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UBI (Universal or Unconditional Basic Income) is a brilliant idea. A majority of people support it. Let’s implement it worldwide. But to pay for it, we first must enact Justice Capitalism, that is, Capitalism that is fair, equal, and balanced for everyone.
But how will UBI be funded? The Tax system is broken and cannot be fixed to pay for UBI. Governments have been trying to fix the tax code forever, but it just gets more complicated with more and more loopholes. Corporations, criminals, corrupt politicians, and the 1%, hide money in Tax Havens or they game the tax rules to pay little or no taxes. Actions such as tax increases and eliminating tax havens will contribute to funding UBI but this will not be enough for the long term. Printing money, as is happening now, is also not a good solution to fund UBI as it just creates inflation which has too many negative consequences.
The best way to fund UBI is by Justice Capitalism.
The money should not come from taxation, but a dividend, financed from the returns on all our human capital; a “public” percentage of companies’ profits. Also, we will eliminate tax havens and the estimated $32 trillion hidden there. We will institute a tax on extreme wealth, a speculation tax (i.e HFT High-Frequency Trading), and a robot tax on firms that eliminate jobs by AI/automation. With this start to funding UBI, we will implement it.
Watch economist and former Greek Finance Minister @yanisvaroufakis explain it in a 4-minute video: #JusticeCapThenUBI