The Universal Basic Income Sham

The notion that a universal basic income can plug the gaps in an economy built on myths and techno-hype are a cover for the  guilty minds who  have put America in this  position.  For every new digital innovation that creates fortunes for a few, jobs are disappearing by the thousands.  This discussion between two knowledgeable columnists makes me think all the more that a UBI is simply an escape hatch for dream-weavers from the inevitability of a jobless future.  

Meanwhile, the world's most robust engine of innovation is toying with leadership choices who would prolong the dream-induced fantasy that America can be "made strong again" by  the  same old lies.  Wealth doesn't trickle down.  Mostly it sticks to the innovators as real estate, luxury goods and investment portfolios.  

Nobody  seems to be  able  to answer the obvious question:  where is the  wealth going  to come from  to pay everybody  a basic income to be unemployed and like it well enough not to  revolt?  Surely nobody  thinks that the same folks who hoarded their wealth while the public bailed out  the economy in 2008-9 are going  to  underwrite  a new economic reality.

  

Futurehype: The Genesis of Greed

Compliments of Stefan Morrell @ coolvibe.com

During this winter of their discontent, the "Occupy" movement might do well to consider the genesis of the myth that progress was preordained and inexhaustible.  While that may be so, total surrender to the myth made us vulnerable to futurehype, the subtext of life.

Occupy the Blogosphere

Occupation forces have gone into hibernation in many places as the authorities have moved in to shut down their encampments. But the melody should linger on. Economic disparity certainly will.

In an effort to do our part, Prophets of Boom will feature two kinds of posts over the coming months. The first stream will be drawn from a book manuscript written a decade ago but unpublished because nobody was ready to acknowledge the threat posed to individual and collective sovereignty by mounting debt loads. Entitled "Futurehype", each post in the series will describe how North Americans were lulled into thinking that the honeypot of postwar prosperity was bottomless. 

 There will be stories of naiveté, of greed and of gullibility, to be sure.  American Greed wasn’t just discovered to explain the credit crash of 2008.  More to the point, there will be accounts of how faith in technology and the pipeline of mass communications overheated expectations.  In a real way we allowed ourselves to be brainwashed by our own ingenuity.  In the process, we lost sight of our core values. That, basically, is how we let ourselves get in so deep. 

 The second stream of posts in this blog will be based on our search for answers out of the current economic de-stabilization.  In this search we will be asking whether the Conversation of a Generation is beginning to take shape.  Is there anything happening out there to give us hope that the most innovative and productive society in history can work its way out of this slump?  What are people proposing to do differently?

 This series will not be a simplistic critique of capitalism run amok.  Rather, it will be an exploration of ways to shape our collective experience for the common good.

 Has Occupy Wall Street really signalled the start of something big?  Or are we programmed to sleepwalk into a new Dark Ages? 

 Along the way, readers will be urged to look for solutions themselves and tell the rest of us what they have found out.  We will be … and we will post our findings as they emerge.   

Boulevards of Broken Dreams

The conversation of the generation is far from coherent.  Dismantling of the camp-style occupations across North America is inevitable because civic authorities and police have the clout of municipal public safety ordinances and criminal law behind them.  But it has been kicked off with a messy display of unrest in hundreds of communities. 

By accepting all comers, as recommended in the last post, the gene pool of earnest protesters was certain to become diluted by malingerers and mere malcontents. It may have been glib to exhort people to “Just Show Up.”  Confrontational face-offs in city parks, vacant lots and boulevards of broken dreams were sure to occur when these unruly assemblies squared off with officialdom bent on enforcing public health and safety regulations.  But it was called for all the same.

Make no mistake -- the boulevards will be cleared, if not by official edict, by the relentless cycle of the seasons.  The last chance before the freeze to exhibit outrage at rampant greed and runaway free market dogma through outdoor housekeeping is upon us.  Some demonstrators have been better housekeepers than others and the movement is being defined by the habits of a messy few.

Demonstrators are making the most of the opportunity through resistance to the order to decamp.      

But it’s time to practise indoor housekeeping again.  There will be other opportunities to demonstrate.  Income disparity is as certain as death and, yes, taxes.  That’s because of who holds power – and who doesn’t.  

It’s time for the boulevardiers to stand down before things get any uglier.  Violence should never be the hallmark of this movement and that too is inevitable the longer the standoffs prevail.

The importance of the occupy movement is that it marked the moment when the conversation of the generation began in earnest.  In that alone it has accomplished something momentous.