Funding Basic Income by dept-free Sovereign Money – Talk by Geoff Crocker

Feb 5, 2021 | Events, News

Announcement text:

Debt-free sovereign money is now here. How come?
Because the Covid crisis has demonstrated its feasibility.

During the Covid crisis, many holders of government debt, such as mutual funds, foreign central banks, and hedge funds, had to sell their bonds to cover huge withdrawals by their own investors.

Central banks like the US Fed and the UK Bank of England intervened by purchasing their government’s bonds to hold up their price in order to keep yields down. Purchases cumulated to >$2 tn in the US and £875 bn in the UK.

As an unintended consequence, central banks now hold substantial government debt. Sure, the government has to pay interest to the central bank, and must ultimately redeem the debt, but this is one government agency in debt to another, ie it’s a zero sum game. It equates to debt-free sovereign money.

So the challenge now is why not issue debt-free sovereign money directly to fund basic income and the reversal of austerity cuts? This proposal is similar to Modern Money Theory, but differs from MMT by the important distinction that money should be created debt-free.

Introduction of the Net Basic Income to the German Parliament’s Petitions Committee

Oct 30, 2020 | News

 

On the 26.10.2020, Prof. Dr. Bernhard Neumärker introduced his model of a Net Basic Income to the German Parliament’s Petitions Committee, with the intent of a direct implementation in times of the Corona-Crisis, and with the option to extend it to a full Basic Income once the crisis has passed.

Susanne Wiest’s Petition to implement a Universal Basic Income during the crisis was signed by 176.134 people, making it one of the most signed petitions in german history. In order to be able bring forward a concrete implementation proposal at the hearing, she asked Prof. Neumärker to illustrate his model.

Delegates of all parties of the german parliament asked questions about the Net Basic Income. Governmental representatives were also questioned about the government’s relief efforts during the Corona crisis in comparison to the possibilities of a Net Basic Income, as well as the possibilities of a quick implementation.

The delegates’ questions revealed a mainly critical attitute towards the model. They adhered to the priciple of individualized and requirement based support, even though it currently doesn’t reach all those in need, as Susanne Wiest and Prof. Neumärker emphasized. Susanne Wiest also pointed out that a Universal Basic Income constitutes a basic right to an income for everyone.

Some delegates suspected a discrepancy between the idea of a Universal Basic Income and the model of a Net Basic Income. An immediate implementation of the Net Basic Income was declared impossible by the governmental representatives. One delegate asked why people whose income isn’t affected by the crisis – such as parliamental delegates – should receive a basic income along with the people who actually need the support. The Net Basic Income in fact tries to give an answer to that question.

The hearing only allowed a rudimentary illustration of the Net Basic Income. With that, it is under discussion, and allows a further elaboration.

In comparison to the hearling of Susanne Wiest’s first petition regarding a Universal Basic Income ten years ago, the delegates were better informed and moreopen to the idea of a Basic Income. However, the parliament decided to reject the petition.

 

You can watch here the recording of the hearing on the german parliament’s media center and a discussion with Susanne Wiest, where she talks about the hearing and the next steps for the petition (both videos in german).

Media reports

BIEN: Bundestag considers Emergency Basic Income Petition

Berliner Zeitung: Could basic income help Germany tackle the effects of Corona?

 

Media reports in german

taz: Bedingungslose Hilfe in der Krise

Berliner Zeitung: Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen: Aus der Utopie wird eine Möglichkeit

Badische Zeitung: “Viele fallen bei Corona-Hilfen durchs Raster”

Neue Westfälische: Warum sich diese Frau für ein Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen stark macht

Enorm Magazin: So könnte das Krisen-Grundeinkommen aussehen.

Bayrischer Rundfunk: Ist jetzt der richtige Zeitpunkt?

Enno Schmidt at the Financial University in Moscow, “Growth or Recession: What to Expect?”

