QUALITY OF LIFE
INCOME / WEALTH
JOBS / EMPLOYMENT/ UNEMPLOYMENT / UNDEREMPLOYMENT
People need to have jobs in order to have income to support a reasonable quality of life ... wealth!
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Unemployment / Underemployment
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Unemployment
Bill Conway, a co-founder of the Carlyle Group asks how would you use $1 billion to create jobs for the poor?
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Open file 601
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Jobs ... Global Labor Market
The outsourcing bogeyman ... Outsourcing benefits all countries by focusing on competitive advantage, but many politicians do not understand this.
by Jagdish Bhagwati, professor of economics and law at Columbia University in 2011
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Open file 603
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Structural Unemployment ... Idea ... Basic Income
Overwhelming Evidence that a Guaranteed Income Will Work
http://www.nationofchange.org/2016/08/28/overwhelming-evidence-guaranteed-income-will-work/
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Open file 11881
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Structural Unemployment ... Ideas ... Basic Income
What Would Happen If We Just Gave People Money?
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/universal-basic-income/
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Open file 11882
| Open external link
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The U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network
The Basic Income Guarantee is an unconditional, government-insured guarantee that all citizens will have enough income to meet their basic needs
http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.php
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Open file 13090
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Efficiency-Argument-for-BIG
An Efficiency Argument for the Basic Income Guarantee by Karl Widerquist, Oxford University and Michael A. Lewis, SUNY School of Social Welfare at Stony Brook first appeared in a paper publishedby the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College and briefly updated in January of 2005
'http://truevaluemetrics.org/DBpdfs/Basic-Income/Efficiency-Argument-for-BIG.pdf'
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Efficiency-Argument-for-BIG
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Many-Faces-of-UBI
The Many Faces of Universal Basic Income by Jurgen de Wil
'http://truevaluemetrics.org/DBpdfs/Basic-Income/Many-Faces-of-UBI.pdf'
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Many-Faces-of-UBI
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Structural Unemployment ... Idea ... Basic Income
Overwhelming Evidence that a Guaranteed Income Will Work
http://www.nationofchange.org/2016/08/28/overwhelming-evidence-guaranteed-income-will-work/
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Open file 11881
| Open external link
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Structural Unemployment ... Ideas ... Basic Income
What Would Happen If We Just Gave People Money?
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/universal-basic-income/
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Open file 11882
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Writings about EMPLOYMENT
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Declining Industries / Structural Unemployment
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Peter Burgess Commentary ... September 2011 ...
... in response to a news story that Bill Conway, a co-founder of the Carlyle Group was asking how to use $1 billion to create jobs for the poor?
This is a very interesting initiative, rather similar to the pay-back theme of Warren Buffett and others of considerable wealth who are suggesting that their wealth should be used in constructive ways to improve the world.
I want to go further than this, and encourage those with ability to use their creative energy not only to make money profit but also to create valueadd for society. My conclusion is that if decision makiing had a focus on valueadd as much as it does on profit, then the world economy would be more stable, more sustainable and also profitable.
There are many quite well known economists who would like to see a better metric about economic health than GDP growth, stock market and commidty indeces and business profit using money as the measure. The TrueValueMetrics (TVM) initiative suggests that it is value that should be at the center of this rather than money. Critics of TVM point out that value is subjective, difficult to quantify and therefore 'it cannot work'. I argue that even though these characteristics are real, value is still very important and should be at the center of a system of meaningful metrics for a smart society.
The fact that value is subjective means that it has the potential to be right for everyone, rather than just right for those that make the rules. There can be value as seen by an individual, a community, a region (like a State), a country, and a global average. The different value profiles mean something and reflect culture, priorities and many other factors. Different value sets make trade ... arbitrage ... in value something that has relevance in a market oriented optimization system.
The quantification of value may be done using a concept that originates with money cost accounting ... the standard cost, or in this case the standard value. Everything can be 'relative' within a standard value universe. Modern technology makes it possible to 'crowd-source' different groups to get at the standard value profile that reflects their values. While a currency may be used as a measure ... the value is not a currency per se.
Money accounting is very powerful in part because it has a double entry structure which makes the system more robust than it would be without its critical construct of integrated balance sheet and operating statement. The TVM system similarly has state, progress and performance that are sililar to the accounting construct. State is a value balance sheet. Progress is the change in value balance sheet from the beginning to the end of the period. Performance is the net resource consumption relative to the progress achieved.
The capitalist market economy has been very good at directing resources towards money profit investment and guiding the related decisions to improve productivity. But it has not been very good at making the not-for-profit world productive, whether this is government or the not for profit non-governmental organizations. Value accounting would change the dynamic and make it possible for objective performance assessment to be done in a routine way just like corporate accounting and its related financial reporting.
The TVM initiative has one more important difference. Money accounting and management information systems are all designed to inform from the perspective of the organization. The society and the community are not part of the system of metrics at all. In the case of TVM it is society and specifically the community that is the reporting entity, with organizations subsidiary within the society. All of the ideas that are important in making sense in a complex organization are equally valid in making sense of a complex society.
The methodology for TVM as a system of metrics is relatively simple. It will have an important impact if this can be linked with a structure that has an ability to mobilize resources in a suitable manner. The challenge is to get the right mix of financial capital, human capital, natural resources, operational framework and dataflows mobilized and organized. I see this possible using existing local bank branches and community colleges reaching out to local business, charities and governance organizations. Funding for economic activities would originate from privately owned financial resources and would flow into economic activity as equity ... not loan, and not grant. The expectation is that there would be valueadd arising from equity investment.
The idea is basic ... but potentially very powerful. It has the potential to address the lack of resources to satisfy critical needs at the 'base of the pyramid' (BOP) and make resources that flow into the humanitarian assistance and charity sector more accountable with performance metrics that are relevant.
I worked in the Horn of Africa during the famine of the 1980s. Why is there a famine in Somalia now? The answer is that a profit based resource allocation system is going to ignore these situations until they are embarrassing and then it is too late. A value based system would alleviate this to a great extent, maybe completely.
Peter Burgess
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Open file 603
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