This is the Newsletter of the USBIG Network (www.usbig.net), which
promotes the
discussion of the basic income guarantee (BIG) in the United States.
BIG is a policy
that would unconditionally guarantee at least a subsistence-level
income for
everyone. If you would like to be added to or removed from this list
please
email: Karl@Widerquist.com.
1. Seventh
USBIG Congress held in Boston
2. The BIG pilot
project in
Namibia requests donations (by Guy Standing)
3. Very
small BIG introduced in British Columbia
4. Editorial:
What does
the Stone Age have to do with us? (by
Karl
Widerquist)
5. Legislators
propose to dip
into the Alaska Permanent Fund
6. Video
of
Senator Suplicy in Iraq
7. BIG wiki
8. Recent
Publications
9. New Discussion papers
10. New Links
11. New Members
12. Links and Other Info
The Seventh Congress of the USBIG Network was held
at the
Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts on March 7-9, 2008. More than
30
speakers discussed different aspects of the basic income debate.
Sessions
included a round-table on the question of what it means to be a free
person,
featuring Karl Widerquist, Phil Harvey, Michael Howard, and Kieran Oberman and Robert Jubb. Sean Healy and Brigid
Reynolds,
both of the Council of the Religious of Ireland, discussed the efforts
to put
BIG on the political agenda in Ireland. Al Sheahan discussed the rise
and fall
of the Basic Income Guarantee Bill in the U.S. Congress. Steve
Shafarman
discussed how to make it an issue in the 2008 campaign. Richard Wamai and James Mulvale
discussed
the politics of BIG in South Africa and Canada, respectively.
Stephen Clark, Buford Farris, and Charles M.A. Clark debated the
theological
and moral aspects of BIG. Jurgen De Wispelaere, of Trinity College
Dublin,
discussed the problems of governing a social system with basic income.
Yannick
Vanderborght discussed the prospects for BIG in electoral politics
around the
world. Senator Eduardo Suplicy of Brazil presented a video documentary
of his
recent trip to Iraq to lobby the nation’s leaders to adopt a basic
income.
The issue of BIG and poverty was debated by Micheál Collins, Samuel
Butler,
Ernie Lightman, and Seong
Gee Um. The issue of BIG and work was debated by Chirstain
Roy, Phil Harvey, and Jeffery Smith. Various perspectives on
distribution and
redistribution were put forward by Roy Morrioson,
Rabbi Carla Theodore, Gary Flomenhoft, and
Dan O’Sullivan.
Philippe Van Parijs, of Harvard University, spoke near the end of the
conference with an overview of some of the sessions.
Guy Standing, of the University of Bath, reported on the basic income
pilot
project being conducted by the Basic Income Grant Coalition of Namibia.
The
project is organized by the Basic Income Grant (BIG) Coalition of
Namibia and
funded entirely by private donations. Standing made a request for
donations to
support the project and USBIG participants donated over $700. If anyone
else
would like to donate, please see Guy Standing’s report on the Namibian
project
below.
As readers of the USBIG Newsletter know, the Basic
Income
Grant Coalition of Namibia has moved from talk to action by initiating
a pilot
project in the rural village of Otjivero.
The project
is funded almost entirely by donations from individuals, and involves
every
individual in a rural community receiving the equivalent of about $12
each
month. This is about half the average income in the area, and is thus a
significant monthly amount. The intention is to provide every
participant with
that amount each month for two years, during which time the scheme will
be
monitored and the behavioral and community effects evaluated.
The project is strictly unconditional, unlike cash transfer schemes
that have
been carried out in some other parts of Africa and elsewhere in recent
years.
Fortunately, its administration has been made easier by the fact that
Namibia
has long operated an unconditional social pension, by which everybody
aged 60
and over receives a basic state pension via possession of an electronic
card.
For the BIG pilot project, participants (or their guardians) have been
issued cards,
containing their photograph and fingerprints. Each month they go to a
visiting
van operated by the same private company that is responsible for
administering
the pension scheme, and receive the basic income in cash. Because the
basic
income is being run on these lines, the administrative costs are
working out to
be about 4% of the total, which is much lower than for any other
transfer or
poverty relief program.
