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U.S. government researchers recently found that robots are likely to replace almost 47 percent of all U.S. jobs by 2036. Another recent study by researchers from the World Economic Forum found that robots will claim five million U.S. jobs – most of them “routine white-collar office” jobs – as soon as 2020, just three years from now. In addition, the U.S. government is set to introduce robotic soldiers to its military within the next few years, prompting experts to suggest that the U.S. armed forces will have more robots than human soldiers as soon as 2025.

There was some good news and some not so good news in the Fed's latest annual Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households. First the good news. The report, based on the Board's fourth annual Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking conducted in October 2016, presents a "picture of improving financial well-being among Americans", at least according to the report (read on to see if this is merited). Overall, 70% of the more than 6,600 respondents said they were either "living comfortably" or "doing okay," up 1% from 2015 and up 8% from the first survey results in 2013.

Now, the not so good news. Nearly eight years into an economic recovery, nearly half of Americans didn’t have enough cash available to cover a $400 emergency. Specifically, the survey found that, in line with what the Fed had disclosed in previous years, 44% of respondents said they wouldn’t be able to cover an unexpected $400 expense like a car repair or medical bill, or would have to borrow money or sell something to meet it. Troubling as this statistic remains, the overall share of adults who would struggle to come up with $400 in a pinch has declined by 2% from the last survey conducted in 2015, and down 6% since 2013. Of the group that could not pay in cash, 45% said they would go further in debt and use a credit card to pay off the expense over time. while a quarter would borrow from friends of family, and another 27% just couldn’t pay the expense. Others would turn to selling items or using a payday loan.

The breakdown was largely by education attainment: 79% of those with at least a bachelor’s degree said they would still be able to pay all of their other bills in full if hit with a $400 charge. Just 52% of those with no more than a high school diploma said the same. Just as concerning were other findings from the study: just under one-fourth of adults, or 23%, are not able to pay all of their current month’s bills in full while 25% reported skipping medical treatments due to cost in the prior year. Additionally, 28% of adults who haven’t retired yet reported to being grossly unprepared, indicating they had no retirement savings or pension whatsoever.

A basic income (also called basic income guarantee, Citizen's Income, unconditional basic income, universal basic income, or universal demogrant[2]) is a form of social security[3] in which all citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of money, either from a government or some other public institution, in addition to any income received from elsewhere. An unconditional income transfer of less than the poverty line is sometimes referred to as a partial basic income. Basic income systems that are financed by the profits of publicly owned enterprises (often called social dividend, also known as citizen's dividend) are major components in many proposed models of market socialism.[4] Basic income schemes have also been promoted within the context of capitalist systems, where they would be financed through various forms of taxation.[5] Similar proposals for "capital grants provided at the age of majority" date to Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice of 1795, there paired with asset-based egalitarianism. The phrase "social dividend" was commonly used as a synonym for basic income in the English-speaking world before 1986, after which the phrase "basic income" gained widespread currency.[6

Contents  [hide]  1 Policy aspects 1.1 Transparency 1.2 Administrative efficiency 1.3 Poverty reduction 1.4 Basic income and growth 1.5 Freedom 1.6 Work incentives 1.7 Affordability 1.7.1 Key principles 1.7.2 Case studies 2 Pilot programs 3 Basic income and ideology 3.1 Economic perspectives 3.2 Georgist views 3.3 Right-wing views 3.4 Feminist views 3.5 Technological unemployment 4 Criticism 4.1 Economics research 4.2 Political debate 5 Worldwide 6 Advocates 6.1 Europe 6.2 The United States and Canada 6.3 Asia, Africa, Latin America, Oceania 7 Petitions and referendums 8 Public opinions 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External links

Technological unemployment[edit] Concerns about automation and other causes of technological unemployment have caused many in the high-tech industry to turn to basic income proposals as a necessary implication of their business models. Journalist Nathan Schneider first highlighted the turn of the "tech elite" to these ideas with an article in Vice magazine, which cited figures such as Marc Andreessen, Sam Altman, Peter Diamandis, and others.[47] The White House, in a report to Congress, has put the probability at 83% that a worker making less than $20 an hour in 2010 will eventually lose their job to a machine. Even workers making as much as $40 an hour face odds of 31 percent.[48] To better address both the funding concerns and concerns about government control, one alternative model is that the cost and control would be distributed across the private sector instead of the public sector. Companies across the economy would be required to employ humans, but the job descriptions would be left to private innovation, and individuals would have to compete to be hired and retained. This would be a for-profit sector analog of basic income, that is, a market-based form of basic income. It differs from a job guarantee in that the government is not the employer (rather, companies are) and there is no aspect of having employees who "cannot be fired", a problem that interferes with economic dynamism. The economic salvation in this model is not that every individual is guaranteed a job, but rather just that enough jobs exist that massive unemployment is avoided and employment is no longer solely the privilege of only the very smartest or highly trained 20% of the population. Another option for a market-based form of basic income has been proposed by the Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ) as part of "a Just Third Way" (a Third Way with greater justice) through widely distributed power and liberty. Called the Capital Homestead Act,[49] it is reminiscent of James S. Albus's Peoples' Capitalism[50][51] in that money creation and securities ownership are widely and directly distributed to individuals rather than flowing through, or being concentrated in, centralized or elite mechanisms.

