© Corbett Report
TANSTAAFL.
As you may or may not know, depending on how much anarchist sci-fi literature you consume, "TANSTAAFL" is an acronym meaning "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch." But while TANSTAAFL may have been popularized by Robert Heinlein in his 1996 classic,
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, at base it's just a reformulation of the age-old historical wisdom that nothing advertised as "free" is ever really free. As anyone ever suckered into a high-pressure timeshare pitch on the basis of a "free weekend getaway" offer will know, there is always a hidden cost to any "free" item.
So when one particular "free lunch" idea is being pimped by a rogue's gallery of tyrants and billionaires-from Nobel Warmonger
Barack Obama to rabid eugenicist
Bill Gates to Facebook founder
Mark Zucker-borg to serial scammer
Elon Musk-you might want to ask yourself what the real cost of this manna from heaven is.
And which "free lunch" idea am I referring to, exactly? Why, universal basic income (UBI), of course.
For the few people reading this who've never heard of UBI, it refers to a program in which every* citizen receives
a periodic payment from the government with no strings attached* (*more on these asterisks in a moment). The idea is promoted by organizations like the
Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) as a means of promoting "liberty and equality, efficiency and community, common ownership of the Earth and equal sharing in the benefits of technical progress, the flexibility of the labour market and the dignity of the poor, the fight against inhumane working conditions, against the desertification of the countryside and against interregional inequalities, the viability of cooperatives and the promotion of adult education, autonomy from bosses, husbands and bureaucrats."
In other words: Free lunch is served, everybody!
Although the idea of a UBI has been around for decades, it never really caught on until everyone began fearing that the rise of the robots and the automation of everything will leave masses of people unemployed and angry. Now it's the hottest discussion topic for technocrats and tyrants of all stripes, from the
literal transhumanists of
Futurism.com to the pampered plutocrats at the
World Economic Forum. And as BIEN and their like-minded basic income proponents will tell you, it's not just an idea. Universal basic income programs are already being trialed all around the globe!
. . . Well, OK, not
universal basic income. That's still not being trialed. But small-scale studies involving thousands of people are being done in Finland, Canada, Kenya, Brazil. A UBI-type program is now even being
proposed in Chicago (with
Obomber's blessing, of course).
But perhaps you are a tad incredulous that a government program to "unconditionally" rain
helicopter money down on everyone will really solve poverty or end unemployment. If so, then give yourself a cookie.
The proposal is a scam on every level, one being proposed by economic illiterates who truly believe they have found the secret to poverty eradication hiding out in plain sight. "Just give everybody free money!" Oh, of course! Why didn't I think of that?Now you might think that there is some nuance here that is being missed. "Come on, James," you rejoin. "Surely the UBI advocates aren't arguing that giving everybody in the US $12,000 a year will raise everyone to the federal poverty line and thus eradicate poverty, are they? I mean, they know about inflation, right?"
No, you don't understand. That's
exactly what they're arguing. Go on,
listen. This is literally the same level of economic understanding that I had when I used to discuss these ideas with my friends in elementary school. I mean, really, if giving everybody $12,000 a year would end poverty, why stop there? Give everybody $1,000,000 a year and everyone will be a millionaire! Awesome!
But this is not an economic argument. If it were simply a case of some well-meaning but mathematically challenged do-gooders trying to end poverty with magical money from the government printing press, that would be one thing. But it is much worse than that. It is yet another case where the eugenicists and technocrats are using the good intentions and naรฏvetรฉ of the masses to forge the next link in the chain that binds the people to the powers-that-shouldn't-be.
Remember those asterisks in the UBI description above: "every* citizen receives a periodic payment from the government with no strings attached*." Let's interrogate those propositions, shall we?
Will every citizen receive this payment? Yes, absolutely . . . I mean, as long as they have a bank account that the government can deposit funds into, obviously. And who doesn't have a bank account these days?
Oh, how about the vast majority of
the poorest people on the planet?
Well then they'll just have to get banked! And to help that process along, why not create a government program to mandate biometric identification for every citizen in the country that can then be tied directly to their bank account and taxation records?Sound far-fetched? It's already been done. It's called India's
Aadhaar program, and it has enrolled 1.2 billion Indian residents in the world's largest biometric database (with only a couple of
minor hiccups along the way). When discussing the UBI idea from the Indian perspective at
Davos last year, Amitabh Kant-the CEO of the Indian government's main policy think tank-actually bragged that
Aadhaar would make Indian implementation of UBI a snap. Now if only the rest of the developing world would catch up and get their citizens biometrically scanned and databased we could get them out of poverty, too!
Which brings us to that other asterisk. You know, the "no strings attached" claim. The idea would be that everyone receives the payment automatically. No forms to fill out, no hoops to jump through, no bureaucracy, no exceptions.
. . .
Except. Well, I mean there may be an exception here and there, right? You wouldn't want to give a UBI to a criminal, would you? Or a terrorist. Or someone who might potentially use the funds to undermine the state.
Think of how UBI might be implemented in China, for example. A country where a growing
biometric control grid is feeding into an already
sprawling surveillance state. A country where every citizen receives a
social credit score to reward "
good citizenship" and where that score is
already being used to determine whether someone should be allowed to travel on trains or planes in the glorious socialist paradise of the People's Republic. Do you think it just might be possible that
President-For-Life Xi and his ChiCom cronies might tie a "guaranteed" government income to the social credit score, too? Is it within the realm of possibility that those who fail to genuflect to the party flag might be flagged for political wrongthink and left off the roles of a Chinese UBI?
"But that's communist China, James. Such a thing wouldn't happen in the land of the free!"
