Consumption
How the Living Income Guaranteed Will promote Environmental Sustainability
As we all know, our continued human existence is having consequences on the Earth and one of them is the Earth warming up. And so scientists are trying to come up with solutions to stop this particular consequence and one of the options to stop Global warming is through GEOengineering – interfering with nature on a planetary scale.
Here are some of the GEOengineering options that scientist are currently investigating:
1. Afforestation: This technique would irrigate deserts, such as those in Australia and North Africa, to plant millions of trees that could absorb carbon dioxide; this vegetation would also draw in sunlight that the deserts currently reflect back into space, and so contribute to global warming.
2. Artificial ocean upwelling: Engineers would use long pipes to pump cold, nutrient-rich water upward to cool ocean-surface waters. If this process ever stopped it could cause oceans to rebalance their heat levels and rapidly change the climate.
3. Ocean alkalinisation: This involves heaping lime into the ocean to chemically increase the absorption of carbon dioxide.
4. Ocean iron fertilisation: The method involves dumping iron into the oceans to improve the growth of photosynthetic organisms that can absorb carbon dioxide.
5. Solar radiation management: This would reduce the amount of sunlight Earth receives, by shooting reflective sulphate-based aerosols into the atmosphere.
As I read through this list I get kind of worried, because they are trying to stop the Earth from heating up through wanting to do things like dumping iron into the oceans or spraying the air with sulphate. Won’t that simply cause more problems in the future? You don’t solve a problem with another problem.
Here is an analogy: You see a spider trapped in your bathtub. So you take a few sheets of tissue paper and very carefully burn your house down…
In a similar way that is how we deal with issues we face on this Earth. With the above mentioned solutions we are simply going to create more problems.
The way you deal with problems is stopping them at the source, which is the way we humans interact with the Earth – or more specifically: how we have come to value profit over things that actually matter – like the Earth itself. Our world leaders have for some time had those meetings on finding solutions to cut carbon emissions, but not many are actually doing that. The reason comes back to money, a factory pollutes the Earth, but it also makes money. Currently cutting emissions equals less money made.
Eco friendly solutions cost a lot of money, so that is why it is not ever really implemented on global scale – it’s not cost effective. Also, there is the factor that there is a massive profit being made by current use of available technologies – like oil and coal – and thus coming up with other solutions is discouraged.
So then what is the reason for all this pollution currently created? Money. And what would be the solution to clean up and stop pollution? Money. The planet has over 7 billion people on it. And I have read and seen solutions to control and get rid of pollution many times, but it never gets implemented, because the people coming up with these ideas do not have the necessary funds to implement these ideas or do more research. And in many of these cases the people who come up with these ideas are those directly affected by the pollution.
With the implementation of Living Income Guaranteed we could ensure that all options are considered and see what will be the best solution. Not to say that LIG would be bad news to businesses around the world and force them to cut carbon emissions – no – rather more about focusing on ways to prevent this with the use of new technologies that are available and that are currently not being used because profit is placed over sustainability, which is how through Corporate Social Responsibility measures, corporations will also have to consider their own sustainability and assurance of production by stopping degrading measures that will cause more consequences for them and the community.
Also what is happening is that consumers are becoming aware of the consequences that factories have on the environment and are favoring eco-friendly production methods. So the company will have to start introducing environmentally friendly solutions and stick to the new trend to meet the customer demand in order to still make money.
Another point is that when an individual doesn’t have to worry about surviving and can start focusing on actual living – it opens doors and with it great potential. For example there are so many people who find passion in doing humanitarian work, or finding solutions to make factories more efficient and less polluting – but cannot focus on doing any of that, because they need money to survive. Who knows what potential we can unlock and ideas we can come up with and implement to reduce or even reverse the negative consequences we have created on this Earth. The Living Income Guaranteed would bring us closer to finding the solutions we require.
Here are Videos that further explain how with the Implementation of the Living Income Guaranteed will promote Environmental Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility:
- Environmental Sustainability
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- Technological Innovations for Sustainable Development
Check Out the Links for More Information on the Living Income Guaranteed
- The Living Income Proposal
- The Living Income Blog
- Living Income Discussions on Google Hangout (Done Weekly)
- The Living Income Discussion Board
- Equal Life Foundation – Site
Redemption and the Right to a Living Income
For anyone who thinks and believes that those that are unemployed, receiving assistance from the state or federal government, or living on the streets are lazy and no good, feeding off the system, I suggest you watch the HBO documentary Redemption.
