USBIG NEWSLETTER VOL. 9, NO. 48 SPRING 2008


This is the Newsletter of the USBIG Network (www.usbig.net), which promotes the discussion of the basic income guarantee (BIG) in the United States. BIG is a policy that would unconditionally guarantee at least a subsistence-level income for everyone. If you would like to be added to or removed from this list please email: Karl@Widerquist.com.

Table of Contents

1. Seventh USBIG Congress held in Boston
2. The BIG pilot project in Namibia requests donations (by Guy Standing)
3. Very small BIG introduced in British Columbia
4.
Editorial: What does the Stone Age have to do with us? (by Karl Widerquist)
5. Legislators propose to dip into the Alaska Permanent Fund
6. Video of Senator Suplicy in Iraq
7.
BIG wiki
8.
Recent Publications
9.
New Discussion papers
10. New Links
11. New Members
12.
Links and Other Info

1. Seventh USBIG Congress held in Boston

The Seventh Congress of the USBIG Network was held at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts on March 7-9, 2008. More than 30 speakers discussed different aspects of the basic income debate. Sessions included a round-table on the question of what it means to be a free person, featuring Karl Widerquist, Phil Harvey, Michael Howard, and Kieran Oberman and Robert Jubb. Sean Healy and Brigid Reynolds, both of the Council of the Religious of Ireland, discussed the efforts to put BIG on the political agenda in Ireland. Al Sheahan discussed the rise and fall of the Basic Income Guarantee Bill in the U.S. Congress. Steve Shafarman discussed how to make it an issue in the 2008 campaign. Richard Wamai and James Mulvale discussed the politics of BIG in South Africa and Canada, respectively.

Stephen Clark, Buford Farris, and Charles M.A. Clark debated the theological and moral aspects of BIG. Jurgen De Wispelaere, of Trinity College Dublin, discussed the problems of governing a social system with basic income. Yannick Vanderborght discussed the prospects for BIG in electoral politics around the world. Senator Eduardo Suplicy of Brazil presented a video documentary of his recent trip to Iraq to lobby the nation’s leaders to adopt a basic income.

The issue of BIG and poverty was debated by Micheál Collins, Samuel Butler, Ernie Lightman, and Seong Gee Um. The issue of BIG and work was debated by Chirstain Roy, Phil Harvey, and Jeffery Smith. Various perspectives on distribution and redistribution were put forward by Roy Morrioson, Rabbi Carla Theodore, Gary Flomenhoft, and Dan O’Sullivan. Philippe Van Parijs, of Harvard University, spoke near the end of the conference with an overview of some of the sessions.

Guy Standing, of the University of Bath, reported on the basic income pilot project being conducted by the Basic Income Grant Coalition of Namibia. The project is organized by the Basic Income Grant (BIG) Coalition of Namibia and funded entirely by private donations. Standing made a request for donations to support the project and USBIG participants donated over $700. If anyone else would like to donate, please see Guy Standing’s report on the Namibian project below.

2. The BIG pilot project in Namibia requests donations (report by Guy Standing)

As readers of the USBIG Newsletter know, the Basic Income Grant Coalition of Namibia has moved from talk to action by initiating a pilot project in the rural village of Otjivero. The project is funded almost entirely by donations from individuals, and involves every individual in a rural community receiving the equivalent of about $12 each month. This is about half the average income in the area, and is thus a significant monthly amount. The intention is to provide every participant with that amount each month for two years, during which time the scheme will be monitored and the behavioral and community effects evaluated.

The project is strictly unconditional, unlike cash transfer schemes that have been carried out in some other parts of Africa and elsewhere in recent years. Fortunately, its administration has been made easier by the fact that Namibia has long operated an unconditional social pension, by which everybody aged 60 and over receives a basic state pension via possession of an electronic card. For the BIG pilot project, participants (or their guardians) have been issued cards, containing their photograph and fingerprints. Each month they go to a visiting van operated by the same private company that is responsible for administering the pension scheme, and receive the basic income in cash. Because the basic income is being run on these lines, the administrative costs are working out to be about 4% of the total, which is much lower than for any other transfer or poverty relief program.