Nov 26, 2019 | News

At the invitation of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation in Moscow, mediated by the Russian PhD student at the Götz Werner Professorship (GWP) at the University of Freiburg, Alexandra Pilyus, Enno Schmidt travelled as a research assistant of the GWP to the centenary celebration of the university to the international forum “Growth or Recession: What to Expect?”

The aim of the trip was to give some presentations on Universal Basic Income (UBI) at the congress, to meet Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics and former Chief Economist of the World Bank, to discuss possibilities of scientific research on BGE and the Freiburg Institute for Basic Income Studies (FRIBIS), to meet activists of the Russian Basic Income Movement and to start building a FRIBIS group with professors of the Financial University in Moscow.

In his presentation, Joseph Stiglitz pointed out many things and called for a number of things to which a BGE could be an answer. He showed, for example, that typical financial incentive systems are neither effective nor efficient, in fact they are counterproductive, that non-material incentives have more impact, that societies/economies perform better when inequality is low and when social/economic action takes into account the impact on others. Rules and norms, he stressed, play a major role. He deplored instability and the loss of trust in institutions caused by the exploitative behaviour of the financial sector. The social contract, Stiglitz said, had been broken. Uncertainty slows down progress, hinders innovation. Economic security increases the necessary willingness to take risks. The economy must be there for the people, not the people for the economy.

A renewal of the social contract? Trust as a social basis, more stability and economic security for all not at least for more risk taking innovation? A renewal of social and economic norms? Reducing inequality, reducing the misconception that financial incentives generate worthy output? All this fits in with an attitude that can consider an Unconditional Basic Income.

Enno Schmidt reminded Mr. Stiglitz that he had made a statement on the 2016 referendum on the introduction of an UBI in Switzerland. He said at that time: An Unconditional Basic Income is the right step for Switzerland.
This time, however, his opinion on the BGE was rather incomprehensible and negative. He did not believe, he said, that people would be happy without meaningful work. The state must ensure that everyone can find a paid job. A life completely without work, perhaps in spiritual immersion, was probably attractive only to a few, he mused. There is also a lack of money for such a basic income. Money is scarce, he stated. And the basic income has to be high enough to really live on it.

In Russia, Unconditional Basic Income is still little known and not discussed. Who wants money should work. If the money just would be given without a request, people wouldn’t work and would be depraved. That is unanimously and unquestionably the attitude against a UBI. In addition, in Russia – as in other countries of the former Soviet socialism – the first thing that comes to people’s mind with the idea of a UBI is communism. A similarity is seen between the UBI and the ideals of communism. Under the objective of these ideals, much blood was shed, much suffering and oppression took place in the real existing Soviet socialism. They do not want that again. However, the assessment of the Soviet period is not so unanimous. Some think it was better then than today. There were more opportunities, things were fairer, and many good achievements were dismantled after the end of the Soviet Union. But also today the people of Russia are proud of their achievements and believe that as a country they are doing better and performing better than every other country. Just as people in other countries claim it about their country.

Under the mediation of Alexandra Pilyus and in talks with Enno Schmidt, a team of top-class academics from the Financial University came together for a FRIBIS group.

Vladimir Putin’s advances toward a guaranteed minimum income, higher pensions, state subsidies for children and families, etc. are going in the direction of a change in the social contract, in which a UBI is no longer completely unthinkable, but could even be seen as a simplification, an increase in effectiveness and efficiency among the goals set.

Report from the Opening Ceremony

Oct 28, 2019 | News

Freiburg Institute for Basic Income Studies (FRIBIS) has been established at the University of Freiburg, Germany. The opening ceremony took place on Oct. 28th.

FRIBIS is intended to become an international center for UBI investigation and cooperation.

Scientists from various faculties and basic income protagonists from civil society, NGOs, activists, work together in interdisciplinary topical groups to examine the unconditional basic income in all its facets, to scientifically accompany UBI projects and to contribute research results for implementation strategies. Knowledge transfer from science meets the challenges of civil society and strengthens its opportunities.