Here we watch people all over the streets of New York collecting bottles and cans as a way to survive. To them this is their full time job, walking block after block, day after day, going through trash that sits on the corner to collect all and any bottles or cans that can be recycled. Why do they do this? Because for each bottle or can, they can receive five cents. This seems hardly anything to be working so dam hard for, yet they are doing it. They are doing it with their children because they cannot afford childcare, and because they are extra hands to help out, they are doing it without sleeping, they are doing it to afford to live in a one bedroom apartment with seven other people. They are doing it because money matters in the fight for survival and is the only option available to them.
Before you assume to think these are people who put themselves in this situation, as if they deserved it, think again and watch the documentary. These are people with degrees, who have worked for such companies as Microsoft, who worked at the World Trade Center, who fought in wars for ‘our freedom’, who cannot survive on the social security they receive alone.
These are people who are doing what they can to survive, because the harsh reality is that if you make one wrong move, you too can be put out on the street without a helping hand. And you will then see what it’s really like to live for your survival. Money gives us a buffer, we do not see the extent to the consequence our system of life on Earth creates – because we did not pull the shorter stick.
Anyone who suggest that someone does not deserve a Living Income, a dignified life with the resource required to survive, simply because they are not working the job we define as ‘acceptable’ – put yourself in the shoes of another. What would you do to survive? Is your right to food, shelter, hot water, clean clothing more valid then someone who isn’t working, or not doing a job we classify as normal? Would you be willing to walk the streets of New York, digging through trash bags in front of fine dining establishment, simply to ensure you can buy yourself a sandwich for the day? What does shame have to do with anything when it comes to survival?
I suggest anyone that has such a judgment on those that are down and out and willing to do ANYTHING to make a few bucks, to watch this documentary, to put yourself in their shoes, and to then ask the question, why are Human Rights not a RIGHT given to all, unquestionably?
Investigate the Living Income Guaranteed proposed by the Equal Life Foundation. The core principle is that all humans have unalienable rights to life – that means food, water, shelter, clothing, education. These cannot and should not be denied to anyone, whether you are not able to find a job, in between jobs, victim of layoffs, whatever – that no matter your situation, YOU have the right to a dignified life, and that you are not FORCED to sift through the rubbish of other humans to collect your income.
For Further Information, Follow these Links:
There is Enough! Stopping the Cycle of Ignorance with LIG
There is enough. This statement is crucial for the continuation of our species in the times ahead, where all we hear is that we do not have enough, not enough food, not enough money, not enough housing, but if one look behind who is in fact saying these statements, you will find the corporations who have a vested interest in us continuing to believe this and so live out this belief that there is not enough. The corporations who control now the resources, the private banks who control the money supply, and the governments that control our livelihoods all have a stake within making a lot of profit, while we continue to believe that ‘there is not enough.’ So we cannot accept and allow any longer this notion that there is not enough resources or food or money in this world, we have to educate ourselves on the reality of what is here and how to walk the path to understand and so live the statement that There IS enough!
We know that money is made out of thin air, there is no value inherently within the paper it’s made from, it’s simply a medium for commerce, and within this we the people give it meaning. So saying there is not enough money is a scapegoat for admitting to the fact that some want more than others, and will do what it takes to make this continue to happen as it is and has been a reality for most of our recorded history. All are responsible within this ignorance we have accepted and allowed where some go with nothing and some go with enough, we all live here and so accept this money system as it is now, so we all have to face the consequences and change the outcomes to be best for all. It’s on each one being a part of this change because nothing will change until we stand up within ourselves and change who we are from within to the without.
If we look at food for instance, here are some statistics about hunger and
also statics on the food waste in the United States:
- Total number of children that die every year from hunger –
1.5 million - Percent of world population considered to be starving –
33%- Time between deaths of people who die from hunger –
3.6 seconds- Each year, about
40 percent of all food in the United States goes uneaten. It’s just tossed out or left to rot. And that’s a fairly large waste of resources. All that freshwater and land, all that fertilizer and energy — for nothing. By one recent estimate, Americans are squandering the equivalent of $165 billion each year by rubbishing so much food. - Time between deaths of people who die from hunger –
So we have 33 percent of the world population that is considered starving and we have on the other extreme 40 percent of the food in America is thrown away due to not being processed effectively or not reaching the desired aesthetic picture the shoppers demand for. This seems like a sick joke we are playing on ourselves, I mean this doesn’t make any rational sense to allow such a play out of life and death to exist, but it does, it is happening every day.
