Motivation
A Permanent Solution for the Neglected Produce Laborers of Mexico
Problem:
A Times reporter and photographer find that thousands of laborers at Mexico’s mega-farms endure harsh conditions and exploitation while supplying produce for American consumers.
The Times found:
- Many farm laborers are essentially trapped for months at a time in rat-infested camps, often without beds and sometimes without functioning toilets or a reliable water supply.
- Some camp bosses illegally withhold wages to prevent workers from leaving during peak harvest periods.
- Laborers often go deep in debt paying inflated prices for necessities at company stores. Some are reduced to scavenging for food when their credit is cut off. It’s common for laborers to head home penniless at the end of a harvest.
- Those who seek to escape their debts and miserable living conditions have to contend with guards, barbed-wire fences and sometimes threats of violence from camp supervisors.
- Major U.S. companies have done little to enforce social responsibility guidelines that call for basic worker protections such as clean housing and fair pay practices.
Hardship on Mexico’s farms, a bounty for U.S. tables
By RICHARD MAROSI http://graphics.latimes.com/product-of-mexico-camps/
Where does our food come from? It is the fruits and veggies of other people’s labor. Farm exports to the U.S. from Mexico have tripled to $7.6 billion in the last decade, enriching agribusinesses, distributors and retailers. As you can see in the article it’s the actual labors that come out last.
The company utilizes advance growing techniques and very carefully employs sanitary measures to make sure their produce is safe and good quality, but at the same time they absolutely neglect the workforce. The produce has a higher value than the actual humans working there. One of these Companies actually recently took out full-page newspaper ads promoting its commitment to social responsibility.
The company these laborers work for use devious ways to keep profits high. It is law to pay workers their wages on a weekly base. To ensure that the people do not leave before their 3 month work contract the company often withholds their wages and only pays them at the end of their contract. In that time the workers get their food from the company store with its inflated prices. They often go deep in debt and at the end of their contract some go home without any money.
The conditions are so bad, yet people still go there to work knowing that they might not make money – some go just to stay fed. They go because they simply have no alternative and that is what the companies are exploiting. Is there any way to stop this Madness? Yes
Solution:
The main reason why people will work for a company like this and live with the miserable living conditions is because they need the money – no matter how little it is. So let’s see how the Living Income Guaranteed will drastically improve the situation:
With the Living Income Guaranteed the workforce will no longer be able to be exploited, because that desperation to find a job no matter where it is or how terrible the work conditions are will no longer exist. When the people who cannot find work receive a Living Income they will no longer accept bad working conditions. The company will have to improve the working conditions otherwise they are going to have a hard time hiring the workforce needed to get the job done.
This Involves granting them good quality foods that they are used to eating, to create proper housing with full services for them – water, toilets – and proper working gear. Also what would need to be done is abolish all abuse – this means no threats and not deliberately creating debt for the workforce. These companies will need to apply and live by their corporate social responsibility measures; currently it’s only a front to make the companies look good.
With the basic Income Double the Living Income the laborers will be able to make a guaranteed decent living that will be paid on a weekly basis, no excuses allowed.
A Living Income Guaranteed will provide effective and practical solutions to all the current problems these laborers are facing and it is something this world needs – a Solution.
Investigate the Living Income Guaranteed Proposal
The Future of Education and the School of Life
In the previous post we did a thought experiment where we placed ourselves in the shoes of a child in today’s Western school system. I am sure many can relate to the experiences described and agree that the current school system is not optimal.
In this post we are therefore going to do a different thought experiment. We are going to imagine what it would be like to go to school in a potential future education system, an education system that honors and prioritizes the life and well being of our children, an educational system that doesn’t aim solely at producing future consumers to keep the wheels of corporate capitalism spinning, but on nurturing compassionate and independent individuals to live and become their full potential and become responsible members of society as a whole.
When politicians and scholars discuss educational reforms, the bottom line comes down how much money is allocated in the local and national budgets to optimize the education system. And as other parts of the economy are prioritized, the education system is often left with severe cutbacks, low wages for teachers and poor physical conditions.
However – in this thought experiment we’re going to take this point out of the equation. We’re doing this for the following reasons:
First of all, studies have shown that long term investments in quality education is far more profitable in the long-run than short-term cutbacks often resulting in increasing drop-out rates and educational inequality. Therefore, it is not valid to discuss budgets that are in no way acceptable when it comes to establishing an optimized education system as though it is a given condition when looking at educational reforms.