At the USBIG Congress in Boston on March 7-9, 2008, a presentation of
the
arguments for a basic income in Africa was made by Guy Standing,
co-chair of
BIEN, and he presented photographs of the launch of the Namibian
scheme.
Afterwards, members of USBIG made individual contributions to a
collection to
be sent to Namibia as an expression of solidarity. The money will be
used to
supplement the small fund set up to finance the scheme. As of the time
of going
to press, some 934 individuals in one village are receiving the basic
income.
If anyone would like to contribute to the project, please contact the
Namibian
BIG Coalition at cd.haarmann@gmx.ne, or go to the Basic Income Grant
Coalition’s website (www.bignam.org) and download the pledge form with
instructions on how to transfer money to the coalition’s bank account.
The
project is being properly audited and is overseen by the BIG Coalition
Namibia
and an international advisory board. It may be a tiny scheme but it
could be a
harbinger of an effective way of tackling poverty in Africa, and one
which will
advance the cause of economic rights and global citizenship.
-Guy Standing
For further information contact:
Basic Income Grant Coalition
Secretariat: c/o Desk for Social Development (ELCRN)
5069 Windhoek, Namibia
Telephone: +264 (61) 235466
Fax: +264 (61) 235499
Website: http://www.bignam.org/
E-mail: cd.haarmann@gmx.ne
The government of British Columbia (BC) has taken
actions to
help the environment by introducing the first carbon tax in North
America, and
as a byproduct, they have created a very small basic income guarantee.
To
offset some of the costs of the increased tax to individuals and
businesses,
the BC government has created a $100 rebate for adults and a $30 rebate
for
children. There will be additional rebates for businesses. According to
the
Vancouver Sun, “The carbon tax will apply to virtually all fossil
fuels,
including gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, propane, and home
heating fuel.”
The rebate is like the Alaska Permanent Fund in the sense that it is
linked to
taxes on fuels, but it is at the consumption end rather than the
production
end. The Alaska Permanent Fund is designed to allow every individual in
the
state to share in profits from oil produced in the state. The BC carbon
tax is
designed to discourage consumption of all fossil fuels in the state,
and the
accompanying dividend is designed to offset part of the cost. This
method is
designed to give people an incentive to consume less fuel without
necessarily
making them worse off. Those who consume the least fuel will benefit
the most
from the program; those who continue to use the most fuel will see the
largest
increase in taxes.
Several stories about the new tax and rebate are online:
Vancouver Sun: B.C. introduces carbon tax, by Jonathan Fowlie
and Fiona Anderson,
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=ecea1487-507c-43ef-ab88-5a972898e0b7&k=38130
British Columbia "the clear leader in North American climate policy",
by Alex Steffen
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007857.html
While an economist talks taxes, smart leaders levy two smart ones, by
Jeff
Smith
http://www.progress.org/2008/carbon.htm
What does the Stone Age have to do with modern
justice?
According to property rights advocates: everything; their arguments
rely on two
factual claims that can be enlightened by a look at prehistoric
anthropology.
(1) Property begins as individual property and then governments come
along and
impose taxes that interfere with the rights of owners. (2) A market
economy
with no restrictions on inequality makes everyone better off than they
were
before private property was created (i.e. when our ancestors were
hunter-gatherers).
I have heard private property advocates make these claims many times,
but I’ve
never seen them support those claims by referring to anthropological
studies of
prehistory. How do we know that property began as private
property? Are
we sure that every single modern worker is better off than our
hunter-gatherer
ancestors? Recently I’ve taken a look at some anthropological studies
including
Stone Age Economics by Marshall Sahlins, Bronze Age Economics
and
How Chiefs Come to Power by Timothy Earle, and The Evolution
of
Political Society by Morton Fried. I found out that the claims of
property
rights advocates don’t hold up very well.
To examine the first claim, we need to go back to the creation of fixed
property rights in the Bronze Age. Property rights advocates like to
imagine
land being first appropriated by individualistic pioneers who tamed the
wilderness by their own efforts. But that’s not what actually happened.