Oh really? Then why are the participants in the
World Economic Forum's UBI discussion all talking about tying the program to "civic responsibilities" like national service and mandatory vaccination and compulsory voting? What happens to those poor comrades who don't wish to worship at the feet of their government or legitimize the state in the charade of voting? Will we, too, be left out of this glorious socialist experiment? (Spoiler: Yes. Yes, we will.)
This is the logic of the "free" lunch. It's completely and totally free! . . . As long as you're willing to pay.UBI proponents will pretend that anyone who disbelieves their fairy tale is in favor of the status quo or is a heartless libertarian monster who wants poor people to die (so why were
Hayek and
Friedman both for forms of guaranteed government income?). This is a strawman.
Poverty and unemployment are obviously real problems, but the roots of these problems are not a lack of bank-created, debt-based "money" being sloshed into people's electronic bank accounts each month and these problems will not be solved by magic government printing press pixie dust. They are caused by an erosion of the non-governmental civil institutions that once provided for the
poor and
sick within the community and the rise of the cradle-to-grave welfare state mentality where only the government can help the poor. They are caused by the banksters who create the debt treadmill that undergirds the monetary system itself, the politicians who foster public dependence on the state, the corporate cronies who weaken the public in order to sell their snake oil "remedies" to the poor and downtrodden, the technocrats who are all too happy to administer the system for their paymasters, and the kind-hearted naifs who believe that more government is the answer to the problems that more government has caused.
And the answer? The only true answer lies in us. As it always has and always will. And it involves
turning away from the phoney-baloney monetary system that has been engineered around us,
the technocrats that administer it, and
the political puppets that run the show for their bankster string-pullers.
Sadly, that is not an easy task. It will require the painstaking labor of generations of dedicated, concerned individuals to build up the viable alternatives to the status quo, just as the erection of this bankster-ruled oligarchical nightmare took generations to put in place. And in that time, many will be lured away by the siren call of the hucksters offering their quick and easy fix of free money from on high.
But at least now when people go around ringing the lunch bell and assuring you it won't cost you a dime, you'll know exactly what to retort: TANSTAAFL!
This first step eliminates untold quanta of inflation and Government debt.
Every Sovereign independent Nation, or co-operating group of Nations, will then use this Social Capital to totally eliminate Poverty and deprivation in their communities by issuing to all that need it a Social Wage, structured to provide a basic break even living standard, a wage that will continue until death. The first duty of Government is to take care of it's population; A Government controlled and issued Social Wage is the only way to successfully do it.
The Government will finance all conceivable Public Support and Infrastructures, Health, Housing, Education, etc.
The Capital so created will be the sole means of financing the Nations Money Supply. This will become a "trickle Up" economy, replacing the nonsense and fraud of trickle down.
No Capital or subsidy will go to Private Enterprise directly, for if it did it would cause serious inflation.Capital created, issued, and "spent" directly into circulation, as described above, would not create inflation.
There would be no interference with Private Enterprise. The Private Sector could employ those in receipt of the Social Wage by offering wages and hours of employment capable of inducing people to do the work offered; the wage so earned would supplement the Social Wage, not replace it. Thus inducing mutually agreed conditions at much lower wage costs to employers. This will create a community of independent wage earners , no longer working as wage slaves, always in fear of job loss and penury. Will this not negate the export of jobs to China etc.?
Thus far no or very little taxpayer money has been expended. The burden of support for the poor and the provision of social and community infrastructure has been lifted from the backs of Corporate enterprise and the wealthy.
Control of Social provision has passed out of the hands of those not willing to vote for higher taxation to facilitate it. Working people are no longer at the total mercy of Market forces, that all too often deprive them of livelihood and take away hard won assets such as homes and pension funds. Working people can more easily change employment to escape unsatisfactory masters and conditions.
Price and cost inflation will be substantially reduced by ceasing tax collections from wage and salary earners. Instead individuals will pay tax only once, and that when they are deceased, when the taxman will be empowered to asses deceased estates for tax liability. Avoidance will place the whole estate in danger of confiscation. Is there a better time to pay tax other than when we are dead?
Corporations and all other commercial enterprise will pay an annual flat rate tax levied against total net profits. Avoidance and imaginative minimisation schemes will not be allowed. Tax allowances will be strictly limited to running,overheads and development expenditures.
Government will not subsidise free enterprise, this great engine, by it's own rules, must stand or fall on it's own merits.
The value of Sovereign currencies for international purposes will be decided by co-operating Governments, taking into account the requirements indicated by Supply and Demand. Exchange rates will be fixed, stable, out of the influences of manipulators and traders.
There is much more to be said in explanation, however your own knowledge and experience will enable you to foresee the many attributes such a system delivers. My title for it is "THE UNIVERSAL ECONOMY" for it will work anywhere and for every person, fairly and equitably.
A very small "coterie" of Bankers and money power people is holding the world to ransom, they spend untold quanta of money spreading lies about the evils of Social Capital, and the "Printing" of money, for their own narrow self interested purposes, populations around the world are in mortal danger, somehow the money power must be defeated.This defeat will come about when we elect independent politicians who will change our system from being dominated by Corporate and private billionaire lobby funding intended to create and bend the World to their selfish undemocratic, often requiring many death sacrifices, violent destructive War, resource theft , and all without regard for human-rights and the general well-being of innocent civilian populations. We need to change our system from being "representative" to being one of "participatory"; and return the Economy to one operating on sound money. This formula, most importantly,takes care of the constantly increasing costs due to population growth and other demographics.
Have you read this far? then you have my thanks, your commentary would also be most appreciated.