Secondly, within the proposal of a Living Income Guaranteed system we are proposing a fundamental restructuring of our economic systems, where supporting that which is best for ALL citizens is a primary principle and aim. What this means is that if we can all agree that education is so important that budgets shouldn’t determine how good our schools are, then budgets isn’t the first point that should be discussed when it comes to education, but in fact the last. The last meaning, we look at what would be optimal when it comes to creating an education system that is best for all and THEN we look at what is possible in terms of allocating resources; not the other way around. An example of how this makes it possible to finance an education system that in the short-term might be more ‘expensive’ than the one we have today (yet more profitable in the long run), could for example be through we as citizens deciding that an ample budget for our education systems is more important than an astronomical budget used to arm military forces. This is however not the only way that a Living Income Guaranteed system will make it possible to restructure a country’s economy, as several proposals have been made to for example nationalize resources and increase value added tax, so if this is something you are interested, you can read more about the proposals for financing a Living Income Guaranteed System.
Furthermore, one of the fundamental pillars of the proposal of a Living Income Guaranteed System especially in relation to a restructuring of our education systems, has to do with the fact that everyone who doesn’t work will be able to receive a Living Income, a ‘citizen’s wage’ if you will, and where those who do work will earn at least double what a living income provides, through placing the minimum wage at the double of the living income.
So to sum up the fundamental change of our education systems that a Living Income System provides in relation to education is that:
- In a Living Income system, parents will have the opportunity to spend more time with, and even be the primary educators of their children. They will in other words have more responsibility when it comes to the education of their children, but will also be better equipped at providing the best possible education for their children
- The people who do decide to become teachers and instructors will be those who are passionate about teaching as teaching will not simply be an easy access to a stable salary. This is an important point, because we have all experienced how demotivating it is to be taught by someone who’s not only unskilled at teaching but who also is highly ineffective at it and few of us have experienced the stark difference it is to be taught by someone who’s not only qualified but also passionate about teaching.
- The budget for education is determined only by how far we are willing to go to provide the best possible education for our children. What we are talking about here is not necessarily fancy school structures and infinite budgets for schools to take their students on fieldtrips. It is also not astronomical teachers salaries, but instead simply to – through resetting the idea that school budgets must be kept as low as possible – give ourselves the space and time to rethink what education can and should be. A specific example of this has to do with class sizes, which I covered in a recent blog that you can read here.
Instead of doing a thought experiment where we imagine a ‘Day in the Life’ of a child or parent in a Living Income system, I’d like to ask you to simply imagine for yourself how it would be like for you as a parent to raise your child in a world where struggling to survive is no longer the first priority because this point will be taken care of by the Living Income System. How will it be like to wake up in the morning? To get everyone dressed, fed and ready for the day? How will it be like to have the ‘luxury’ of the right to decide between parenting as a ‘life-path’, a career or even both, in a way that supports everyone involved?
How many mothers and fathers do not go to work every day feeling guilty, stressed and apathetic, knowing that they’re leaving their child in the hands of strangers? How many parents can honestly say that they have full trust in the daycare and education-system to do what is best for their children? And if they have the trust, how many will admit that it is a trust build on hope because anything else would be too unbearable to consider?
I’m sure many parents have considered homeschooling their children for this exact reason, but realistically speaking, how many are in a financial position where they are able to do so? And how many parents have had any form of training in terms of communicating with and effectively educating a child?
Imagine if all parents would receive proper training, similar to that of kindergarten- and elementary school teachers, but even more streamlined and supportive. How would your communication with your child change?
Obviously not all parents will want to be homeschoolers and therefore teachers will play an important role in a Living Income system. What I would like you to consider here is that schools and the education system in general does not have to be the way that it is currently. The current school-model is primarily based on an industrial perspective on education, where as many people are to be educated, as cheaply as possible, with the result that the current school system is actually not an optimal learning environment. It is therefore important that we dare to step out of the idea of schools only being one thing, one model and dare to imagine that it could be completely different. An example of this could be a much more streamlined and flexible transition between home-life and school-life, where a community of parents join together to create ‘mini-schools’. If families living together in the same apartment building for example come together in a joint effort to take care of and educate their children, it would mean that some parents could work, whereas others could stay in the community and care for the children. Maybe the parents could even hire a teacher if they prefer to do so; with the teacher being an individual whose passion it is to be a teacher.
Teaching ought to be a ‘calling’ that people decides to do because they’re passionate about teaching. Imagine if all teachers were people who truly enjoy and are exceptionally skilled at teaching, imagine a small group of students all working together and at the same time with individualized curricular aligned to their individual needs. The importance of passionate teachers is not to be underestimated and studies have even shown much difference a teacher makes when it is someone who truly enjoys what they are doing.
