" or socialism, think again
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For Want of a Dollar

For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost. For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle

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It’s Time to Shift the Economy into Fourth Gear Capitalism with Univeral Basic Income

The economy is in between gears right now, and that’s a growing problem because as is true with all higher gears, we could be accomplishing so much more with so much less and prosperity could be greatly increased for not only the lucky few, but everyone. What do I

It’s Time to Shift the Economy into Fourth Gear Capitalism with Univeral Basic Income
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The Cost of Universal Basic Income is the Net Transfer Amount, Not the Gross Price Tag

Imagine a group of 5 people. They have an income distribution of $10, $20, $30, $50, and $100. Someone gets the BIG idea [https://medium.com/basic-income/inequality-and-the-basic-income-guarantee-c8f84d936640] of everyone putting 40% of their money into a hat, and dividing the result equitably between everyone. That means $4, $8, $12,

The Cost of Universal Basic Income is the Net Transfer Amount, Not the Gross Price Tag
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Eating food will fail to reduce malnutrition, new report warns

The OECD recently published a report on basic income as a policy option for the future of work. It concluded that universal basic income would require large tax increases to avoid increasing poverty. Others have since picked up on the report with headlines like, "Universal basic income would fail

Eating food will fail to reduce malnutrition, new report warns
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How to Reform Welfare and Taxes to Provide Every American Citizen with a Basic Income

A detailed funding plan for cross-partisan implementation of universal basic income in the United States Some of the most common questions ever asked in regards to the idea of a universal basic income (UBI) [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-we-should-all-have-a-basic-income] are in regards to the details. “How much

How to Reform Welfare and Taxes to Provide Every American Citizen with a Basic Income