At the USBIG Congress in Boston on March 7-9, 2008, a presentation of the arguments for a basic income in Africa was made by Guy Standing, co-chair of BIEN, and he presented photographs of the launch of the Namibian scheme. Afterwards, members of USBIG made individual contributions to a collection to be sent to Namibia as an expression of solidarity. The money will be used to supplement the small fund set up to finance the scheme. As of the time of going to press, some 934 individuals in one village are receiving the basic income.

If anyone would like to contribute to the project, please contact the Namibian BIG Coalition at cd.haarmann@gmx.ne, or go to the Basic Income Grant Coalition’s website (www.bignam.org) and download the pledge form with instructions on how to transfer money to the coalition’s bank account. The project is being properly audited and is overseen by the BIG Coalition Namibia and an international advisory board. It may be a tiny scheme but it could be a harbinger of an effective way of tackling poverty in Africa, and one which will advance the cause of economic rights and global citizenship.
-Guy Standing

For further information contact:
Basic Income Grant Coalition
Secretariat: c/o Desk for Social Development (ELCRN)
5069 Windhoek, Namibia
Telephone: +264 (61) 235466
Fax: +264 (61) 235499
Website: http://www.bignam.org/
E-mail: cd.haarmann@gmx.ne

3. Very small BIG introduced in British Columbia

The government of British Columbia (BC) has taken actions to help the environment by introducing the first carbon tax in North America, and as a byproduct, they have created a very small basic income guarantee. To offset some of the costs of the increased tax to individuals and businesses, the BC government has created a $100 rebate for adults and a $30 rebate for children. There will be additional rebates for businesses. According to the Vancouver Sun, “The carbon tax will apply to virtually all fossil fuels, including gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, propane, and home heating fuel.” The rebate is like the Alaska Permanent Fund in the sense that it is linked to taxes on fuels, but it is at the consumption end rather than the production end. The Alaska Permanent Fund is designed to allow every individual in the state to share in profits from oil produced in the state. The BC carbon tax is designed to discourage consumption of all fossil fuels in the state, and the accompanying dividend is designed to offset part of the cost. This method is designed to give people an incentive to consume less fuel without necessarily making them worse off. Those who consume the least fuel will benefit the most from the program; those who continue to use the most fuel will see the largest increase in taxes.

Several stories about the new tax and rebate are online:
Vancouver Sun: B.C. introduces carbon tax, by Jonathan Fowlie and Fiona Anderson,
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=ecea1487-507c-43ef-ab88-5a972898e0b7&k=38130
British Columbia "the clear leader in North American climate policy", by Alex Steffen
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007857.html
While an economist talks taxes, smart leaders levy two smart ones, by Jeff Smith
http://www.progress.org/2008/carbon.htm

4. Editorial: What does the Stone Age have to do with us?

What does the Stone Age have to do with modern justice? According to property rights advocates: everything; their arguments rely on two factual claims that can be enlightened by a look at prehistoric anthropology. (1) Property begins as individual property and then governments come along and impose taxes that interfere with the rights of owners. (2) A market economy with no restrictions on inequality makes everyone better off than they were before private property was created (i.e. when our ancestors were hunter-gatherers).

I have heard private property advocates make these claims many times, but I’ve never seen them support those claims by referring to anthropological studies of prehistory. How do we know that property began as private property? Are we sure that every single modern worker is better off than our hunter-gatherer ancestors? Recently I’ve taken a look at some anthropological studies including Stone Age Economics by Marshall Sahlins, Bronze Age Economics and How Chiefs Come to Power by Timothy Earle, and The Evolution of Political Society by Morton Fried. I found out that the claims of property rights advocates don’t hold up very well.

