New UBI Movement - Mayors, Cities and Countries

#1

There is a movement taking place in various places around the world, to bring about Universal Basic Income. Just this past week, official UBI grants have been announced in Spain and South Africa. Proposals for regular people to receive a minimum guaranteed income have become mainstream, as economic stimulus has been deployed to deal with the devastation and joblessness following the lockdowns.

Here in the USA, after Andrew Yang’s presidential run (and our yang2020.app) for a national UBI, other people have picked up the UBI torch. A growing number of mayors across the country, beginning with Michael Tubbs of Stockton, CA, have launched Mayors for a Guaranteed Income committed to carrying out the vision supported by both left (Martin Luther King) and right (Milton Friedman). The bipartisan organization of 30,000 mayors passed a resolution supporting a Basic Income.

Now, mayors have joined together to do UBI pilots, and Intercoin can help make this happen:

What’s more, the movement is finally getting the support it needs from major figures:

Local Currencies for UBI in Cities

Universal Basic Income is all about building things from the bottom up, and Intercoin was launched with UBI in mind. The vision of a UBI might be perceived to be at odds with some of the anarcho-capitalist crowd, which invested in Bitcoin. But the way Intercoin has architected it, the UBI would be based on a completely voluntary basis, through community currencies. And rather than being a “one and done” deal, over time vendors can be encouraged to have the money circulate through the local community, building a much more sustainable local economy.

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Voluntary Basic Income
#2

I think local currencies should definitely be the pilot cases for UBI. Once the idea is validated we can spread it gradually to a state level

#3

The current UBI pilots are probably being planned without local currencies. So people could spend the money on Amazon or businesses could pay suppliers and the money leaves the community. It’s one-and-done.

What if it was a local currency, usable for public services and a growing array of local merchants? Then people would have to spend it locally. Yeah merchants would cash out the money at first, but in Phase 2, locals and tourists would start to buy the currency (to get better deals at merchants) and thereby start to balance the flow out of the community currency and into $ with an opposite flow. In Phase 3 merchants can then choose to pay employees in this currency so as not to lose 10% on cashing it out. So the currency would increasingly circulate.

At Qbix we built a lot for community member adoption and onboarding. Now with Intercoin we need to do the same, nail the adoption of currencies, but on the level of economics instead of just user experiece.

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