Do we pay with money or with our very Lives?

Facts of life – you need money to live. We need money to buy things, but is it actually money we        use   to pay for things or is there more to it?

Solutions for Food waste?

India may be the world’s largest milk producer and grow the second largest quantity of fruits and vegetables (after China), but it is also the world’s biggest waster of food. As a result, fruit and vegetable prices are twice what they would be otherwise, and milk costs 50% more than it should.

What can be a solution for this?

https://livingincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/the-proposal/

What would you do with a Living Income?

We have such limitless potential. Unfortunately there are things that keep us from reaching  this potential and one of them is Money.

What would you be doing if life was not about survival?

Watch the Video Below:

Stopping Exploitation with a Living Income Guaranteed

 

When you hear about drives that got their licenses suspended you probably think it was because of reckless driving, but it is not the case.

In Florida 88% of suspensions were due to failure to comply with summons or fines.

Now here is things get extremely problematic and nonsensical – Most people drive to work so losing your car affects everything in your life. In New Jersey a Survey was done that found that 63% of low income drives that lost their car also lost their jobs.

How are they supposed to pay their fine if you take away their means of paying it?

It gets worse:

There are private probation companies that supervise people that have minor offenses and collect their outstanding fines at no costs to the courts, instead they get their money from the probationers in exchange for their services.

Here is an example of how that works based on an actual event:

One Woman was fined $25 for not wearing a seat belt as well as $16 for the court costs – a total fine of $41. She was unable to pay the fine at that stage and thus was handed over to one of these private probation Companies. Now here is where things get really messed up:

She was then put on a monthly payment plan in order to pay the fine, but the costs of this payment plan was $35 per month. All moneys that the woman sent in was applied to the service fees first before going to the actual fine, meaning she first has to pay the $35 before she is able to pay the actual $41 fine. Now, she I not able to afford that $35 monthly fee, so this is starting to accumulate – eventually she sat with a $299 bill PLUS the $41 fine. Eventually if you  cannot afford the bill you can be sent to jail because you cannot afford the bill.

Here is another terrifying example of this Ruined Hariet Cleveland’s Life:

“Cleveland’s $140 monthly payment – $40 of which went to fees – was a terrifying burden. She lost her day care job during the recession and was barely scraping by. She paid what she could, even when it meant her money was only going toward the company’s fees.

Finally, Cleveland didn’t have any more money to give. She received a notice in the mail: Pay $2,714 or go to jail. Not long after, a police officer arrived and arrested her while she was babysitting her grandson. A judge sentenced her to 31 days in jail because she was too poor to pay.” - https://www.splcenter.org/news/2014/08/26/splc-lawsuit-closes-debtors%E2%80%99-prison-alabama-capital

These Companies are making money out of people who have none. Why are we punishing people for being poor? This is an Impossible situation for low income people where they really have no way out. This kind of exploitation is something that must be stopped.

This is something that we can change with a better system, one that considers the individual needs of people in different situations. Not only would these people above live far better lives with the Living Income Guaranteed, but we can implement solutions to stops the obvious exploitation of people in these situations so that no person’s life get ruined just because they are poor.

Back to Basics With Living Income Guaranteed

Its not so difficult to understand that Humans need water and food in order to live - but why are those not Human Rights?

 https://livingincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/

French Food Waste Ban Can Go a Step Further:

“Supermarkets in France have been banned from destroying unsold food in a bid to tackle the country's massive £14bn-worth of annual waste.

The French parliament passed a new law obliging the food retail giants to give any excess to charities or for other use.

The national assembly voted unanimously to pass the measure on Thursday which had been proposed by the Socialist deputy Guillaume Garot.
Mr Garot said: “It’s scandalous to see bleach being poured into supermarket dustbins along with edible foods."

The legislation prevents supermarkets deliberately spoiling unsold food so it can't be eaten, the Guardian reports.” - http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/france-bans-supermarkets-destroying-unsold-5742304

 
My first thought when reading this was why this was not done before? We are now in 2015 with more than half the world living in poverty. A very large amount of Perfectly edible food is thrown away – almost half the food that is produced in this world is thrown away.

It is a fact that the world produces enough food to feed every human being – yet millions die each year because of malnutrition. Making it a law to have supermarkets and big chains not have their leftover food thrown away is a great step forward. Now is it time for every supermarket in the world to follow this trend.

But there is another dark side to this and that is the reason why we have hungry people and food being wasted. And it’s simple – with half the world in poverty they cannot afford to BUY the food. Currently we rely on charities to feed the people. How to solve this?