To examine the first claim, we need to go back to the creation of fixed property rights in the Bronze Age. Property rights advocates like to imagine land being first appropriated by individualistic pioneers who tamed the wilderness by their own efforts. But that’s not what actually happened. The transformation from hunting and gathering to a settled agricultural life took the joint act of entire bands not simply one person. The rights of land tenure in primitive settled communities was extremely varied, but it seldom if ever looked anything like the neoliberal systems that property rights advocates suppose. In the earliest agricultural societies, every individual had a right of direct access to the land, which was usually owned (if at all) by villages or large extended families. In slightly more economically advanced societies where property rights have become exclusive, the original owners are not private businessmen, but chiefs. Ownership of resources was synonymous with ownership of the government.

The reason chiefs doubled as owners is obvious: the earliest societies were too economically simple to have separate spheres of power—such as government, religion, and business. All of these powers were vested in one person. The Hawaiian Islands were first settled by human beings around the year 600 and so they provide a very recent example of the first creation of property rights. For the most part by the 1400s, each island was run by a chief who owned the land and the irrigation systems that made everyone’s efforts to farm the land viable. Local lords were employees of the chief. They doled out land to peasants only if the peasants promised the interests of the chief. In short, the chief ran his island as a wholly-owned, for-profit business.

Property rights advocates sometimes claim that only recent history matters, but taxation and regulation of property are not new. Modern governments inherited their regulatory powers from medieval kings, who owned the right to regulate their domain in any way they saw fit. Modern landlords hold titles that derive from the medieval vassals of the king. Government taxation is simply the exercise of property rights that are as old as or older than private holdings of property. Some countries went through a brief laissez faire period in the Nineteenth Century, when governments chose to tax and regulate less than before. But I know of no government that signed an enforceable contract to alienate its rights over its domain. So-called property rights advocates simply want to interfere with the property rights of kings to promote opportunities for his vassals, which has about as much to do with “freedom of property rights against interference” as redistribution from condo associations to condo owners, from landlords to tenants, or from stock holders to middle management. If the property rights system the king set up is unjust, his rights should go to the people, not his lords. If the property rights system the king set up is just, we must respect his rights and not force him to cede power to his lords.

To examine the second claim, we need to go back all the way to the Stone Age. Studies of hunter-gatherer communities that survived into the Twentieth Century show that people worked an average of three to four hours per day (including time spent preparing food and commuting). They worked at their own pace and slept more than people do today. Researchers reported that they appeared to feel extremely secure about their ability to find food and other necessities, and they never had to answer to a boss. When a hunter-gatherer is in the mood to forage for food, she sees if anyone else feels like joining her. If not, she waits or goes out alone.

Modern capitalism is a very productive system with great potential to produce goods that could benefit everyone, but as we practice it, it has extreme inequalities. People live on the street and eat out of garbage cans. Others work long hours in sweatshops at the edge of their physical ability and still face the possibility of hunger and malnutrition. Most modern workers have more access to luxuries and better medical care than hunter-gatherers, and on the whole they live longer. But many work longer and harder; they have to follow the orders of a boss; they have less economic security; and do not forget the some individuals die young (and younger than many hunter-gatherers) because of malnutrition and other complications of poverty. In short, the transition from hunter-gatherer society to modern capitalism has not been an unequivocal gain for the working class. It has been a tradeoff. But a tradeoff is not good enough to meet the standards that property rights advocates set for themselves.

I am not the one who put forward the standard that the poor must be at least as well off as their Stone Age ancestors. Property rights advocates chose that standard because they thought it was easy to meet. It is. A society, as productive as ours, can easily make everyone far better off than they would be as hunter-gatherers, but we have failed to do so. The minimum we can do to justify our property rights is to make sure that every single human being has more freedom and economic security our Stone Age ancestors. To make sure the standard it met, we only need to make sure that everyone can have some minimal level basic necessities without having to submit to a boss.

We don’t, I believe, largely because we, the better off, have convinced ourselves that we have the right to boss around the poor. We have property and they don’t; and therefore, supposedly, we have the right to make them do what we say 40 hours per week. Yet, studies of societies without property rights show that our property rights are the only thing coming between the poor and their ability to meet their own needs with less effort and without following anyone’s orders. It is we who owe them, not they who owe us. Perhaps we can make the poor work for us if they want to share in the luxuries of capitalism, but we have no right—even by the standards set by property rights advocates—to force them to work for us just to meet their basic needs.

