Lifeboat Foundation

Today, we mayors are uniting to send a clear message: our residents deserve economic security through a guaranteed income. We are calling on legislators to wake up to Dr. King’s dream for a federal guaranteed income that will put cash back into the hands of everyday Americans. Faced again with the question of chaos or community, we’re choosing the latter – it’s time to invest directly in our communities and our people.

We welcome all U.S. mayors to join our coalition to strengthen all our communities by supplementing the existing social safety net and driving forward this powerful tool for racial and gender equity.

Contact us at [email protected].

It is often said that the 21st century will belong to China because China will grow its military, develop its economy, and completely integrate Hong Kong. However, in this video, I argue that the 21st Century won’t belong to China because it won’t take advantage of space resources and because it will attempt to grab more than it can chew in its ambitious endeavors.

PS: The stock footage from this photo comes from Videvo!

Continue reading “Why the 21st Century Won’t Belong to China” »

Do the stimulus checks being sent to individuals to help in the coronavirus crisis count as a form of universal basic income? Andrew Yang thinks so. But, as WSJ’s Jason Bellini reports, others believe the intention behind UBI is misguided. Photo: Tom Brenner/Getty Images.

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Continue reading “Why the Virus Stimulus Is Renewing the Universal Basic Income Debate | WSJ” »

Eleven mayors have signed on to the “Mayors for Guaranteed Income” initiative. The group is working with the Economic Security Project, which has funded basic income experiments in Stockton and elsewhere, and is co-chaired by Chris Hughes, a multimillionaire guaranteed income advocate and one of the founders of Facebook.

The cities that have joined the initiative also include St Paul, Minnesota; Jackson, Mississippi; Newark, New Jersey; Oakland and Compton, California; Shreveport, Louisiana; Columbia, South Carolina; and Tacoma, Washington.

It’s not yet clear how much money the cities might hand out, or how many residents might actually receive a check in the near future. The mayors are still working on fundraising for the effort and exploring what experiments in their cities might look like, including how to generate more data that shows the effects of the direct cash payments. But Tubbs said that he hoped cities would be able to take some action on guaranteed income by early next year.

Continue reading “Eleven mayors pledge to explore direct cash payments plan to fight poverty” »

Steele Hawes’ Archer Report with special guest Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana.

Last year’s Netflix movie The Great Hack detailed the dark side of data collection, centered around the 2016 Cambridge Analytica scandal. The movie describes how “psychometric profiles” exist for you, me, and all of our friends. The data collected from our use of digital services can be packaged in a way that gives companies insight into our habits, preferences, and even our personalities. With this information, they can do anything from show us an ad for a pair of shoes we’ll probably like to try to change our minds about which candidate to vote for in an election.

With so much of our data already out there, plus the fact that most of us will likely keep using the free apps we’ve enjoyed for years, could it be too late to try to fundamentally change the way this model works?

Continue reading “Your Personal Data Is Worth Money. Andrew Yang Wants to Get You Paid” »

Farmers have enough worries—between bad weather, rising costs, and shifting market demands—without having to stress about the carbon footprint of their operations. But now a new set of projects by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), including scientists at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), could make agriculture both more sustainable and more profitable.

The three projects, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), leverage Berkeley Lab’s strengths in artificial intelligence, sensors, and ecological biology. They aim to quantify and reduce the carbon intensity of agriculture, including the farming of biofuel feedstocks such as corn, soy, and sorghum, while also increasing yield.

Crop-based biofuels have the potential to supply up to about 5% of U.S. energy demand, according to the DOE. Two of the new projects are part of the SMARTFARM program of DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). This initiative aspires to make the biofuel supply chain carbon negative—meaning it removes or sequesters more carbon than it emits—which would greatly improve biofuel’s benefits to the broader economy and environment. Scientists also hope that the increased productivity will have the effect of lowering costs and increasing farmers’ income.

Hydrogen’s impressive energy density offers some compelling advantages that could see it make a huge difference in the electric aviation and eVTOL sectors, as well as in renewable energy, where it’s a lightweight and transportable, if not particularly efficient, way to store clean energy that’s not necessarily generated where or when you need it. It’s also being pushed as a means of exporting green energy, and Japan and Korea in particular are investing heavily in the idea of a hydrogen energy economy powering everything from vehicles to homes and industry.

For this to come about in a globally positive way, it’s imperative that clean, green hydrogen production becomes cheaper, because right now, the easiest and cheapest ways to get yourself a tank full of hydrogen are things like steam reforming, which produces up to 12 times as much carbon dioxide as it does hydrogen by weight.

Green, renewable production methods are thus hot topics for researchers and industry, and a new breakthrough from scientists at the Australian National University (ANU) could make a significant contribution.

Click on photo to start video.

Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana of World Talent Economy Forum live with Ben Zion…

Guest: Ben Zion, A Reform Candidate for the 21st Century.

Continue reading “Public policy in the post-covid19 world” »