Many of the most skilled and qualified teachers today quit their jobs because the working conditions are unacceptable. To retain their integrity and respect for the teaching-profession they actually have to quit their jobs because they see that the current system in no way will allow them to teach in the way they see will truly benefit the children. With 35 children in a classroom having to be taught according to a standardized curriculum and given an exuberant amount of tests, it is no wonder that these compassionate and creative teachers decide to quit their jobs. Instead teaching becomes something you do if you don’t know what else to do or because you see it as an easy access to a stable income. That is certainly not how it should be. However – what we’re suggesting with the Living Income proposal is not that the solution then is to merely give teachers higher salaries. Instead we suggest that teachers are giving a Living Income due to the fact that their performing a public service and it is detrimental for the teaching-profession if becoming a teacher is something one does for the money.
What we are proposing instead is to provide teachers, and so students with optimized learning environments and conditions; small student groups, time to prepare and do research, resources and equipment available that need all the teachers needs.
Imagine what it would be like in such a school environment where the highest priority is on the joy of learning, not as a platitude we tell our students, but as a real statement of intent that translates into practical reality as learning environments optimized to fit all students needs: spaces for reading and introspection, labs equipped with everything needed to effectively teach biology and physics, music studios, painting studios, language labs, excursions to local work-places, guest lecturers, internships for older students – basically a strong coherence between school-life and the rest of society where school isn’t merely a simulation or containment facility but where it actually becomes an integral part of society, given equal importance and priority.
Imagine if all students were taught in exactly the way that fits their individual needs, imagine if all students were treated with great care and consideration when it comes to nurture and support them to reach their true potential. Wouldn’t the world look very different? Wouldn’t we as people be more fulfilled on an individual level and better equipped at stepping into society as highly contributory citizens?
Imagine an education system that truly honors its students, that show them the greatest respect in teaching them to honor life. Imagine an education system where compassion and equality are not simply slogans we throw around to make our excuse for an education system look better, but an integral part of a child’s daily life.
As you can see, the sky is really the limit when it comes to imagining an education system that is optimized and aligned to each student’s individual need. There are so many possibilities available once we step out of the limits of the current education system where schools are pressed to the max to keep budgets down and deliver a fully standardized education.
As a teacher, I stand 100 % behind the proposal for a Living Income system because I would for one like to see and experience an education system that truly honors the human potential, that does not compromise and that has as its chief aim to ensure that all children are educated in the best way possible to harness their unique potential in this world. I would like to see the adults that walk out of such an education system and I have no doubt that the world will be forever changed because of it. This can truly be an exciting time to be alive – if only we dare to step out of our comfort zones and realize that we are capable of so much more, if only we start honoring and celebrating life – and what better place to start doing that than through the potential of our children?
If you are ready to get involved in a political and economic change of paradigms and thereby also a change of our education systems, I invite you to investigate the Equal Life Foundation’s proposal of a Guaranteed Living Income System. This proposal suggests a groundbreaking change in political paradigms that doesn’t ‘take sides’ but instead presents a completely new approach to solving the problems we are currently facing in this world.
Re-Educate yourself here:
A couple of weeks ago I was part of the panel on a Live Google Hangout about the Common Core standards initiative. I definitely recommend watching it.
The Ultimate History Lesson with John Taylor Gatto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQiW_l848t8
PROPAGANDA | FULL ENGLISH VERSION (2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NMr2VrhmFI
The Century of the Self
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7EwXmxpExw
Psywar
http://metanoia-films.org/psywar/
The Trap
http://archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_TheTrap
The Power Principle
http://metanoia-films.org/the-power-principle/
Human Resources: Social Engineering in the 20th Century
http://metanoia-films.org/human-resources/
The Story of Your Enslavement
http://youtu.be/Xbp6umQT58A
Blind Spot
https://vimeo.com/30559203
Inequality for all documentary:
http://www.putlocker.to/watch-inequality-for-all-online-free-putlocker.html
The Four Horsemen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fbvquHSPJU
On Advertisement and the end of the world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8gM0Q58iP0
Third World America – Chris Hedges
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drZE65_134g
More articles about parenting and education in a Guaranteed Living Income System:
http://livingincomeforall.wordpress.com/2014/04/03/parents-need-a-living-income-now/
https://livingincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/category/parenting/
http://economistjourneytolife.blogspot.com/2014/01/day-259-living-income-guaranteed-and.html
Watch the hangout about Education for a New World in Order: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlj5wGCRnSU
For Further Information, Follow these Links:
Taking Leave may mean the End of your Job – Solutions?