-Karl Widerquist

5. Legislators propose to dip into the Alaska Permanent Fund

The recent increase in energy prices has had contradictory effects on Alaska. The government and oil producers have benefited greatly from increased oil revenue, but most ordinary Alaskans have had to pay much more in energy costs. Thus the state has a huge budget surplus while most individuals have much tighter budgets. Wesley Loy, of the Alaska Daily News, reports that the Alaskan legislature has been contemplating using the additional energy revenue to help ordinary Alaskans cope with their higher energy bills. The help might to come in the form of a $500 cash dividend on top of this year’s Permanent Fund Dividend. However, this money would be taken from the profits of the Alaska Permanent Fund and it would therefore, decrease the size of all future dividends. Some legislators have questioned the wisdom of mortgaging future dividends to pay for high fuel prices this year when fuel prices are likely to remain high next year and perhaps for years to come. Some legislators have suggested financing the additional dividend through regular tax revenues without dipping into the profits of the Permanent Fund.
For Wesley Loy’s Alaska Daily News report on the proposal, go to: http://www.adn.com/politics/story/351745.html
For Sean Cokerham’s report on the proposal go to:
http://www.adn.com/legislature/story/291117.html

6. Video of Senator Suplicy in Iraq

A one-half hour documentary of Senator Eduardo Suplicy’s recent trip to Iraq is now online. The video is in English or with English subtitles as appropriate, although most of the website is in Portuguese. It chronicles the Senator’s efforts to lobby for a basic income guarantee for Iraq, and it reveals many of the difficulties with the current situation in Bagdad. The video can be found online by going to: http://www.senado.gov.br/eduardosuplicy/.
Then click on “Audio & Video”. The site will then open a pop-up window (you may need to set your browser to accept pop-up windows from this website).
Then click on “English”
Then click on the video.

7. BIG wiki

By now, most people know that a wiki is a website that can be easily edited by users. The word is derived from the Hawaiian word “wiki-wiki” meaning quick. The idea is to take advantage of group knowledge. If each individual in the group knows a little, the group knows a lot. If everybody puts in what they know, hopefully, the outcome will be better than anyone could have done on their own. Paul Nollen, of Vivant Belgium and of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), has started a BIG wiki for the Basic Income Earth Network. It is in its embryonic stages right now, but it is ready to grow.
It is online at: http://wiki.basicincome.be

8. Recent Publications

Peaceful, Positive Revolution: Economic Security for Every American
Steven Shafarman Network. Tendril Press.
This is the fifth book by Steven Shafarman, founder and president of the Citizen Policies Advocates and a member of the coordinating committee of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network. He writes: "Citizen Policies will unite ordinary Americans and empower us to get the government we want and deserve. Together, we can end hunger and homelessness. We can reform our education and health care systems. We can revitalize our towns and cities. We can reverse global warming. We can have peace in Iraq, the Middle East, and everywhere."

Why America Lost the War on Poverty -- And How to Win It
Frank Stricker. University of North Carolina Press
In a historical assessment of American poverty and policy from 1950 to the present, Stricker examines an era that has seen serious discussion about the causes of poverty and unemployment. Stricker notes that since the 1970s, U.S. poverty levels have remained at or above 11%, despite training programs and periods of economic growth. The creation of jobs has continued to lag behind the need for them. He analyzes why Nixon's 1970 Family Assistance Plan failed, and discusses how to win a new war on poverty. Stricker is a professor of history at Cal State University, Dominguez Hills, California.

BASIC INCOME: A DANGEROUS REFORM
Adam Buick, Socialist Standard Volume 104, No. 1243, March 2008
Summary: The Green Party’s idea of pay everyone a minimum income whether or not they are working might seem attractive, but it won’t necessarily leave us better off.
This article is available on line at: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/mar08/page12.html
The Socialist Standard is online at: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/standardonline/index.html. It is published by the World Socialist Movement (www.worldsocialism.org).