The
transformation from hunting and gathering to a settled agricultural
life took
the joint act of entire bands not simply one person. The rights of land
tenure
in primitive settled communities was extremely varied, but it seldom if
ever
looked anything like the neoliberal systems that property rights
advocates
suppose. In the earliest agricultural societies, every individual had a
right
of direct access to the land, which was usually owned (if at all) by
villages
or large extended families. In slightly more economically advanced
societies
where property rights have become exclusive, the original owners are
not
private businessmen, but chiefs. Ownership of resources was synonymous
with
ownership of the government.
The reason chiefs doubled as owners is obvious: the earliest societies
were too
economically simple to have separate spheres of power—such as
government,
religion, and business. All of these powers were vested in one person.
The
Hawaiian Islands were first settled by human beings around the year 600
and so
they provide a very recent example of the first creation of property
rights. For
the most part by the 1400s, each island was run by a chief who owned
the land
and the irrigation systems that made everyone’s efforts to farm the
land
viable. Local lords were employees of the chief. They doled out land to
peasants only if the peasants promised the interests of the chief. In
short,
the chief ran his island as a wholly-owned, for-profit business.
Property rights advocates sometimes claim that only recent history
matters, but
taxation and regulation of property are not new. Modern governments
inherited
their regulatory powers from medieval kings, who owned the right to
regulate
their domain in any way they saw fit. Modern landlords hold titles that
derive
from the medieval vassals of the king. Government taxation is simply
the
exercise of property rights that are as old as or older than private
holdings
of property. Some countries went through a brief laissez faire period
in the
Nineteenth Century, when governments chose to tax and regulate less
than
before. But I know of no government that signed an enforceable contract
to
alienate its rights over its domain. So-called property rights
advocates simply
want to interfere with the property rights of kings to promote
opportunities
for his vassals, which has about as much to do with “freedom of
property rights
against interference” as redistribution from condo associations to
condo
owners, from landlords to tenants, or from stock holders to middle
management.
If the property rights system the king set up is unjust, his rights
should go
to the people, not his lords. If the property rights system the king
set up is
just, we must respect his rights and not force him to cede power to his
lords.
To examine the second claim, we need to go back all the way to the
Stone Age.
Studies of hunter-gatherer communities that survived into the Twentieth
Century
show that people worked an average of three to four hours per day
(including
time spent preparing food and commuting). They worked at their own pace
and slept
more than people do today. Researchers reported that they appeared to
feel
extremely secure about their ability to find food and other
necessities, and
they never had to answer to a boss. When a hunter-gatherer is
in the
mood to forage for food, she sees if anyone else feels like joining
her. If
not, she waits or goes out alone.
Modern capitalism is a very productive system with great potential to
produce
goods that could benefit everyone, but as we practice it, it has
extreme inequalities.
People live on the street and eat out of garbage cans. Others work long
hours
in sweatshops at the edge of their physical ability and still face the
possibility of hunger and malnutrition. Most modern workers have more
access to
luxuries and better medical care than hunter-gatherers, and on the
whole they
live longer. But many work longer and harder; they have to follow the
orders of
a boss; they have less economic security; and do not forget the
some
individuals die young (and younger than many hunter-gatherers) because
of
malnutrition and other complications of poverty. In short, the
transition from
hunter-gatherer society to modern capitalism has not been an
unequivocal gain
for the working class. It has been a tradeoff. But a tradeoff is not
good
enough to meet the standards that property rights advocates set for
themselves.
I am not the one who put forward the standard that the poor must be at
least as
well off as their Stone Age ancestors. Property rights advocates chose
that
standard because they thought it was easy to meet. It is. A society, as
productive as ours, can easily make everyone far better off than they
would be
as hunter-gatherers, but we have failed to do so. The minimum we can do
to justify
our property rights is to make sure that every single human being has
more
freedom and economic security our Stone Age ancestors. To make sure the
standard it met, we only need to make sure that everyone can have some
minimal
level basic necessities without having to submit to a boss.
We don’t, I believe, largely because we, the better off, have convinced
ourselves that we have the right to boss around the poor. We have
property and
they don’t; and therefore, supposedly, we have the right to make them
do what
we say 40 hours per week. Yet, studies of societies without property
rights
show that our property rights are the only thing coming between the
poor and
their ability to meet their own needs with less effort and without
following
anyone’s orders. It is we who owe them, not they who owe us. Perhaps we
can
make the poor work for us if they want to share in the luxuries of
capitalism,
but we have no right—even by the standards set by property rights
advocates—to
force them to work for us just to meet their basic needs.