With a Living Income Guaranteed where the people who before could not afford to buy food no have the money to do so. If we look at it globally with more than half the world unable to afford basic needs and now with the Living Income Guaranteed they are finally able to buy food and afford basic needs – this alone would greatly reduce the food being wasted currently. This would stop the dependency on charities as well by giving people purchasing power and would also be a huge boost in income for supermarkets.

We produce enough food to provide every person on Earth with 2,700 calories per day. Yet 842 million people still go to bed hungry– let’s stop this with LIG.

How The Living Income Guaranteed can drastically decrease Mental Illness

 

A recent study revealed that poverty and unemployment are linked to metal illness and depression. It turns out that people who don’t have enough money to live are more likely to be depressed and suicidal.

Its shows that nearly 1 in 5 of Adult Americans experienced mental illness in 2013. The main purpose of this study was to show just how many people are not currently being treated for mental illness – however it does not give actual solutions to the cause of the mental illness in the first place.

What we are dealing with here is a typical Band-Aid solution. By giving people who are depressed drugs is not a permanent solution. What we need to do here is stop the problem at the source – and from the study one of the main causes of why so many people struggle with mental illness is because of the lack of money.

And it makes perfect sense – We need money to survive in this world. When you are unemployed and living in poverty not being able to provide for yourself or your family can result in you becoming depressed. Its horrid to live in such conditions – and to give these people drugs to take away the depression will not solve the problem at hand. So what will?

By taking these people out of poverty will drastically improve their current living condition. If you do not have to worry about going hungry or not finding a place to sleep you can actually start living and stop just surviving. With the Implementation of the Living Income Guaranteed we can remove poverty and homelessness and with it drastically decrease mental illness. That would be stopping the problem at its source – by providing a permanent solution.

Below are some points explaining parts of the study :

In November of 2014, the U.S. government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) issued a press release titled “Nearly One in Five Adult Americans Experienced Mental Illness in 2013.” This brief press release provides a snapshot of the number of Americans who are suicidal, depressed, and mentally ill, and it bemoans how many Americans are not in treatment. However, excluded from SAMHSA’s press release—yet included in the lengthy results of SAMHSA’s national survey—are economic, age, gender, and other demographic correlates of serious mental illness, depression, and suicidality (serious suicidal thoughts, plans, or attempts). It is these demographic correlates that have political implications.

Also, the survey results provide extensive evidence that unemployment and poverty are highly associated with suicidality, depression, and serious mental illness.

These lengthy results, for example, include extensive evidence that involvement in the criminal justice system (such as being on parole or probation) is highly correlated with suicidality, depression, and serious mental illness. Yet Americans are not told that preventing unnecessary involvement with the criminal justice system—for example, marijuana legalization and drug use decriminalization—could well prove to be a more powerful antidote to suicidality, depression, and serious mental illness than medical treatment. -http://www.salon.com/2015/02/19/what_were_not_being_told_about_suicide_and_depression/

2015 Happy New year OR Crappy new year?

 

  Is it a Happy New Year? It really depends who you are and where you are and what you are. New Year’s is no special day for me, it’s simply another day, but let’s look at some stats regarding 2014:

· 1020 Rhino Poached in 2014, compared to 333 in 2010. Despite Millions thus far spent on charity organizations the number of rhinos poached tripled in 4 years. Not a Happy New Year ahead for them.

· Half the world still lives in poverty.

· Nearly 1 Billion people suffer from “chronic undernourishment “ aka hunger.

· 80% of the world population lives on less than $10 a day.

· An average of 3.5million people experienced homelessness in the U.S., despite the fact that there are enough empty housing for them all.

The tradition of wishing somebody a happy new year has many complications, sure we can want for other to have a good year, or maybe you are glad that you made it through another year, but for me a happy new year will be finding ways make the statistics above less.

How great would it be if humanity was able to completely eradicate poverty? Bring the amount of hungry people down to zero? Or even have the rhino poaching at a big round zero for a whole year? We certainly have the capacity and resources to do so. For example to put every child in the world through education all we need is 1% of the military budget of the U.S. We have the means to do so.

The Living Income Guaranteed will also be a solution for all the problems above. If it’s implemented it will bring the number of people in poverty down to zero. Money will no longer be a factor for whether or not a child gets an education . People will also have enough to actually live and buy the food they need. There will also be no more homeless people, because they would be able to afford a home.

That would make a truly Happy New Year.