“It’s like a bachelor party for your career! Or having someone buying you dinner and then assume that means he’s owed sexual intercourse! Anyway, apparently telling people to take a vacation before they come to work for you is becoming a thing now.
Writing this week in Slate, Will Oremus reports on this phenomenon, telling the tale of Jason Freedman, the CEO of a San Francisco-based commercial real estate search engine company called 42 floors. Freedman offers what he calls paid “pre-cations” to new hires, explaining, “It’s like, ‘Yeah, have a great time! And when you get back here, work your ass off.’” The point is, that sounds terrible.
As Oremus points out, we are already a vastly overworked nation. We put in considerably more hours than we did a generation ago — and most of us are doing it while facing what the New York Times last year called “flatlined” wages. A new study released last month revealed that Americans take only about half the vacation time they’re entitled to, missing out on the equivalent of “over 500 million” days off a year. Why? Because they’re afraid of repercussions, an anxiety reinforced by what MarketWatch notes is “company culture and lack of encouragement from management to take time off.” People are reluctant to take vacations for fear they’ll be revealed as expendable.”
See more at: http://www.salon.com/2014/10/01/the_pre_vacation_is_a_trap/
Well now, what a problem we have here. In the article above you can see how taking paid leave is something that most people simply cannot do, because it could mean the end of their job. Getting a job is a big problem in this world and when you do have a job you will do anything to keep it, because you need the money to survive in this world.
This gives employers power over the employees. There are many people looking for jobs, so if you are deemed replaceable you will simply be replaced. So if it means you have works your ass off every day and not take any leave then there is nothing you can do about it unless you risk getting fired. This leads to bad work situations and over worked, overstressed employees. This will only get worse unless something changes.
A solution that will end this fear and anxiety of losing a job if you take your leave which you are in fact entitled to would be the Living Income Guaranteed. This will give power to the employees and create a dignified work environment. With the minimum wage being double the Living income people will have enough money to live. This will stop the abuse of employees, because they could simply leave and find a better place to work so the employer will need to treat his employees with care to keep them working there.
Workers will feel supported and cared for by their employers, which will result in individuals that no longer feel pressured and enforced to only be a profit-making machine, but will feel happy and content to realize that their work is being truly remunerated and that their time and contribution to the corporation is being valued as the life-time investment it actually is. A well remunerated individual will create a happier and fulfilled society that is no longer afraid of not having sufficient money to feed their family, it will be the beginning of a new era of quality work that dignifies the lives of human beings that genuinely desire to improve their lifestyles.
For Further Information, Follow these Links:
What is the Living Income Guaranteed?
Living Income Guaranteed is an economic and political mechanism to ensure the establishment of Fundamental Human Birth Rights of the public through allocating an allowance on a monthly basis to every eligible individual that is currently in a position of being unable to sustain themselves – and/or people in their custody – financially to a level that Human Dignity deserves and that currently lack such support due to reasons beyond their immediate control including – but not limited to – unemployment, lacking access to food, lacking access to housing, lacking access to healthcare, lacking access to education, physical disability, being retired or not old enough to have a job.
This is within the understanding that the existence of poverty and lack of education as the key to have a job and means to live is the result and outflow of the economic system’s malfunction, providing an unfair allocation of National Natural Resources, being unable to support every living individual with sufficient access to fundamental living necessities. The most immediate remedy is to eradicate poverty, through allocating/designating a monthly allowance to those that don’t have access to their fundamental living necessities, thereby empowering them to establish a dignified life, enabling each one to reach their potential, choose a career and contribute to the economy through their skill, labour and purchasing power.
Why is it called Living Income instead of Basic Income?
It is called ‘Living Income’ because it won’t only provide each one with the minimum required to survive, it implies sufficient allowance that is able to cover the fundamental expenses required for a dignified living – Why? Because this will enable people to reach their creative potential, return to the job market, become independent from the Living Income and contribute to the progression of the economy.
This means that a Living Income Guaranteed should be provided to all individuals that are currently unable to participate in any economic activity due to the lack of jobs/education/health. However those that don’t participate in any economic activity but do have sufficient money to live due to, for example, family wealth, inheritance or any other regular income won’t qualify nor require the Living Income Guaranteed.
Why is Living Income Guaranteed Not Unconditional?
The reason why it is not given to all people unconditionally is because this would undermine the sustainability of an economic system that does require people to be motivated to educate themselves and work to enable the continuation and functionality of our societies.
That means that people that work won’t get the Living Income Guaranteed?
That’s right, however we Do propose that the Minimum Wage is Doubled (twice the Living Income Allowance), which means that there will be a series of reforms to take place first to make the Living Income Guaranteed a sufficient Allowance granted to cover fundamental living necessities, which is within the context of our current economy More than our current Minimum Wage standards.