The US-coalition Air Force has conducted airstrikes against ISIS positions in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, targeting a chemical depot for the terror group which resulted in the death of hundreds of militants as well as civilian, the Syrian Ministry of Defense said in an official statement. “Yesterday between 17:30 – 17:50 p.m., the so-called anti-ISIS coalition fighter jets struck an ISIS position in Hatla village to the east of Deir Ezzor. After the airstrike, a huge white cloud was formed –later on turned yellow – as a result of an explosion in a chemical depot. A hug fire broke out until 22:30 p.m. Hundreds have been killed – including civilians – as a result of breathing toxic materials,” the statement detailed. The official statement said this incident confirms beyond any doubt that “terror groups, particularly ISIS and Jabhet al-Nusra, already own chemical weapons, and have the ability to obtain, transport, store and use such chemical agents with the help of some regional countries. This also stresses the fact that those terror groups are coordinating with its sponsors to accuse the Syrian Arab Army of using chemical weapons.”

This week, a groundbreaking article in Science proves that a better way to secure a media system that works for democracy is to strengthen independent news outlets. The five-year long study published this week in Science, directed by Harvard Professor Gary King, shows that even small independent news outlets can have a dramatic effect on the content of national conversation.  King, along with his now former graduate students Ben Schneer and Ariel White, found that if just three outlets write about a particular major national policy topic – such as jobs, the environment or immigration – discussion of that topic across social media rose by as much as 62.7 percent of a day’s volume, distributed over the week.

President Donald Trump is being blocked from knowing he can pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in exchange for information vindicating Russia of hacking allegations, according to Republican California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. Trump told reporters Sunday that he has “never heard” of a potential deal with Assange. “I think the president’s answer indicates that there is a wall around him that is being created by people who do not want to expose this fraud that there was collusion between our intelligence community and the leaders of the Democratic Party,” Rohrabacher told The Daily Caller Tuesday in a phone interview.

The US Pentagon has inked plans to the White House to fight in Somalia for two more years, the New York Times reported yesterday.

According to the blueprint, the US will conduct an internal review on Somalia within 24 months to decide whether to continue fighting in the country. The news comes off the back of an escalation in counter-terrorism drone strikes in Somalia under President Donald Trump.

rump has already provided the US military and CIA broader authority to execute strikes in Somalia, considering it an “area of active hostilities”. As a result, 30 airstrikes have been executed in Somalia, with the most recent killing some 100 Somalis. Controversial raids have also taken place under Trump, with the most notable taking place in August, killing 10 civilians in southern Somalia as they ran and took cover behind banana trees. A US investigation concluded that no civilians were killed in the raid, despite human rights groups disputing the claim.

President Trump signed an executive order Friday allowing the Air Force to recall as many as 1,000 retired pilots to active duty to address a shortage in combat fliers, the White House and Pentagon announced.By law, only 25 retired officers can be brought back to serve in any one branch. Trump's order removes those caps by expanding a state of national emergency declared by President George W. Bush after 9/11, signaling what could be a significant escalation in the 16-year-old global war on terror."We anticipate that the Secretary of Defense will delegate the authority to the Secretary of the Air Force to recall up to 1,000 retired pilots for up to three years," Navy Cdr. Gary Ross, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement. But the executive order itself is not specific to the Air Force, and could conceivably be used in the future to call up more officers and in other branches.

Prominent U.S. senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have joined watchdog groups and banking regulators in calling for a crackdown on dirty money and banks that profit from it in the wake of the FinCEN Files investigation. Sanders and Warren, former candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination who both inspired strong support on the left, called for tougher consequences for banks and their executives who move money linked to crime and corruption.

Sanders’ messages came less than a day after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ release of FinCEN Files, a global investigation revealing how leading banks allowed trillions of dollars in tainted money to flow freely through the financial system. Based on more than 2,100 secret reports filed by banks to the U.S. Department of Treasury and obtained by BuzzFeed News, the investigation included more than 400 journalists in 88 countries around the world. Warren also called for a crackdown on banks that are complicit in the spread of dirty money, highlighting policy proposals that would strengthen the ability of law enforcement to combat white collar crime. Warren called for the creation of a new unit in the U.S. Treasury Department to investigate financial crimes linked to the flow of dirty money. She also pushed for the passage of the Ending Too Big to Jail Act, a law she proposed in 2018 that would make it easier to hold Wall Street executives criminally accountable when the banks they lead engage in illegal activity.

Elizabeth Rosenberg, a former sanctions official for the U.S. Treasury Department, said the revelations exposed the national security threats posed by banks’ laxity. “The FinCEN Files illustrate the alarming truth that an enormous amount of illicit money is sloshing around our financial system, and that U.S. banks play host and facilitator to rogues and criminals that represent some of America’s most insidious national security threats,” Rosenberg told the Wall Street Journal. Rosenberg urged the passage of stronger transparency laws that crack down on the use of anonymous companies, which are often used for money laundering.