-Karl Widerquist
The recent increase in energy prices has had
contradictory
effects on Alaska. The government and oil producers have benefited
greatly from
increased oil revenue, but most ordinary Alaskans have had to pay much
more in
energy costs. Thus the state has a huge budget surplus while most
individuals
have much tighter budgets. Wesley Loy, of the Alaska Daily News,
reports that
the Alaskan legislature has been contemplating using the additional
energy
revenue to help ordinary Alaskans cope with their higher energy bills.
The help
might to come in the form of a $500 cash dividend on top of this year’s
Permanent Fund Dividend. However, this money would be taken from the
profits of
the Alaska Permanent Fund and it would therefore, decrease the size of
all
future dividends. Some legislators have questioned the wisdom of
mortgaging
future dividends to pay for high fuel prices this year when fuel prices
are
likely to remain high next year and perhaps for years to come. Some
legislators
have suggested financing the additional dividend through regular tax
revenues
without dipping into the profits of the Permanent Fund.
For Wesley Loy’s Alaska Daily News report on the proposal, go to:
http://www.adn.com/politics/story/351745.html
For Sean Cokerham’s report on the proposal
go to:
http://www.adn.com/legislature/story/291117.html
A one-half hour documentary of Senator Eduardo
Suplicy’s
recent trip to Iraq is now online. The video is in English or with
English
subtitles as appropriate, although most of the website is in
Portuguese. It
chronicles the Senator’s efforts to lobby for a basic income guarantee
for
Iraq, and it reveals many of the difficulties with the current
situation in
Bagdad. The video can be found online by going to:
http://www.senado.gov.br/eduardosuplicy/.
Then click on “Audio & Video”. The site will then open a pop-up
window (you
may need to set your browser to accept pop-up windows from this
website).
Then click on “English”
Then click on the video.
By now, most people know that a wiki is a website
that can
be easily edited by users. The word is derived from the Hawaiian word
“wiki-wiki” meaning quick. The idea is to take advantage of group
knowledge. If
each individual in the group knows a little, the group knows a lot. If
everybody puts in what they know, hopefully, the outcome will be better
than
anyone could have done on their own. Paul Nollen,
of
Vivant Belgium and of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), has
started a BIG
wiki for the Basic Income Earth Network. It is in its embryonic stages
right
now, but it is ready to grow.
It is online at: http://wiki.basicincome.be
Peaceful, Positive
Revolution: Economic Security for Every American
Steven Shafarman Network. Tendril Press.
This is the fifth book by Steven Shafarman, founder and president of
the Citizen
Policies Advocates and a member of the coordinating committee of the
U.S. Basic
Income Guarantee Network. He writes: "Citizen Policies will unite
ordinary
Americans and empower us to get the government we want and deserve.
Together,
we can end hunger and homelessness. We can reform our education and
health care
systems. We can revitalize our towns and cities. We can reverse global
warming.
We can have peace in Iraq, the Middle East, and everywhere."
Why America Lost the War on Poverty --
And How to Win It
Frank Stricker. University of North
Carolina
Press
In a historical assessment of American poverty and policy from 1950 to
the
present, Stricker examines an era that has
seen
serious discussion about the causes of poverty and unemployment. Stricker notes that since the 1970s, U.S.
poverty levels
have remained at or above 11%, despite training programs and periods of
economic growth. The creation of jobs has continued to lag behind the
need for
them. He analyzes why Nixon's 1970 Family Assistance Plan failed, and
discusses
how to win a new war on poverty. Stricker
is a professor
of history at Cal State University, Dominguez Hills, California.
BASIC INCOME: A DANGEROUS REFORM
Adam Buick, Socialist Standard Volume 104, No. 1243, March 2008
Summary: The Green Party’s idea of pay everyone a minimum income
whether or not
they are working might seem attractive, but it won’t necessarily leave
us
better off.
This article is available on line at:
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/mar08/page12.html
The Socialist Standard is online at:
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/standardonline/index.html. It is
published
by the World Socialist Movement (www.worldsocialism.org).