This allowance should be sufficient for an individual to have dignified living conditions with guaranteed access to their fundamental human birth rights: Food, Water, Housing, Healthcare, Education, Clothing, Transportation, Public Services, etc.
Now to motivate people to work, the new minimum wage should be Double the Living Income Guaranteed in the most common economic activities which are at the moment associated with retail workers, waiters, cashiers, transportation workers, fast food industries, etc..
So, anyone that genuinely wants to have a top quality lifestyle will not conform to only getting the minimum as the Living Income, but continue educating themselves, developing further skills to make more money and have more financial solvency.
What’s in it for the corporations with implementing the Living Income Guaranteed model?
A broader consumer base. Those that previously had no money to live and as such were not economically active will suddenly become active participants in the economy which will ensure that profit is also broadened for corporations, realizing that if more buyers emerge, there will be more profit that can be used to better the working conditions, to diminish the compulsive production and instead adapt the prices to make things affordable, with great quality and providing a secure and harmonious working base, as well as proceeding to fund the automation of jobs that are currently deteriorating human health.
Workers will feel supported and cared for by their employers, which will result in individuals that no longer feel pressured and enforced to only be a profit-making machine, but will feel happy and content to realize that their work is being truly remunerated and that their time and contribution to the corporation is being valued as the life-time investment it actually is. A well remunerated individual will create a happier and fulfilled society that is no longer afraid of not having sufficient money to feed their family, it will be the beginning of a new era of quality work that dignifies the lives of human beings that genuinely desire to improve their lifestyles.
Why is the implementation of a Living Income Guaranteed an immediate solution to the economic crisis?
More than a solution to a crisis, it should be understood as the way to guarantee that the Fundamental Human Rights to each individual are properly funded through allocating an Allowance as the access to the necessary things one requires to live in a dignified way – this is within the principle of Giving to others what we would like to receive, and if we want to live in a peaceful society, to have a happy and healthy living condition, we then must give access to this Allowance/Income as a living certainty that will eradicate the need to resort to crime, panhandling, homelessness, lacking education, health care that results in economical regression affecting every individual in society.
It is common sense that if we give an Allowance to every eligible individual to be well nourished, have proper living conditions with the fundamental necessary services, health care and leisure time, more educated beings will emerge from this when realizing that if one is given support as in getting an income to cover one’s living necessities, one learns how to give back to society too. This will be understood as a living principle that applies to every living being on Earth beyond any political, social, religious or ideological affiliation. We’re talking about physical living necessities that all human beings require to live in a dignified and sustainable way.
On top of this, many jobs are being replaced by the rise of the machine, which will require more restructuring processes in our economy to finally upgrade the premise of being able to ‘make a living by having a job’ because if jobs are currently not available to all – regardless of having college degrees and necessary skills to have one – then it is certain that a new understanding of our economy should be grasped as supportive mechanism for all individuals rather than a restrictive and coercive one.
In the past, long-term policies and treaties have attempted to benefit the working class over time, and it has proven to be inefficient for the tightening policies implemented by corporations as well as the economic outflows have deviated their effectiveness. This is how through a direct intervention to provide the Living Income as an Allowance and doubling of the minimum wage, we are directing the problem at the root, instead of expecting third party actors and policies to solve the situation throughout time.
Will the Living Income Guaranteed undermine competition and as such create economic stagnation in society?
Not at all, actually it’s the other way around. If we define competition as the ability achieve the best living condition in a society, by allocating Allowance to every eligible individual that previously had no access to it, we assure the activation of the economy and impulse people to work if they do want to have a greater economic solvency to cover other consumer desires for extra commodities that are not able to be paid for with the Living Income Guaranteed. Also, there is no limit to how much money you or corporations can make as long as their businesses do not interfere in any way with the nationalization of natural resources or fundamental public services – that is the condition. That means that the rules of a free market still apply and as such, the only constitutional and governmental management will be to supervise the implementation of the Living Income Guaranteed, as well as conducting the usual maintenance, management and provision of public goods and the justice department.
The more you prepare yourself, the better work you’ll have, the more benefits which means you will earn more money as well. Competition means bettering oneself to perform a certain activity the best way one can and this is an essential part of human nature that has kept our societies remaining competitive, innovative and creative at a local and global level.
You will also be able to truly have free choice on which work is best for you instead of engaging in working contracts based on need rather than preference or choice. This is the way to implement a real ethical environment at work too, where no more exploitation occurs since any job won’t be the result of a need to work in order to survive, but rather become a means and incentive to increase the quality of life.
