The next JFK...

Thank you for your contribution. You are correct that there are populist movements occurring both here and around the world and most of them are rejections of the Establishment status quo.

Your comment about the 1930's rings true too since we humans appear to go through these periods of upheavals when the gap between those at the top and those at the bottom grows too vast usually in monetary terms. Americans generally vote their pocketbooks and when they see their own as empty while the WEALTH GAP continues to grow at their expense is going to mean that it will be tough to be a wealthy establishment candidate running for office in 2020.

Yes, we do need to deal with the issue of the wealthy financing and purchasing the outcomes of elections but now that we have ActBlue that has been nullified on the left. This means that the right will have primarily Establishment candidates while the left will be more diverse with fewer Establishment candidates as we saw in 2018.

Interesting times to be living in. Let us hope that our nation survives and ultimately returns to having a thriving middle class.

 

For all of his many, many, many flaws..... Zuckerberg deserves some credit for this idea:

Zuckerberg's Minimum Basic Income idea is interesting!


More signs point to Mark Zuckerberg possibly running for president in 2020

 

This idea will undoubtedly be a major topic of discussion -- if only, at first, in arenas such as this one. So anyone who is interested in politics -- and everyone should, be, because, to borrow and modify a quote from Leon Trotsky with regard to war, "You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you" -- ought to become knowledgeable about it.

Wiki is a good place to start: Negative Income Tax. At the end of the article there is a short list of references to related items, such as the Basic Income. Conservatives should note (although most of them undoubtedly know this) that Milton Friedman was a supporter of the idea.

One key idea which has to be examined carefully is the effect that unearned income will have on its recipients. You and I of course would use our Basic Income for self-improvement or Good Works. (I personally have always wanted to learn Swedish and with my Basic Income would hire a comely Swedish au pair to instruct me.) Of course almost all of the poor of colour would use it to alleviate their hunger, buy textbooks for their children, acquire a skill.

But might not there be some people for whom it would not have this effect? Think of all those toothless redneck Trump supporters ... how would they use their Basic Income?

So it's worth while giving a little thought to, perhaps, shaping the incentives that might accompany it: the way that Food Stamps can't be spent directly on drugs and liquor, but force their recipients who want these things, to buy crates of Pepsi--cola which can then be traded for Meths. So at least they have to exercise basic arithmetic skills.

Some ideas: you get your Basic Income, but only in return for some community service. Maybe on a regular basis, or maybe you could put in a few years in military or civilian service. Or, some or all of your Basic Income is in the form of vouchers for things the State deems worthy: food, course fees, home repairs. Not that these vouchers are infungible (what's the Pepsi-for-Meths exchange rate at the moment?) but they at least would indicate that, collectively, we think a course in learning how to weld is better than a year's supply of oxytocin.

 

The concept of a Negative Income Tax might be preferable to UBI since there are some who have no need of it at all.

Making everyone file a return regardless as to whether or not they earned any income would be a way for us to measure how many people are out of work more accurately than our current guesswork. Allowing for options such as Student, Retired, Disabled, Laid off, etc would be useful IMO.

Yes, the ability to game any system will work regardless so let's mot get hung up on the EXCEPTIONS when we need a SOLUTION that will work for 99.9% of the population.

 

"There was no witch-hunt, no exoneration."

-Christopher Wray, acting director FBI about the Muller report on Trump collusion with Russia. May 30, 2019

 

Christopher Wray has likely become a target of multiple DOJ investigations. Yesterday FOX released another of IG Horowitz preliminary conclusions, just as he did to prevent McCabe from slinking away. It's doubtful that Wray is the criminal IG Horowitz is speaking to in this preliminary report, but IG Horowitz zeros in on the FBI's culture of criminality. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/do...took-gift-from-media-but-declines-prosecution Chris Wray is part of the criminal culture. He was caught concealing evidence becoming part of the FBI's blue wall of silence. https://thehill.com/opinion/white-h...confession-informant-needed-to-air-trump-dirt

 

Wray has targeted Barr is what you mean to say along with Judicial Watch.