Mike Danson
Mike Danson is Chair of CBINS, an economist and Professor of Enterprise Policy at Heriot-Watt University. He has researched and written on a wide range of economic development, poverty and policy issues, and advised local, national and international governments, agencies and other organisations for over 40 years. With 14 books, over 300 papers and official reports, he is a well-known commentator on a diverse range of themes including community resilience, the economic impact of minority languages, microbreweries, early onset dementia, rural and peripheral Europe. Mike is also convenor of the Jimmy Reid Foundation and a trustee of Nordic Horizons.
New Basic Income Event Series in Edinburgh
If a basic income is to become a reality for Scotland we need everyone to understand how it could affect their lives. As part of our work to inform the…
Inside the DWP – Debt and UCD372
A current employee of the Department of Work and Pensions approached us wanting to share insight into the distressing treatment of people currently dependent on the benefits system. They stressed…
Health, Poverty and Basic Income
I work in a busy, urban hospital in Canada. People come to our Emergency Department and Clinics because they suffer workplace accidents, or family violence, or flare-ups of chronic conditions.…
Alternative Economics and UBI from Upstream
Upstream is a podcast about alternative economics and the role it could play in systemic change. The latest episodes focus on Universal Basic Income, the first as an introduction to…
Basic Income changed my life
By Anne van Dalen, first woman to receive a BI in the Netherlands @vanDalenAnne How did my BI come about It all started in 2014 after donating €5 to a…
Taxing Questions
Let's look at how the UK can pay for UBI in the future. Any stats quoted are from UK government sources, or quoted as such by various publications/reports. Some figures are…
A New Social Contract
In the previous blog post, I highlighted how rapidly our world of work is being automated and radically changed by the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI). From China’s iPhone factories,…
Individualism has had its day
A Citizen's Basic Income (BI) is an idea I've believed in for many years, without necessarily ever knowing of any particular name for it - but believing in the principle…
Flashback to Kelty: Maddy’s opening address at our Pilot event
The following is the opening address from Maddy Halliday at our event in Kelty about the Fife basic income pilot on January 28th 2017: I am delighted to be here…
There are no ‘magic bullets’
'Magic bullets' don't come around very often. Frankly, they don't really exist. So why do so many people talk about a Citizens' Basic Income as if it's a one-stop shop…
The flaws in the inflation argument against a basic income
One of the most common objections to a basic income is that it would increase inflation. Many people remember from history lessons at school the photos of children playing with huge piles…
Near unanimous support for Citizen’s Income at Scottish Independence Convention
It was noticeable that there was near unanimous support for the idea of a citizen’s income replacing the current plethora of benefits and pensions amongst the 800 folk present at…
A Citizen’s Basic Income would directly address gender inequality
From time to time, reports from the financial sector highlight the fact that women are less able to shore up savings than men. (This is true, though the framing is…
Today’s welfare system is not one we would design today
If you had a blank sheet of paper and were asked to design a welfare system nobody, but nobody, would come up with the system that we have now. A…
Livorno’s Basic Income Trial
Local ‘citizen’s basic income’ (CBI) schemes are being launched across the globe, so it is useful to remind ourselves of some of the fundamental criteria we expect to see in…