What we fail to see or realize within the system we live in is that we are more and more interconnected and so dependent on each other to continue to exist. When we allow such a contrast of basic needs where some have a lot and many others have little to nothing, we have to stop and consider what we are in fact doing here. There has to be a point in each one’s life where we have to question the way things are. This is determined and will be determined by each one within themselves and so will determine their own lives and existence, but it’s suggested to find solutions for all human beings to be given the necessary basic rights that we all are given at birth, the conditions for a decent life.
The Equal Life Foundation of which I support and contribute to with research and funding, have proposed a Living Income Guarantee, They have set out the basic structure for a new way of life for everyone, where those that require it will be given a living income to be able to buy what is needed and be sustained in a dignified way through changing parts of the current system that is currently in place. This will be walked as we start to open up the relationships and pathways once there is more support and funding involved, but we are not there yet. We have to start from the ground up as we see, realize, and understand that starting from the top down will not change things as this is the way it’s always been, and there has been no significant change in human life in the last 2000 years. We as the people that can hear the message and see that the way forward is a way of walking the talk and living the solution as ourselves, can move to positions and solutions that will continue to propel this best for all principle forward and walk what is necessary in all avenues until it is eventually done. Never giving up, continuing to push forward, empowering ourselves and so others as we move forward.
We do have enough on this planet, so this is not the problem as the Earth has given all the resources/sustenance/common sense to walk the best for all principle for each one to equally benefit from this reality. If we start with a living income, to create a standard of living that gives all dignity then we can also start looking at how and through what means we can change the way we do things to create efficiency and sustainability, we can start the path of honoring life and not wasting and destroying it due to our own ignorance.
Support the Equal Life Foundation and the Living Income Guaranteed Proposal to start and create the change that is needed to live the principle of ‘best for all life’, which will always be best for you.
Watch the Documentary: Dive!
For Further Support, Please check out Links:
- Living Income Guaranteed Website
- Living Income Guaranteed Proposal
- Equal Life Foundation
- Equal Life Foundation Blog
- Living Income’s YouTube Channel
Photo credits:
What is payment? We got it wrong this whole time!
By Blaž Cegnar
We are raised up by the society to believe that we pay for things with money. You know: paper, coin, digits on the bank account. Whenever we want something that we don’t have or is not ours, we pay for it in the store with money and then it’s ours. Then we can do with it whatever we want, because WE paid for it with OUR MONEY. Then there is this division in our society where some believe that one should always work to earn one’s money and that those who don’t do ‘real’ work are bad people, lazy, selfish. Others like the capitalist idea where one invests one’s money (earned, stolen, inherited or all of the above) so that the money ‘works’ for you and one just gets the benefits, the profits. But what all have in common is that all live in the illusion of money and payment, because everyone believes that we pay for things with money. I did too, but boy, was I wrong.
We don’t pay for things with money. Nothing is actually paid for with money. So, what is the real payment for a product or a service? Who does in fact, actually pay for it? If I walk into a store and buy some milk, who paid for it and with what? Me with my money? Nope, this is a complete illusion. Can you see it? Wake up – who really paid for the milk? The cow that produced it. The farmer who collected it, the people who packed it and moved it to the store. All these beings PAID for it WITH their WORK. This is the only REAL payment that exists, ever. Everything is paid for with work, with effort, with movement. Giving some ‘money’ over the counter is not a payment, it is a joke. It is some ‘kids’ playing games, imagining things. This is what we are doing when we believe that we actually paid for something when we give our money or when we transfer some digits to another’s bank account – we are imagining things. We aren’t really doing a damn thing, we are only taking what is already there and shuffling some paper and digits around because we care so much about them – the digits and the paper we call money. But we only care about the amount of our digits and our paper, not about another’s. But no, we don’t even dare to talk with anyone openly about our money, our digits and our paper, or theirs, because it’s a secret. If I have less money than you then I am ashamed and if I have more than you then screw you, that’s how life works. But it doesn’t. This is how we created the system of money to work in our minds – big difference.
