USBIG NEWSLETTER Vol. 10, No. 52 Spring 2009

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.

Table of Contents

1. EDITORIAL: Keeping the global recession in perspective
2. The 2009 USBIG Congress and a movement for Basic Income in the United States
3. The Alaska Permanent Fund recovers slightly, but its prospects are still uncertain and its strategy is doubly controversial
4. The Namibian BIG Pilot Project shows positive results
5. Carbon Tax Dividend proposal finds advocates on the left and on the right
6. Brian Barry Dies
7. Other BIG News from Around the World
8. Recent Events
9. Upcoming Events
10. Recent Publications
11. New Links
12. New Members
13. Links and Other Info

1. EDITORIAL: Keeping the global recession in perspective

The global recession has been spreading and deepening for nearly a year. It could become the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and it has captured nearly all of the attention we, our media, and our leaders pay to economic issues. Perhaps we’re paying too much attention to it. I want to convince you in this editorial that a recession—even a major depression—is not an economic problem of the first magnitude. Our most pressing economic problems are distribution, and they exist whether we are in recession or not. Recessions appear to be a major problem primarily because we allow existing distributional problems to get worse during recessions.

To see my argument, imagine that you lived through the entire Twentieth Century. You were born on January 1^st, 1900 and died exactly 100 years later on January 1^st, 2000. During all of that time you were a member of a representative American family of three with an income equal to the average U.S. income for a family of that size.

I have included a table below of average income per person and per family of three for the entire Twentieth Century. Don’t fear all these numbers. I’ll just ask you to glance at it and take a closer look at a few important ones. These figures are “adjusted for inflation” meaning that they are reported in 2008 prices. It is notoriously difficult to adjust for inflation in a world in which the prices of different goods are changing at different rates, new products are being introduced, and old products are being discontinued. Adjusting for inflation is much more subjective than most economists let on, but these figures represent our best guess about how to do it.

Financially, your imaginary family did awfully well during the Twentieth Century. Glance down Column 2 and see how your family’s income goes up and down, but mostly up. Your family’s income started at about $20,000 in 1900. It rose sporadically to reach $136,000 in 1999. That an increase of more than 577 percent—almost six times what your family made the day you were born. In the early years you could not have afford a computer, television, and many things we now take for granted, but your family’s $20,000 income would have been more than enough to pay for a home, for food, and for clothing for the whole family. At no time in that 100 year period would your family have had any difficulty securing its basic needs, and you were able to consume many luxuries as well.

	1	2	3	4
Year	Average income per person “adjusted for inflation” in 2008 dollars	…per family of three…	Percentage change from last year	Percentage change from the year you were born
1900	6,739	20,216	0	0
1901	7,353	22,060	9.12%	9.12%
1902	7,282	21,846	-0.97%	8.06%
1903	7,497	22,490	2.95%	11.25%
1904	7,264	21,792	-3.11%	7.79%
1905	7,647	22,941	5.28%	13.48%
1906	8,367	25,101	9.41%	24.16%
1907	8,343	25,030	-0.28%	23.81%
1908	7,513	22,538	-9.96%	11.49%
1909	8,265	24,796	10.02%	22.65%
1910	8,177	24,530	-1.07%	21.34%
1911	8,312	24,935	1.65%	23.34%
1912	8,567	25,701	3.07%	27.13%
1913	8,732	26,196	1.92%	29.58%
1914	7,906	23,717	-9.46%	17.32%
1915	8,013	24,038	1.35%	18.91%
1916	8,992	26,976	12.22%	33.44%
1917	8,645	25,934	-3.86%	28.28%
1918	9,322	27,966	7.84%	38.33%
1919	9,357	28,072	0.38%	38.86%
1920	9,146	27,439	-2.25%	35.73%
1921	8,768	26,305	-4.14%	30.12%
1922	9,126	27,377	4.08%	35.42%
1923	10,154	30,463	11.27%	50.68%
1924	10,267	30,801	1.11%	52.36%
1925	10,349	31,047	0.80%	53.57%
1926	10,876	32,629	5.09%	61.40%
1927	10,834	32,501	-0.39%	60.76%
1928	10,822	32,465	-0.11%	60.59%
1929	11,364	34,093	5.01%	68.64%
1930	10,234	30,703	-9.94%	51.87%
1931	9,375	28,126	-8.39%	39.13%
1932	8,086	24,257	-13.76%	19.99%
1933	7,869	23,607	-2.68%	16.77%
1934	8,424	25,271	7.05%	25.00%
1935	9,006	27,017	6.91%	33.64%
1936	10,220	30,659	13.48%	51.66%
1937	10,592	31,777	3.65%	57.19%
1938	10,092	30,277	-4.72%	49.76%
1939	10,808	32,423	7.09%	60.38%
1940	11,547	34,641	6.84%	71.35%
1941	13,517	40,552	17.06%	100.59%
1942	16,047	48,140	18.71%	138.12%
1943	18,974	56,922	18.24%	181.56%
1944	20,317	60,951	7.08%	201.49%
1945	19,288	57,863	-5.07%	186.22%
1946	15,150	45,449	-21.46%	124.81%
1947	14,638	43,914	-3.38%	117.22%
1948	14,932	44,796	2.01%	121.58%
1949	14,733	44,199	-1.33%	118.63%
1950	15,750	47,251	6.91%	133.73%
1951	16,665	49,994	5.80%	147.29%
1952	16,993	50,979	1.97%	152.17%
1953	17,482	52,447	2.88%	159.43%
1954	17,065	51,194	-2.39%	153.23%
1955	17,950	53,851	5.19%	166.38%
1956	17,979	53,938	0.16%	166.80%
1957	17,989	53,966	0.05%	166.94%
1958	17,512	52,535	-2.65%	159.87%
1959	18,500	55,499	5.64%	174.52%
1960	18,661	55,984	0.88%	176.93%
1961	18,782	56,346	0.65%	178.72%
1962	19,611	58,833	4.41%	191.02%
1963	20,167	60,501	2.83%	199.27%
1964	21,040	63,121	4.33%	212.23%
1965	22,105	66,314	5.06%	228.02%
1966	23,282	69,847	5.33%	245.50%
1967	23,606	70,818	1.39%	250.30%
1968	24,484	73,451	3.72%	263.33%
1969	25,005	75,015	2.13%	271.06%
1970	24,759	74,276	-0.99%	267.41%
1971	25,211	75,633	1.83%	274.12%
1972	26,264	78,793	4.18%	289.75%
1973	27,492	82,477	4.68%	307.97%
1974	27,166	81,499	-1.19%	303.13%
1975	26,824	80,472	-1.26%	298.06%
1976	27,963	83,890	4.25%	314.96%
1977	28,937	86,812	3.48%	329.42%
1978	30,266	90,798	4.59%	349.13%
1979	30,952	92,856	2.27%	359.31%
1980	30,603	91,808	-1.13%	354.13%
1981	31,061	93,183	1.50%	360.93%
1982	30,187	90,561	-2.81%	347.96%
1983	31,167	93,502	3.25%	362.51%
1984	33,148	99,445	6.36%	391.90%
1985	34,128	102,383	2.96%	406.44%
1986	34,982	104,947	2.50%	419.12%
1987	35,891	107,673	2.60%	432.60%
1988	37,063	111,190	3.27%	450.00%
1989	37,986	113,957	2.49%	463.69%
1990	38,218	114,655	0.61%	467.14%
1991	37,639	112,916	-1.52%	458.54%
1992	38,379	115,137	1.97%	469.53%
1993	38,903	116,709	1.36%	477.30%
1994	39,994	119,983	2.81%	493.50%
1995	40,529	121,587	1.34%	501.43%
1996	41,562	124,686	2.55%	516.76%
1997	42,915	128,745	3.26%	536.83%
1998	44,188	132,564	2.97%	555.73%
1999	45,629	136,886	3.26%	577.10%
Authors calculations from Bureau of Labor Statistics Data.