The Persistence of Poverty: Why the Economics of the Well-Off Can't Help the Poor
Charles Karelis, New Haven: Yale University Press
While not directly about basic income, this book challenges the approach of current poverty programs, and favors direct cash benefits. In a book review, Drake Bennett, of the Boston Globe writes, “When we're poor, Karelis argues, our economic worldview is shaped by deprivation, and we see the world around us not in terms of goods to be consumed but as problems to be alleviated. … The more of a painful or undesirable thing one has (i.e. the poorer one is) the less likely one is to do anything about any one problem. Poverty is less a matter of having few goods than having lots of problems. … Reducing the number of economic hardships that the poor have to deal with actually make them more, not less, likely to work … Simply giving the poor money with no strings attached, rather than using it, as federal and state governments do now, to try to encourage specific behaviors … would be just as effective, and with far less bureaucracy.” Charles Karelis is Research Professor of Philosophy at The George Washington University.
For Bennett’s review, see: THE STING OF POVERTY: What bees and dented cars can teach about what it means to be poor - and the flaws of economics, the Boston Globe, March 30, 2008, http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/30/the_sting_of_poverty/


9. New Discussion papers

How to make BI inflation-proof while also raising wages
Jeffery J. Smith, USBIG Discussion paper No. 189, March 2008
ABSTRACT: When an advocate promotes a Basic Income Grant (BIG or BI) to thoughtful people, they inevitably point out that increasing people's purchasing power could be inflationary. And indeed, they could be right, at least for one sector – housing. In the past, when government gave money to the poor or students or pensioners, then their landlords raised what they charged for tenements, dormitories, and trailer parks. Yet there is a way to put landlords in competition for tenants. It's a way to also raise funds for paying a BI or a CD (Citizens Dividend). That is, where government has taxed land, it has discouraged land speculators and encouraged landowners to keep their improvements affordable. The raised revenue could fund an income supplement, somewhat like what. Aspen CO does. Additionally, where government recovers rent, they keep down price. Since the value of the location is an immense part of the price of real estate, when land costs little, land plus buildings cost much less, so that buyers borrow much less. With less debt in society, there is less debt-backed new notes. With the supply of money in better balance with the output of new goods and services, the means to inflate prices is lacking. Government could swell the BI or CD to a quite comfortable size and still not worry about inflation as long as it recovers rent. Historically, where government taxed land, their wages were higher, since affordable land provided more opportunity to work for oneself, besides more employment opportunity. Plus, if a worker's income were augmented by a share of rent, that too would enable workers to negotiate better wages. And if the complete geonomic tax shift were ushered in – tax pollution, not income; tax extraction, not sales; tax location, not buildings – there the average resident would pay land dues but nothing else. Hence the average citizen would enjoy lower taxes, lower prices, higher wages, plus a Citizens Dividend. On balance, the average citizen – people who must support the extra income proposal in order for it to pass – would come out way ahead. Finally, if there are no excess new notes to inflate prices, and as long as technology keeps advancing, then progress would show up as a lower cost of living. Rather than inflate prices, a BI or CD would lower them, as long as its funding source were society’s surplus, all the money people spend on the land, resources, and government-granted privileges that they use. Better than packaging an income supplement as a necessary salve for inflation is to show how it can be part of a holistic policy to transform the economy into working right for everyone.

10. New Links

IS WAGE LABOR BECOMING OBSOLETE
The website, Embrace Unity, has an article and discussion of the basic income idea online. The author of the main article, “Is Wage Labor Becoming Obsolete?” is Edward Miller of the Transhumanist Student Network, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. The article and discussion are online at: http://www.embraceunity.com/?p=22

CITIZEN’S INCOME TORONTO
This website, maintained by Tim Rourke (tar@qaz.ca), has information on the basic income guarantee, mostly in a Canadian context. It includes a bulletin board; subscription information for the organization’s listserve; a “reading room” that lists links, articles, and books; and other information. It is on line at: http://www.citizensincome.ca/.