The Persistence of Poverty: Why the Economics of the Well-Off Can't
Help the
Poor
Charles Karelis, New Haven: Yale
University Press
While not directly about basic income, this
book
challenges the approach of current poverty programs, and favors direct
cash
benefits. In a book review, Drake Bennett, of the Boston Globe
writes,
“When we're poor, Karelis argues, our
economic
worldview is shaped by deprivation, and we see the world around us not
in terms
of goods to be consumed but as problems to be alleviated. … The more of
a
painful or undesirable thing one has (i.e. the poorer one is) the less
likely
one is to do anything about any one problem. Poverty is less a matter
of having
few goods than having lots of problems. … Reducing the number of
economic
hardships that the poor have to deal with actually make them more, not
less,
likely to work … Simply giving the poor money with no strings attached,
rather
than using it, as federal and state governments do now, to try to
encourage
specific behaviors … would be just as effective, and with far less
bureaucracy.”
Charles Karelis is Research Professor of
Philosophy
at The George Washington University.
For Bennett’s review, see: THE STING OF POVERTY: What bees and dented
cars can
teach about what it means to be poor - and the flaws of economics, the
Boston
Globe, March 30, 2008,
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/30/the_sting_of_poverty/
How to make BI inflation-proof while also raising
wages
Jeffery J. Smith, USBIG Discussion paper No. 189, March 2008
ABSTRACT: When an advocate promotes a Basic Income Grant (BIG or BI) to
thoughtful people, they inevitably point out that increasing people's
purchasing power could be inflationary. And indeed, they could be
right, at
least for one sector – housing. In the past, when government gave money
to the
poor or students or pensioners, then their landlords raised what they
charged
for tenements, dormitories, and trailer parks. Yet there is a way to
put
landlords in competition for tenants. It's a way to also raise funds
for paying
a BI or a CD (Citizens Dividend). That is, where government has taxed
land, it
has discouraged land speculators and encouraged landowners to keep
their
improvements affordable. The raised revenue could fund an income
supplement,
somewhat like what. Aspen CO does. Additionally, where government
recovers
rent, they keep down price. Since the value of the location is an
immense part
of the price of real estate, when land costs little, land plus
buildings cost
much less, so that buyers borrow much less. With less debt in society,
there is less debt-backed new notes. With
the supply of money in
better balance with the output of new goods and services, the means to
inflate
prices is lacking. Government could swell the BI or CD to a quite
comfortable
size and still not worry about inflation as long as it recovers rent.
Historically, where government taxed land, their wages were higher,
since
affordable land provided more opportunity to work for oneself, besides
more
employment opportunity. Plus, if a worker's income were augmented by a
share of
rent, that too would enable workers to
negotiate
better wages. And if the complete geonomic
tax shift
were ushered in – tax pollution, not income; tax extraction, not sales;
tax
location, not buildings – there the average resident would pay land
dues but
nothing else. Hence the average citizen would enjoy lower taxes, lower
prices,
higher wages, plus a Citizens Dividend. On balance, the average citizen
–
people who must support the extra income proposal in order for it to
pass –
would come out way ahead. Finally, if there are no excess new notes to
inflate
prices, and as long as technology keeps advancing, then progress would
show up
as a lower cost of living. Rather than inflate prices, a BI or CD would
lower
them, as long as its funding source were
society’s
surplus, all the money people spend on the land, resources, and
government-granted privileges that they use. Better than packaging an
income
supplement as a necessary salve for inflation is to show how it can be
part of
a holistic policy to transform the economy into working right for
everyone.
IS WAGE LABOR BECOMING OBSOLETE
The website, Embrace Unity, has an article
and
discussion of the basic income idea online. The author of the main
article, “Is
Wage Labor Becoming Obsolete?” is Edward Miller of the Transhumanist
Student Network, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. The
article
and discussion are online at: http://www.embraceunity.com/?p=22
CITIZEN’S INCOME TORONTO
This website, maintained by Tim Rourke
(tar@qaz.ca),
has information on the basic income guarantee, mostly in a Canadian
context. It
includes a bulletin board; subscription information for the
organization’s listserve; a “reading room”
that lists links, articles, and
books; and other information. It is on line at:
http://www.citizensincome.ca/.
