Die, basic income.
Of course, leftist supporters of democracy will say this does not count and wasn't "democratic".
Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters
281–290 of 600 posts
Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters
#282Switzerland is the only country in the world that implements direct democracy. You can really feel the difference to the rest of Europe. Swiss more often than not stand behind decisions made by their government. When talking about their politicians, the Swiss say "WE decided that ..." whereas e.g., Germans say: "THEY decided that ..." If you look for a coding job in Europe, Zurich is a great place to live and is the…
The story of Switzerland's direct democracy is exaggerated. There is no such thing as a complete direct democracy, even if a few individual questions are decided by popular vote. The only questions you can decide by referendum is things that either have no budgetary consequences or things that set a long term political direction (join the EU, basic income, ...). Anything that has a shorter horizon needs to be tightly…
That's quite an ignorant view. The solution is simple: keep a reserve, put everything into the budget and don't spend the money if it gets rejected. For example, my local community has liquid assets of about 50 millions and no debt. So if there is a vote on a new school for 20 millions that gets rejected, the 50 millions stay there for future ideas. It's quite simple, really. I find the idea that a budget must always be fully used somewhat strange.
Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters
#283Switzerland is the only country in the world that implements direct democracy. You can really feel the difference to the rest of Europe. Swiss more often than not stand behind decisions made by their government. When talking about their politicians, the Swiss say "WE decided that ..." whereas e.g., Germans say: "THEY decided that ..." If you look for a coding job in Europe, Zurich is a great place to live and is the…
The story of Switzerland's direct democracy is exaggerated. There is no such thing as a complete direct democracy, even if a few individual questions are decided by popular vote. The only questions you can decide by referendum is things that either have no budgetary consequences or things that set a long term political direction (join the EU, basic income, ...). Anything that has a shorter horizon needs to be tightly…
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Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or you can buy studio in the city and huge farm house with land 1 hour drive away... Then weekends spend in your farm house and weekdays in your studio... It would be close enough to pop in in week days also. 1 hour drive aint bad.
A two hour daily commute is like 12% of your waking hours crumpled and thrown away. That sounds like hell. Two hours is a long time! Sit around for the two hours doing nothing, you'll see.
I'm not saying its the case in Switzerland, but I get a ton of work done on my occasional three hour train commute. Driving definitely sucks though.
Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters
#285Would a UBI potentially hurts switzerland main businesses?
Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
And on the opposite, I never understood how people can not own a house and waste money on renting for decades. Where market for houses in western countries is very limited due to stupid regulations and every year a few millions of people move to that country causing renting prices to increase by XX% each year. It decreases my financial stability. Losing a job for less than a month is a financial disaster, I still to…
> waste money on renting How is renting wasting money? Are you not living in the unit? You're gaining 100% benefit by paying rent and receiving a roof over your head. You must mean a waste by losing out on building equity? That's a crap shoot in itself. A hot housing market and equity can go into the toilet at anytime due to very irrational market conditions. Look at the housing markets of Las Vegas or Miami for exam…
In European cities like London, Paris or Zurich, the supply of housing is so constrained that, barring something catastrophic like a war or a global financial crisis, prices will never drop that much for that long. In fact, it's quite a big economic problem — there's little reason for the majority of people to put their savings into anything other than property, because it tends to be so reliable.
And somewhere like London, renting a whole property is often just as expensive or more expensive that paying the equivalent mortgage would be. So you wouldn't even save any money by renting.
Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think even in the US nobody really buys a house (with land) in the city, but in the suburbs. Big difference and much more similar to the 1 hour drive discussed above.
Most of Chicago, the third-largest city in the US, is single-family houses with yards. For that matter, when I lived in San Francisco back in 99-2001, I had a yard.
Toronto was/is like this too. It's a pretty big city similar to Chicago. All of the houses are >$1 million now in Toronto proper. Now the only thing being built are hundreds of cookie cutter condos right in the downtown core. So many were built in recent years that the price of condos actually went down for the first time in forever while house prices continued to rise.
Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or you can buy studio in the city and huge farm house with land 1 hour drive away... Then weekends spend in your farm house and weekdays in your studio... It would be close enough to pop in in week days also. 1 hour drive aint bad.
A two hour daily commute is like 12% of your waking hours crumpled and thrown away. That sounds like hell. Two hours is a long time! Sit around for the two hours doing nothing, you'll see.
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Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of Chicago, the third-largest city in the US, is single-family houses with yards. For that matter, when I lived in San Francisco back in 99-2001, I had a yard.
Toronto was/is like this too. It's a pretty big city similar to Chicago. All of the houses are >$1 million now in Toronto proper. Now the only thing being built are hundreds of cookie cutter condos right in the downtown core. So many were built in recent years that the price of condos actually went down for the first time in forever while house prices continued to rise.
You can get a decent house in a nice neighborhood on the north side of Chicago for around 200k.
Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
> waste money on renting How is renting wasting money? Are you not living in the unit? You're gaining 100% benefit by paying rent and receiving a roof over your head. You must mean a waste by losing out on building equity? That's a crap shoot in itself. A hot housing market and equity can go into the toilet at anytime due to very irrational market conditions. Look at the housing markets of Las Vegas or Miami for exam…
It's very simple actually. Consider, for brevity, a mortgage where the monthly or yearly payment, including taxes, is equal to the rent you would be paying for the same place. Then live in the place and go about your life for several years, until the mortgage is paid for. Option 1, you took the mortgage. Now you own a house and you are not due any more payments. You can keep living there and use the excess income for…
The maths rarely work out the way you outlined:
If the mortgage is equal to the rent, then potential landlords are leaving money on the table. That rarely happens for long. Typically most landlords in competitive markets will leverage and take up interest-only mortgages to the extent were rent only barely covers interest and maintenance, and make most of their money on capital gains.
For most people a repayment mortgage and maintenance and appropriate insurance should end up more expensive than renting for that reason.
It is possible to come out financially on top by owning, not least if you're willing to do maintenance yourself etc., but it's not nearly as clear-cut.
I've done very well buying, basically out of luck because I happened to buy on a tracker mortgage briefly before the interest rates crashed after the financial crisis, but if I'd foreseen that change I'd have been filthy rich instead of just a bit better off on my mortgage. But a tracker mortgage adds risk, and it could just as well have gone the other way. I took that risk because I could afford it.
For me, the main economic benefit is that it is a hedge against unforeseen rapid changes in housing costs. If the area I live in suddenly gets drastically more popular than nearby areas, then I can still afford to live here. The cost is that I take a risk with respect to making it harder to move, but with a son in school locally that is not something I'd consider lightly anyway, and that if interest rates swings the wrong way I may still end up paying more overall.