Changing Times – January 13, 2022

from  Time Magazine

Inside the Nation’s Largest Guaranteed Income Experiment

Editor’s note:  Ten years ago I would have thought this is a really dumb ideal.  Today I am not so sure.  Robotics is why I have changed my mind.  For example, within 10 year autonomous drive trucks will be in common use. Experts say as many as 800,000 truck drivers could be impacted.  The country could be running out of jobs.  

******************

One evening in early June, Leo and his family were able to enjoy a treat they hadn’t experienced in months: a sit-down meal at a restaurant.

At a fried chicken chain in a Compton, California strip mall, they splurged on a few plates of fried rice, each costing under $13.99. The money Leo, 39, makes as a mechanic never seems to satisfy the deluge of bills that pile up on his kitchen counter each month, so the modest meal felt like a luxury. “It made me very happy,” Leo says in Spanish through an interpreter.

The family was only able to afford the meal because Leo is part of a groundbreaking guaranteed income experiment in his city called the Compton Pledge. In regular installments between late 2020 and the end of 2022, Leo and 799 other individuals are receiving up to $7,200 annually to spend however they like. Leo, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who TIME has agreed to refer to by a pseudonym to protect his identity, receives quarterly payments of $900.

The organization running Compton Pledge, called the Fund for Guaranteed Income, is building the technological infrastructure necessary to distribute cash payments on a broad scale and has partnered with an independent research group to study the extent to which a minimum income floor can lift families like Leo’s out of poverty. The pilot, which distributes money derived from private donors, is not just about giving people the ability to buy small indulgences. It’s testing whether giving poor families a financial cushion can have a demonstrable impact on their physical and psychological health, job prospects and communities. And perhaps the biggest question of all: Can these cash infusions transcend their status as a small research project in progressive Los Angeles and someday work as a nationwide program funded by taxpayers?

The theory is gaining momentum in the U.S. Six years ago, there were no programs distributing and studying the effects of providing swaths of Americans no-strings-attached cash, according to Stanford’s Basic Income Lab, an academic hub tracking such programs. But now, pilot programs are taking place in roughly 20 cities around the country, from St. Paul, Minnesota to Paterson, New Jersey, with Compton’s exercise serving as the nation’s largest city-based experiment in terms of number of people served. Most of the programs are philanthropically funded—including Compton’s—and distribute different amounts of money to targeted populations, from Black pregnant women to former foster children to single parents. These laboratories for wealth redistribution all have one thing in common: they give some of society’s poorest and most marginalized people cold-hard cash, and then let them spend it however they want.

Click here to give us your feedback

***********************************

GIVE US YOUR FEEDBACK.  CLICK ON “COMMENT” TO TELL US WHAT YOU THINK or use one of the alternative methods for providing feedback.

Click here to submit feedback.  Let us know what you think.

click here to CLOSE THIS PAGE

—————————————————————–

Click here to go to the iExposed.us youtube channel

Click here to go to the iExposed.us website

—————————————————————–

iExposed Us 

P.O. Box 721

Scottsville Texas

75688

American Red Cross calls for blood donations amid nation’s worst blood shortage in over a decade

EAST TEXAS COVID COUNTS CONTINUE TO INCREASE AND SEVERAL SCHOOLS HAVE CLOSED. 

Our vaccination rate of 38 % of the county population is lower even than it is in South Africa! 

FROM JAMA:

1. Outcomes of SARS-CoV-2–Positive Youths Tested in Emergency Departments

”In this study, approximately 3% of SARS-CoV-2–positive youths tested in EDs experienced severe outcomes within 2 weeks of their ED visit. Among children discharged home from the ED, the risk was much lower. Risk factors such as age, underlying chronic illness, and symptom duration may be useful to consider when making clinical care decisions.” 

(J. Harris: 3% severe outcomes in youths isn’t that high — unless it’s my child or grandchild.)

2. Assessment of Functional Mobility After COVID-19 in Adults Aged 50 Years

”…Although there is a growing body of research showing that hospitalized patients with COVID-19 experience problems with physical functioning up to 6 months after discharge, there is still a dearth of literature on nonhospitalized patients with less severe illness…. Anecdotal reports, patient accounts on social media, and some preliminary research with convenience samples, have suggested that many patients who experience even mild COVID-19 have persistent and troublesome symptoms, including impaired physical function after their initial illness… There is an ongoing effort by both health professionals and patients alike to recognize long COVID as a long-term condition and to increase access to treatments and rehabilitative care…Our findings confirm that individuals with COVID-19 who did not require hospitalization were more likely than those without COVID-19 to experience worsening of overall mobility since the start of the pandemic and a deterioration in physical function …Conclusions and Relevance  This cohort study among older adults in Canada found that receiving a COVID-19 diagnosis was significantly associated with worse mobility and functioning outcomes even in the absence of hospitalization. These findings suggest that interventions may be needed for individuals with mild to moderate COVID-19 who do not require hospitalization. 

FROM THE NY TIMES:

There are early signs that Omicron has begun to peak.

”…A huge surge in cases that lasts for about one month, followed by a rapid decline, would be consistent with the experience in some places where Omicron arrived earlier than in the U.S. In South Africa, new daily cases have fallen by about 70 percent from the mid-December peak…In Boston, the amount of the Covid virus detected in wastewater, which has been a leading indicator of case trends in the past, has plunged by about 40 percent since its peak just after Jan. 1.

Chart shows a 7-day average. | Source: Johns Hopkins University

With previous versions of Covid, like the Delta variant, the up-and-down cycles tended to last longer. Once an outbreak began, cases often rose for about two months before falling. The White House says it is considering offering ‘high-quality’ masks to Americans. (J. Harris: This should have been done 2 years ago. At present, the best masks I can find are KN95. They have more space in a little “tent” around your mouth and nose. They are tight and comfortable; they are made in South Korea under close scrutiny. )NOTES TODAY FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:1. ‘…t’s still not clear whether the current vaccines need to be tweaked for omicron. But Pfizer is already working on an omicron-specific vaccine. A Pfizer spokesman told The Washington Post that the company hopes “to have 50-100 million doses of the omicron specific vaccine available by late March/early April…”2. ”…The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are much more effective at preventing deaths than China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, according to new data out of Singapore…”

‘Killer’ immune cells still recognize Omicron variant

(J. Harris Immunization does stimulate “T” Cell immunity activity even if antibodies are not appreciably increased.)

AND LAST BUT NOT LEASED:

“Avoidable:” What a bullfighter tries to do.

“Subdued:” Like a guy, like works on one of those, like, submarines.

***********************************

GIVE US YOUR FEEDBACK.  CLICK ON “COMMENT” TO TELL US WHAT YOU THINK or use one of the alternative methods for providing feedback.

Click here to submit feedback.  Let us know what you think.

click here to CLOSE THIS PAGE

—————————————————————–

Click here to go to the iExposed.us youtube channel

Click here to go to the iExposed.us website

—————————————————————–

iExposed Us 

P.O. Box 721

Scottsville Texas

75688