Money is just a tool, a mind tool in a game with rules that we create, and it can be very useful to help us disperse the goods in a more equal, reasonable, practical way. Money is not evil or bad. We are evil and bad, because of the way we use it to abuse each other – Life – with it. So, our society today does not use money to disperse goods in an equal, reasonable, practical way for all to live a Dignified Life. We use the money to enslave each other, we use the money to say who is worthy of life and who is not worthy of life. We use the money to define whose life is worth more and whose life is not worth a penny. And we take it dead serious. We do not give a shit when people suffer and die because we do not allow them to have enough money. We allow them to work to the bone though, of course, but we do not recognize the payment that they do, the REAL PAYMENT, THE PAIN-MENT.
All these abused workers do all the pain-ment for us while others mostly just shuffle the paper – ‘money’ – around and then we actually believe that the hardest PAIN-MENT that the ‘lowest’ workers do is worth the least amount of credit? We obviously do believe this, because we give the workers who work the most and the hardest, the least amount of credit for it. We came up with this rule that such people, who work the hardest and the longest, who do most of the ACTUAL HARD PAIN-MENT for all of us, should get the least amount of credit for it. Would we like to be in their shoes? Would we give ourselves the same amount of credit if we had to work in their shoes? No, be serious and be self-honest. Oh, did we get this whole payment thing wrong on all the levels imaginable! So, here we see that we have to redefine the word PAYMENT, which we dared to define and understand so selfishly and contrary to the actual reality of things, so that we can stop abusing and stop creating abuse of Life with it and actually come up with a definition that is supportive for all.
Current definition (from Wiki): A payment is the transfer of an item of value from one party (such as a person or company) to another in exchange for the provision of goods, services or both, or to fulfill a legal obligation.
Re-definition: PAYMENT – the pain-ment of work, labor and effort that one gifts into an activity, product or service. These people, who work to the bone in sweatshops all over the world and all people who work anywhere, are the ones who actually pay and make the PAIN-MENT for our shit that we then buy with money: our iPhoneys, our fancy plastic fantasies, our clothes etc. Workers are the ones who paid for it.
So, the next time I see myself say or think: “Hey, I paid for that!”, I’ll stop, breathe and realize: Wow, I did not really pay for that at all, I just gave my money for it, my credits, my imaginable value. And mostly not even to the being who ACTUALLY paid for it with their own physical labor. That being is probably suffering somewhere in a sweatshop, being abused by all who don’t understand where the actual payment happens, who do not value the Life of all beings equally as their own and do not give all the equal credit for the work and the pain-ment they do. I will no longer allow the abuse of money and payment and I will speak up for all beings that do not get their equal credit in spite of all the PAIN-MENT they do. I will work to implement a new system, where Life, work and pain-ment of all the beings is valued equally and where all receive their equal credit for being alive and sharing their Life with me, so that we can all be alive together in a Life worth living.
So, taking this new definition of the word payment: how does it affect one’s awareness of reality and how should the money system change according to it so that there is no more abuse?
Firstly, we become aware that no one is actually paying for anything with money, because the only form of real, actual payment is movement / labor / work / effort itself, towards a goal, product, service that is best for all, that supports all. When we are aware of this, we can see that we cannot really value work through money, because most of the work can be valuable and useful for the society in some way or another. Sure, some work is more urgent than another and so, some work must be done prior to some other work. For example; producing food for all is more urgent than painting a picture, but this does not change the value of work itself – it only changes the priority, the urgency of it, the order in which the work should be done – very important to realize. So, what is the value of baking bread? What is the value of building houses, producing electricity, assembling iPhoneys, designing and planning new things? What is the value of singing, painting, making a sculpture? Can we really put a value in digits on any work? Sure, any random number will do… But it is still just and illusion of the mind, a thing that we made up. So, really, what is the real value of any work and effort that supports Life? It is the value of Life itself, because Life expresses self through work, effort, expression, art, movement…
So, you see, the value of any work that supports Life equals to the value of Life itself, because Life does it. Can you see? Wake up – do you see it yet?