11. New Members

Three new members have joined the USBIG Network in the last two months. The USBIG Network now has 149 members from 31 U.S. states and 23 foreign countries. Membership in USBIG is free and open to anyone who shares its goals. To become a member of USBIG go to www.usbig.net, and click on “membership.”

The current members of the USBIG Network are:

Karl Widerquist, Cassopolis, MI; Eri Noguchi, New York, NY; Fred Block, Davis, CA; Michael A. Lewis, New York, NY; Steve Shafarman, Washington, DC; Brian Steensland, Bloomington, IN; Al Sheahen, Van Nuys, CA; Philippe Van Parijs, Brussels, Belgium; Stanley Aronowitz, New York, NY; Carole Pateman, Los Angeles, CA; Frances Fox Piven, New York, NY; Eduardo Suplicy, Sao Paolo, Brazil; J. Philip Wogaman, Washington, DC; Chris LaPlante, Blacksburg, VA; John Marangos, Fort Collins, CO; Fransisco Sales, Carretera Mexico City, DF, Mexico; Manuel Henriques, Lisbon, Portugal; Amelia Baughman, Williams, AZ; Robert F. Clark, Alexandria, VA; Jason Burke Murphy, Saint Louis, MO; Joel Handler, Los Angeles, CA; Glen C. Cain, Madison, WI; Timothy Roscoe Carter, San Fransisco, CA; John Bollman, Bay City, MI; George McGuire, Brooklyn, NY; Adrian Kuziminski, Fly Creek, NY; Hyun-Mook Lim, Seoul, Korea; Kelly D. Pinkham, Kansas City, MO; Michael Murray, Clive, IA; Josep LI. Ortega, Santa Coloma, Andorra; Michael Opielka, Königswinter, Germany; Brenden Miller, Cambridge, MA; Myron J. Frankman, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Frank Thompson, Ann Arbor, MI; Harry F. Dahms, Knoxville, TN; Buford Farris, Bastrop, TX; Roy Morrison, Warner, NH; Robley E. "Rob" George, Manhattan Beach, CA, Almaz Zelleke, Brooklyn, NY; Gonzalo Pou, Montevideo, Uruguay; Elisabetta Pernigotti, Paris, France; Ross Zucker, New York, NY; Sean Owens, La Mirada, CA, Dean Herd, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Hugh Thompson, London, UK; Jan van Knippenberg, Kinrooi, Belgium; Adam Csillag, Berlin, Germany; Steve Gazzo, Pittsburgh, PA; Mike Cottone, Weaverville, CA; Brigitte Sirois, Quebec, Quebec, Canada; Guy Standing, Geneva Switzerland; G. W. Putto, Den Haag, the Netherlands; Anonymous, Berkeley, CA; Pete Farina, Washington, DC; Robert Wirengard, Fair Share, Florida; Urban Boljka, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Ronal Cohen, Bennington, Vermont; H.T.L. Quan, Chicago, Illinois; Lourdes Maria Silva Araujo; Espirito Santo, Brazil; Patrick S. O'Donnell, Santa Barbara, California; Stephen Nathanson, Boston, Massachusetts; Jerey Vogt, Washington, DC; Justine Lam, Arlington, Virginia; Ricardo A. Bunge, San Antonio, Texas; Aziz Akgul, Ankara, Turkey; Judith A. Kaluzny, Fullerton, California; Leonard Butters, Spokane, Washington; Peter Christiansen, San Francisco, California; Kyle Patrick Meredith, Chattanooga, Tennessee; Benjamin Hyink, LaGrange, Illinois; Nancy Folbre, Amherst, Massachusetts; Noaki Yoshihara, Kunitachi, Tokyo; Bernard Mueller, Torrance, California; Zool (Paul Zulkowitz); Woodmare, New York; Amanda Reilly, Wellington, New Zealand; Adam Sacks, Lexington, Massachusetts; Mark Levinson, New York, New York Kathy Fitzpatrick, Grand Rapids, MI; Stephen C. Clark, Port Hueneme, CA; Cristian Pérez Muñoz, Sauce, Uruguay; Richa, Grand Rapids, MI; Floyd Robinson, Ann Arbor, MI; Bradley Nelson, Portland, OR; Mark Ewbank, Coventry, United