You income didn’t rise every year; it fluctuated with the business cycle. Glance down the third column. That shows the percentage change in your income from year to year. The years when your income dropped (shown in bold) are the recession years. In the first half of the Twentieth Century, the business cycle was volatile. Your income could go down 9 percent one year and up 10 percent the next. The worst economic years for you would have been 1930-1933, when over four years your family’s income declined from by nearly 25% from $34,093 to $23,607.

You might be tempted to think that 1945-1947 was worse because your income declined by a greater percentage in a shorter time. To see that this isn’t so, you have to realize that there is a lot this table doesn’t show. I doesn’t show how hard you are working, how much you want to work, and what you’re working for. You had a great increase in your income during the years 1940-1945, but that was largely because you were working extra hard for the goal of winning the Second World War. The decline from 1945 to 1947 mostly reflects that you no longer needed to work so hard because the war was won. Your income in 1947 (after 3-years of decline) was still more than 25% percent higher than 1940 and 85% higher than in 1933. You were actually doing just fine in that year.

The depression was different. You didn’t want to work any less in those years, but as a representative American, you were unemployed 25% of the time in 1933. This would have been difficult for your family. You might have had to sell some of your luxuries or move into a smaller home. But your inflation-adjusted income was still more than 16 percent higher than when you were born. If you could feed, cloth, and house your family in 1900, you could do so in 1933 and you could have spent all of your additional income on luxuries that you couldn’t afford in 1900. As a representative American family, you were not in financial distress even in the depths of the Great Depression. There would have been no reason for a member of your family to stand in a bread line or head to California in search of work as a migrant farm laborer.

After 1950, the business cycle became even less of a problem for you and your family. You experienced the occasional 1 or 2 percent decline, but such a small decline would have been barely noticeable, especially with your an income being 300% or 400% higher than a few decades early. The worst recessions such as in the mid 70s and early 80s caused less than a 3 percent drop in your income. That might have slowed your accumulation of savings or caused you to put off buying a new luxury for a year or two, but no more than that.

The current recession might well cause national income to drop by 6 percent this year. Suppose it goes on, and we experience a decline similar to the Great Depression, say lowering national income to 20 percent less than it was in 1999. That would bring the income of our representative American family down to $109,509—higher than in the boom year of 1987. That means, even if we suffer the worst depression since the 1930s, we will still have a greater technical capacity to feed, clothe, house, and provide luxuries our people than we did in the boom year of 1987. If we dealt with such a crisis sensibly, it would affect only our consumption of luxuries, not necessities.

These facts illustrate the point that I’m trying to make: if we keep in mind the truly important economic issues, recessions are something we can easily handle. The most important thing about your income is not whether it rises or falls by a few percentage points in a given year, but that’s all a recession is. The most important thing is not even that your income grows over time, although a growing income is always nice. Actually, the most important thing about your income is that it meets your needs.

Our main concern about the national economy should be same the same as each individual’s main concern about his or her own income. Before worrying about the bankers, or about the rise or fall of an abstract figure like GDP, we should ask ourselves: how can we secure food, housing, clothing, medical care, and education for everyone? Whether we are in a recession or not has little to do with our answer to that question. Going back to 1776, there has never been a time when America lacked the economic capacity to secure every citizen’s needs. Nor was there a time when it was even close. This fact is not unique to America. Economist Amartya Sen has found evidence that there has not been a famine in modern history in which any nation actually lacked the economic capacity to feed its citizens. Modern famines have all been caused by mal-distribution of plentiful resources.

Sen’s observation is true only for modern history, not for all of human history. The Norse in Greenland, the Mayan Empire, the Easter Islanders and other societies all apparently experienced episodes in which they simply could not feed their people. But these were environmental disasters, not financial depressions. Once we solve the important economic problems of how to secure our needs without screwing up our environment, even a severe depression means no more than a fluctuation in our accumulation of luxuries. Distribution of necessities is what is important, not a 10 percent fluctuation in our ability to produce luxuries. A recession is a trivial issue for the nation as a whole; it is a minor fluctuation in output. This could and should cause no more than a pause in our accumulation of luxuries.

Of course, what actually happens during recessions is significant: more people are in poverty; more people are homeless; more people lack their necessities; more people have reason to fear economic security. All of this is true, but it is only true because we allow it to happen. We had the technical capacity to eliminate economic deprivation in the recession years of 1982 and 1992 just as we did in the boom years of 1987 and 1999. We did not do solve these problems in boom years and we let them get worse in recession years. A recession cannot hurt anyone in a significant way unless we let it. The tragedy is that we let it.

-Karl Widerquist, Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, begun in Reykjavik, Iceland, completed in Oxford, England, May 2009.

2. The 2009 USBIG Congress and a movement for Basic Income in the United States

More than 65 scheduled participants and an unknown number of unofficial participants and spectators attended the Eighth Congress of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network in New York, February 27 through March 1, 2009. Participants discussed a wide variety of topics. The program is online at www.usbig.net.

Stanley Aronowitz, of the City University of New York, in his keynote address, argued that it is now time for organized political action to promote the basic income guarantee in the United States. Most of those who participated in the discussion agreed. The members of the USBIG Network Committee said that they were not in a position to lead that movement. USBIG is and will remain a discussion group dedicated to educating people about BIG, rather than a political movement organizing action to promote BIG. However, Steve Shafarman, of the newly formed Income Security Institute, which sponsors IncomeSecurityForAll.org, said that his organization is ready to take on that responsibility.

On the final day of the Congress, many of the participants drafted and signed a letter to President Obama calling for a basic income guarantee in the United States. The text of the letter follows this report. If you would like to add your signature to the letter or get involved in the movement to promote basic income, please go to IncomeSecurityForAll.org, or contact Steven Shafarman .

Letter to President Obama

Eighth Congress of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network, New York, March 1, 2009

Income Security Institute
PO Box 53050
Washington, DC 20009

Dear President Barack Obama:

We urge you to consider establishing a basic income for all Americans as the most effective way to stop the contraction of the economy and begin a new era of economic prosperity for all.

