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Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

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Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#21

Post by jonlucc »

vinceguidry wrote: post #12

I'm cautiously enthusiastic about basic income. I want to believe that it really can change everything, until that nagging doubt of "but human nature just doesn't work that way!" inevitably kills the buzz. The idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital…

I'm not so sure. The people who receive government checks in the US aren't the same people who would be amazing for the economy to have, which is why they're on government checks (they're either on disability or retirement).

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#22

Post by [deleted] »

nilkn wrote: post #16
vinceguidry wrote: post #12

I'm cautiously enthusiastic about basic income. I want to believe that it really can change everything, until that nagging doubt of "but human nature just doesn't work that way!" inevitably kills the buzz. The idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital…

> There should already be a not-so-huge wave of accomplishment coming from all these people. Could you clarify which people specifically you're talking about? I'm not trying to disagree with you. It's just that the main examples I'm thinking of are retired folks receiving social security and people with disabilities.

[deleted]

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#23

Post by fweespeech »

nugget wrote: post #2

I'm a fan of the theory of basic income but it seems incompatible with an open border/immigration policy. Given how many refugees are already migrating into Europe (many for economic reasons), how would a basic income change the incentives and migration patterns even further?

> I'm a fan of the theory of basic income but it seems incompatible with an open border/immigration policy.

No it isn't. It is very simple to say "Green Card (no basic income) -> Citizenship (basic income) transition depends on N years of taxes paid on time with a dollar value greater than 25 hours/week at minimum wage (or some equivalent proxy value)."

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#24

Post by dageshi »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #7
nugget wrote: post #2

I'm a fan of the theory of basic income but it seems incompatible with an open border/immigration policy. Given how many refugees are already migrating into Europe (many for economic reasons), how would a basic income change the incentives and migration patterns even further?

Basic income wouldn't pay out to everybody: the obvious example is that it wouldn't be paid to people in country on tourist visas. Full citizens obviously would get it. Where to draw the line between those two determines how generous you want to be. Most immigrants / refugees I know would be happy not receiving benefits such as basic income as long their children get all the benefits and opportunities that natives do…

Bear in mind there are 500 million eligible persons within the EU that may move to Finland if they choose. Once there they cannot legally be treated any differently to a Finnish native.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#25

Post by vinceguidry »

nilkn wrote: post #16
vinceguidry wrote: post #12

I'm cautiously enthusiastic about basic income. I want to believe that it really can change everything, until that nagging doubt of "but human nature just doesn't work that way!" inevitably kills the buzz. The idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital…

> There should already be a not-so-huge wave of accomplishment coming from all these people. Could you clarify which people specifically you're talking about? I'm not trying to disagree with you. It's just that the main examples I'm thinking of are retired folks receiving social security and people with disabilities.

That's a lot of people, and they shouldn't be left out of the discussion. Retired people and the disabled accomplish a lot of things. It's just that these are personal accomplishments.

Paying someone to not have to participate in the economic system, seems to me to force them to forever remain outside of it, unless they have a rare kind of motivation, that kind of motivation would mean they didn't need the basic income to succeed in the first place.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#26

Post by Lawtonfogle »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #7
nugget wrote: post #2

I'm a fan of the theory of basic income but it seems incompatible with an open border/immigration policy. Given how many refugees are already migrating into Europe (many for economic reasons), how would a basic income change the incentives and migration patterns even further?

Basic income wouldn't pay out to everybody: the obvious example is that it wouldn't be paid to people in country on tourist visas. Full citizens obviously would get it. Where to draw the line between those two determines how generous you want to be. Most immigrants / refugees I know would be happy not receiving benefits such as basic income as long their children get all the benefits and opportunities that natives do…

Do their children get basic income (not sure how citizenship works in Finland, but if it is like the US where being born in the country is enough to get citizenship and thus basic income)?

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#27

Post by mikeash »

vinceguidry wrote: post #12

I'm cautiously enthusiastic about basic income. I want to believe that it really can change everything, until that nagging doubt of "but human nature just doesn't work that way!" inevitably kills the buzz. The idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital…

The people who receive checks from the government every month are already preselected for failure. You don't get a government check at random, you get it for being disabled, for being too old to work, for being incapable of holding down any sort of job, etc. Looking at them to see how the population at large might react to basic income is not going to be informative.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#28

Post by lukev »

vinceguidry wrote: post #12

I'm cautiously enthusiastic about basic income. I want to believe that it really can change everything, until that nagging doubt of "but human nature just doesn't work that way!" inevitably kills the buzz. The idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital…

Except that there are strong social incentives for anyone who is capable of getting a paying job and going off welfare to do so.

If it were socially acceptable for an artist, scientist or entrepreneur to fall back on "welfare" for some amount of time to work on a project, improve themselves or bootstrap a startup, I think you'd see that more often (including outcomes that end up contributing back to society.

Which is why basic income is such a good idea. If it's unconditional, and not tied to an assertion that "I am poor and cannot feed myself otherwise", I think you'll start to see more capable people leverage it for uses other than basic survival.

It still doesn't answer the question of whether that investment (as a society) would pay off, but its a fair bet that it would at least be a different group of people leveraging it.

Re: Finland’s basic income plan could change everything

#30

Post by dibujante »

vinceguidry wrote: post #12

I'm cautiously enthusiastic about basic income. I want to believe that it really can change everything, until that nagging doubt of "but human nature just doesn't work that way!" inevitably kills the buzz. The idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital…

The counter-argument is that those cheques stop if those people start working. In a worst-case scenario, you can end up with a "dead zone" where you make the same amount of money working 30 hours a week at a poorly-paying job as you get doing absolutely nothing. Why not do absolutely nothing, then? Advocates of UBI stress that the non-means-tested nature of these benefits prevents them from causing that trap. Even if you're only working for a penny, that's an extra penny minus tax that you keep.
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