Union Perspectives

The biggest fear the GOP and Trump have are Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, financial and climate regulations, and social changes opening the door to people of color. Sanders and Warren will push an anti-corruption and anti-inequality programs and Medicare for All with a $15 an hour minimum wage. They should also be looking at a UBI (universal basic income). Rising the minimum wage to $15 an hour will not stop the inequality, but I UBI would help. The GOP will counter by accusing Sanders and Warren of being scary Democratic Socialists, which Sanders and Warren should wear the title as a badge of honor and point out the obvious—all the socialist-type programs the U.S, already has in place, such as Social Security (which we pay into), Medicare, Medicaid/MediCal, law enforcement, fire and rescue services, and schools. The GOP and its followers will deliberately conflate socialism with communism, which is a misnomer. Communism and socialism may have some similarities, sharing of the cou...

UBI (universal basic income) is gaining traction in the U.S. and worldwide. Support for a UBI is no longer the working person’s dream, but economists and finance writers are now writing in favor of redistributing the wealth in a fair way. Naysayers will always be against a UBI because they’re blabbering the ultra wealthy’s rhetoric, ignoring that a UBI keeps the capitalist system thriving while creating jobs to fill the spending by the people. Capitalism is driven by 76 percent of the majority of people, who actually spend their money instead of hoarding it. Capitalists say because they create something or take risks with other people’s money they should be able to hang onto all of their wealth, but what they fail to admit to is if they didn’t have people’s money to speculate with or the average person didn’t buy their products, they wouldn’t have their wealth. The UBI concept was dubbed “helicopter money” by the GOP financial guru Milton Friedman some 50 years ago when he said putti...