This bold step would provide every American with a monthly income sufficient for their basic needs. It would truly stimulate the economy, bring customers to struggling businesses, restore consumer confidence, and provide freedom and dignity to all. And as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in Where Do We Go >From Here: Chaos or Community? (1967), “the most effective solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.”

As our economy continues to shed well over half a million jobs each month, there are millions of Americans in dire financial straits. We should acknowledge that the economic system that we all depend upon is inherently risky and susceptible to wild swings. It is now time to ensure a basic level of income security for all in a way that is independent of the ever-changing nature of business cycles.

A full basic income for all Americans would cost approximately $1.8 trillion according to some estimates, or we could start with a more modest proposal that costs less. The U.S. has committed to funding a host of economic stimulus programs over the past year that adds up to about $9.7 trillion, according to Bloomberg.com. More than $3 trillion has already been spent or lent thus far, mostly in the financial sector, yet there is no end in sight to the ever-deepening recession. Spending $1.8 trillion to deliver much-needed income directly to the American people is a relatively small price to pay for turning our economy around.

The state of Alaska has had a successful experience for 26 years providing an equal dividend from its oil revenues to all residents living there for a year or more. It has helped make Alaska the state with the most economic equality in the nation. There they have applied a key idea of one of the intellectual leaders of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine: the right of everyone to participate in the wealth of the nation. The basic income is also gaining support in many nations around the world, including Germany, Brazil, South Africa, Namibia, Ireland and Canada.

The members of the US Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG) and the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) are available to meet with your economic team to discuss this important issue. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Stanley Aronowitz, City University of New York
Karl Widerquist, US Basic Income Guarantee Network
Steven Shafarman, Income Security Institute
Michael Howard, University of Maine
Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy, Brazilian Senator
Nicolaus Tideman, Virginia Tech
Jason Burke Murphy, Educators for Social Justice, St. Louis University
Richard K. Caputo, Yeshiva University
Eri Noguchi, Columbia University
Jesse Johnson, Mountain Party of West Virginia
Almaz Zelleke, The New School
Doug Cresson, Monmouth University
Eron Lloyd, Henry George Foundation of America
Chandra Pasma, Citizens for Public Justice
Jeffery J. Smith, Geonomics.org
Al Sheahen, writer
Dan O’Sullivan, RiseUpEconomics.org
Buford Farris, retired sociologist
Sean Healy, Cori Justice
Brigid Reynolds, Cori Justice
Alanna Hartzok, Earth Rights
Stephen C. Clark, JaspersBox.com
David London, independent researcher, post-scarcity economics
Fabrizio Patriares, University of Rome, Democratic Party Italy
Reimund Acker, Netzwerk Grundeinkommen
Dorothee Shielbe Basha, Netzwerk Grundeinkommen

3. The Alaska Permanent Fund recovers slightly, but its prospects are still uncertain and its strategy is doubly controversial

The Alaska Permanent Fund (APF), which finances Alaska’s Basic Income Guarantee [known as the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD)], has recovered slightly in the last few months after suffering heavy losses last year. The dividend will be significantly smaller than its record high level last year, and it is likely to shrink even more over the next few years. Following the drop in the fund, strong controversy has arisen about the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation’s (APFC) investment policy and its dividend distribution policy

According to the Anchorage Daily News, the fund reached a peak of $40.4 billion in October 2007, fell to a low of $26 billion in March, and by early May recovered to $30.39 billion. These movements have largely followed the movement of the stock market. The comparatively modest recovery will make it easier for the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC) to pay a dividend this year, which might reduce the controversy over whether, under the circumstances, it should pay a dividend at all.

The APF is constitutionally prohibited from distributing any of its “principal,” which under the current definition (total deposits into the fund) is only $29.6 billion. Therefore, the APFC might not have been able to pay any dividends this year. The legislature moved quickly to redefine the word “principal” in a way that would yield a lower figure and make payment of this year’s fund constitutional. Even if the principal is redefined, the dividend is likely to shirk below $1500 this year, and Mike Burns, the fund’s utive director, warns that it could shrink much more without changes to the way dividends are managed. According to KTUU-TV, Burns warned that dividends could fall below $1000 next year, and below $500 the year after that.

Gregg Erickson, an economist and editor-at-large of the Alaska Budget Report, heavily criticized the redefinition of the fund in a column in the Anchorage Daily News. He called instead for the APFC to request a loan from the state treasury to pay this year’s dividend.

Erickson also called for a change in strategy for how the APFC calculates each year’s dividend. Currently each dividend is based on the fund’s average return over the past five years. He argued that each year’s dividend should instead be based on a fixed percentage of the fund’s current market value.

Erickson did not, in the piece I’m quoting, elaborate on how this would create a more stable dividend, but the process is easy to see. Under current rules, if the fund’s returns are high, it pays out a large percentage of the fund’s value in dividends. But if the fund’s returns are low, it pays out a very small percentage of the fund’s value in dividends. Five-year averaging is supposed to smooth out the returns, but it is possible to have very good returns for five years in a row, and then have one very bad year that wipes out all or most of the gains from those five good years. This is pretty much what happened between 2002 and 2008. If returns are negative, the APFC can’t distribute a negative dividend. It has already paid out much of the returns it made during the good years, and so it has difficulty recovering from a big down year.

Basing the fund on percentage of market value would reduce some of these fluctuations. When the fund goes up, people would get a slightly higher dividend because they would get the same fixed percentage of a higher principal. High short-term returns would go increase the principal more than the dividend. When the fund goes down people would get the same fixed percentage of the lower principal. The principal is always more stable than its returns, and so dividends would be much more stable. As long as the fixed percentage is below what the fund actually makes on average over the long term, this strategy will lead to more stable returns and a faster long-term growth rate of the principal. The APFC could go a long way toward ensuring this goal was reached by setting the percentage at half of the average return experienced by the fund since its inception.

The APFC’s investment strategy has been even more controversial than its dividend-calculation policy. Many editorials have come out criticizing the APF’s handling of the investment crisis. The APFC has followed a strategy of investing in a diversified portfolio of U.S. and world stocks, real estate, and bonds. Diversity of stock and real estate investment allows the fund to make high returns and avoid heavy losses as long as some assets go up while others go down. However, in the financial crisis of 2008, most world stocks and real estate went down at the same time. Hence the “heavily diversified” fund dropped by 30 percent in 18 months.

The APFC, like any institutional investor hires financial analysts who are supposed to foresee the world financial situation and/or create investment strategies that will keep the fund from suffering major problems if it fails to foresee the world financial situation. Dermot Cole presented facts in a recent column to show how the APFC’s experts failed on both accounts in the recent crisis.

