Welcome, One Billion “Refugees”! German Telecommunications Chief Demands an Unconditional Basic Income for Everyone in Germany!

 

Timotheus Höttges (translation): “An unconditional basic income can be the foundation, in order to lead a life of human dignity.”
 

By Nicholas Stix

ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen) Heute: “Telekom-Chef Timotheus Höttgens [sic] befürwortet ein bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen in Deutschland - finanziert mit Unternehmenssteuern. Uns interessiert Ihre Meinung: Wie stehen Sie dazu?”

Translation: German (Public) TV Channel 2: Telecom CEO Timotheus Höttges supports an unconditional basic income in Germany, financed via business taxes. We are interested in your opinion. What do you think of this idea?

Tim Höttges, as he is known in Germany, is clearly some sort of socialist or communist, though I couldn’t come up with any political history on him. The German Wikipedia discusses only his business career, and one instance of an ethical failing, which, when publicly revealed, he simply refused to respond to. (In contradiction to German law, which requires that every publicly traded corporation or non-profit organization [e.V.; eingetragener Verein] he wrote in a paper that an oversight board’s [“Aufsichtsrat”] job was to serve the Board of Directors.)

Höttges has claimed that a basic income is necessary, due to the job losses incurred by automation, but he says nothing about mass, Third World immigration, and he has explicitly rejected the idea of putting any conditions on the guaranteed income. Unless Höttges is a complete imbecile, which I doubt, his automation story is a fig leaf for nation-breaking economic mischief. He claims this income can be financed through taxing the profits of Internet companies, but with unemployable Moslems flooding through open borders, and Germnay bailing out drowning PIGS, a tax on Internet companies would either come up pathetically short, or would put them out of business.

Just two days ago, my VDARE colleague, James Kirkpatrick, wrote about this idea of a guaranteed income gaining steam in Holland, and anticipates it coming here. However, James drew this conclusion:

“Of course, mass immigration throws a wrench into all of this. If a European nation such as the Netherlands implements such a program on a mass scale, it will quickly displace Germany as the magnet for migrants….

“Basic Income seems inevitable and even necessary in an age of automation. The best thing for the Right to do is get ahead of the idea and push it as something targeted for citizens. If it does not, look for Basic Income to emerge as a key tenet of the Left in the years to come and something open to immigrants and noncitizens. Unless this program is set up correctly, instead of setting people free to produce and create, it will simply be a bribe for votes.”

James is right that a basic income in Holland would draw Moslem grifters, but otherwise, he is thinking in rational, economic terms. As a political matter, it is no coincidence that mass Third World invasions are accompanied by calls for a guaranteed income. The Third World grifters and their First World supporters intend to use such welfare programs to seize power. The sort of concerns that mass immigration raise for James are not a bug, but a feature to these people. They would use the votes of the new grifters to dispossess productive whites, topple the current form of government, and install a racial dictatorship.

James’ solution to “refugee” abuse here is to limit the income program to citizens, but that won’t work, either. Look at the John Doe calling himself “Barack Obama.” Anytime there is a legal or constitutional limit to his actions, he simply ignores it. These days, Angela Merkel is imitating him in Germany.

Any limitation on any welfare program in America, and probably all of Western Europe, will simply be ignored. If anyone raises objections, whoever is in the White House—assuming “Obama” ever leaves it—will issue an illegal “executive order” making what is criminal, legal, while the dictator sics his media and institutional goons on his critics.

That is why we cannot support any new welfare programs. We need to eliminate them, not add to them.