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Canada tests ‘basic income’ effect on poverty amid lost jobs

Ontario intends to provide a basic income to 4,000 people in three different communities as part of an experiment that seeks to evaluate whether providing more money to people on public assistance or low incomes will make a significant material difference in their lives. How people like Button respond over the next three years is being closely watched by social scientists, economists and policymakers in Canada and around the world.


Former security guard Tim Button considers how a sudden increase in his income from an unusual social experiment has changed his life in this Canadian industrial city along the shore of Lake Ontario.

Sipping coffee in a Tim Horton’s doughnut shop, Button says he has been unable to work because of a fall from a roof, and the financial boost from Ontario Province’s new “basic income” program has enabled him to make plans to visit distant family for Christmas for the first time in years. It has also prompted him to eat healthier, schedule a long-postponed trip to the dentist and mull taking a course to help him get back to work.

“It’s making a huge difference for me,” Button said of the almost 60 percent increase in monthly benefits he started receiving in October from the Ontario government.

The outdated practice of Quarterly Earnings Guidance — By Sakis Kotsantonis | LinkedIn

“We found that guidance policy had no effect on valuation whatsoever. As for the claim that it reduces volatility, we found that the opposite is true, companies offering annual range EPS guidance over the same period experienced lower volatility around earnings reporting periods when compared with those that issued quarterly guidance.”

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If We Let China or Russia Win the Artificial Intelligence Race, We’re ‘SOL’ – Mark Cuban

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban has seen a ton of change since he first got in the technology business in 1982, but he argues that artificial intelligence (AI) is going to “change everything, 180 degrees.”

He warns that if the U.S. allows other countries to take the lead in AI, then it’ll be “SOL,” an acronym that employs profanity to communicate urgency.

“All these things have happened that have changed how we do business, changed how we lived our lives, changed everything, right, the internet. But what we’re going to see with artificial intelligence dwarfs all of that,” Cuban said in an interview with hedge fund manager J. Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital on RealVision Television, a subscription financial video service.

Christiana Figueres Europe Regional Round Table—United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI)

“Former Executive Secretary to UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres has laid down a challenge to UNEP FI’s banking members, and the wider finance industry to increase their allocations to low carbon investments to avoid a 2 degrees scenario. Watch her recording which she made for participants at UNEP FI’s Europe Regional Roundtable on Sustainable Finance which took place in October 2017.”

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Al Gore — Fiduciary Duty in the 21st century—Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)

“Former Vice President and Chairman of Generation Investment Management, Al Gore, introduces PRI, UNEP FI and The Generation Foundation’s Fiduciary duty in the 21st century programme. The project finds that, far from being a barrier, there are positive duties to integrate environmental, social and governance factors in investment processes.”

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Richest 1% own half the world’s wealth, study finds

The world’s richest people have seen their share of the globe’s total wealth increase from 42.5% at the height of the 2008 financial crisis to 50.1% in 2017, or $140tn (£106tn), according to Credit Suisse’s global wealth report published on Tuesday.

At the other end of the spectrum, the world’s 3.5 billion poorest adults each have assets of less than $10,000 (£7,600). Collectively these people, who account for 70% of the world’s working age population, account for just 2.7% of global wealth.


Credit Suisse report highlights increasing gap between the super-rich and the remainder of the globe’s population.

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