According to Cole, the outlook for the APFC in 2007 report predictions by its analysts for where the fund might be in 2009. These experts’ average prediction was $42.2 billion, and the range of predictions varied from $34.4 billion to $50.2. That is, even the most pessimistic forecasts were far above the actual figure. None of the experts saw this coming. Cole also showed how weak the APFC’s excuses for its position have been. The APFC apparently put out a press releasing saying that the fund didn’t go down as much as the S&P 500 and that other institutional investors, including Yale and Harvard, suffered similar loses. The implication seems to be that even the really smart analysts at Harvard didn’t see this coming. Cole’s understated facts make the reader wonder about whether any financial experts are worth their enormous salaries. But this is not the point as far as the dividend is concerned.

Investing is inherently risky. It is almost impossible to get higher returns without higher risk. The problem for the APFC is that it either needs to move to a lower risk investment strategy or find a more conservative payout schedule to keep the volatility of its higher-risk investments from translating into wide year-to-year swings in the dividend.

The mood across all the recent editorials I’ve seen on the Permanent Fund is favorable to the Permanent Fund concept, if critical of its recent investment and payout strategies. The goal of a stable, permanent fund is enormously popular. The most common concern seems to be how to make it happen.

LINKS TO RECENT NEWS ON THE PERMANENT FUND:

Alaska News Minor: “Market rally pushes Permanent Fund over $30 billion” May 5th, 2009: http://www.adn.com/money/story/784680.html

KTUU-TV, “Permanent Fund dividends expected to shrink,” March 13, 2009: http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=10001455

Gregg Erickson, “Lawmakers' Permanent Fund raid will gut future payouts,” Anchorage Daily News, March 15, 2009: http://www.adn.com/opinion/comment/story/723540.html

Rich Seifert, Fairbanks Daily Newsminer, “The hole in the Permanent Fund,” March 5, 2009: http://newsminer.com/news/2009/mar/05/hole-permanent-fund/

Wesley Loy, “Despite losses, PFD distribution still likely,” Anchorage Daily News, February 27th, 2009: http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/705348.html

Dermot Cole, “Permanent Fund and its advisers should say where the forecasts went wrong,” Fairbanks NewsMiner, February 10, 2009: http://newsminer.com/weblogs/dermot-cole/2009/feb/10/permanent-fund-and-its-consultant-should-address-why-the-forecasts-were-wrong/

Dermot Cole, “‘We absolutely did not see the financial meltdown coming,’” Fairbanks NewsMiner, February 11, 2009: http://newsminer.com/weblogs/dermot-cole/2009/feb/11/we-absolutely-did-not-see-the-financial-meltdown-coming-permanent-fund-consultant-says/

4. The Namibian BIG Pilot Project shows positive results

The Basic Income Grant Coalition of Namibia has released the Assessment Report for the first year of the BIG pilot project. The BIG Coalition has run a pilot project distributing BIG to the residents of a Otjivero-Omitara, a small town of less than 1000 people in Namibia. Key findings from the first year Assessment Report include the following.

The BIG resulted in a huge reduction of child malnutrition. Children's weight-for-age has improved significantly from 42% of underweight children in November 2007 to 10% in November 2008.

Household poverty has dropped significantly. Using the food poverty line, 76% of residents fell below it in November 2007. Among households that were not affected by in-migration (see below), the food poverty rate dropped to 16%.

“The introduction of the BIG has led to an increase in economic activity. The rate of those engaged in income-generating activities (above the age of 15) increased from 44% to 55%. Thus the BIG enabled recipients to increase their work both for pay, profit or family gain as well as self-employment. … This finding contradicts critics' claims that the BIG would lead to laziness and dependency.”

The BIG has led to a significant increase in school attendance. Drop-out rates at the school fell from almost 40% in November 2007 to almost 0% in November 2008.

The BIG has led to significant migration towards Otjivero-Omitara even though only those residents who lived in the town before the start of the project are eligible to receive the grant. The new residents are typically impoverished relatives who came to live with local residents who are receiving the grant.

“The residents have been using the settlement's health clinic much more regularly since the introduction of the BIG. Residents now pay the N$ 4 payment for each visit and the income of the clinic has increased fivefold from N$ 250 per month to about N$ 1,300.”

Average debt fell from N$ 1,215 to N$ 772 and average savings rose between November 2007 and November 2008.

“Overall crime rates – as reported to the local police station – fell by 42%”

“The criticism that the BIG is leading to increasing alcoholism is not supported by empirical evidence.”

The full 100-page report, which details how these and other findings were calculated and their implications of a national BIG in Namibia, is online in PDF format at http://www.bignam.org/.

The findings of the report are overwhelmingly positive. Although the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) had recently put out a report that was very critical of the project (see previous USBIG Newsletter), NEPRU has had to withdraw some of the key statements of that report, having to do with poverty and crime, because they were not substantiated and not properly researched. One of the key authors of that report, Economist Rigmar Osterkamp, is no longer employed with NEPRU.

Despite the positive news about the pilot project that has been coming out for months, the Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS) reports: “There was no mention of a special grant to tackle poverty in the Namibian national budget speech delivered on March 19.” Nevertheless, pressure for BIG is growing. According to IPS, “with an election looming later this year, attitudes appear to be softening.”

Bishop Dr. Zephania Kameeta of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and vice-president of the Lutheran World Federation, has been a strong advocate for BIG in Namibia and was instrumental in initiating the pilot project. Speaking recently at a symposium, Bishop Kameeta made a biblical case for BIG, saying "Jesus did not make his feeding of the 5000 subject to the condition that the people fulfill any qualifications. His help and his love were and are unconditional. Such a Basic Income Grant frees people to take the initiative and accept responsibility."

Links to stories on the pilot project and the BIG Coalition in Namibia:

The First Year Assessment Report: http://www.bignam.org/

For a story on Bishop Kameeta's statement, see: http://www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=2807

New Era, “The Basic Income Grant Coalition says the implementation of a national BIG in Namibia is now a matter of political will,” April 27, 2009: http://www.newera.com.na/article.php?articleid=3980

Servaas van den Bosch, “Namibia Gets BIG on Poverty” Inter Press News, March 21, 2009: http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=46221

Rodrick Mukumbira, “Namibian church-backed coalition urges basic grant to citizens,” Ecumenical News International, May 6, 2009: http://www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=2976

5. Carbon Tax Dividend proposal finds advocates on the left and on the right

The idea of a reducing carbon emissions by taxing them and redistributing the proceeds as a basic income has received increasing attention lately in editorials by environmentalists, scientists, and even by Republicans who write in Forbes Magazine.

Dr. Matt Prescott is an environmental consultant and the founder of highly successful “ban the bulb” campaign, which has worked to promote compact florescent lights in the United Kingdom. He wrote an editorial on the carbon-tax dividend last year for the BBC website. According to Prescott, Sweden introduced the tax (without the dividend) in 1991, writing “It has been a huge success and enabled the country to achieve a 9% reduction in its emissions while simultaneously achieving economic growth of 44% between 1990 and 2006.” This is at a time when carbon emissions in most countries in the world were growing substantially.

When the entire carbon tax is redistributed as a basic income, it need not discourage economic activity at all because it doesn’t take any money out of the economy. People who use less than an average amount of carbon end up with more money than before. People who use more than an average amount of carbon end up with less than before, and people who use exactly the average amount are financially no better or worse off than before. There is no incentive to reduce economic activity, only to redirect it towards things that use less carbon.

