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Basic income is all the rage these days. The idea — which calls for the government to give everyone in a given city/state/country/whatever enough money to live in, no strings attached — is being tested in Finland, in Ontario, in the Netherlands, and in Kenya. Switzerland’s set to vote on whether to adopt it as a national policy in June.
But discussions of the proposal rarely mention that many rich countries — including France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Sweden — already implement a version of it. Most Western European countries have what’s called a “universal child benefit,” or a basic income going only to families with children.
It’s a much simpler way to support families than the complicated system the US uses, and an American version could vastly reduce child poverty, perhaps eliminating it altogether.
At least 10 rich countries have universal child benefit policies
For a widely employed policy, universal child benefits (also known as “child allowances”) keep a pretty low profile. That’s […]
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A surprising new estimate finds that only 24% of US corporate stock can be taxed by the US government because the rest is held in tax-free accounts. (emphasis added)
Credit: AP//Dieu Nalio Chery/benkrut/iStock/Photo montage by Salon
Mississippi and North Carolina recently passed some of the harshest laws in the nation targeting the LGBT community. As statistics from PornHub show, congressmen might be legislating against queer and trans people, but their constituencies sure do love to watch them have sex. The Daily Dot reports that Mississippi ranked third (behind Washington, D.C., and New York) in a recent PornHub survey on the amount of porn consumed by state. The Magnolia State, in particular, shows a disproportionate preference for black gay porn, while the South boasted three of the top five states with the highest rate of gay porn viewership.
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Now here’s an idea we hope catches fire.
Aurora, Colorado’s third largest city, recently announced how it will use $1.5 million generated from a tax on recreational pot to supporting homeless people, the Aurora Sentinel reported. The city first made the announcement in September, and has now designated a number of groups to receive the funds.
The Colfax Community Network, a nonprofit that supports families living in motels, will receive $200,000 from the special fund, according to the Sentinel. Council members said they’re going to evaluate the group’s progress before committing to renewing the funds beyond the first year.
Council members also agreed to provide two groups — Comitis Crisis Center and Aurora Mental Health – with vans to be used for homeless outreach. Each van will cost between $30,000 and $44,000.
City officials forecasted that recreational marijuana sales would bring in $5.4 million, the Denver Post reported.
In addition to allocating $1.5 million to helping homeless people, […]
A Denver train station Credit: Mark Peterson/Redux Pictures for Politico Magazine
A decade ago, travelers arriving at Denver’s sprawling new airport would look out over a vast expanse of flat, prairie dog-infested grassland and wonder if their plane had somehow fallen short of its destination. The $4.9 billion airport—at 53 square miles, larger than Manhattan—was derided as being “halfway to Kansas,” and given the emptiness of the 23-mile drive to the city, it felt that way.
Last month, arriving visitors boarded the first trains headed for downtown, a journey that zips past a new Japanese-style “smart city” emerging from the prairie before depositing passengers 37 minutes later in a bustling urban hive of restaurants, shops and residential towers that only six years ago was a gravelly no man’s land—an entire $2 billion downtown neighborhood that’s mushroomed up around the hub of Denver’s rapidly expanding light rail system.
The 22.8-mile spur from the airport to downtown is the latest addition to […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
