The argument for a Universal Basic Income

(from a poor man in the f***** up USA perspective)

I have recently stumbled into a forum of probably the most admirable people I could ever imagine. This group of people have actually opened thier eyes to what is going on in the world around them, and they have put some dedicated thought into a possible solution for the problem.

I am talking about the Movement for a Universal Basic Income.

I am not sure if this is a dream and I will suddenly wake up, or if this could actually be a realistic possiblilty.

The initial entry I found was this one — http://www.scottsantens.com/raffling-basic-income-first-germany-then-the-netherlands-and-now-the-us — and from there it just took off. (I will put all the links I found at the bottom of the article — maybe some of you will find them useful)

What could/will a Basic Income do for me (or 46 million other Americans living in poverty)?

Well, I guess I will have to talk about some of my life and how most of the choices I made weren’t really choices at all — they were more like ‘forced’ decisions.

I should start with the birth of my first son and my first eviction. I had been working as a pipefitter but had recently been laid off in the middle of a cold Florida winter. We were renting a house from a woman whom happened to live immediately next door. We were a bit behind on rent due to me being laid off — the unemployment check just wasn’t quite enough to pay for groceries and a HUGE electric bill and of course let’s not forget the ‘mandatory’ car insurance. I mean after all, if you don’t pay to ‘drive’ to get to work then your a real scumbag.

We thought the electric bill was a little high, even though we were using the heater — so I turned everything in the house off and looked at the meter — spinning like a top. So just to be sure I turned of the main breaker to the house — there should be ‘zero’ power being used with the meain breaker turned off — the meter was still spinning like a top. So we called the power company to check the meter. The power company guy said the meter was working correctly — but there must be something else ‘drawing power’ — like the landlady’s house hooked up to my house !!!

My son was 4 months old at the time, and the house was old and drafty and not kept up all that well, but hey — people gotta live somewhere. Anyway, he caught RSV — apparently it was going around heavy that year and alot of local hospitals were full with sick children.

Our landlord had already started the eviction process and we were in the process of trying to pack(salvage) whatever we could to put in storage. Thats when our son was so sick we had to take him to the hospital — they tried to turn us away saying it was just a cold or asthma — then he stopped breathing in my arms — and they figured they might want to admit him.

We got lucky and were able to stay at a Ronald McDonald house near the hospital while our son was in intensive care. We had managed to find some time to go a courthouse with our paperwork from the hospital and talk to a Judge about getting our eviction ‘stayed’ due to the medical issue. The Judge’s secretary was very sincere and told us she would ‘personally’ make a call to have everything taken care of.

Well, after 3 days at the hospital my son had recovered enough to be released so we went home. When we arrived, all of our belongings were on the street — except all the childrens xmas presents of course — we could see the landlord had changed the locks on the doors and left all the childrens new xmas presents in the windows for us to see that she was keeping them.

We called the Police to see what had gone wrong with our ‘stay’ of eviction but they had no ‘paperwork’ on file. At that point we told we were a ‘public nuisance’ and had to leave or be arrested. I asked the officer if I could take what was left on my life on the side of the road and he informed me that he would arrest me if I didnt leave immediately.

So we had to take our still sick child to a friends house and try to come back later that evening to salvage what was left. By the time we returned, anything that was left was gone — and we could see most of the boxes and furniture neatly stored on the landlords porch or in her garage.

And that’s how life for people that ‘work’ goes.

If you ever have the smallest problem it leads to one catastrophe after another. I have another 20 years worth of stories about one cascading disaster after the other. After you spend a year trying to get caught up from last years mess, something else is sure to go wrong and there you are, another in year in debt and behind all over again, and again , and again.

So that is just one small example of how a Basic Income would alleviate so many stupid problems for people in poverty.

Working on my Basic Income (and maybe starting a business)

https://www.patreon.com/rxhector?ty=h

The Links that started it all

https://www.patreon.com/scottsantens?ty=h

https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/

http://usbig.net/index.php

https://medium.com/basic-income/basic-income-meaningless-jobs-david-graeber-stenography-402e3bddeb45#.5ecadn33y

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/Suntzu20160129

http://www.quantumrun.com/prediction/universal-basic-income-cures-mass-unemployment