VAT
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.
-
Living Income Guaranteed
-
Economist’s Journey to Life
-
Equal Life Foundation
Investigate more at:
Living Income Guaranteed: Taxation and Transparency
One of the fundamental problems in the world in how crime develops is through tax and tax evasion and for that, specially companies employ lawyers to find loopholes in laws so that they can set up all kinds of foundations and charities with which to evade tax; and with which to influence the markets and the goods available to the consumer, to benefit their own bottom line. Now with Basic Income Guaranteed it is suggested that there is no tax at a personal level and no tax at a corporate level and that one only works with either sales tax or value added tax or, if necessary, with an import duty.
Charities and foundations should be eradicated because they are actually only duplicating the work that should have been done by the government – and the government being the people, the government is not a separate corporation and it is the social arm of the people. Therefore all the work done by charities is actually the work and responsibilities of the government of the citizens, for the citizens. And this duplication exists in order to be able to evade tax, placing governments under pressure to borrow more money, taking vast parts of the budget going towards interest is quite a foolish thing to do because that just makes the government more ineffective.
The most sought after jobs in the world should be those within the government that will require the highest level of expertise with very clear guidelines to ensure that the work delivered at all times is without question the best that can be. After all the foundation of respect between citizens is based on effectively delivering goods and services required to live. This is being hampered by the current methodology where especially profit and tax evasion plays a role and where the services of government are undermined – in many cases deliberately – simply to make profit quickly. This type of behavior which is a form of financial treason, should be outlawed in every way.
And therefore the positioning of accounting services really should be replaced by automation – this implies a universal software that is linked to the banking industry which is under Basic Income Guaranteed which automatically assesses the profit margins and automatically keeps a tap on the income to make sure that the minimum wage is always adhered to, as well as ensuring that nobody can defraud the system. The only reason why there is no transparency at any level when money moves is because there is dishonesty. Absolute transparency means nothing is hidden and one should also apply this within the context of the pricing of goods so that one ensures that when a company is operational, there is enough money moving to ensure everyone gets their wages and that there is sufficient profit for the investors, so that at the end of the day the sales tax and the value added tax are paid effectively. All of that can be automated, removing the human factor that at this stage causes so many problems, because of the temptation that still exists to abuse the use of resources for personal benefit.This will only be stopped in time through education and understanding how peace and harmony depend on our ability to trust one another.
Equal Life Foundation Research Team
Living Income Can Save Capitalism
This should be good news for the capitalists.
This proposal will have to become part of a political party’s manifesto and become part of their economic policy and they have to promote it within the context as presented to overcome the objections that are inherently glued to the view of the capitalist.
If you look at George Bush, David Cameron, Obama – they all have promoted the idea to ‘save capitalism’, that there is one thing everybody must do, they say: ‘spend more.’ But there’s a problem with what’s happening in the world there are fewer and fewer jobs which means people can spend less and less so all the economies are contracting because the money supply which at the end is dependent on the amount of people participating in the system with money is shrinking; the economic theory did not expand yet to consider proper solutions for the world. So the following is how one solves the problem.
In any given country you have citizens, they are citizens by birth and by birth they have a birth right towards citizenship in that country. We propose that that birth right should be including inclusive of the resources that are in that country – for instance, the mining resources and water resources, electricity, cellphones, telephones… all the points that are part of that country originally. But maybe it’ll be possible to only look at the resources that everybody requires and needs on a daily basis which are food, water, electricity and something like the cellphone, telephone and internet. These are things that are already in a country and they have intrinsic value. By utilizing these resources you have a situation where everyone in the country participates in contributing towards the total turnover of these particular resources.
If the price is set to be sufficient to accommodate sufficient profit for the shareholders – which in this case will be the citizens of the country – which then are distributed to all those citizens in the country that do not have enough income as a Basic Income Guaranteed, it is possible to set up a system which will have a very interesting effect for all capitalists. This is because suddenly, all the people in the country will be able to spend money; this will mean the capitalists that will so to speak ‘lose income’ because if they already own any of these resources in the country their shares will be transferred through nationalization to the shareholders that should have owned it in the first place, which are the citizens. In other words, if you take away anything from the security of a state and the security of a state is to supply and support their citizens: you’re committing treason. So by taking these corporations and creating them as private entities, taking it away from the rights of the citizens, in fact treason has been committed and this is being done through public relations and cognitive disinformation, by control of the media. This is why we also suggest that the media should also be controlled by the citizens because the media in any particular country is always the voice of the citizens. And therefore, all of these corporations still run as corporations, the only difference is that the shareholding is in the hands of the citizens and it becomes a matter of national pride, and they are managed properly by people that are properly skilled that do so for the benefit of the country.