Three new members have joined the USBIG Network in
the last
two months. The USBIG Network now has 149 members from 31 U.S. states
and 23
foreign countries. Membership in USBIG is free and open to anyone who
shares
its goals. To become a member of USBIG go to www.usbig.net, and click
on
“membership.”
The current members of the USBIG Network are:
Karl Widerquist, Cassopolis, MI; Eri
Noguchi, New
York, NY; Fred Block, Davis, CA; Michael A. Lewis, New York, NY; Steve
Shafarman, Washington, DC; Brian Steensland, Bloomington, IN; Al
Sheahen, Van
Nuys, CA; Philippe Van Parijs, Brussels, Belgium; Stanley Aronowitz,
New York, NY; Carole Pateman, Los Angeles, CA; Frances Fox Piven,
New York, NY; Eduardo Suplicy, Sao Paolo, Brazil; J. Philip Wogaman,
Washington, DC; Chris LaPlante,
Blacksburg, VA; John Marangos, Fort
Collins, CO; Fransisco
Sales, Carretera Mexico City, DF, Mexico;
Manuel Henriques, Lisbon, Portugal; Amelia
Baughman, Williams, AZ;
Robert F. Clark, Alexandria, VA; Jason Burke Murphy, Saint Louis, MO;
Joel
Handler, Los Angeles, CA; Glen C. Cain, Madison, WI; Timothy Roscoe
Carter, San
Fransisco, CA; John Bollman,
Bay City, MI; George McGuire, Brooklyn, NY; Adrian Kuziminski,
Fly Creek, NY; Hyun-Mook Lim, Seoul, Korea;
Kelly D.
Pinkham, Kansas City, MO; Michael Murray, Clive, IA; Josep
LI. Ortega, Santa Coloma, Andorra; Michael Opielka,
Königswinter, Germany; Brenden
Miller, Cambridge, MA; Myron J. Frankman,
Montreal,
Quebec, Canada; Frank Thompson, Ann Arbor, MI; Harry F. Dahms,
Knoxville, TN; Buford Farris, Bastrop, TX; Roy Morrison, Warner, NH; Robley E. "Rob" George, Manhattan Beach, CA,
Almaz Zelleke, Brooklyn, NY; Gonzalo Pou, Montevideo, Uruguay; Elisabetta
Pernigotti, Paris, France; Ross Zucker,
New York, NY; Sean Owens, La Mirada, CA, Dean Herd, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada;
Hugh Thompson, London, UK; Jan van Knippenberg,
Kinrooi, Belgium; Adam Csillag,
Berlin, Germany; Steve Gazzo, Pittsburgh,
PA; Mike Cottone, Weaverville, CA;
Brigitte Sirois,
Quebec, Quebec, Canada; Guy Standing, Geneva Switzerland; G. W. Putto, Den Haag, the Netherlands; Anonymous,
Berkeley, CA;
Pete Farina, Washington, DC; Robert Wirengard,
Fair
Share, Florida; Urban Boljka, Ljubljana,
Slovenia;
Ronal Cohen, Bennington, Vermont; H.T.L. Quan,
Chicago, Illinois; Lourdes Maria Silva Araujo;
Espirito Santo, Brazil; Patrick S.