How will it be funded?
Through the nationalization of resources , banks and basic services which means that if, for example, your oil, gas, water, electricity, telecommunications ,transportation is defined as patrimony of the people, the profit that comes from the consumption/purchase of such goods and services should be sufficient to fund the Living Income Guaranteed for eligible individuals. This means there will be no need to have personal taxation but instead keep the VAT (Value Added Tax) as it is to continue funding the functions of the government – this is also within the consideration that as the purchasing power increases and consumer base broadens, the funds coming from VAT will also increase creating more solvency in governmental budget as well, which translates to higher quality public welfare.
Thus with the Living Income Guaranteed there is one thing that is of vital importance: no one in the system, no citizen will pay tax – all tax will be facilitated by either value added tax or sales tax or import duties. If you have a government system that is responsible because you have a system where each one is functioning effectively within the system, you do not need excessive tax; your tax is spent on things like roadwork, transport facilitation – all things that can be handled ‘in house’.
One of the things that can work quite effectively also in a country is to have a toll tax on the roads which are managed by the government and that keeps the roads in place, so according to the use that one has of a road = will be the amount of tax you pay, but there will be in this proposal no income tax, so nobody is going to pay for anyone’s Living Income Guaranteed, it’s coming from the resource companies which everybody in the country are participating in and your sales tax or your value added tax will be according to the amount of your participation within a particular system – this is a fair way of dealing with government tax collection.
This is how the distribution of wealth and profits is expanded onto those that would have no benefit from the commercialization of natural resources and basic services, and due to the constant consumption and requirement of these, it is ensured that the foundation of the Living Income Guaranteed will always remain sustainable and have sufficient funds to cover the beneficiaries’ expenses.
Another example is how through stopping allocating money to fund wars, the trillions of dollars that are spent in the warfare industry can be designated to revitalize the economy through funding the Living Income Guaranteed and supporting the health care, education, commerce, production industries and basic services that require to be improved at home.
Will Public Services also be Nationalized?
Health care, education, water, electricity, telecommunications, media, banks will also be nationalized. Each country will have to assess their available resources in order for the government to make sufficient profit to fund the Living Income Guaranteed.
How can we implement the Living Income Guaranteed?
Through a political proposal, through existing or new political parties that have this mechanism as their key card to gain the majority vote to have our Fundamental Human Rights guaranteed through the Living Income Guaranteed. This means that the right to a Living Income must be granted on a constitutional basis – this is a national-based system constituted at a political level and able to be voted on within a democratic process based on the principle of one man, one vote.
Investigate more at:
Living Income Guaranteed with Labor as Interest
With the nationalization of banks within the Living Income Guaranteed and the eradication of interest on money, the money supply will grow as a function of labor. The labor has a capital value that will increase the money supply. This has been effectively used by the Germans where they made labor one of the foundations of their economic system. And within the Living Income Guaranteed where you have a Living Income for all your basic needs and you have a guaranteed minimum wage that is double the Living Income Guaranteed, your labor value will be predetermined as part of every product and service produced.
This means that the input of your labor as value is reflected and revealed within the price of goods and services. This way each person will understand that part of the price is another person’s livelihood, and that as you give = you will receive. Labor then becomes part of the economic value system, part of the production cost – which must be valued sufficiently to be able to support the laborer.
Labor is the action of the human with a measurable value which will be like the accumulation of interest and you’ll have a compound interest effect, which will have the effect of an ever expanding economy, ensuring that everyone in the country has sufficient support to have a dignified life. This is a fascinating point that economists should have adopted long ago, but unfortunately labor has been demonized instead of realizing that that is the actual only real interest that can exist within a system based on money.
Equal Life Foundation Research Team
Living Income Guaranteed and Education
One of the fundamental issues in the world today is that education has become irrelevant, because it is based on the value that you can give to a corporation or a business to make a profit. Therefore even your labor and your education do not belong to you and do not add value to the system and do not allow you to effectively participate in the world for the betterment of everyone.
In South Africa for instance, there’s now a point system where your education is based on a life-long learning process that accumulates points. In the Living Income Guaranteed system, education will be the enhancement of your labor value – your labor value being the capital growth that you add to the system. It will also be the way we add money to the money supply and the way we grow the economy. According to your education and the points you add to your labor value, your service and labor fees that will determine your income value will accordingly increase at a guaranteed level, as it will be a set framework that is equal for everyone.