So, in a system where this would be fully realized and implemented people would work firstly on things that are necessary to sustain a Dignified Life for all and then they would work on anything they like – and all would still get an equal amount of credit for it, based on the value of Life itself. So simple, yet so hard to grasp through a mind of selfishness. So, back to where we are at the moment in our reality, of course we cannot just remove all money and say every work is priceless, because we have been living in the illusion of money and payment for so long. Thus we need to gradually realize the illusion, like I explained above, and step by step implement the necessary changes in the system that will – in the end – lead to a Dignified Life for All, where money as we know it today will no longer exist.
We can start by implementing a solution that is described in the Living Income Guaranteed Proposal. This proposal / goal is not an Utopian world. What I am talking about is a world of common sense, a world where Life is actually recognized and honored in all. What we have today and what we have been trying to live until now – this is the real Utopia, because we are trying to live according to illusions that we create in our minds. And whenever we try to live out illusions that are not in consideration with the actual reality – we create suffering.
As long as we create suffering, we are doing it wrong and we are trying to live out the illusions of our minds that are not real, that are selfish. So simple, yet so hard to see through our minds, as long as we try so hard to avoid any self-responsibility.
I dare you to join me and see through the deception of money and payment that we have today. The economic solution I suggest to read about: Living Income Guaranteed
Further information:
Liberalism: Problems, Solutions & Benefits
By Barbara Stängl
Liberalism
“Liberalism is a theory in economics emphasizing individual freedom from restraint and usually based on free competition, the self-regulating market and the gold standard; in political terms it denotes a belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties” (ref.:www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/liberalism).
Classical liberalism has its focus on securing the freedom of the individual by limiting the power of the government – the concept emerged as a response to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization in the 19th century. It advocates civil liberties with a limited government under the rule of law, private property and laissez-faire economic liberalism. Social liberalism believes in government intervention to provide equal protection and opportunity. Neoliberalism promotes a market economy with a strong state, a ‘social market economy’. Later the meaning had shifted to hold one of a more radical and laissez-faire capitalistic ideas. It was used to criticize legislative initiatives for free trade, deregulation, enhanced privatization and an overall reduction in government control of the economy.
Neoliberalism is what we are still allowing and accepting as our economical and political system nowadays.
A change in economic course was taken with the program Ludwig Erhard formulated after the Second World War, where demand was not taken as the driving factor of production any more, but rather the other way around, wherein the idea was assumed that every offer created its own demand – which is said to only be valid for trade economies. This new directive of a social market economy, where focus is to be on profit, competition and consuming goods for and within each and everyone, not only economy and politics, which was implemented thereafter, caused dire consequences reaching up to the current situation where the financial sector as a non-producing element in the system is reaching blown-up and disproportionate extents of power in that major banks are able to demand to be bailed out by the government using the financial means of the public when a tide of bad investments collapses back onto them in consequence and leaves them unable to rectify their position of creating money from loans, financial products and other financial machinations within the state.
Thus the real economy is in the process of subsidizing the banking sector which doesn’t produce consumer goods and thus doesn’t contribute to the productivity and added-value, but only creates claims for consumer goods with the respective finance products they conceptualize, the consequence being a discrepancy between factual goods and the claim for them, which in turn leaves people in the upper middle financial ranks of society feeling richer and better off than years ago, but they aren’t in fact, as they are holding only claims to potential goods and not the actual manifested object. This is actually a matter of window-dressing based on agreements without basic real securities.
Thus accepting the ideology of Neoliberalism as a political directive for how we manage our economy has led to the debt crisis of 2007, which should in fact show us what we are allowing, i.e. the economical coups that are possible by stock markets against democracy and in that against the people itself. A criminalist system of unfettered capitalism has been allowed, wherein values are destroyed instead of creating them, the consequence of which living beings have to bear in form of abuse, denigration, immense suffering, poverty and starvation, conflict, war, hopelessness and despair, death – all for an idea that has proven that it doesn’t work for society, where the principle of best for all is being ridden roughshod over.
The idea of neoliberalism is based on implementing the following parameters based on the concept that laws and regulations disturb the balance of market economy:
- the reduction of legal regulations for the private economical sector
- reduced taxation of big income earners
- austerity programs within the social state such as health, education and culture
- no tariff security and secure jobs and positions
- subsidization of corporate power and banking powers
Within this, forces that propagate and uphold this ideology of neoliberalism feature a tendency of obscuring the inner workings of the economy resulting in an impenetrability of the same for the common person. There also seems to be a tacit prohibition in place to further the common wealth on an equal basis, based on the presumption that there is a fundamental inequality between and amongst people, which in fact has to be intensified so that the principle of free competition works.
