Universal Basic Income : A New Approach
Problem
The onslaught of A.I. driven technologies will wipe out nearly 30% of the jobs in the near future. It will be expected by 2030, we will face this crisis. One of the solutions for this job loss is ‘Universal Basic Income.’ Suggested by some of the eminent economists (including Nobel Laureates), the idea of Universal Basic Income has been tested by several countries. In some places, it gave good results. And in some countries, it’s still not produced the desired result. The naysayers of this idea point out a valid point that the ‘free income’ may be misused by people for drugs, gambling, money laundering etc. Moreover, it also creates a barrage of ‘lazy people’ who won’t show any interest in learning new things or improving their skills.
On the other hand, due to various factors, the global warming creates a huge havoc on our planet. This will disrupt all countries at all levels. The alarming amount of CO2 in our atmosphere definitely increases the temperature of our earth. This could be one of the reasons the world witnessed a frequent attacks of epidemics one after another. In the last 10 years alone, we’ve suffered SARS, Ebola, Covid-19. So, there is an action required to urgently reverse this global warming trend. There are so many solutions available to sort out environmental issues. One of the sensible ideas is to rectify by using the natural way. That is planting trees. At least 2 trillion additional trees could reverse the ecological disaster that we’ are facing today.
As per the UNESCO ratified report, “These nationwide closures are impacting over 60% of the world’s student population. Several other countries have implemented localized closures impacting millions of additional learners. The figures calculated as over 1 billion learners across the globe are affected due to this pandemic.
Solutions:
To wipe out these kinds of multiple problems, we have to create an interlinking economic model. On the one hand, we have to pay the poor people. At the same time, we need a huge army of peoples’ participation to plant more trees all over the world. And millions of teachers are required to educate the idle students. A huge number of innovative start-ups to be funded to find the alternate clean energy sources and reducing carbon emission (ex: an Indian school student found a filter for cars and two-wheelers to save the carbon smoke and convert that into for some other purpose. In this way, the smoke that mixes with the air is stopped immediately).
How it can be achieved?
It’s very difficult to for any single entity or a group of people to undertake this arduous task of planting trees. To plant trillions trees it requires a huge humanitarian effort. Nearly the participation 200 to 300 million people are required to do this task for 2 to 3 years. Another 300 to 400 million people are required to do various kinds of jobs including educating billion plus students. Besides, we need a huge number of people to take care of elderly citizens, restart the new businesses, discover clean tech to alternate to carbon based fuel. Overall, people should be actively engaged in doing various these kinds of activities. And they’ve to be compensated. Instead of paying the free money to the people, we can create the incentivized model to distribute the money against their contribution. On the whole, this incentive programme will touch the lives of at least a billion people on the planet. If one billion people are assured some kind of minimum guarantee monthly payment that will wipe out so many issues. It will even revive the ailing economies all over the world. Because, through this system, a minimum of at least 100 billion dollars will be distributed to the people per month.
To qualify this activity-based model:
- A person should plant at least 10 trees per day (he / she should get GPS-based peer-certification).
- If the person is involved in teaching, they should teach at least 5 students at least 3 hours per day for 5 days week. (Minimum of 15 – 18 hours per week)
- A person should help elderly people at least 2 hours a day daily
- A person should teach skill development courses for the group of 5 to 10 members 3 hours for 5 days a week.
- A person should help by driving a car (for elderly and disabled) for at least 3 hours a day for 5-days a week
- A person should work in homes and office to install solar panels for 3 to 4 hours daily for 5-days a week
- A doctor / nurse should attend at least 10 patients per day
- A construction worker should work at least 4 hours a day for 5-days a week
- A computer software professional (developer / tester) should work for at least 4 hours a day
- A translator should translate a 1000-words document in a day for at least 5-days a week
Likewise, 15 to 20 activities will be listed for the people from different walks of life to participate in different kind of activities to render their services
Revenue-generation method
The Governments can contribute at least 2% of their defence budget towards this cause
The polluting industries should pay an additional 2% tax as ‘carbon neutral activity’ based Universal Basic Income Programme
Donations from high net worth individuals
Corporations should encourage in spending their ‘social responsibility’ funds for this cause
Revenue from the parents (who have no work) for the online learning
The top 25 polluting countries should pay to compensate the environmental losses
Vehicle Manufacturers (Trucks, Cars, Two Wheelers ) should pay a surcharge of 1% for this fund.
Top 10 petrol selling countries 3 dollars surcharge per barrel of crude oil they produce.
As per the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the total military spending of the world is around 1917 billion in 2019. In which top ten countries alone accounts nearly two-thirds of the total military budget. That is over 1200+ billions
Just 2% contribution from every country will fetch a pool of 400 billion US dollars
Carbon Tax from the polluting industries will easily fetch over 100 billion US dollars
Donations from high net worth individuals + various other methods of fundraising will get an additional 100 billion dollars
Another 100 billion dollars can be collected from the students as service fee
Another 300 billion can be collected from the top25 polluting countries (the individual countries should proportionately pay based on the damage they cause to the environment
Another 100 billion can be collected from the vehicle manufacturers
Another 100 billion dollars can be collected from various other non-conventional fundraising methodologies
Another 100 billion dollars can be collected from the crude oil producing countries
Overall 1.3 trillion US dollars can be collected. That is 1300 billion US dollars. It gives the flexibility of spending 100 billion per month. In this way, each participant will ensure a minimum sum of $100 per month, which is better than the current average income for millions of people in the poorest part of the world.
500 million people plant at the rate of 10 trees per day. So, a total of 150 billion trees can be planted per month. Even if calculate the survival rate of trees as 50%. 75 billion trees will be newly added every month. In this method, per year, it will touch 900 billion trees. In 3-years time, we will achieve the target of 2.5 trillion trees. That is more than enough number of trees to safeguard our planet.
Still, the planting trees alone solve the problem. From this fund, at least 10 billion dollars will be used to create 100 new clean tech ideas.
In this method, each participant of this programme will be assured of 1200 dollars per year. And they need not to fully tied-up with this job. By spending a minimum of 3 to 4 hours a day, they will get an income of 100 dollars per month. Using the blockchain based distributed system, the money will be sent to the 1 billion beneficiaries across the globe. The additional capital of 100 billion dollars will be used to create new clean tech ideas for sustainable growth.
We have to do an elaborate study to enhance this idea and make it persuasively appealing study for the nations / states and the UN to seriously consider and implement it. For that, we have to analyse the authentic data from various sources to study the military spending, precisely calculate the carbon emission, try to figure out the most polluting countries with authentic data , identify the amount of money people spending for buying the vehicles that run on fossilized fuel. After getting the data, we have to use a sophisticated ‘data analytics’ and ‘data visualization tools’ to refine the whole income and expenditure statement.
To wipe out the ecological disaster, eliminate unemployment and revive the economic growth can be achieved by this ‘activity based universal basic income model.” It will encourage people to take part in productive activities. Once we completed the sizeable number of tree planting, then that resources can be utilized for various other purposes. For this programme, each person is willing to work for at least 3 different tasks.
By
Srini