James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has been active in Washington this year promoting the idea of a carbon-tax dividend. He sees this proposal as an alternative to the cap-and-trade strategy for reducing carbon emissions favored by the Obama administration (so far with little success). Cap-and-trade would limit carbon emissions, sell the rights to emit that amount of carbon, and use the funds for general revenue. Tax-and-dividend would instead devote all revenue from carbon taxes to a dividend that would establish a small basic income guarantee. Hansen wrote about the carbon-tax dividend in an open letter to Obama, and spoke about it in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee on February 25, 2009.

Reihan Salam endorsed Hansen’s approach in a recent column in Forbes Magazine. Salam argues that tax-and-dividend would be a superior strategy for carbon reductions because it would develop its own constituency of middle class voters who might otherwise balk at the increased energy prices that any emissions-reduction scheme will create. Salam mentions drawbacks to the approach. For example, recipients of the dividend will not see it shrink over time as emissions fall. Salam calls for Republican environmentalists to adopt this plan to gain back some of the ground they lost to the Democrats.

Reihan Salam, of the New America Foundation, is co-author of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dreams. The full text of the article is online at:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/11/congress-climate-legislation-opinions-columnists-cap-and-trade.html
Hansen’s letter to Obama is on line at: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20081229_DearMichelleAndBarack.pdf
His testimony before Congress is online at: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2009/WaysAndMeans_20090225.pdf
Matt Prescott’s BBC column, along with reader comments is online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7471197.stm
See also: banthebulb.org
He can be reached by email at: matt.prescott@gmail.com

6. Brian Barry Dies

Brian Barry, a leading political philosopher who became a strong basic income supporter in the last ten years, died March 10, 2009 after a bad fall. English by birth, and educated at Oxford, Barry was both an emeritus professor of philosophy at Columbia University and an emeritus professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics. Barry is well known for his defense of a liberal conception of social justice and for his concern for the distributional aspects of equality. He was a featured speaker at the 2005 USBIG Congress in New York City.

Tributes to Barry are online at: http://crookedtimber.org/2009/03/11/brian-barry-is-dead/.
A brief obituary by Stuart White is online at: http://www.nextleft.org/2009/03/brian-barry-has-died.html
More information about Barry is online at: http://www.columbia.edu/~bmb21/

7. Other BIG News from Around the World

CANADA WITHOUT POVERTY

The Canadian National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO) is a prominent supporter of basic income. In early February, it announced its new logo and its new public name: Canada Without Poverty (Canada sans pauvreté)! “National Anti-Poverty Organization” remains the formal name until such time as it can be legally changed, per amendment procedures in the NAPO by-laws and per Industry Canada approval. These changes are part of NAPO’s repositioning for the strongest possible contribution to combating poverty, inequality and social exclusion in Canada. The new name is meant to keep NAPO’s focus squarely on the ultimate goal, and to inspire others.
For further information: Rob Rainer, rob@cwp-csp.ca; www.cwp-csp.ca
-From BIEN

GERMANY: BASIC INCOME SUPPORTERS MAY BECOME MEMBERS OF EU-PARLIAMENT
BIEN Reports: At the recent conference of the German Green Party (23-25 January 2009) in Dortmund, the Greens elected their candidates for the European parliament. Four dedicated supporters of a universal basic income are now in good positions to become members of the European parliament after the forthcoming elections in June 2009: Ska Keller, Werner Schulz, Elisabeth Schroedter and Gerald Häfner. At the party conference the manifesto for this election was approved. The German Greens support the request of the European parliament to the Commission to examine basic income as a means to fight poverty. The German Greens also aim for guaranteed minimum income schemes for all citizens of the European Union. These minimum income schemes should be individualized and should provide for the ‘socio-cultural minimum’. Basic income is mentioned explicitly as a possibility to implement a guaranteed minimum income. Link to the list of candidates for the European parliament: http://www.gruene.de/cms/default/dok/267/267120.starkes_team_zieht_in_europawahlkampf.htm
Link to the preliminary version of the manifesto: http://www.gruene.de/cms/default/dokbin/267/267118.kapitel_iv_soziales_europa.pdf

BRAZIL: PILOT PROJECT TO BE LAUNCHED?
Encouraged by Senator Eduardo Suplicy, a local basic income pilot project is about to be launched in Brazil. Suplicy detailed the prospects for that experiment in a newspaper article published in Portuguese by the Folha de S. Paulo, one Brazil's main newspapers, in its March 27, 2009 issue. Here are a few excerpts:

"Last March 20, the climate resort Santo Antônio do Pinhal experienced an unforgettable night. Mayor José Augusto Guarnieri Pereira (PT) invited the councilors and representatives of all local economic sectors for a dialogue, at the Common Council, about the proposal of constituting a Citizen Fund that allows paying a Citizen´s Basic Income to all of the approximately 7,000 inhabitants, turning the city into a pioneer example in Brazil. Santo Antônio do Pinhal is located about 180 km from São Paulo, 1,200 meters above the sea level, on the Serra da Mantiqueira, near Campos do Jordão. (...) In 2007, a couple of farmers, Marina and Francisco Nóbrega, took the mayor to my speech about the Citizen´s Basic Income at the University of the Paraíba Valley, in São José dos Campos. At the end, I asked the students to suggest to the Mayor that the city implement a pioneer example of basic income. Everybody agreed. (...) A technical team, with the support of the Corporação Andina de Fomento (CAF), will help with the project elaboration. The São Paulo State Secretary of Assistance and Social Development, and the federal bank Caixa Econômica Federal were also present and willing to collaborate. (...) So, in the same way as the first proposals of the minimum income linked to education had started locally, leading to its spread out to all the cities, today it is possible to start a basic income through a city such as Santo Antônio do Pinhal. It needs only the determination of the Mayor, the Councilors and the community, mainly because the Citizen´s Basic Income, according to the Federal Law 10.835/2004, is to be instituted gradually, under the criterion of the utive Power."
For the full story, go to the newspaper's website: http://www.folha.uol.com.br/.
-From BIEN

ITALY: MINIMUM INCOME LAW VOTED IN LAZIO REGION
An important step has been made towards the implementation of a minimum income scheme in Italy, one of the few EU-countries without a true minimum income scheme for the poor. On March 4, 2009, the council of the Lazio Region (Rome) voted for a law implementing a minimum income scheme ("reddito minimo") within the region. It states that individuals below a gross income of EUR8.000 per year are entitled to a EUR560 minimum income. This means-tested scheme, however, remains experimental. The Region has decided to spend no more than EUR40 millions in the next 3 years. The scheme includes a work requirement, but beneficiaries are allowed to decline a job offer when it does not fit their qualifications. The law was voted in under pressure of several trade unions, activists, and students.