We will be able to increase our capacity to earn by increasing our labor value through increasing our education. This is why education will be important to be at a quality and evaluation level that is equal, so that the labor value increase is equal. The form of competition within the system would then be your drive to improve your labor value through education. This will bring education back into value and it will ensure that those with effective accumulated labor value increase, as education will take prominent positions based on the quality of labor which will thus produce a new living standard within the world system: it will bring about a quality in service, a quality in the general living conditions of the human as we will have a system of education based on integrity as a result of having an economic system based on integrity.
Our labor will be worth our value, which will be important especially in terms of the Living Income Guaranteed because your service fee/labor fee will carry a value of service tax/ sales tax/ value added tax which is a form of tax value that is created through labor and not through resource, and thus will facilitate in large, the ability of the system to supply and to sustain a Living Income Guaranteed.
Equal Life Foundation Research Team
Living Income Guaranteed and Business Transparency
Within the Living Income Guaranteed with a capitalist approach, profit is one of its cornerstones; therefore it must be ensured. Another point that tends to waste extensive money is the point that new businesses are started which then fail.From that perspective it is a suggested that there – like you have with city planning – you have business planning where it is assessed what type of businesses the community can sustain that is possible within the money supply that exists, and that those businesses are then planned-out and offered to the citizen to take on with full support from the business planning section which should be part as a governmental function, a citizen support function ensuring that businesses do not fail.
This will save massive amounts of money which makes Living Income Guaranteed a very cheap solution to a situation where there is seemingly endless amounts of money ending up in either foreclosure and/or failure and/or abuse and/or maladministration. At this stage there are no actual figures being kept of all of this – we never get to know the real numbers of how much is actually wasted. But there is more wasted through business failure, maladministration, charity and foundation creation abuse due to the influence of the consumer than what is needed to bring about a Living Income Guaranteed.
You should ask yourself some questions:
- Why are the no clear figures that inform the population of the administration of resources?
- Why are there no figures kept of how much is actually lost through foreclosure?
- How much is actually lost through businesses that are going bankrupt?
- How much is actually lost through people losing their jobs at this stage, unable to participate in the system, unable for instance to pay tax or to buy stuff to increase the revenue streams?
- How much is wasted by corrupt government officials?
- How much is directed toward inappropriate placement of tenders?
These are massive amounts beyond belief; how much is happening because there’s no oversight and everybody participating in the system knows one thing: there are resources being stolen and there is maladministration and corruption, that’s why they don’t want transparency, it’s convenient.
In some countries like South Africa, there’s the prospect of placing in laws to ‘limit transparency,’ which is no different to saying ‘Let’s legalize corruption!’. So the integrity of the human within a Living Income Guaranteed system should be administrated through a system. We have the technology now to have systems in place that can support the human to the extent of creating a system that is trustworthy and that assists everyone effectively in the world. We have the expertise to do this, now we need the will to stop corruption and to stop abuse. This can be done by Guaranteeing a Basic Income, guaranteeing a minimum wage and guaranteeing profit because all these three foundational stones will actually guarantee the existence and expansion of Capitalism and bring about a high functioning and effective society with the use of technology to produce what will ensure proper usage of resources, technology and human creativity. This cannot happen without a sense of freedom and money does give a sense of freedom.
We have come to the conclusion that trying to establish a society without a way within which the human can express their freedom is simply not going to work. Freedom is in money, it translates as the ability to express yourself in a way where you feel empowered as well as having your Basic Human Rights recognized and dignified. Not having enough money is to disempower people and to force them into crime and as you’ve noticed, massive amounts of money are lost to crime. All these things will stop if we have in place a proper technological system which we can establish with great ease at this stage. We have the technology and the managerial mechanisms to do so. In a matter of a few years, the whole world will be an internet grid and we can make use of all these things to prevent crime and corruption.
Living Income Guaranteed is not only an opportunity to support yourself from an economic perspective in terms of ensuring everyone’s survival, but also from the economic perspective to have an equal opportunity to support yourself and your family, which is a Basic Human Right. This is the equal right we give to each other to potentially become wealthy individuals while ensuring all resources are made available for everyone equally.
Equal Life Research Team
Living Income and the Music Industry
The music industry is one of the industries that has suffered the most under the current format of consumerism and capitalism. We have a peculiar scenario that developed where more than 90% of popular music became popular with some underlying sexual innuendo within the context of the music.
It’s as if music became a form of pornography, and because pornography has become something that up to now has been apparently something protected by free speech, we also created this in our music. Within this we are destroying true creativity within our musical arts, where we end up only with popularized music that is deliberately promoted within the vile of consumerism: where there is nothing that drives it but profit, and obviously entertaining the consumer to remain in a positive mindset of hope looking for the fulfillment of pleasure. This certainly is not music.