Another feature is the maintained rationality that there is ‘no alternative’, as if this is how humanity inherently functions – on the basis of inequality and a competitive nature. Slogans such as ‘the market shall regulate society through competition’ show that the model as the blueprint of neoliberalism that leading figures sought to implement was to basically make individuals into enterprises who are required to establish entrepreneurial traits and behaviors on all levels of their social interactions, dominated by demand and offer, costs, gains and investments as the new social values post WWII within ‘free competition of inequalities’. This kind of freedom cannot accept other liberties along with it, as Erhard stated: “Rights shall find their expression in the freedom of consumption.” This ultimately allows for a constant state of fear of not being able to express within these limitations, and being judged by one’s ability or inability to do so and thus to hold one’s status within society and remain competitive.
Solution:
One must realize the allowance and acceptance of the manipulation leading to the change of focus from surviving within WWII and a hands-on approach of rebuilding and producing some kind of added value to what was left in the ruins of the war to a focus on and the dominion of competition and competiveness. This has brought forth an alienation within oneself toward one’s self-expression and what life is about and can be, and the diversion from the principle of best for all within giving another what one would like to receive oneself. This is where one can actually find a handle for the fear of not surviving. One is able to refocus, to redirect one’s focus on equality and in that seeing, realizing and understanding that there is an alternative way, because all are in fact equal as and within life and in that we are all one, one humanity, one life.
As it is us, the people, each and every one, that constitute the system, politics, economy, what we focus on, what we allow and accept as the statement of who we are, we create. It is important to see one’s immediate starting point for one’ s actions and interactions and make sure it is not one of competition, of proving oneself better or superior over another, where one comes from the point of fear of not surviving. One is able to realign oneself with one’s self-expression.
Alongside with this personal process we are able to and in fact must reorganize the existing financial structures and the realign the power we give to institutions with what serves all equally. To this end as a first platform there is LIG – Living Income Guaranteed which states common sense rationalities – those we could have observed and referred to in ourselves instead of accepting and allowing the manipulations that have and are taking place in politics and underlying powers which we have submitted ourselves to. Such are among others a guaranteed living income on an as-needed basis as provisions for shelter, food and education etc. – basically everything that is required to ensure one’s well-being. We can stop this ideology that we have supported inadvertently by having accepted the misinformation and manipulations over many decades by bringing out the information that is relevant and valid and constitutes a basis for implementing a change on the principle of what is best for all equally as life.
The rewards are obvious: No more fear of losing one’s job and not surviving. No more competition as an all-pervading overlay on every social interaction, instead of self-expression. A letting go of pressure and an allowance to see the other and be with him without placing a price tag onto the time spent for support so one has money to survive. The security of having food, a home one can return to and feel comfortable in, education to expand in this existence, and providing children with a world that nourishes and supports all on the basis of true care.
Investigate the Living Income Guaranteed Proposal and Join us for discussion.
Photo Credits:
The Butterfly Effect and Living Income Guaranteed
Flowing Economy
The economy in any given location, can be likened to the dynamics of water. If the water in a river flows, then the river is healthy, life thrives in its waters and supports the surrounding terrestrial ecosystems.
Water evaporates from the Earth’s surface, transforms into clouds, travels with the wind, and lands in a new area where it can support life.
When water stagnates, it can become stale. Bacteria and disease start brooding and life stops thriving. Water, and more specifically flowing water – is an essential element and resource in sustaining life.
In our society, we have made the primary element that supports life: ‘money’. If you have money, you can eat, you can drink, you can live in a nice house, you can educate yourself, you can start new ventures, you can support a family, you can participate in leisure time. Money is used, and money is spent – and each expense in turn becomes a flow of income for someone else in society.
Money like water – can be stored for the future. Water-grabs in the form of excessive damming can threaten the vitality of an entire ecosystem: as water is held back, not enough water flows and the area that was once supported by its flow is now faced with a condition of lack, resulting in the degradation of the environment. Dams, when properly regulated and monitored, can be a beneficial factor in the environment. In the same way, we know that saving money can be beneficial to get us through a future ‘rainy day’. However, when we hog money, like water, we create averse conditions within the economic environment (=ecosystem) around us.
