TED Community » Bastian Brandt

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future solutions, basic income

An idea worth spreading

As Bertrand Russell put it in 1918, "A certain small income, sufficient for necessities, should be secured for all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful. On this basis we may build further." Thus, with BIG no one is destitute but everyone has the positive incentive to work. BIG is an efficient, effective, and equitable solution to poverty that promotes individual freedom and leaves the beneficial aspects of a market economy in place.

We live in one social-economical-system and every one of us is dependent on the 'money' we use every day for trading our 'goods and services' and without the 'integration of the children' of this world into our 'trading system' they get no chance to contribute to our world.

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basic income

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• TEDCred score: +4.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A reply on Conversation: Universal monthly allowance for all, financed by a 5% sales tax.

  Oct 14 2012: Sales taxes are typically considered "regressive" taxes. That is, because poor people spend a higher proportion of their budgets on sales taxable items, programs funded in that way place a greater burden on the poor than on the wealthy as a proportion of income.
  
  Poor people typically also don't receive a Monthly Basic Income. But I absolutly agree, the tax has to be fair, support equality and needs to be set up in an algorithm that works for all, without exception everyone needs to be equally bound by the whole concept, in order for nobody to ever become the feeling to be treated unfairly as far as the monthly basic income is concerned, because it is for all the same, without exception.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Universal monthly allowance for all, financed by a 5% sales tax.

  Oct 14 2012: The Monthly Basic Income is ment to be basic, it is a minimum amount of money, depending on the purchases made and is ment as a financial security for all, in other words, if you really have nothing, you will have something, so you can survive and I don't believe that anyones future vision for himself, friends or the family would be to be satisfied with just this basic income plus a certain amount of laziness. Much more I am convinced that we could call it a fact that so many at the moment from any support excluded people would greatly appreciate the fair/ equal spread (because everyone gets it) Monthly Basic Income and would see new opportunities for themselves, their friends and family.

• A reply on Conversation: Global Economy needs an imposition of a financial transaction tax on trades in financial instruments.

  Mar 7 2012: I just send you an e-mail a few hours ago, yeah that the monetary system isn't perfect and neither are the laws that govern it, I mean that it can be abused and that we need to find a way to stop this abuse, because in the end it is a legal theft of those who produced goods and services.
  
  In the e-mail I included this short video, I am still interested what you think of it:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=n7Fzm1hEiDQ
  
  What I just a few minutes ago came across is a campaign that calls to action and a guy that on his own started something that has now become incredible big:
  
  (need to scroll down to see the documentary)
  
  http://s3.amazonaws.com/kony2012/kony-4.html

• A reply on Conversation: Can technology replace human intelligence?

  Mar 7 2012: the latest I heard on this is that those who tried to replicate a human eye absolutely failed in doing so, for its complexity is far to great, alone this task will take a long time.. why not first put all of our energy into real problems and improve the life of billions through more transparency and supporting the right actions like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TABTqmFfe1U&feature=relmfu and http://s3.amazonaws.com/kony2012/kony-4.html before we move on to those luxury problems or even going to space, while our own planet needs support, but if that is what somebody is interested in and passionate about, then that is totally cool, for me its just something different ;)
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: What does society means to you? And, do you think ours is working?

  Mar 7 2012: Political discourse? If this were true
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=n7Fzm1hEiDQ
  
  .., when would politics start to stop corporations?
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k5kHACjrdEY
  
  Media has a big influence on trends and mass media is also a form of make believe. I think that when we visit a culture wherein the people seem to respect and support each other all the time, then that they have kept something beautiful alive and are neither divided by their financial status, nor by what the media tells them how to see the world and each other. In addition I feel free and happy to live in a society that grants me free education and a social safety net and I definitely think that it should be granted everywhere on the planet. Who pays for it? Everyone equally, after we received free education we work in our professions and partly pay back the social safety net that brought us to our profession.

• A reply on Conversation: Can technology replace human intelligence?

  Mar 7 2012: Intelligence is determined by the context in which it functions. You subconsciously or consciously make decisions in fractions of seconds. You can even consider things in your determinations that you haven't even heard of an hour ago. If you find a technology that can adapt to every situation, find its own solutions and which is transferable to every possible context, then you found an earthly or extraterrestrial being. If you call your child a technology, then I would say yes, but you don't do that and that is why I said no.

• A reply on Conversation: Global Economy needs an imposition of a financial transaction tax on trades in financial instruments.

  Mar 7 2012: By those speculations which bring the global economy down I mean the speculations that are currently profitable, like explained within these vids:
  
  part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=h-Z8mdlaI84
  
  part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KSIxZPufV08
  
  And as I understood his proposed tax, he wants to stop such speculations to be profitable.

• A comment on Conversation: Can technology replace human intelligence?

  Mar 7 2012: My perspective on this is: No.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: What does society means to you? And, do you think ours is working?

  Mar 7 2012: Yes! I totally agree with everything you just stated.

• A reply on Conversation: Global Economy needs an imposition of a financial transaction tax on trades in financial instruments.

  Mar 7 2012: He who suggested this proposal, Stiglitz, J. E. is a Nobel prize winner for economics and I see the biggest problems the world has very closely related to our current economical system.
  
  And such a measure would make speculations that make some richer and the rest of society poorer unprofitable.