We expect that within the Living Income Guaranteed, the musician will have sufficient income on a Living Income Guaranteed to be able to truly develop their music and to explore building an audience that appreciates the music they create. The same will happen with the other arts in terms of painting, films, theater, literature, etc. If one no longer needs to make the music simply for the purposes of survival and you have sufficient support to truly explore your skills, the appreciation of the listener of the music enthusiast will grow substantially and we will develop a culture within our higher appreciations that will bring us a whole new era in music. All of this is facilitated through a simple principle: once each one is taken care of in their basic needs to live a life of decency, their ability is set free to find a higher form of expression. This higher form of expression is truly what everyone claims ‘they’ve been looking for’ but never considered that one requires a Practical Economic Model to set free the creative human potential. It will take time, but inevitably we foresee that we will become much more appreciative of arts and music and much more critical of content, expecting a higher value from our fellow human as we no longer are biased through our need to ‘feel hope for the future’ through some form of positive innuendo that is underlying abuse through our sexual expressions that has come through our generations.
In a society where you have felt like you were not supported in any way and you really have nothing to lose because you’ve already lost everything = the choice to be irresponsible was accentuated. In a more balanced society, one where everyone is taken care of within a Living Income Guaranteed structure will develop self-responsibility and self-respect, because Living Income Guaranteed in itself would be a statement by every human towards their fellow human “I respect you as life” and that statement, that certainty that one is protected and supported: will start changing human nature.
Equal Life Foundation Research
Related Post: Day 235: Living Income and Effective Markets
Living Income Guaranteed and Labor Unions
In a democratic system where the citizens elect a management as government to look after their well being and their Human Rights, collective bargaining should not be ever necessary, neither should be the existence of labor unions. Labor is one of the capitals, one of the contributions of a citizen to their country to make it a better place for everyone. The fact that labor unions and collective bargaining is necessary to try and enforce the most basic Human Right as the right to dignity and financial economic stability of a citizen indicates that there is something fundamentally wrong with the system that is currently being accepted. A Living Income Guaranteed and a minimum wage are things that should be the basis of study of economics to ensure that the design of the economic system provides for this. Therefore, competition within the creation of products and basic necessities should be based on quality and effective support and not on driving down prices lower to create more unemployment and to destroy Fundamental Human Rights.
Labor unions should study the Living Income proposal and use their collective bargaining power to start working towards an economic solution that is effective for all the citizens in the country. Leaders that do not stand and deliver the basic necessities for all citizens and that do not protect the rights of the citizens as humans should not be elected that – this is the benefit we have with democracy. Democracy should not be a mockery as it is now; it should be the tool with which we ensure that our representation is in fact representing our Living Human Rights, not only yours individually but all the citizens of a country – that’s patriotism. A patriot will look after all people in the country, not their own pocket only.
We expect to have some labor unions that can actually function within the understanding of what is best for all citizens in a country to ensure that they recognize themselves as a political force that brings about change.
Equal Life Foundation Research
Living Income Guaranteed and Pensions
The industries that are currently profiting from all the misfortunes in a person’s life no longer need to exist because your Living Income Guaranteed facilitates all the points and ensures that no one is ever without capital when they’re unemployed or if you have been in an accident and you cannot work = you’ll still have an income; the same applies if you have a family and the bread owner dies, the family still has an income. All the points where insurance existed which has been the recipient where people has placed their money, has caused such major havoc in the world within the financial sector because this money then goes into the stock markets to mess with the world food prices and to come with the idea that apparently ‘there are ways to make money’ so it becomes part of the global market casino. The end of this casino is possible with Living Income Guaranteed, although other corporations will still probably want to benefit from it and have shareholding, that will still happen; but your shareholding will no longer be vested in major corporations or life insurance companies, it will be the individual that will invest through their bank – and the bank being one of their own businesses in which they have shares that will facilitate and manage the investment in the privately owned and financed corporations, so that the distribution of money and the management of the system becomes highly efficient.
All of this can be computerized with great simplicity as a mechanism that can be trusted once placed and tested. This is how we can reduce the problems coming from humans making mistakes, because with the machine and with software one can manage the distribution, the placement of investments a lot easier. So, a citizen can decide that they want to support a particular business and buy shares in it and then once there is a profit declared by that company, the citizen benefits from the profit through dividends – these dividends are tax free, because there is no personal tax and there is also no corporate tax – so one can use that to spend on luxury items and so, the cash flow of the economy increases, which means job creation increases which means there are more jobs available for people that want to earn a better living and not only exist with a Living Income Guaranteed, yet Living Income Guaranteed is sufficient to make a decent living.
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Equal Life Foundation Research Team