Founding directors of the Competence Network FRIBIS at the University of Freiburg are professors each from the Institute of Computer Science, the Institute of Psychology, the Institute of Ethnology, the Institute of Educational Science, the Faculty of Theology and Prof. Dr. B. Neumärker of the Götz Werner Chair of Economic Policy and Constitutional Economic Theory.

In May of this year, the Götz Werner Professorship was established with backing of the rector of the University of Freiburg. The donors of the Götz Werner Chair are Beatrice and Götz W. Werner. Götz Werner is the founder of the dm drugstore-market group with 60 thousand employees today. In the last decades he already has been one of the most important voices for UBI in Germany. The Götz Werner Chair was established for the head of the department of Economic Policy and Constitutional Economic Theory, Prof. Dr. Bernhard Neumärker. At the Götz Werner Chair, Enno Schmidt is in charge of public effectiveness, transfer and networking. FRIBIS is the next level based on the Götz Werner Chair.

Interdisciplinary teams already exist on following topics: “VAT-financed basic income”, among others with H. Pape, founder of “Generation Basic Income Austria” and Prof. Dr. Dr. F. Schneider from Linz / “Psychology of the Basic Income”, a cross-faculty research program / “The management of UBI NGO’s” / “Foreign Aid Basic Income”, UBI as strengthening the resilience of societies in particular in Africa against the sellout of the country and resources / “Sanction-free / HartzPlus”, an ongoing pilot-project in Berlin, the first realization of a guaranteed basic income in Germany, among others with project manager Helena Steinhaus and Prof. Dr. R. Wieland from the University of Wuppertal. Further national and international teams and cooperations are in preparation. FRIBIS will also organize conferences and create a young generation research team.

Contact: enno.schmidt@vwl.uni-freiburg.de
Website: https://www.fribis.uni-freiburg.de

A Freiburg Discourse on UBI

Oct 25, 2019 | News

Within the event series “Freiburg Discourses” (Heinrich Röder), Prof. Dr. Friederike Spiecker and Prof. Dr. Bernhard Neumärker met on 25 October 2019 at the University of Freiburg for a discussion on Unconditional Basic Income.

Prof. Spiecker is co-author of the book “Irrweg Grundeinkommen” (with Prof. Dr. Heiner Flassbeck), Mr Neumärker holds the Götz Werner Chair for Economic Policy and Constitutional Economic Theory at the University of Freiburg and is founding director of the “Freiburg Institute for Basic Income Studies” (FRIBIS).

It was remarkable that Prof. Spiecker clearly and empathically saw and addressed the undervaluation of women’s work and non-profit unpaid work in general, the degrading and rather paralysing than promoting practice of the Hartz IV legislation, including its magnifying effect on the low-wage sector, structural unemployment and the increasingly precarious work and living situation of very many people, but that she resorted to the primacy of gainful employment and the demand for higher minimum wages to solve the problems. Where one could have written behind the description of the problem as a solution: “Unconditional Basic Income”, she relied on the old economic methods of calculation.

Prof. Neumärker took up statements from her lecture in order to disenchant the old way of thinking and transfer it into a logical understanding of Unconditional Basic Income.

Both were largely in agreement in the description of the problem, diametrically opposed in the perspective of the solution.

By Enno Schmidt

First meeting of the VATUBI Group

Oct 14, 2019 | News

Value Added Tax and Universal Basic Income, is this a congenial couple?
One asks about its social component, the other about its financing.
A UBI as a disbursed tax allowance for the VAT included in consumer prices?
Can tax collection be switched to a sole and then high rate of VAT?
What is the effect?

On suggestion of Helmo Pape, founder of “Generation Basic Income” in Austria, on October 14th and 15th an Austrian team of scientists met with Prof. Dr. Bernhard Neumärker and Enno Schmidt in Freiburg to establish a FRIBIS group about the effects of a change in the tax system on consumption tax/value-added tax, and VAT as a form of financing the UBI.

