From my email inbox comes news of the opening on Friday, September 26 of the film Pay 2 Play, directed by John Wellington Ennis, at the Sundance Theater in Madison. The film features several prominent progressive Wisconsinites including John Nichols, Mike McCabe and Mary Bottari, and it looks at the corrupting influence of money in our political system.
You can learn more about the film by checking out its website.
Great news!
Look forward to seeing it.
OT, “The Political Economy of a Universal Basic Income,” by @interfluidity , an economist for whom I have a lot of respect is extremely well written/thought out.
http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/5589.html
Among other the benefits in his short, very well written post, he links to people he respects on the left, who don’t agree with him. Matt Sawicky is one example.
Since Wall Street and the oligarchs are currently scooping up the lion’s share of federal welfare, interfluidity calls for a UNIVERSAL Basic Income. That would mean the billionaires, and every other U.S. adult would receive a check of $500 – $1,000/month. The amount of the check to ALL Americans would be identical. For the sake of this post, he just ball parks it between $500 – $1,000/month. It will have traction with conservatives, because interfluidity thinks it could replace food stamps, other federal benefits.
Losing their food stamp contract would be bad news for JP Morgan, who rakes in an estimated 1/2 a billion a year from administering portions it. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/10/01/Report-JP-Morgan-Makes-Over-Half-A-Billion-Dollars-Off-Food-Stamps
I think a federal job guarantee is a more realistic political goal.
“…The government could serve as the “employer of last resort” under a job guarantee program modeled on the WPA (the Works Progress Administration, in existence from 1935 to 1943 after being renamed the Work Projects Administration in 1939) and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942). The program would offer a job to any American who was ready and willing to work at the federal minimum wage, plus legislated benefits. No time limits. No means testing. No minimum education or skill requirements.
The program would operate like a buffer stock, absorbing and releasing workers during the economy’s natural boom-and-bust cycles. In a boom, employers would recruit workers out of the program; in a slump the safety net would allow those who had lost their jobs to continue to work to preserve good habits, making them easier to re-employ when activity picked up. The program would also take those whose education, training or job experience was initially inadequate to obtain work outside the program, enhancing their employability through on-the-job training. Work records would be maintained for all program participants and would be available for potential employers. Unemployment offices could be converted to employment offices, to match workers with jobs in the program, and to help private and public employers recruit workers….”
http://ineteconomics.org/blog/institute/plan-all-detroits-out-there
But, since neither party is moving on it, a UNIVERSAL Basic Income imho, would move a federal job guarantee more to the political center. Another benefit of either UBI or JG is that they would get the economy moving again. Capitalism runs on sales. The real “job creators,” are consumers with money to spend.