politics for the 99%

… Interview with Elizabeth Rhodes – Published on The Ringer, by Kate Knibbs, June 16, 2016.

Y Combinator has been called the world’s most powerful startup incubator, but now it’s testing something completely different: investing in people’s lives, not their businesses. A few weeks ago, the startup incubator announced a pilot program on basic income in Oakland, California.  

The idea of a basic income — a stipend guaranteed to each person to cover essential needs — is gaining momentum. Finland is considering it. So are four cities in the Netherlands. Canada is planning a provincial test project in an Ontario community. In Switzerland, voters recently rejected a proposal introducing basic income, but it’s notable that the vote happened. Many details of the Oakland project need to be worked out, but the premise is simple: A group of residents will be given stipends, and Y Combinator will research how that income affects the recipients.

Y Combinator’s ambitious project is unusual because it’s a private organization — not a government — initiating a study on a social-safety net. We want to run a large, long-term study to answer a few key questions: how people’s happiness, well-being, and financial health are affected by basic income, as well as how people might spend their time. But before we do that, we’re going to start with a short-term pilot in Oakland. Our goal will be to prepare for the longer-term study by working on our methods — how to pay people, how to collect data, how to randomly choose a sample [participant], etc., a Y Combinator blog post says … //

… (full interview text).

Links:

New Era of Brutality: When Violence Is No Longer Taboo, on Spiegel Online International, an Editorial by Christiane Hoffmann, June 20, 2016: what’s truly scary about the horrifying attacks that have recently taken place in Orlando, England and France isn’t just the number of victims — it’s that the acts themselves are impossible to understand;

The Case for Free Money, on The New Yorker, by James Surowiecki, in the June 20, 2016 Issue: Why don’t we have universal basic income?

The People’s Summit – Progressive, Independent, On the Move, on ZNet (first on TedGlick), by Ted Glick, June 20, 2016;

Honduran Indigenous Activist Wins Human Rights Award for Struggle Against Corporate Destruction of Land, on Upside Down World/Latin America, by Jeff Abbott, Jne 18, 2016;

POVERTY IN SPAIN – Coruña, in Galicia: Spanish city introduces basic income for vulnerable families, on El Pais, by Sonia Vizoso, June 16, 2016;

Automatic access to cut-price energy for those on low income from July, on The Portugal News Online, June 16, 2016;

When the Welfare State Met the Flat Tax, on Foreign Policy, June 16, 2016;

Watchdogs exempt sovereign wealth and pension funds from study, on Financial Times, by Caroline Binham and Patrick Jenkins in London, June 16, 2016: Financial Stability Board due to report on risks posed by asset managers, Sovereign wealth funds and pension funds have won a temporary break from tighter regulatory scrutiny, as global watchdogs exempted them from an ambitious study aiming to curb systemic risks from financial institutions that are not banks or insurers;

Taipei, Sydney: Uber and Didi Chuxing embrace socialism with $20 billion funds, on live mint, by David Fickling, June 16, 2016: the wealthy who are buying stakes in ride-sharing companies are really transferring money to a growing line of taxi drivers;

Aquino rejects salary hike for nurses, on The Philippine Star, by Rosette Adel, June 16, 2016;

The Goal Of This Board Game Is To Survive The Automation Wave, on Fast Co.Exist, by Ben Schiller, June 16, 2016;

This Week: Global Capitalism June 2016, 97.37 min, uploaded by Richard D. Wolff Economic;
NOUVEAU MONDE: le nouveau film façon road-movie écologiste de Yann Richet, dans Féminen Bio, le 15 juin 2016.