The working group will start its proceedings in spring 2020.

Scientific team:

  • Dr. Elisabeth Dreer, Senior Sientist at the Research Institute for Banking of the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
  • Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Friedrich Schneider, former Prof. of the Department of Economic Policy, Research Institute for Banking, Johannes Keppler University of Linz
  • Dr. rer. soc. oec. Florian Walkobinger, Society for Applied Economic Research, Innsbruck, Austria
  • Prof. Dr. Bernhard Neumärker, Götz Werner Chair for Economic Policy and Constitutional Economic Theory, University of Freiburg, Germany

Transfer team:

  • Helmo Pape, Banker, Founder “Generation Basic Income”, Vienna, Austria.
  • Enno Schmidt, artist, co-founder of the initiative “Basic Income Switzerland”, Research Assistant at the Götz Werner Chair at the University of Freiburg.

Presentation of the Götz Werner Chair on the 19th World Basic Income Congress in Hyderabad, India

Aug 25, 2019 | News

BIEN 2019

Presentation of the Götz Werner Chair on the 19th World Basic Income Congress in Hyderabad, India.

On 19th Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Congress in August 2019 in Hyderabad, India, Prof. Dr. Bernhard Neumärker and Enno Schmidt presented the Götz Werner Chair of the University of Freiburg and stimulated contacts for the Freiburg Institute for Basic Income Studies (FRIBIS) to be established.

Enno Schmidt chaired the panel “Basic Income and the Financial Feasibility Question”, with Prof. Neumärker as speaker, and “Basic Income as the Foundation of a Caring Society“ with among other Bela Hatvany as an attendee.

Following the conference, Enno Schmidt travelled to Sri Lanka, where, inspired by him, a small basic income movement was created and where basic incomes were awarded to individuals for the second time.

Founding of the Götz Werner Chair at the University of Freiburg

May 21, 2019 | News

The professorship, endowed by Prof. Götz W. Werner and his wife Beatrice Werner, is intended to serve research into the unconditional basic income and to provide the public debate with profound scientific results up to and including the implementation of the BGE.

The signing ceremony of the Götz Werner Chair for Economic Policy and Constitutional Economic Theory took place on May 21th, 2019, in the Rectorate Building of the University of Freiburg. The Chair is held by Prof. Dr. Bernhard Neumärker, Director of the Department of Economic Policy and Constitutional Economic Theory at the University of Freiburg.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Hans-Jochen Schiewer, Rector of the University of Freiburg, said in his speech:
“No other entrepreneur in Germany has thought of the unconditional basic income as consistently and as emphatically as Götz Werner. It is in the tradition of Ordoliberalism, the Freiburg School of Economics, to develop a regulatory framework for this model: Its founder Walter Eucken saw the main task of economic and social policy as the establishment of a ‘functional, lasting and humane order’ of economy and society. We are therefore very pleased and grateful in view of the great opportunity that the dm Foundation offers us to use its help to make further groundbreaking research contributions to the question of how economically and socially sustainable coexistence can be organized for all people”.

Prof. Götz W. Werner, founder of dm-drogerie markt, emphasized: “Our world of work has changed fundamentally in the last ten or fifteen years. In order to master the challenges of the future, we must separate work and income and recognize work as a creative activity. The Archimedean point is the idea of an unconditional basic income. Research at the University of Freiburg will provide decisive scientific and socio-political impulses for the introduction of an unconditional basic income”.

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Neumärker mentioned: “The Basic Income opens up an enormous field of activity for a ‘New Ordoliberalism’, which questions the one-sided orientation towards gainful employment and the competitive economy, which characterizes the currently dominant economic liberalism, and instead focuses much more on creative and recreational leisure, unpaid work – e.g. caring for relatives – and the sense of community service”.