About Us
M.I.N.D.S. is small economic research firm who is leading an effort to launch and run a large-scale, grassroots-led economic research campaign to explore how the grassroots sector collectively can address and solve the income inequality problem. Grassroots-led means we do not rely on investors, venture capitalists, financial institutions, big corporations, or the Government to fund or conduct this research. It’s 100% crowdfunded and run by the grassroots public across a massive and evolving new peer to peer collaboration and co-creation infrastructure.
Background: The Income Inequality Issue
The core issue we address with this economic research initiative is income inequality. Income inequality is the uneven distribution of income across a population. It's also known as the gap between the rich and poor, wealth disparity, or wealth and income differences. The primary reason for such large scale inequality is the fact that workers are not benefiting from the productivity they help create as illustrated by the second chart above.
Think about it. Income inequality has been an issue for years and we always look to the government and associated institutions to solve or address the issues. What if the best way to address this issue is from the ground-up led by the grassroots sector? This is a question we address in this research.
Here's why. Over the years, the government, institutions, think tanks, and other organizations have spent millions researching and addressing the problem, with little to no results. Here are just a few examples of the solutions the government and supporting organizations put forth to address this issue:
Tax credits: Refundable tax credits for low-income families can help reduce gender bias and encourage labor force participation. Source: www.imf.org;
Social safety net: Strengthening the social safety net can protect people from losing income due to illness, accidents, or childbirth. This can be done by mandating or incentivizing paid sick leave and parental leave. Source: www.changelabsolutions.org;
Apprenticeships: Apprenticeshipscan help individuals upgrade their skills and earn more without taking on student debt. They can also help businesses address skilled labor shortages. Source: www.americanprogress.org;
Wealth redistribution: Wealth redistribution can be achieved through steeper inheritance taxes, promoting broader ownership, and socializing or redistributing capital and land equally. Source: www.britannica.com/.
.... just to name a few.
All of these are great ideas, but, even collectively, they will not put a dent into the income inequality problem. The Economic Policy Institute noted that the primary cause of income inequality is the fact that workers do not share in the productivity gains they help create (
https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/).
Therefore, all productivity gains and profits go to corporate CEOs and stockholders. As a result, workers are left with stagnant wages and salaries that barely keep up with inflation. So, the rich get richer, and else struggles.
Our Proposed Solution: The Income Inequality Issue
To address this issue at the grassroots level, we start with following mission: ..to conduct grassroots-led economic research into how to apply the Internet and other information technology to help the masses increase their workplace income at least 3 times over. As you can see, this is a very bold mission. Once completed, it will represent an aggressive solution to the income inequality issue.
To get feel for how we carryout this mission, start with an overview of our economic research models, processes and activity.
Staff
M.I.N.D.S originates with the Dwight Chestnut, the founder and owner of M.I.N.D.S.
