Return our Citizen Dividend. "People need to quit demanding jobs and start demanding justice."

Why you have the right to a $5K dividend from Uncle Sam | Making Sen$e | PBS NewsHour: (Aug 27, 2014)

This post on citizen dividend has quite a few gems.

"Dividends from common wealth, by contrast, unite society by putting all its members in the same boat. The income everyone receives is a right, not a handout. This changes the story, the psychology and the politics."

"A national dividend system would be simple, fair and immensely popular. It would rest on the principle of shared ownership, not redistribution. Once set up, it would be market-based rather than tax-funded. And it could gain support across the political spectrum: conservatives from Sarah Palin to Bill O’Reilly have lauded Alaska’s dividends."

"Our times demand a reliable flow of supplementary income as well. The best way to provide that is to pay dividends to everyone from wealth that’s logically ours."

From progress.org (Aug 28, 2014), on the above post about citizen dividend:

"What’s needed is for regular people to feel enough self-esteem to demand a fair share of what’s already ours just like the rich feel when winning an enormous share of what’s not theirs. We’re not broke. There is a surplus. It just needs to be shared. People need to quit demanding jobs and start demanding justice."

When will more people around the world be more like Alaskans, demanding their share of their own state's resources?

When will the Alaskans be more Alaskan, demanding a better share of their own state's resources? They only get a quarter of what the state gets from the oil companies, which is a small fraction of the oil wealth. I think Alaskans get less than 10% of their oil wealth in citizen dividends.

German President cautions Swiss on direct democracy. The people are daft and dangerous.

Swiss referendum scares EU

German President cautions Swiss on direct democracy | EurActiv:

A devoted supporter of representative democracy, Gauck warned the Swiss of the dangers of direct democracy "when the citizens vote on highly complex topics"

In contrast to Gauck, many SVP supporters consider the will of the people infallible and sacrosanct.

When are citizens going to demand the return of their confiscated citizen dividend? 

Myth: Singapore's old age support ratio is alarming.

Fast-ageing Singapore, fewer to support aged; Trend worries experts:

"Singaporeans are living longer and not having enough babies to replace themselves, meaning the swiftly ageing population has fewer working citizens supporting the growing pool of elderly."

Some statistics:
Singapore old age support ratio: 6.4, in 2013. (from singstat.gov.sg) If only citizens are considered, the ratio is 5.5 in 2013.

How good or bad is this ratio? One way to decide is to look at international statistics. OECD has a 2011 report on old age support rates, using 2008 data. Most of the countries have ratios below 5. For OECD, the support ratio is 4.2; Japan, 2.8; Germany, 3.0; Sweden 3.3; Finland, 3.7, Denmark, 3.7.

We do not see these countries falling apart because of their very low support ratios. The huge alarm over Singapore's old age support ratio is an over-reaction.

Definition: "The old age support rates relate to the number of those who are capable of providing economic support to the number of older people that may be materially dependent on the support of others. The support rate indicator used here is the population aged 20 to 64 as a ratio of those aged 65 and over."

Lee Hsien Loong and Citizen-ownership Democracy.

Before the general election in May 2011, Lee Hsien Loong told voters, "Singapore belongs to you." This is reported by Channelnewsasia. (Here is another link from asiaone.)

Abraham Lincoln also said that the United States belong to their people, in his Inaugural address in 1862:

     "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it."

It took the Americans more than 100 years since Lincoln's speech before one state, Alaska, implements true ownership. Residents in Alaska have been getting annual income from being owners of Alaska.

Do Singaporeans have to wait 100 years before they can get annual incomes from being owners of Singapore?

There is hope. There is a world-wide movement for citizen right to a basic income just for being citizens in their countries. Brazil is doing it. Switzerland is doing it. Canada is doing it. Germany Merkel is talking it.  Macau is doing it. Mongolia is doing it. Alaska has already done it.

Even Singapore's neighbor Malaysia is doing it.

Chancellor Merkel. Everyone has to live off his work. Really?

"Chancellor Merkel used her answer to make a point against the unconditional basic income that some in Germany have called for. Everyone had to try and live off their work, she said, pointing out that generally, there was a lot of flexibility on today’s job market." From Basic Income News.

This is a common argument used by people against the idea of a basic income. People must work to earn money. How can people get money for free? From the view of current democracies, this seems like a fair enough argument.

However, from the perspective of a citizen-ownership democracy, this argument is just not valid. Look at the owners of properties, or owners of shares in companies. Do these owners work to get their monies? No. And the country's laws will make sure that renters pay rent. Thus, it is not true that everyone lives off his or her work. The very rich can live off their ownership rights.

Citizens are being short-changed. They are owners of their country. Yet they get nothing from their ownership (except Alaskans). Just like the very rich who own properties and shares, citizens too own many properties and other forms of wealth in their country. Just like the very rich who receive monies from being owners, citizens too should receive monies from being owners of their country.

There is strong support from the Pope, who believes that justice "prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting." Money for acting (working) is only half the justice. The other half is money for being citizen owners.

What is happening in current democracies is that the rightful citizen-ownership income has been 100% taxed and (mis)appropriated into the state treasury. Citizens need to be educated that ownership means money. Citizen-ownership income is not a tax of the rich to pay to the poor. It is a share of the monies generated when a country's common wealth is transferred to private entities. When a country's oil is sold to private companies, that revenue should belong to all citizens. When a country's electromagnetic bandwidth is sold to telecommunication companies, that revenue should belong to all citizens. When a state sells land parcels to private entities, that revenue should belong to all citizens. Any sale/lease by the state of common properties to private entities, that money should belong to all citizens.