How to make Living Income Guarantee affordable in country such as China?

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frank
Posts: 102
Joined: 02 May 2014, 13:40

How to make Living Income Guarantee affordable in country such as China?

Post by frank »

There are more than 26 million people in Shanghai. Let's say if we give everybody 1 thousand euros a month, it will be 26000000000 monthly. How about put this in a year? And it's only one city. How can government revenue afford this?
joe kou
Posts: 460
Joined: 14 Jun 2011, 22:52

Re: How to make Living Income Guarantee affordable in country such as China?

Post by joe kou »

Let me take the government of the US as an example because that is what I am most familiar with - but the same mechanism is found in all countries who use the current money system.

The United States spends more money annually than it would cost to fund many development programs that can already greatly reduce or completely alleviate people from the symptoms of structural poverty.

In 2015 the US spent upwards of 601 billion dollars on the military defense budget ALONE - and that is only the "on record" amount of money being poured into the war industry. This doesn't include the off book things.

But my point here is not that the US itself could easily help to fund and finance humanitarian aid programs across the world. My point is that the money we all think there is so little of is a fiction. Meaning - all of the 'money' that we currently use is literally created out of nothing. Because really if you think about it, how did the US manage to afford sustaining so many wars over the past decade? We do not see a "war tax" on our tax forms and receipts so certainly that money must be coming from somewhere.

One of the big problems with the argument about how is the government supposed to create enough money to fund a living income through revenues - is that we make the mistake of thinking our governments have anything to do at all with how money comes into existence. The revenues collected from "the people" do NOT fund any of the critical areas of government programs. The revenues collected are absorbed by the financial system as "payment" for the debt that governments take in order to issue the banking system's currency. There are many resources and materials for those who wish to learn about how this works, so I won't go into those details here.

So my question is - if we are already creating trillions of dollars through a fictional financial system ALREADY for things like war, then why is it so impossible for us to consider creating the same trillions of dollars for purposes of support and enrichment of all life on earth equally?

There currently exists no government on earth that can actually "fund" a living income system through tax revenues because tax revenues itself is a practice that only makes sense in a debt based and destructive system. But let us say we as people decide to stop that. We decide to create and use a monetary system that is not based on debt and does not impoverish the people - where money becomes what it was supposed to be - a unit of measure that allows for transactions to happen. Money was never supposed to have 'value' - it was only supposed to record real value that is exchanged - now things like funding a living income for all is no longer limited by "do we have the money". It becomes instead "Do we have enough value to justify creating this money into existence?" and the answer would be yes - billions of times yes - because the value is life, is people, is the common right for all to live a dignified life, and that is something all would agree is far more valuable than just 'money' by itself.

What we face here is a problem of perspective - we need to understand what rules we have been accepting about the way the world works and decide what rules no longer service us. This is what makes something like living income possible.
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frank
Posts: 102
Joined: 02 May 2014, 13:40

Re: How to make Living Income Guarantee affordable in country such as China?

Post by frank »

joe kou wrote:Let me take the government of the US as an example because that is what I am most familiar with - but the same mechanism is found in all countries who use the current money system.

The United States spends more money annually than it would cost to fund many development programs that can already greatly reduce or completely alleviate people from the symptoms of structural poverty.

In 2015 the US spent upwards of 601 billion dollars on the military defense budget ALONE - and that is only the "on record" amount of money being poured into the war industry. This doesn't include the off book things.

But my point here is not that the US itself could easily help to fund and finance humanitarian aid programs across the world. My point is that the money we all think there is so little of is a fiction. Meaning - all of the 'money' that we currently use is literally created out of nothing. Because really if you think about it, how did the US manage to afford sustaining so many wars over the past decade? We do not see a "war tax" on our tax forms and receipts so certainly that money must be coming from somewhere.

One of the big problems with the argument about how is the government supposed to create enough money to fund a living income through revenues - is that we make the mistake of thinking our governments have anything to do at all with how money comes into existence. The revenues collected from "the people" do NOT fund any of the critical areas of government programs. The revenues collected are absorbed by the financial system as "payment" for the debt that governments take in order to issue the banking system's currency. There are many resources and materials for those who wish to learn about how this works, so I won't go into those details here.

So my question is - if we are already creating trillions of dollars through a fictional financial system ALREADY for things like war, then why is it so impossible for us to consider creating the same trillions of dollars for purposes of support and enrichment of all life on earth equally?

There currently exists no government on earth that can actually "fund" a living income system through tax revenues because tax revenues itself is a practice that only makes sense in a debt based and destructive system. But let us say we as people decide to stop that. We decide to create and use a monetary system that is not based on debt and does not impoverish the people - where money becomes what it was supposed to be - a unit of measure that allows for transactions to happen. Money was never supposed to have 'value' - it was only supposed to record real value that is exchanged - now things like funding a living income for all is no longer limited by "do we have the money". It becomes instead "Do we have enough value to justify creating this money into existence?" and the answer would be yes - billions of times yes - because the value is life, is people, is the common right for all to live a dignified life, and that is something all would agree is far more valuable than just 'money' by itself.

What we face here is a problem of perspective - we need to understand what rules we have been accepting about the way the world works and decide what rules no longer service us. This is what makes something like living income possible.
You mean we can simply solve this by printing a lot of money?
joe kou
Posts: 460
Joined: 14 Jun 2011, 22:52

Re: How to make Living Income Guarantee affordable in country such as China?

Post by joe kou »

Consider this - there are so many people in poverty right now who do not have to be. Why? Because we PRINT MONEY OUT OF NOTHING and use it to create a world of competition, lack, and exploitation - in this we are all complicit.

The problem is not, and never was, about the money. Money is something that we make up - it has no actual value other than the value we accept for it.
If you have not already, perhaps consider investigating the method through which money currently comes into existence - specifically how money is created out of debt.

My perspective is that at this moment, all money that is created comes from nothing and is backed by debt which we the people have been forced to pay. The solution is NOT to simply print money the same way - through the same debt enslavement. The solution is something different - it is a new money system NOT based on debt. In which case the value backing money is no longer based on debt, and any currency issued can be self-liquidating. There are many ways in which this can be done so that it does not create inflation or deflation issues.

So the solution? We need to start changing the way we think of, and the way we accept "money". But that comes with changing the way we think of and see ourselves first and foremost.
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ZachWang
Posts: 207
Joined: 20 May 2014, 08:50
Location: Beijing

Re: How to make Living Income Guarantee affordable in country such as China?

Post by ZachWang »

Quite Supportive, Joe Kou,Thanks for sharing.
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viktor
Posts: 1394
Joined: 13 Jun 2011, 20:50

Re: How to make Living Income Guarantee affordable in country such as China?

Post by viktor »

I agree with your assessment Joe, if we have enabled ourselves to spend literally billions and yet billions of dollars on killing each other – how come it would be apparently impossible (because there is not enough money?) to spend money on enriching all of our lives!? It makes no sense whatsoever – and that is where we should begin. Our real problem is that we are too stupid – lol – we have accepted and allowed ourselves to bullshit ourselves with all kinds of justifications and excuses – because we do still want to hold unto our desires/fears/dreams/hopes/self-interest/anxieties/separations – and then we get what we are willing to give.

Thus, the only sustainable solution that I see involves all of us changing and becoming better human beings – learning to live the words 'Give as you would like to receive' – and be unto everyone else as we would like them to be towards us. If we would all live that, hell, money would not even be required in the first place.
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