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Bill Fulkerson

Why a 400-Year Program of Modernist Thinking is Exploding | naked capitalism - 0 views

www.nakedcapitalism.com/...ernist-thinking-exploding.html

capitalism power society

shared by Bill Fulkerson on 11 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • Bill Fulkerson on 11 Mar 17
     
    " Fearless commentary on finance, economics, politics and power Follow yvessmith on Twitter Feedburner RSS Feed RSS Feed for Comments Subscribe via Email SUBSCRIBE Recent Items Links 3/11/17 - 03/11/2017 - Yves Smith Deutsche Bank Tries to Stay Alive - 03/11/2017 - Yves Smith John Helmer: Australian Government Trips Up Ukrainian Court Claim of MH17 as Terrorism - 03/11/2017 - Yves Smith 2:00PM Water Cooler 3/10/2017 - 03/10/2017 - Lambert Strether Why a 400-Year Program of Modernist Thinking is Exploding - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith Links 3/10/17 - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith Why It Will Take a Lot More Than a Smartphone to Get the Sharing Economy Started - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith CalPERS' General Counsel Railroads Board on Fiduciary Counsel Selection - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith Another Somalian Famine - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith Trade now with TradeStation - Highest rated for frequent traders Why a 400-Year Program of Modernist Thinking is Exploding Posted on March 10, 2017 by Yves Smith By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website Across the globe, a collective freak-out spanning the whole political system is picking up steam with every new "surprise" election, rush of tormented souls across borders, and tweet from the star of America's great unreality show, Donald Trump. But what exactly is the force that seems to be pushing us towards Armageddon? Is it capitalism gone wild? Globalization? Political corruption? Techno-nightmares? Rajani Kanth, a political economist, social thinker, and poet, goes beyond any of these explanations for the answer. In his view, what's throwing most of us off kilter - whether we think of ourselves as on the left or right, capitalist or socialist -was birthed 400 years ago during the period of the Enlightenment. It's a set of assumptions, a particular way of looking at the world that pushed out previous modes o
Steve Bosserman

Universal Basic Assets: A Smarter Fix Than Universal Basic Income? | Fast Forward | OZY - 0 views

www.ozy.com/...90019

universal basic assets uba income disparity

shared by Steve Bosserman on 01 Dec 18 - No Cached
  • For 40 years, Robert E. Friedman and his Washington-based nonprofit Prosperity Now have helped millions of people from economically vulnerable communities gain financial security and stability. Income disparity, however, has only grown across the United States. Now, the 69-year-old Friedman is arguing for a macroeconomic fix — and it doesn’t involve the government just doling out cash. Instead, he advocates giving everyone assets like savings, education and homeownership, instituting a system of universal basic assets (UBA). And Friedman isn’t alone.
  • As cities and countries across the world experiment with the currently in-vogue idea of universal basic income (UBI), a small but growing number of scholars, nonprofits and researchers are beginning to argue for an alternative framework for prosperity. At its heart, they’re pushing for a 21st-century version of the age-old proverb that it’s better to teach a man how to fish than to simply give him fish. Just four years ago, UBA as a modern concept was unknown. Today, it’s emerging as a challenger to UBI as a means to the same goal: less income disparity and greater opportunities for all.
  • It’s an idea that has appeal on both sides of the political aisle. Liberals are drawn to UBA’s “provide for everyone” ethos, while libertarians see it as a reason to cut the “safety net” of government subsidies like welfare and unemployment, says Friedman. The bipartisan appeal comes from the notion that asset-building gives people more options, says C. Eugene Steuerle, former deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury for Tax Analysis under President Ronald Reagan and co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. ”UBA is a middle-of-the-road policy,” he says. “It’s an ideal compromise between left and right because it promotes mobility and opportunity, and less dependence on government.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • At the Institute for the Future, Gorbis is convinced that assets are a critical determinant of an individual’s resources, especially with the rise of the gig economy where many don’t have access to benefits like health insurance and retirement savings. “When you look at data, a lot of inequality is deeper than income — it’s also about debt,” she says, adding, “for poor people, housing is the main asset.” That’s why Gorbis suggests UBA should start with access to housing, but also include access to public resources like transit. If you can take public transit, you don’t need to own a car, she says. When basic assets were first discussed, the crowning jewel was land — upon which the Homestead Act was based. Then, all eyes turned to jobs as the ultimate means of security. Today, Gorbis says, we should begin to look at data. Access to data — the internet, online education and resources — significantly affects socioeconomic status.
Steve Bosserman

The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Proceedings of a Workshop-in Brief - 0 views

www.nap.edu/...eedings-of-a-workshop-in-brief

industrial revolution change framework

shared by Steve Bosserman on 07 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • Steve Bosserman on 07 Mar 17
     