This can become extremely valuable resources in terms of stabilizing an economy and presenting and producing sufficient profit that at the moment as we know, ends up in the hands of a selective few elite to such an extent that their combined wealth can stop poverty in the whole world several times, which means there is already enough money created. Obviously what they’re doing is a fascinating thing, in many cases they’re reducing prices of products simply to outperform the competition which causes massive unemployment in the world, purely to make more money but is justified as saying that ‘by making things cheaper = we’re making it more affordable for everyone,’ but if a person does not have an income = they don’t have a level of affordability, there is just no way they can own it. So when one takes this model and you apply it and you have each citizen with a Basic Income Guaranteed, the citizen now can spend money, this money will normally be spent at the normal corporations that now supply goods and services in all kinds of arenas, that will increase turnover, that would increase job creation and that would increase profits.
Now you’ll say “But if everybody gets a Basic Income, who’s going to do the work?” very simple, the minimum wage should be double the basic income so that the person is motivated to not use the Basic Income Guaranteed but to go out and work because that will give them access to money to buy luxuries as well, because the Basic Income Guaranteed will not be sufficient to buy ‘extreme luxuries,’ it will be to buy the basics that are necessary, to provide the education that is necessary, to have at least one motor vehicle to be able to have the transport that’s necessary.
Another suggestion within the Basic Income Guaranteed proposal is that there is also a subsidy for homes which is sufficient to construct a reasonable home because that will not only benefit the banking industry, but it will also benefit the building industry and so it’ll again have a knock on effect in creating cash flow which then creates money supply, which creates an economy that is growing and a happy capitalist, because there will be many more opportunities than what exists now.
One of the things that should be considered is the standard of goods – there should be a minimum standard and each country should have a bureau of standards that specifically makes sure that the products made available to the citizens as a matter of their birth right and their citizen’s right to have goods that are of real value, that these products are going through stringent tests. This way we ensure the capitalists don’t just try and make profit but actually provide a proper service and a proper product which will reduce a lot of the unnecessary energy spending in the world where things are just made for the sake of enticing people to buy through advertising. Thus, advertising should be not based on cognitive disinformation or on placing people in an emotional state when they’re buying, it should be based on fact and there should be better regulation about advertising so that people are not psychologically manipulated, because that is simply not acceptable.
When you have a system where you have your basic job facilitation which includes from janitors, to road builders to any type of job where your minimum wage is double your basic income, you will find that there will be enough workers to do the work because they’ll earn more, and those that work will have benefit because they will be able to buy better cars, bigger houses and they will thus have a better standing in the community which will motivate people to look for jobs and because lots more money is in circulation = new businesses will begin, which will again offer more jobs and thus create more opportunities for people to get a better income than just a Basic Income Guaranteed.
The Basic Income Guaranteed must be of such nature that it is sufficient for a person or a family to live a decent life, one worthy of their birth right as a citizen. Utilizing it this way, it becomes viable for the corporations to give up some of the things they control in favor of having a stable economy that provides a lot more money in circulation, which provides a lot more opportunities for profit. By doing this, one reduces various factors that have become extreme problems which are already being investigated by projects like the Big Project In Namibia: if everybody’s got a Basic Income: crime reduces, violence reduces and people want to improve themselves because they are no longer desperate, they have moved from desperation to hope and they start to educate themselves better.
This is an all-around effective solution where one can ensure then that the most Basic Human Rights as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is actually taken care of, the capitalists are kept happy, those that believe that ‘some are lazy and some are not’ are kept happy because they can now go and work and earn more money and leave the others with less money.
Essentially a Basic Income Guaranteed is at this stage a viable solution for a world in extreme trouble. Bailouts won’t work, people that actually want to send money to bailouts should rather send it to educating people about the validity of a system that is a mixture between socialism and capitalism and that protects the citizenship of each person within a country. And then between the countries they can work out solutions for those countries that’s got less resources and develop them to also have a similar resource structure which provides sufficient income in house through the internal use of for instance cellphones, airtime, electricity, water, media, that sufficient profit is made out of that to facilitate the Basic Income Guaranteed so that there is never any debt made for facilitating this.