Kingdom; Bernard Cloutier, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Mark Erickson, Skokie, IL; Dale Carrico, Oakland, CA; Joseph Meyer, St.Vith, Belgium; A.R. Rowe, Brooklyn, NY; Pius Charles Murray, Somersworth, NH; John D. Jones, Milwaukee, WI; Troy Davis, Williamsburg, VA; William E Fraser, Santa Cruz, CA; Luke Mead, Astoria, OR; Ori Lev, Baltimore, MD; Ralph Rostas, Chester, VA; Laura Cornelius, Woodbridge, VA; Dylan Matthews, Hanover, NH; John (Jack) O'Donnell, Millville, NJ; Stefano Lucarelli, Ancona, Italy; Richard Lippincott Biddle, Philadelphia, PA; Alanna Hartzok, Scotland, PA; Hank Delisle, Fukuoudai, Japan; Michael LaTorra, Las Cruces, NM; Mike Roberts, Rochester, NY, Anson Chong, Fen Forest, HI; Michele Lewis, Washington, DC; Heather Boushey, Washington, DC; Nicolaus Tideman, Blacksburg, VA; John Carroll, Edinburgh, IN; Rosalind Diana, Seaside Heights, NJ; W. Robert Needham, Waterloo, ON, Canada; Cedric Neill, Orlando, FA; Richard Cook, College Park, MD; Miroslav Turcinovic, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; William DiFazio, Brooklyn, NY; Angel Garman, Hugo OK; Karin Nyquist, Emmaboda, Sweden; Larry Dansinger, Monroe, ME; Richard G. Wamai Cambridge, MA; Melissa Farrell, Staten Island, NY; Bill McCormick, Grand Junction, CO; Rashida Ali-Campbell, Yeadon, PA; Lenny Krosinsky, Albuquerque, NM; Rachel Crutcher, Allen, TX; Julie Hendrix, Little Rock, AR; Annie Miller, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK; Michael Howard, Orono, ME; Rae Amey, Los Angeles, CA; Colleen Chrisinger, Seattle, WA; Simon Peter Schooneveldt, Ashgrove, Australia; John Tomlinson, Deagon, Australia; George Misa, Auckland, New Zealand; Przemyslaw (Peter) Damian Maniecki, Longmont, CO; Michael Gene Frazier, Morehead, KY; Nathan W. Cravens, Woodbury, TN; Mark Gillespie, Kent, WA; Matthew C. Murray, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom; Alan Holmes, Buffalo, NY; John Jesse Heichert III, Elizabeth City, NC; Nato Welch, Victoria, British Columbia; Eron Lloyd, Reading, PA; Edward Miller, Mokena, IL.

12. Links and Other Info

For links to dozens of BIG websites around the world, go to http://www.usbig.net/links.html. These links are to any website with information about BIG, but USBIG does not necessarily endorse their content or their agendas.

The USBIG Network Newsletter
Editor: Karl Widerquist
Research: Paul Nollen
Special help on this issue was provided by Jeff Smith, Guy Standing, Richard Caputo, and Claudia & Dirk Haarman.

The U.S. Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network publishes this newsletter. The Network is a discussion group on basic income guarantee (BIG) in the United States. BIG is a generic name for any proposal to create a minimum income level, below which no citizen's income can fall. Information on BIG and USBIG can be found on the web at: http://www.usbig.net.

You may copy and circulate articles from this newsletter, but please mention the source and include a link to http://www.usbig.net. If you know any BIG news; if you know anyone who would like to be added to this list; or if you would like to be removed from this list; please send me an email: Karl@Widerquist.com.

As always, your comments on this newsletter and the USBIG website are gladly welcomed.

Thank you,
-Karl Widerquist, USBIG Coordinator.
Karl@Widerquist.com