In the meanwhile, the debate on the unconditional basic income remains intense in several parts of Italy. On March 9, 2009, a meeting was organized in Naples by several associations (students, NGO's, ...), in order to discuss the means to fight the camorra (mafia). The focus was on "new welfare to fight against the mafia". Members of BIN Italy talked about the necessity of a basic income as a means to empower individuals, and help them oppose blackmailing by the mafia. On March 28, 2009, more than 20,000 people marched in the streets of Rome against the "G14" (an extended G8) meeting. The demonstration included workers, students, and activists advocating new rights, including the "guaranteed income for all". During the demonstration, a group of activists attacked a bank office, and wrote various slogans on the wall, such as: "reclaim the money for all", or "we want a guaranteed income".

For further details on the Lazio law: http://www.bin-italia.org/informa.php?ID_NEWS=31
On the Naples meeting: http://www.bin-italia.org/informa.php?ID_NEWS=28
On the Rome demonstration: http://roma.indymedia.org/node/9026
-From BIEN

JAPAN: BASIC INCOME TO GAIN POLITICAL SUPPORT IN 2009?
Thanks to the initiatives of the provisional Basic Income Japanese Network (BIJN, founded 2007), which had several academic meetings in Tokyo (January 2009) and Kyoto (July 2008 and March 2009), interest in basic income has been growing in Japan last year. Two new books entirely devoted to the idea were published in 2008. A few events are also worth mentioning.

On January 4, 2008, the newspaper Tokyo Shimbun News (http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/) had an article in favor of basic income. Toru Yamamori explained the idea and feasibility of basic income and Masaru Kaneko commented that the current Japanse welfare system should be replaced by something else, though he isn’t sure that basic income is the best alternative.

On January 15, 2008, NHK Radio (Japan Broadcasting Corporation, http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/) aired a short program that introduced the idea of Basic Income. Toru Yamamori spoke that the deaths caused by poverty in Japan should be taken seriously and basic income can be one of remedies. On June 1st and 13, 2008, the newspaper Kyoto Shimbun News (http://www.kyoto-np.co.jp/) had two articles in favor of basic income. Shuji Ozawa and Toru Yamamori contributed. Ozawa explained the current problems of social security and financial feasibility of BI, and Yamamori explained BI activism from Martin Luther King to anti-G8 movements. On December 26, 2008, Takafumi Horie (a famous IT entrepreneur) briefly referred BI on a popular TV program of TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System).

Several events related to basic income also took place in early 2009. For instance, on 22 February 2009 one of the main figures of the Japanese basic income movement, Toru Yamamori, was invited to speak about Basic Income at the annual gathering of the disabled people’s movement in Kyoto. The event was officially supported by the Kyoto city government and the Kyoto prefecture government. On March 1, 2009, Yamamori also gave a lecture on basic income at the meeting of the Feminist Labour Centre, in Osaka.

Finally, in February 2009 the New Party Nippon (http://www.love-nippon.com/12jyunbi_chu.htm) adopted Basic Income in its Manifest. The leader of this party, Yasuo Tanaka, argued for Basic Income via several media. He is a famous writer, ex-governor of Nagano prefecture, and is currently the only MP of this party. Furthermore, on April 3, 2009, more than 40 MPs of the Democratic Party of Japan (currently the largest opposition party) attended a study meeting on Basic Income. Toru Yamamori gave a presentation, and Shogo Takekawa and Taro Miyamato are scheduled to speak at the next sessions to be organized in the near future (Party’s website: http://www.dpj.or.jp/english/)
For further information: http://www1.doshisha.ac.jp/~tyamamor/bijnenglish.html.
-From BIEN

8. Recent Events

BIEN CANADA MEETING AND WORKSHOP AT THE SOCIAL FORUM IN CALGARY

BIEN Canada will held both a meeting and a workshop at the Canadian Social Forum in Calgary on May 19, 2009. The title of the workshop was “Guaranteed Income: A Path to Economic Security?” It outlined current thinking around basic income models, and invited participants to explore issues of design, public support, and strategies for working towards income guarantees in the Canadian context.

The meeting was held immediately before the start of forum. It was the first face-to-face meeting of the network's members since the inaugural meeting in June 2008 at the BIEN Congress in Dublin. The provisional agenda was:

1. Update on BIEN Canada activities since founding meeting in June 2008
2. Updates from around the country on activities, publications, and debates on guaranteed and basic income approaches
3. Update on BIEN activities (including planning for BIEN Congress in Sao Paulo, Brazil in July 2010)
4. Plans for BIEN Canada Colloquium in Ottawa, October 1 - 2 2009
5. Discussion with guests from HRSDC Canada (Shawn Tupper and colleagues)
6. Organizational tasks:
- formation of an utive committee
- designing and launching a website
- establishing a newsletter
- fundraising for BIEN Canada
- possible activities and projects beyond the October colloquium in Ottawa
7. Upcoming meeting date(s)

More information on the CSF program is available at: http://www.ccsd.ca/csf/2009.
To find our more or to get involved with BIEN Canada, contact Jim Mulvale, of University of Regina, at jim.mulvale@uregina.ca, phone 306.585.4237.

SYMPOSIUM ON BASIC INCOME
Herzogenrath, Germany 16-17 May 2009
Following the October 2008 Basic Income Conference (Berlin), German basic income supporters organized a two-day symposium on May 16-17, 2009. It was intended to be more focused and scientifically oriented than the Berlin conference and was open for invited participants only. Both the Berlin conference and the symposium were part of the "Basic Income on its Way to Europe" project, which is funded by the European Union.
Further info: acker@grundeinkommen.de
-From BIEN

RETHINKING WELFARE AND THE CHALLENGE OF BASIC INCOME
Firenze, Italy, 24 April 2009
The conference took place at the Polo delle scienze sociali in Florence. The meeting was sponsored by Università di Firenze dipartimento scienze economiche, Movimento Federalista Europeo Toscana, Associazione Universitaria cooperazione allo sviluppo. Featured speakers included Dr. Giuseppe Bronzin, Andrea Fumagalli, Guy Standing, and Renato Libanora.
Further information: http://www.bin-italia.org/informa.php?ID_NEWS=42

A FEMINIST WAY FORWARD TO BASIC INCOME: the 4th Annual Conference of the Japanese Association for Feminist Economics
HIKONE, Japan, April 19, 2008
The Association for Feminist Economics (JAFFE) held its 4th annual conference at Shiga University, and its general theme was “A Feminist Way Forward to Basic Income”. The organizer was Toru Yamamori. Featured speakers included Shunko Ishiro, Shuji Ozawa, Kumiko Ida and Tetsuki Tamura. JAFFE will soon publish the proceedings. For more information go to JAFFE’s website: http://devgen.igs.ocha.ac.jp/jaffe/.

BASIC INCOME AND CASH TRANSFERS
Ahmedabad, India, 13 April 2009
A day-long meeting to discuss basic income and cash transfers was held in Ahmedabad, India on April 13, 2009. Guy Standing made a presentation on how conditional cash transfers will lead to a basic income, and contributors to the Indian debate on cash transfers will be invited to respond. The meeting was organized by SEWA (the Self-Employed Women’s Association of India) and the Gujarat Institute for Social Research.