This will also solve another problem that is going to become extensive in the next 20 years which is that all the pensions will be gone because it will replace the pension system, there will be no longer contributions to those pensions because a person will have a Basic Income Guaranteed it will thus, instead of money being invested into corporations, the money will be in the hands of the citizen. The citizen will then use the money to decide what is best and where to invest it.
To all the people benefited with Basic Income Guaranteed we suggest that that they save 10% of that money and invest it every month in the corporations, the other corporations that are not yet owned by the citizens and if all the citizens do that = very soon the citizens will own all the corporations and all the capitalists would have made their profit and will have a system where a person on a Basic Income Guaranteed will earn enough from their shares in the corporations that they will get to a point where their income is higher than the Basic Income Guaranteed and the moment that happens = they no longer are dependent on the Basic Income Guaranteed and they move towards self-sufficiency.
Basic Income Guaranteed will require certain rules. One of them being that one shouldn’t own more than one car – this means that if you have two cars = you have more money than you should have for a Basic Income Guaranteed; and if you have a job and the job obviously always will be according to minimum wage which is double the Basic Income Guaranteed= you no longer require the Basic Income Guaranteed because you’re now in self-sufficiency and that position opens up for another person, because one of the things about this world is that there are always new people arriving that are going to need some help to get into the system.
All education within the system, within a country should be facilitated by the Basic Income Guaranteed facilitation and because education is a calling and not a place of profit, all educators that are part of that should be placed on a Basic Income Guaranteed and all education at university level, everything should be free to the citizens because it is a Human Right to educate each one and it is thus facilitated so that we have in the education system those that truly do it for a calling and that are not doing it for money, because they are doing it as a service to their fellow citizens.
With the Basic 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 tax so nobody is going to pay for anyone’s basic 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 income tax – or shall we say government tax collection.
To have this facilitated effectively, the control of it will be important which means the total system will have to be digitized. The payment of the Basic Income Guaranteed will be via your bank card so it’ll be instantaneous and society will move towards a more ‘cashless society,’ but in a cashless society where one will have enough of what you need and nobody can take away your income because you are guaranteed this income unless you obviously have a job, which means you have double income.
In this proposal no matter what objection one could possibly have, there will be an answer, everybody will be satisfied. It’s a very simplistic solution that brings an end to the problems that are now in the world.
With the rise of the machine there’s going to be job-loss which means there’s going to be greater efficiency, which means there’s going to be less cost on input. So if there is job-loss = there is Basic Income Guaranteed. The type of new businesses that will develop will be based on human ingenuity, the great word that the capitalists like to use.
So the capitalists – those that want to earn more in the system – can come up with great ideas to create new employment and so to uplift people to a higher level of income or double at least that the Basic Income Guaranteed. So all desires, all hopes will be answered and in a way, the whole principle of the pursuit of happiness, the principle of each one being able to be in a world of opportunity instead of just a ‘land of opportunity’ of the US, it will be the whole world that will be a land of opportunity, a world of opportunity where you can be anything you want to be and the opportunities are endless.
Environmental policy will have to be strictly applied and wastage will have to be looked at and therefore the education system needs to be substantially upgraded. This is how each individual will be content and not worry about what others have, and instead work to earn a greater living if they truly want to.
So the Basic Income Guaranteed Proposal for the world is a solution of equal opportunity. If you do not want to make use of that opportunity, you’ll have a Basic Income Guaranteed – if you want to make use of that opportunity, at the very least you’ll have double the Basic Income Guaranteed.
‘How much the Basic Income Guaranteed will be’ is going to be worked out according to what is necessary for a person or a family to make a decent living. In this one will probably have to look at the one thing that needs to change which are currencies, there will have to be one world currency because the need for currencies will no longer exist, because that is only being used by the richer countries to steal resources from the poorer countries and that’s no longer necessary because there’s enough money to pay for it anyway. Therefore, we don’t need ‘exchange rates’ anymore, you can have your own money but it is equal. So if you have the euro = one dollar = one yen = one pound = one rand = one peso – that will make sure we have no more peasants.
It’s obviously the ultimate patriotic system you could ever come up with, be a patriot, be a BIG supporter and remember capitalists: here is your ultimate opportunity of making profit, you will never have had such a good opportunity before because now, your ability to come up with the ultimate product that entices the population to buy it is now at your feet.
Join BIG, be Big hearted: it’s time.
Equal Life Foundation Research Team
Living Income Guaranteed 