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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Comprehensive49@lemmygrad.ml to c/us_news@lemmygrad.ml

After her side job as Biden's Commerce Secretary in charge of suppressing Chinese technological innovation, Gina Raimondo has now gone back to her main job of licking capitalist boot by suppressing any mention of wealth redistribution like UBI.

UBI is the only relatively mainstream solution to AI layoffs that isn't just straight socialism.

Joe Biden's Former commerce secretary Gina Raimondo has decided that UBI in response to AI is the thing to fear most. She said: "I personally think it's like the end of America."

She is now heading up a newly-launched extremely well-funded organization to make sure the country reaches for anything but a basic income in response to AI. It's called RAISE US, and the money behind it comes largely from the companies building the disruption it exists to manage.

RAISE US launched June 25, with Raimondo as CEO and former Indiana governor Eric Holcomb as co-chair. It has already secured more than $500 million toward a $1 billion target. Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, and the OpenAI Foundation are anchor partners. Behind them sits a wall of corporate and philanthropic money: Blackstone, General Motors, IBM, Eli Lilly, Mastercard, Deloitte, UPS, Cisco, Workday, Arnold Ventures, and a dozen more.

The article goes on to show that RAISE US's advertised alternative to UBI, job retraining programs, is proven to be as ineffective as one single community college course is at improving job prospects. RAISE US's entire job is to mount excuse after excuse to allow capitalists to capture all profit from replacing everyone's jobs, while making it appear like it's the workers' fault for not keeping up.

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[-] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 points 14 hours ago

We need to start the America First Fund (irony intended), to be the seed money for our future social programs like UBI, Healthcare, College/ Trade School, etc. The AAF is where we put all the fines and confiscations from corporate and Sociopathic Oligarch misadventure. All those illegal tariffs? Why should those go to the government? They should be go into the AAF, to benefit the Citizens from whom that money was stolen.

Fines for billionaires should start at $1 billion per charge. It needs to hurt them as much as a $200 "rolling through a stop sign at an empty intersection" hurts a regular Citizen.

Confiscations should be a regular thing. If your business is determined to be operating to benefit a wealthy family at the expense of the Citizens, then that estate will be confiscated in its entirety, and either liquidated, or operated to benefit the America First Fund, and that now destitute Oligarch family will be prohibited from accessing the programs their sociopathic behavior funded. In the future, the only homeless people will be formerly wealthy people who have EARNED their homelessness through their sociopathic actions toward their fellow citizens.

When the evening news mentions the Dow, NASDAQ, S&P for the wealthy people, it will also mention the AAF, for everyone else, and to remind the wealthy that we are happy to transfer their wealth to the AAF at any time. Just give us a reason, any reason.

The wealthy will soon learn to operate their businesses to benefit the Citizens of this nation FIRST.

[-] ArcticFoxSmiles@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 day ago

If they implement UBI, they will probably tax a decent percentage of it as well just to add insult to injury.

[-] Comprehensive49@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

If course UBI cannot be the only solution. UBI is just the only mainstream solution to AI layoffs that isn't straight socialism (for example if you look in r/technology or r/singularity, it is the main proposed solution).

The capitalists treating UBI with such disdain will only create more animosity in the working class, which we can use to organize for real socialism.

[-] Maeve@lemmygrad.ml 16 points 1 day ago

Pointing to "worked for the Biden administration."

[-] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

The same administration that hired the most feckless Republican on the planet to be the AG to lead the investigation into Trump's crimes, who dithered and slow-walked the case, giving Trump a 2 year head start in running out the clock? That Biden Administration?

[-] Comprehensive49@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 day ago

After being controlled opposition, Democrats like Raimondo then go back to outright screwing the working class.

[-] Maeve@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 day ago

s/outright/openly? Because IMO, it was always outright, but hidden.

[-] Comprehensive49@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 day ago

True, but the Democrats market themselves as for the working class, so Raimondo going to the Ronald Reagan Forum and bragging about her work to help capitalists unemploy everyone is a little on-the-nose.

this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026
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