The Marginal Propensity to Consume, Save and the Multiplier Effect
Within the realm of economics, you may sometimes hear of the term ‘multiplier effect’ and ‘marginal propensity to consume’ or ‘marginal propensity to save’. Although these terms sound daunting, their meaning is actually very simple.
All these above-mentioned terms, relate to changes in the economy when an influx of income (and resulting spending) occurs.
Whenever we have money/an income, we will tend to save some of it and spend the rest. The amount we spend in contrast to how much we save for each unit of additional income, is our ‘marginal propensity to consume’ (MPC). If our MPC is 0.8, then this means that for every additional increase of income, we will spend 80% of it. In turn, the ratio of how much we save over how much we spend for each additional unit of income, is our ‘marginal propensity to save’ (MPS). If our MPC was 0.8, then our MPS is 0.2, which means we will save 20% of any additional income.
When you have little money, your propensity to save will be very low as money will primarily be spent on everyday needs. As your income goes up, your propensity to save will go up as you feel secure enough to ‘put something away’ and still be able to tend to your everyday needs. Once you’re well off, you will be more likely to save a higher portion of additional increments of income, leading to a lower marginal propensity to consume.
The multiplier effect, refers to an effect in the economy where an increase in spending will bring about a ripple effect which results in a greater amount of value as an outcome than the initial amount spent. In a way, one can look at it as ‘returns on an investment’. Here, we can go back to the example of the river, where additional flowing water in a river is not just ‘additional water’. It is also the drinking water for animals downstream whose presence is absolutely vital to the local biome [See ‘How Wolves Change Rivers’ to see how a change in a single variable can have a huge impact]. The same way, money spent in the economy is not just ‘some money spent’, but also the income of another human being who in turn can utilize this income to employ the services of someone else and again contribute to someone’s livelihood.
We can see from the following excerpt, that these propensities matter when it comes down to economic health and vitality:
“Wall Street banks handed out $26.7 billion in bonuses to their 165,200 employees last year. That amount would be enough to more than double the pay for all 1,085,000 Americans who work full-time at the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Purveyors of luxury goods always welcome the Wall Street bonus season, but a raise in the minimum wage would give America’s economy a much greater boost. To meet basic needs, low-wage workers tend to spend nearly every dollar they make. The wealthy can afford to squirrel away more of their earnings.
All those dollars low-wage workers spend create an economic ripple effect. Every extra dollar going into the pockets of low-wage workers, standard economic multiplier models tell us, adds about $1.21 to the national economy. Every extra dollar going into the pockets of a high-income American, by contrast, only adds about 39 cents to the GDP.”
http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/wall_street_bonuses_and_the_minimum_wage
This article nicely illustrates the power of money movement, and where this ‘current’ is the strongest.
By bringing Living Income Guaranteed into the economic picture, we can bring in a gush of fresh new water and transform our stagnant pool into a thriving flowing river. Besides fulfilling our moral duty towards our fellow men through securing each one’s Basic Human Rights, we also put into motion a new economic drive from which will sprout new opportunities of innovation and entrepreneurship.
It becomes possible to have a nice life and to enjoy the latest comfort and tech that science and creativity have to offer, whilst simultaneously making sure that everyone’s livelihood is guaranteed. The principle behind an economy like this is really a simple one: Give, as you would like to Receive.
By changing the money composition in the economy by a fraction, we can bring about tremendous changes. These changes in turn, will bring about their own effects. Even if one might not agree with a Living Income Guaranteed for political reasons, we cannot ignore the ample economic benefits that are coupled with its implementation; to name but just a few: economic growth and expansion, higher living standards, better skilled labor force, lower debt levels and better employment conditions. These in turn translate into social, cultural and psychological benefits such as lower crime rate, lower levels of stress, increased personal freedom, social cohesion, enhanced personal growth and development and overall happiness.
Let’s unleash the wave of economic, social, cultural and personal potential with Living Income Guaranteed.
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Will the Living Income Guaranteed cause Inflation?
One must first understand Inflation. Many years ago I asked a big shot in the bank a definition for inflation and his answer was quite incoherent, it’s like a matter of opinion. So we should rather look at the facts, than the opinions and justifications of ‘What inflation is?’and ‘Why does it exist?’
