Everyone should receive a Guaranteed Basic Income

I have just been reading this blog post, over at the Latent Existence blog.  And in general I agree that everyone has different talents to offer society.  I’ve discussed contributing to society, as well as volunteering and charity work several times on this blog, and how little society recognises the talents of those who choose to do such things.  Society only seems to recognise those who wave a flag in some huge corporate event, or war, or those who slave away for bullying bosses, and tax evading companies.

I think the “A Latent Existence” blog makes an excellent point about how there are many many people contributing to society in various ways, and as some of the links I have posted in the previous paragraph show, some of us also do this from an early age.  Some of us have experienced several years of work before our illnesses struck, others have not been so fortunate.  Some have been made homeless, or committed suicide sadly due to the actions of this and previous regimes in relation to welfare spending, conditionality and cuts.

Now, to point out a few unfortunate facts for the wealthy parents of  Milicent Olivia Smythe Jigglebottom, or Marcus Fellatio Tickle-Mytum.  They’re scroungers!  Wealthy scroungers, but scroungers all the same!  You know what a Guaranteed Basic Income would do for a start?  Level the playing field!  Don’t believe me?  Look at Quantitative easing.  Who do you think gets all that invisible out of thin air “money”?  The people who created the current financial mess to start with that’s who!  Bankers and gamblers anonymous, frittering away large chunks of invisible money on gambles, playing with real people’s lives.  In an alternative universe, they’d be the ones frittering away the household cash by betting their months wages on a horse that is never going to win!  Yet society hurls more and more “money” at that sort, while cutting real money from those who really need it.

I’ve mentioned tax avoidance already, billions in REAL MONEY lost to tax avoidance and evasion.  Add that on to the £375 billion “quantitatively eased” to the people who created the current financial mess.  And then let’s add to that so called “defence spending”.  This country has the 4th largest military spending in the world, only behind Russia, China, and the US.  Spending £39.4 billion.  That’s an absolute disgrace!  Let’s remember here, Britain no longer has an empire, and the nationalists should stop pretending Britain is somehow this almighty power which should be able to do as it likes, it isn’t and it shouldn’t!

Now, let’s take a look again at some facts about welfare spending here.  Over £50 billion is spent on the basic state pension alone.  If you add up DLA, Job Seekers Allowance, and Incapacity Benefit, they don’t add up to that amount!  £50 billion goes to those on above average incomes!  Then let’s not forget all those free bus passes, tv licences and prescriptions received by relatively wealthy pensioners.  I have said this before but i’ll say it again.  I was on a bus once, a clearly wealthy pensioner had just come out of the chemists carrying a huge bag of free tablets and whole range of medecines and I dread to think what else was in there with the rest of her freebies! (Oh I pay for my prescription by the way out of the money I receive, that isn’t a freebie for me, neither do I get a free tv licence or £200 “winter fuel payment” unlike wealthy pensioners living in more tropical climates!)  She sat down in front of me on the bus chatting to another clearly wealthy lady.   Both their husbands had died, I think one spoke of receiving at least 4 separate pensions.  One had been on 2 holidays, one to Mexico, another to Australia, the other had been to “the villa”.  How Ab Fab darling!

The fact of the matter is that there is an unequal playing field.  There are those who can afford to pay for things, there are others who should be receiving benefits but aren’t receiving anything due to the harsh methods of interrogation employed by the DWP, Atos etc…

In India a basic income pilot project has provided very positive results, leading to better health, education, housing, infrastructure, and importantly for the pathological conservatives, as their only interest is money, it also lead to an increase in economic activity.

The rich and powerful are ignorant of one basic principle, in relation to those of us less fortunate than them.  Those of us who are on low incomes or benefits spend most, if not ALL of our income.  We put it back into the economy.  Now, look at the results of so called “quantitative easing”, or “trickle down” economics.  The rich stash their cash away.  They gamble with it, stash it away in tax havens or high interest accounts.

You give everyone a guaranteed basic income, see what happens in comparison.  You punish those who put money back into the economy, taking money off us, leaving us in poverty, guess what’s going to happen to your precious economy pathological conservatives?  It’s a fact of life.  Carry on doing what your doing, and all you’re doing is circulating invisible money between all your rich chums.  It doesn’t trickle down, and it doesn’t benefit the economy.

Yes, everyone should receive a Guaranteed Basic Income.  It’s far more the sign of a “civilised society” than allowing people to go homeless, live in a tent, then get killed by storms, afterwards claiming you feel very bad about it!