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Basic Income: A Way Out of Poverty in a Time of Pandemic or Utopia

(23 September 2020) Sir Thomas More introduced the concept of basic income* in Utopia back in 1516. It's a simple concept: Eliminate poverty by guaranteeing a basic level of income. The New Jersey Income Maintenance Experiment (1968-1972) was the first basic income experiment and has since been followed by more than 40 experiments across 14 countries, including 16 ongoing, and another 5 experiments planned for 2020 or later. From an experimental perspective with small groups of participants (as opposed to whole economies), the data demonstrates that basic income helps to eradicate...

Bill Gates Net Worth is Bigger than GDP of 130 Countries

According to the 2019 Forbes Billionaires List, the aggregate wealth of the world's 1,810 billionaires is approximately $8.9 trillion, exceeding the GDP of Japan, the world's third-largest economy with a GDP of $4.4 trillion. In other words, the wealth of 0.00002% of the world's population accounts for 9 percent of the world's GDP of about $74 trillion. How do we measure the net worth of a billionaire? The estimate is based on total asset value, including stakes in public and private companies, real estate, yachts, art, and cash. If a person were a country, we'd measure GDP, which...

Chile's Socio-Economic Disparities Exposed by Weeks of Protests

A policy decision to increase public transport fares in Chile earlier this month triggered nearly two weeks of mass protests across Chile's largest cities, including the capital city of Santiago. While Chilean President Sebastián Piñera last week announced economic reforms to bring peace to the country - raising pensions, monthly minimum wages, and taxes on the wealthy - the socio-economic deficits of the country have been exposed and the youth mobilized. Prosperity for Chile is real and measurable ... At the end of the 20th century, Chile carried out radical economic reforms....

Inequality of Global Wealth

In 2016, just 1 percent of the world's population owned more than 50 percent of the world's wealth. According to the data from the Credit Suisse Research Institute, inequlity of world wealth continues to grow every year. The Institute's assessment is based on a global analysis of national wealth—defined as the value of the financial assets plus real estate (housing) owned by the households, less their debts—and use of the Gini Index, a traditional measure of income distribution and, thereby, inequality. As noted in the Institute’s report: About 3.5 billion people—or, 73 percent of...