In a way if we go back in history, inflation can be seen as an extension of the cruelty of man. When there is not enough, then the so-called ideology of ‘Supply and Demand’ allows the greedy to increase prices and sell to the highest bidder, ensuring that the ideology that ‘money is power’ becomes ingrained in the human consciousness.
Another perspective of inflation is that it is an extension of Public Relations and Advertising.In advertising the real picture is photoshopped to make it more aligned with the mind, the mind becomes controlled by these images, goes into association and a relationship of comparison and then judges reality according to these pictures. This mechanism creates desires which produce the same type of supply and demand where the human who is controlled by these images and propaganda will do whatever they can to buy a product that is being inflated in its image.
Now the clever thing about this inflation of products by Public Relations is that you have to read the small print. The big print is all the fake and false images – the small print contains all the legal truths. The real truth about anything is always the small print because there you know you get the information about side effects, warranties, planned obsolescence, all the negative stuff is in the small print while all the positive stuff is in the big print. This is the same nature of positive thinking: it inflates the image on the positive side, it diminishes the negative side causing extreme imbalance that eventually reflects itself in general society as poverty and wealth.
Let’s look at another point of inflation: the deliberate inflation of prices to increase the profits of the corporation.As mechanization has been increasing – which should simply function as the replacement of labor, not the replacement of employment: more and more jobs are lost.Yet, prices are still being inflated. And now we sit with massive unemployment, inflated pricing, a problem with supply and demand because people don’t have money to buy and consume. So despite an appearance of inflation, the economic reality is that the economies are shrinking and not inflating– and you sit with the problem that your real value of a product has been lost a long time ago, because the real value has been labor all along.. And because the ideas of saving, competition, inflating the corporation and the war for a monopolized control has become the way of the world — the reality of what really exists is no longer easily accessible because: all we have is our inflated images.
So obviously if we have to keep following this distorted view of reality which is justified through the word ‘inflation,’ which is just a model of statistics – and you can check out the previous blog about the uselessness of statistics (A Living Income Guaranteed is the BIG Issue) the statistics just inflate the idea that you know what you’re talking about, so statistics is just another form of inflation, it’s just Public Relations. It’s just a fake and false image and likeness with which the actual data is distorted so that those that benefit from having control and access to resources through this inflated view can justify why it is that the things are the way they are, why poverty is so immense and expansive… And so you’ll have the curious bizarre thing happening, for instance that the corporate top dogs and the loyalty they buy from people that are in the corporation – as well as their income – has been skyrocketing for at least the last 30 years. So these massive profits are used to buy loyalty which protects the top dogs. This same illness is now part of the government where people’s loyalty is bought so that they can protect the wealth of the few while the majority of people on Earth are existing in one or two dollars a day – and that’s quite okay apparently because the image is inflated to say that “That is enough for them to make a living.”
If we do not change the system, this Inflation point will have an effect. Obviously if the Living Income Guaranteed becomes a reality, we have to change the economic model: it’s not working, it has a fake and false inflated image by economists that are not worthy of the word ‘Economist’ because they are not managing and researching the ecology, the ecosystem of the world to ensure that every human being’s basic Human Rights are being protected.
Therefore everything you know about ‘Economics’ as several people that were brave enough to stand up have said “you have just being been lied to” – Economy/the Economists, the ideas of Economics are all just a lie and so is inflation – the image is inflated, the truth and the data are not real and the human being has been mislead to believe that their data should not be in the hands of a central agency to actually create a stable environment. And so, the corporation and the propagandists can say that they’re doing and acting according to the will of the people, because the problem of inflation even exists there, the specific ideas and conspiracies have been inflated deliberately to create this image and likeness that the human’s will is apparently democratically being adhered to – It’s all in the image and likenesses of inflation.
For this all to work, you better study the Living Income Guaranteed proposal where we show what is necessary to be in place for a balanced society, where we show and expose all the inflations and propagandas and misdirection, where we show that at the end, even those in the current BIG proposals only have inflated egos – so inflation is really everywhere. Nowadays we even have inflation in terms of what it does to the body because the food is no longer supportive of the body, because Health is not really on the agenda of those that make policy,it’s all about profit.
Inflation is a danger all around and unless we stop all inflation – which is just a mind job – and we get back to reality and work with actual data based on the physical, our economic balance on Earth will not be restored, we will not have an ecosystem that supports Life on Earth and that protects the Human Rights of Every Human Being.
Equal Life Foundation Research Team