O'Donnell, Santa
Barbara, California; Stephen Nathanson,
Boston,
Massachusetts; Jerey Vogt, Washington, DC;
Justine
Lam, Arlington, Virginia; Ricardo A. Bunge, San Antonio, Texas; Aziz Akgul, Ankara, Turkey; Judith A. Kaluzny,
Fullerton, California; Leonard Butters, Spokane, Washington; Peter
Christiansen, San Francisco, California; Kyle Patrick Meredith,
Chattanooga,
Tennessee; Benjamin Hyink, LaGrange,
Illinois; Nancy Folbre, Amherst,
Massachusetts; Noaki
Yoshihara, Kunitachi, Tokyo; Bernard
Mueller,
Torrance, California; Zool (Paul Zulkowitz);
Woodmare, New York; Amanda Reilly,
Wellington, New
Zealand; Adam Sacks, Lexington, Massachusetts; Mark Levinson, New York,
New
York Kathy Fitzpatrick, Grand Rapids, MI; Stephen C. Clark, Port
Hueneme, CA; Cristian Pérez
Muñoz, Sauce, Uruguay; Richa,
Grand Rapids, MI; Floyd Robinson, Ann Arbor, MI; Bradley Nelson,
Portland, OR;
Mark Ewbank, Coventry, United Kingdom;
Bernard Cloutier, Montreal, Quebec,
Canada; Mark Erickson, Skokie,
IL; Dale Carrico, Oakland, CA; Joseph
Meyer, St.Vith, Belgium; A.R. Rowe,
Brooklyn, NY; Pius Charles
Murray, Somersworth, NH; John D. Jones, Milwaukee, WI; Troy Davis,
Williamsburg, VA; William E Fraser, Santa Cruz, CA; Luke Mead, Astoria,
OR; Ori Lev, Baltimore, MD; Ralph Rostas,
Chester, VA; Laura Cornelius, Woodbridge, VA; Dylan Matthews, Hanover,
NH; John
(Jack) O'Donnell, Millville, NJ; Stefano Lucarelli,
Ancona, Italy; Richard Lippincott Biddle,
Philadelphia, PA;
Alanna Hartzok,
Scotland,
PA; Hank Delisle, Fukuoudai,
Japan; Michael LaTorra, Las Cruces, NM;
Mike Roberts,
Rochester, NY, Anson Chong, Fen Forest, HI; Michele Lewis, Washington,
DC;
Heather Boushey, Washington, DC; Nicolaus
Tideman, Blacksburg, VA; John Carroll,
Edinburgh, IN;
Rosalind Diana, Seaside Heights, NJ; W. Robert Needham, Waterloo, ON,
Canada;
Cedric Neill, Orlando, FA; Richard Cook, College Park, MD; Miroslav
Turcinovic, Sarajevo, Bosnia and
Herzegovina; William
DiFazio, Brooklyn, NY; Angel Garman, Hugo
OK; Karin Nyquist, Emmaboda,
Sweden; Larry Dansinger, Monroe, ME;
Richard G. Wamai
Cambridge, MA; Melissa Farrell, Staten Island, NY; Bill McCormick,
Grand
Junction, CO; Rashida Ali-Campbell,
Yeadon, PA; Lenny
Krosinsky, Albuquerque, NM; Rachel Crutcher, Allen, TX; Julie Hendrix, Little Rock,
AR; Annie
Miller, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK; Michael Howard, Orono,
ME; Rae Amey, Los Angeles, CA; Colleen Chrisinger, Seattle, WA; Simon Peter Schooneveldt,
Ashgrove, Australia; John Tomlinson, Deagon, Australia; George Misa,
Auckland, New Zealand; Przemyslaw (Peter)
Damian Maniecki, Longmont, CO; Michael
Gene Frazier, Morehead, KY;
Nathan W. Cravens, Woodbury, TN; Mark Gillespie, Kent, WA; Matthew C.
Murray,
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom; Alan Holmes, Buffalo, NY; John Jesse Heichert III, Elizabeth City, NC; Nato
Welch, Victoria, British Columbia; Eron
Lloyd,
Reading, PA; Edward Miller, Mokena, IL.
For links to dozens of BIG websites around the
world, go to
http://www.usbig.net/links.html. These links are to any website with
information about BIG, but USBIG does not necessarily endorse their
content or
their agendas.
The USBIG Network Newsletter
Editor: Karl Widerquist
Research: Paul Nollen
Special help on this issue was provided by Jeff Smith, Guy Standing,
Richard
Caputo, and Claudia & Dirk Haarman.
The U.S. Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network publishes this
newsletter. The
Network is a discussion group on basic income guarantee (BIG) in the
You may copy and circulate articles from this newsletter, but please
mention
the source and include a link to http://www.usbig.net. If you know any
BIG
news; if you know anyone who would like to be added to this list; or if
you
would like to be removed from this list; please send me an email:
Karl@Widerquist.com.
As always, your comments on this newsletter and the USBIG website are
gladly
welcomed.
Thank you,
-Karl Widerquist, USBIG Coordinator. Karl@Widerquist.com