NEW WELFARE AND GUARANTEED INCOME
Rome, 25 March 2009
Members of Basic Income Network Italia (BIN Italia), along with several scholars, took part in a meeting on basic income which was convened at the initiative of the students' movement at the Università La Sapienza. The meeting was focused on labour market issues, the knowledge economy, and a guaranteed income.
For further information: http://www.bin-italia.org/informa.php?ID_NEWS=40

SEMINAR ON GUARANTEED INCOME
Rome, 20 March 2009
BIEN reports: this seminar about the idea of a guaranteed income within the framework of a "new welfare system" was sponsored by BIN Italia (the Italian Section of BIEN). Several lawyers took part in the seminar, and the discussion was mainly focused on labour law issues.
For further information: http://www.bin-italia.org/informa.php?ID_NEWS=39
Pictures: http://www.bin-italia.org/articledb/image-gallery/index.php?page=list-image&album=15

GUY STANDING SPEAKS AT THE EUROPEAN YOUNG SOCIALISTS MEETING
BRUSSELS (BE), 5 March 2009
BIEN reports: On March 5, 2009, Guy Standing, honorary co-president of BIEN, was invited to give an address on how basic income could help in the recovery from the financial crisis to a conference organized by the European Young Socialists in the European Parliament in Brussels. He urged the delegates to think beyond the conventional perspectives and argued that unconditional stabilization grants would be a step towards a more equal and free society, which they as emerging politicians should espouse.

SOCIAL CASH TRANSFERS AND BASIC INCOME
Vienna, Austria, 22 January 2009
The question addressed at this event concerned whether cash transfers may be helpful in fighting poverty in a sustainable manner. In several African countries and in Brazil pilot projects have been launched to test the effects of cash transfers rather than direct food supply to the poorest. First experiences are documented and discussed in a study called "A Human Rights View of Social Cash Transfers for achieving the Millennium Development Goals" which was presented in Vienna on January 22nd by the authors Rolf Künnemann and Ralf Leonhard, both members of FIAN - for the right to food. Surveys show that cash transfers are effective even when no conditions are attached. It is expected that more countries will follow suit and development agencies may support the programmes. Markus Schallhas - member of "Round table_BI" in Austria- reported on the BI pilot project in Namibia and presented the results of the first assessment report. Manfred Schnitzer from the Austrian Foreign Ministry then joined in the panel discussion. Experts from development agencies, NGOs and different initiatives participated in the workshops which went into more detail. The event was jointly organized by FIAN (Austria) and B.I.E.N. Austria.
The study can be downloaded at: http://www.fian.org/resources/documents/others/a-human-rights-view-of-social-cash-transfers-for-achieving-the-mdgs
-From BIEN

9. Upcoming Events

CITIZENS INCOME TRUST SESSIONS AT SOCIAL POLICY ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE
Edinburgh, United Kingdom, June 29 – July 1, 2009
The Citizen’s Income Trust —BIEN’s affiliate in the United Kingdom—has organized three sessions on basic income at the Social Policy Association’s 43rd annual Conference at the University of Edinburgh June 29 – July 1, 2009. Nine papers arranged into three symposia have been accepted for presentation as parallel sessions at the SPA. Speakers include Jurgen De Wispelaere, Lindsay Stirton, Anne G Miller, Karl Widerquist, Joel F Handler, Bill Jordan, Guy Standing, Louise Haagh, Ailsa McKay, and Stuart White.
For more information contact: Annie Miller at the CIT office, info@citizensincome.org
For more information: www.citizensincome.org.

BASIC INCOME COLLOQUIUM
OTTAWA (CA), October 1-2, 2009
BIEN Canada will holds Basic Income Colloquium in Ottawa on 1-2 October 2009. Featured speakers include Senator Hugh Segal (a proponent of guaranteed income in the Canadian Federal Parliament) and Jurgen De Wispelaere of Trinity College Dublin, who also is co-editor of Basic Income Studies.
For further information: Dr. Jim Mulvale, University of Regina at jim.mulvale@uregina.ca phone 306.585.4237.

10. Recent Publications

THE CITIZEN’S INCOME NEWSLETTER, Issue 2, 2009

This edition contains news, book reviews, and the following articles:

“Can Unconditional Cash Transfers Work? They Can.”
By Malcolm Torry
A report of a seminar on Tuesday 27th January 2009 at the School of Oriental and African Studies led by Guy Standing, Professor of Economic Security, University of Bath, and former Director of the Socio-Economic Security Programme of the International Labour Organization.

“Promoting Citizen’s Income without Bashing Bureaucracy? (Yes, We Can)”
By Lindsay Stirton, University of Manchester, and Jurgen De Wispelaere, Trinity College Dublin
This article examines whether the shift from a categorical welfare system to a comprehensive BIG will generate significant savings in administrative costs.

“Citizen’s Income and Administration”
By Annie Miller
This article is a response to “Promoting Citizen’s Income without Bashing Bureaucracy? by Stirton and De Wispelaere.”

“Viewpoint: The Real Economy is in Good Shape”
By Geoff Crocker

The Citizens Income Newsletter including all of these articles is online at http://www.citizensincome.org/.

Michael Opielka, “The Likelihood of a Basic Income in Germany”
International Social Security Review, Vol. 61, no 3, 2008
ABSTRACT: The article discusses whether the likelihood of Germany introducing a basic income policy—that is independent of labour market participation — has increased in recent years. A brief description of the main elements of the German welfare state is followed by a critical analysis of more recent developments in guaranteeing a basic income, not least with the 2003 merger of unemployment benefits and social assistance. Since then the resulting fears of downwardmobility felt even by the middle classes have reignited the 1980’s debate about a basic income. Two models (the “basic income guarantee” and the “solidarity citizen’s income”) are used to discuss practical system design problems and the chances of realizing a basic income policy. Michael Opielka is a member of the Faculty of Social Welfare, University of Applied Sciences, Jena, Germany. He can be reached by email at: michael.opielka@fh-jena.de

Robin Blackburn (2007), ‘A Global Pension Plan’
New Left Review, 47, Sept.-Oct. 2007, pp.71-92.
In this paper, Robin Blackburn (New School, USA, and Essex University, UK) proposes the creation of a global pension scheme, an income paid at a modest rate to every older person, to be financed by a modest tax on global financial transactions and corporate wealth (according to Blackburn, US$205 billion a year would be needed). This non means-tested and non-contributory global pension could be set at one dollar a day, which would already lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. The author argues that one could see this Global Pension as a useful stepping stone towards a basic income for all.
-From BIEN

