The Scott Santens UBI Enterprise

Back in 2016, I was asked by Vox.com if I'd like to write an article for them about what it's like having a basic income. What have I learned about UBI through having it? Do I look differently at UBI thanks to my own personal experience? This is the article I wrote.

Read the article: https://medium.com/basic-income/what-if-you-got-1-000-a-month-just-for-being-alive-i-decided-to-find-out-9e8591976c37

For more info about UBI, please refer to my UBI FAQ: scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq

You can support these podcasts through Anchor or Patreon: patreon.com/scottsantens 

In this episode I read one of my all-time favorite essays about universal basic income and how our goal as a society should be full unemployment, not full employment. This essay was written by John Bentley back in 2005, and was one of the earlier things I ever read about UBI that I've read over and over again since, and as a result has greatly influenced my own thinking. By sharing it with all of you now, I hope it will influence your own thinking as well. 

Back in September of 2016, I did an interview for Forbes about a fully universal unconditional basic income and to this day I think it remains one of my better summaries of UBI for those new to the idea, and even those familiar with the idea. It succinctly covers most of the main points and I think can be a useful way of introducing people to UBI, so I've recorded the interview as a podcast and hopefully more people will find it by listening to it. 

Read the full interview in Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kaviguppta/2016/09/22/basic-income-might-be-the-answer-to-societys-productivity-crisis/

For more info about UBI, please refer to my UBI FAQ: scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq

You can support these podcasts through Anchor or Patreon: patreon.com/scottsantens

On April 6th, 2019 I was part of a panel in Oslo, Norway about the Future of Work alongside fellow panelists Guy Standing, Becca Kirkpatrick, and James Bloodworth. The panel was chaired by Basic Income UK's Barb Jacobsen and was part of UBI Nordic 2019.

Panel description: The nature of work continues to change drastically. Experts predict that automation and AI will lead to massive job losses, and the growth of the “gig” economy is creating unstable jobs, with increased demands on flexibility and efficiency. Temporary positions create income  insecurity for workers, and there will be a need to update skills and knowledge continuously. In such a situation, basic income may become a  critical element of future work life.

Video of the panel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs-HTLSNIaE

More about the event: https://ubi-nordic.org/

For more info about UBI, please refer to my UBI FAQ: scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq

You can support these podcasts through Anchor or Patreon: patreon.com/scottsantens

This was the opening keynote speech I gave at the Imagine Belfast Festival of Ideas & Politics in Northern Ireland on March 26, 2019.

From the perspective of beings not from this world, what is money? Why do some humans have so much of it while most have so little? And what message would it convey if human civilization trusted every human being with a minimum amount of access to resources by way of UBI?

Full test of the speech: https://medium.com/basic-income/think-like-a-martian-about-money-and-universal-basic-income-ubi-d543922f06d3

More about the event: https://imaginebelfast.com/events/basic-income-in-northern-ireland-what-cant-it-do/

For more info about UBI, please refer to my UBI FAQ: scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq

You can support these podcasts through Anchor or Patreon: patreon.com/scottsantens

By far, one of the the most common concerns, if not the most common concern, in regards to the idea of Universal Basic Income (UBI) is that all prices will inevitably go up as a result, immediately reducing the value of each dollar, and essentially creating a new zero. Let’s call it the “New Zero Argument” against UBI. This episode dives deep into that argument and reveals just how baseless such an argument actually is, given all the variables in the inflation equation, and all the evidence we have to plug into it.

Read the article: https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-income-just-cause-massive-inflation-fe71d69f15e7

For more info about UBI, please refer to my UBI FAQ: scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq

You can support these podcasts through Anchor or Patreon: patreon.com/scottsantens

On March 1st, 2019 I did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) in the /r/YangForPresidentHQ subreddit the day after Andrew Yang did his AMA in the /r/politics subreddit. For about three to four hours I answered questions from people new to the idea of UBI as well as those who've known about it for years. In this episode I read those questions and my answers to them.

Link to my AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/aw8ld7/hi_im_scott_santens_basic_income_advocate_and_mod/

Link to Andrew Yang's AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/avuqn8/i_am_andrew_yang_us_2020_democratic_presidential/

For more info about UBI, please refer to my FAQ: scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq

You can support these podcasts through Anchor or Patreon: patreon.com/scottsantens

In mid-February I was contacted by the legislative aide for Delegate Gabriel Acevero of Maryland who has introduced a bill to create a social wealth fund intended to eventually pay out a cash dividend to every resident of Maryland. As a prominent advocate for UBI, I was asked to provide a couple pages of written testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee about why such a bill is so important. The following is my prepared testimony as submitted for the hearing on March 1, 2019.

The full text is available on my blog: scottsantens.com/my-unconditional-basic-income-ubi-testimony-for-maryland

For more info about UBI, please refer to my FAQ: scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq 

You can support these podcasts through Anchor or Patreon: patreon.com/scottsantens

A Bipartisan Free Market Solution to Climate Change Through Atmospheric Justice

In the past year since I originally wrote this article, over 3,300 economists have now signed onto a statement in support of carbon dividends, recommending that the most cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions at the scale and speed necessary to act sufficiently on climate change is to implement an annually rising carbon tax where the revenue is returned directly to U.S. citizens through equal lump-sum rebates. This policy recommendation is thus officially now the largest public declaration in the history of economics. The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividends Act also now exists in both the U.S. House and Senate, and Canada has in 2019 become the first country in the world to implement carbon dividends nationwide.

Text: https://medium.com/basic-income/this-idea-can-literally-change-our-world-107cbc94057a

For more info about UBI, please refer to my FAQ:

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A common first reaction to hearing about a fully unconditional and universal basic income is that it's socialism or that it's free money and nothing is free. Both reflexes are wrong, and this episode gets into why.