    The Forum's perspective on present and future technological and societal changes is captured in their 'Principled Framework for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.' Philbeck explained the four principles that characterize the Fourth Industrial Revolution. * Think systems, not technologies. Individual technologies are interesting, but it is their systemic impact that matters. Emerging technologies challenge our societal values and norms, sometimes for good, but sometimes also in negative ways; the Fourth Industrial Revolution will have civilization-changing impact-on species, on the planet, on geopolitics, and on the global economy. Philbeck suggested that wealth creation and aggregation supported by this phase of technological innovation may challenge societal commitments to accessibility, inclusivity, and fairness and create the need for relentless worker re-education. As Philbeck stated, "The costs for greater productivity are often externalized to stakeholders who are not involved in a particular technology's development." * Empowering, not determining. The Forum urges an approach to the Fourth Industrial Revolution that honors existing social principles. "We need to take a stance toward technology and technological systems that empowers society and acts counter to fatalistic and deterministic views, so that society and its agency is not nullified," said Philbeck. "Technologies are not forces; we have the ability to shape them and decide on how they are applied." * Future by design, and not by default. Seeking a future by design requires active governance. There are many types of governance-by individuals, by governments, by civic society, and by companies. Philbeck argued that failure to pay attention to critical governance questions in consideration of the Fourth Industrial Revolution means societies are likely to allow undemocratic, random, and potentially malicious forces to shape the future of technological systems and th
Bill Fulkerson

The eruption that helped to destroy one of China's great dynasties : Research Highlights - 0 views

www.nature.com/...d41586-020-02467-2

eruption china

shared by Bill Fulkerson on 10 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • Bill Fulkerson on 10 Sep 20
     
    The collapse of China's prosperous Ming dynasty, one of the most stable in Chinese history, has been attributed, in part, to the 1641 eruption of a volcano thousands of kilometres from the imperial capital in Beijing.
Steve Bosserman

How AI will change democracy - 0 views

www.fastcompany.com/...n-how-ai-will-change-democracy

artificial intelligence democracy news politics

shared by Steve Bosserman on 28 Oct 18 - No Cached
  • AI systems could play a part in democracy while remaining subordinate to traditional democratic processes like human deliberation and human votes. And they could be made subject to the ethics of their human masters. It should not be necessary for citizens to surrender their moral judgment if they don’t wish to.
  • There are nevertheless serious objections to the idea of AI Democracy. Foremost among them is the transparency objection: can we really call a system democratic if we don’t really understand the basis of the decisions made on our behalf? Although AI Democracy could make us freer or more prosperous in our day-to-day lives, it would also rather enslave us to the systems that decide on our behalf. One can see Pericles shaking his head in disgust.
  • In the past humans were prepared, in the right circumstances, to surrender their political affairs to powerful unseen intelligences. Before they had kings, the Hebrews of the Old Testament lived without earthly politics. They were subject only to the rule of God Himself, bound by the covenant that their forebears had sworn with Him. The ancient Greeks consulted omens and oracles. The Romans looked to the stars. These practices now seem quaint and faraway, inconsistent with what we know of rationality and the scientific method. But they prompt introspection. How far are we prepared to go–what are we prepared to sacrifice–to find a system of government that actually represents the people?
Steve Bosserman

Why America is the World's Most Uniquely Cruel Society - 0 views

eand.co/ely-cruel-society-f67afc5c6b9a

america culture ethics demographics society

shared by Steve Bosserman on 16 Apr 18 - No Cached
  • Any theory of being American must explain one salient and striking fact: cruelty. America is the most cruel nation among its peers — even among most poor countries today. It is something like a new Rome. It has little, if any, functioning healthcare, education, transport, media, no safety nets, no stability, security. The middle class is collapsing, and life expectancy is falling. Young people die for a lack of insulin they cannot crowdfund. Elderly middle-class people live and die in their cars. Kids massacre each other in schools — when they’re not self-medicating the pain of it all away. The combination of these pathologies happens nowhere else — not a single place — in the world. Not even Pakistan, Costa Rica, or Rwanda. Hence, the world is aghast daily at the depths of American cruelty — yet somehow, they seem bottomless.(Of course I don’t mean that all Americans are cruel. I just mean that in the same way we say countries have attitude, dispositions, that there’s such a thing as a French or German national attitude or disposition, so, too there is an American one. Nor do I mean America is “the most cruel society in the world”. Can we really ever judge that? But it is uniquely cruel — a kind of special example — in weird, needless, and singular ways.)Let me throw that into relief. Scandinavians are the happiest, longest-lived, and most prosperous people in the world because they do not punish one another constantly — but lift one another up. But Americans do not believe this reality. The underlying sentiment that unites America’s manifold problems is a myth of cruelty.
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