Stuart White & Daniel LEIGHTON (eds.) (2008), Building a Citizen Society: The Emerging Politics of Republican Democracy London: Lawrence & Wishart
This new volume of 15 short and accessible chapters explores and defends a public philosophy for progressive politics called republican democracy. The core aim of the republican ideal defended is “the sustenance of a strong and participative civil society as well as an active and democratic state”. Debating the meaning and role of liberty, participation and the common good, several contributions argue that the republican ideal of freedom as non-domination demands policies for economic egalitarianism and personal independence. Two chapters focus specifically on basic capital, basic income and similar proposals. In “Assets and Citizenship”, Rajiv Prabhakar discusses republican paths for the expansion of the existing Child Trust Fund. Prabhakar suggests that some conditionality might be needed in order to ensure responsible use and political legitimacy of such a universal endowment. By contrast, the chapter “Social Republicanism and Basic Income”, by Simon Birnbaum and David Casassas, defends a fully unconditional basic income. Such a scheme, they argue, would provide a foundation of independence and bargaining power in all spheres of social life and help stimulate many unpaid contributions on which a thriving republic relies.
Further information can be obtained from: The Public Policy Unit, Dept. of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford: http://ppu.politics.ox.ac.uk/publications/BuildingCitizenSociety.pdf
-From BIEN

Marjorie Griffin Cohen & Jane Pulkingham (2009), Public Policy for Women: The State, Income Security, and Labour Market Issues, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
This book, co-edited by Marjorie Griffin Cohen and Jane Pulkingham, both of Simon Fraser University, includes a chapter by Margot Young (Faculty of Law, Univ. of British Colombia) on “Guaranteed Annual Income: A Feminist Approach”, and a chapter by Lee Lakeman (Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter) on “Abolishing Prostitution through Economic, Physical, and Political Security for Women.”
For further information: http://www.utppublishing.com/
-From BIEN

Santiago Levy (2008), Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes, Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2008
In this new book Santiago Levy, one of the designers of the programme "Oportunidades" in Mexico and current Vice-President of the Inter-American Development Bank, studies the relationship between social policy, informality and economic performance in Mexico. The main argument of the book is that the dichotomy between formal and informal labour, and the inefficiencies attached to it, is deepened by a fragmented social policy that gives traditional social security benefits to formal workers, and non-contributory benefits to informal workers. His solution is simple, universalize social security benefits by removing the current contributory scheme and impose a generalized VAT of 15% legally linked to the financing the universal social security system. This new system would include the following individual benefits: health insurance, life insurance, retirement pension, disability insurance, and an unconditional “direct income transfer” to offset the regressive effect of the VAT in the lowest income households. The proposal is not written as a basic income proposal; however, the “direct income transfer” as proposed would in fact work as very small basic income.
-From BIEN

Richard C. Cook, “Credit as a Public Utility: The Solution to the Economic Crisis” Dandelion Salad 2009
This new six-part video series is online and will soon be out on DVD. In the series Cook explains his theories about how to create a more equitable and stable credit system and how to use it to finance a national dividend (or BIG) for everyone. It’s online at: http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/credit-as-a-public-utility-the-solution-to-the-economic-crisis-by-richard-c-cook-videos/

Marcela Valente, “Latin America: Movement for Basic Income for All”, IPS.org: The Inter Press Service: Journalism and Communication for Global Change, March, 19, 2009
This article reports on the movement for BIG in Latin America. It’s online at: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46179

11. New Links

USBIG IN SECOND LIFE
The USBIG Network now exists in the cyberspace virtual reality world of Second Life. Marcus Link, known in Second Life as Fim Fischer, created USBIG’s Second Life, which can be found at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Merx/100/79/23. The meetings will be held there. For those who don’t have Second Life, it can be previewed at: http://ddd.threedservices.com/preview/USBIG/.

BASIC INCOME AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS
Under the title "The Financial Crisis and the Real Economy: Beyond the Keynesian Fix", Matt Vidal (Lecturer in Work and Organizations at King's College London), argues that the Keynesian stimuli currently under discussion as a way to fix the financial crisis may stave off another great depression, but cannot even begin to fix the fundamental problems in the real economy. "What is necessary", Vidal argues, "is massive redistribution of the economic surplus to the working poor – whose ranks are growing fast in this crisis – so that they can contribute to economic growth without going into personal debt. A sustained program of public investment and public employment helps, but the level of economic imbalance in the society will require much more, including dramatically expanded welfare through such programs as basic income grants, financed by the taxation of the rich rather than ever more public debt".
Article at: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/vidal170209.html
Author's address: matt.vidal@kcl.ac.uk>.
-From BIEN

ONLINE OPINION BY JOHN TOMLINSON
A new article by John Tomlinson in ON LINE Opinion, Australia's e-journal of social and political debate. Tomlinson discusses basic income and job guarantees, and argues that "putting in place a basic income is the first step in building the social solidarity necessary to have everyone working together". http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8583
-From BIEN

FRENCH REFERENDUM ON BASIC INCOME
Activists defend the idea of organizing a referendum on the "citizen's income".
See: http://revenu-citoyen.wifeo.com/
-From BIEN

A UNIVERSAL DIVIDEND IN FRANCE
A short article in which French economist Yoland Bresson argues in favor of a 'Universal Dividend': http://www.thematiquefrs.org/experts/expertdu1.pdf
-From BIEN

12. New Members

Seven new members have joined the USBIG Network in the last three months. The USBIG Network now has 179 members from 32 U.S. states and 25 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 Herbert Wilkens, Berlin, Germany; Jain Varinder, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India; Isis Leslie, Lubbock, TX; Garda Ghista, Highland Heights, KY; Chuck Augello, Randolph, NJ; Kathi Weeks, Durham, NC; Gabrio Rossi, Muenchen, Germany; Sugeng Bahagijo, London, United Kingdom; Bo Bao, Plano, TX; Brittney Bernice Johns, Camden, NJ; Murray Reeves, Stittsville, Ontario, Canada; Cynthia DiGeso, Roxbury, MA; David G. Lagerman, Plymouth, WI; Reimunch Achker, Puchheim, Germany; Frank Brennan, Bixby, Oklahoma; Robert C. Gumbs, New York, NY; Julia Willebrand, New York, NY; Edward T. Kennedy Minersville, PA; Alexander Link; Franfurt, Germany; Tony Garcia, Santa Cruz, CA; Carl R. Johnson, Kearney, MO; William Loughborough, Goldendale, WA; Lew Daly, New York, NY; Noah Zatz, Los Angeles, CA; Bruna Augusto Pereira, Vila De Paranapiacaba, Santo Andre, Brazil; Marcus Vinicius Brancaglione Dos Santos, Vila De Paranapiacaba, Santo Andre, Brazil; Steven Kovar, Berlin, Germany; Jakob Pavlovic, Borovnica, Slovenia.

13. Links and Other Info

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; and Yannick Vanderborght of the BIEN NewsFlash
Special help on this issue was provided by Michael Opielka and John Tomlison.

The U.S. Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network publishes this newsletter. The Network is a discussion group on basic income guarantee (BIG) in the United States. BIG is a generic name for any proposal to create a minimum income level, below which no citizen's income can fall. Information on BIG and USBIG can be found on the web at: http://www.usbig.net.

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, editor