Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Mark Zuckerberg Praises Alaska's Quasi Universal Basic Income



Zuck needs to go back to posting faces in his book and leave the economic policy battle to the deep thinkers. The truth will eventually seep down to him.

He displays his confusion and writes:
Priscilla and I spent the weekend around Homer, Alaska as part of the Year of Travel challenge. It's beautiful here.
One thing that stood out to us is how different Alaska's social safety net programs are in a way that provides some good lessons for the rest of our country.
Alaska has a form of basic income called the Permanent Fund Dividend. Every year, a portion of the oil revenue the state makes is put into a fund. Rather than having the government spend that money, it is returned to Alaskan residents through a yearly dividend that is normally $1000 or more per person. That can be especially meaningful if your family has five or six people.
This is a novel approach to basic income in a few ways. First, it's funded by natural resources rather than raising taxes. Second, it comes from conservative principles of smaller government, rather than progressive principles of a larger safety net. This shows basic income is a bipartisan idea.
I plan to devote a full episode of my upcoming youtube show Sunday Morning with Robert Wenzel to the remarkably confused thinking about UBI among many in Silicon Valley. It permeates very high levels. The view needs to be destroyed.

-RW

(ht Joe Weisenthal‏)

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