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Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

swissinfo.ch

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Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#301

Post by ams6110 »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #228
funkyy wrote: post #145

Earlier 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.

A two hour commute (assuming one hour each way) is very very common. I did it for years when I lived in the suburbs and worked downtown. About an hour door-to-door each way, with the train ride being about 45 minutes of that.

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#302

Post by alkonaut »

Hermel wrote: post #282
alkonaut wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Keep a reserve" is the hard part. Most countries are in debt. Even if you have a reserve to begin with we can disregard it as a temporary luxury - long term the budget must be in balance or the reserve will disappear.

If you vote for "2% raised taxes" or "expand railway network" only the combination (yes, yes) and (no, no) can balance the budget. People would likely vote against the tax increase but for the infrastructure investment.

And even if you could afford it - how do you prioritize it against something else that was also accepted through referendum?

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#303

Post by mamon »

raverbashing wrote: post #252
yummyfajitas wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If enough local people engage in political activism or other cultural activities, then those attributes may also change. Those changes may be displeasing to people who favor the original values. Therefore, should we also ban political activism? If not, why not? I'm assuming nothing about cultural attributes. I'm simply not understanding why the use of violence to preserve certain statistical distributions of cultural…

> I'm simply not understanding why the use of violence to preserve certain statistical distributions of cultural attributes is justified morally. So what you're saying is that people in Syria should not resist the invasion by ISIS. Or that French people should have not resisted the Nazi invasion

>> Or that French people should have not resisted the Nazi invasion

All rumours about French people resisting Nazis are greatly exagreggated.

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#304

Post by vidarh »

gruez wrote: post #272
etatoby wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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. That's hardly always true

And if it is, you should do the maths and consider if you can afford becoming a landlord, because it means there's potentially room for yields well above normal (but beware the likely incoming flood of other landlords once people realise).

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#305

Post by dom96 »

s3nnyy wrote: post #37

Switzerland 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…

You might not be the right person to ask this, but maybe somebody else from Switzerland will be able to.

I'm starting a coding internship in Geneva in about two months and I was wondering whether you would have any advice about renting apartments in the area. For example, should I be trying to find apartments in France, or am I better off sticking with Switzerland. Should I be getting in touch with estate agents in the area via phone? Are there any good sites which contain apartment listings? I will be staying there for 12 months so any advice would be much appreciated.

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#306

Post by ams6110 »

tptacek wrote: post #233
etatoby wrote: post #198

Earlier 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.

The standard Chicago city lot is only about 25' wide though. The houses are very close together, with a tiny front yard and a slightly large back yard but only a narrow strip on either side.

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#307

Post by Dagwoodie »

rs999gti wrote: post #177
taneq wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only a waste if you don't put the difference to work in some way. Owning a house outright is great (I'm 1/3 of the way there) but for most, a 30-year mortgage is no more of a wise decision than a rental. You're just swapping landlord for bank.

> You're just swapping landlord for bank. And even if you pay off your mortgage you still don't technically own it due to yearly property taxes.

One thing I really hated about living in an apartment was that the landlord would show up twice a year with very little warning to inspect the fire alarms etc. As a security person, having all the keys to my home and neighbors homes sitting in a nearby office wasn't very reassuring of my safety or privacy.

The bank on the other hand doesn't care what you do with your alarms or anything else as long as their payments keep showing up.

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#308

Post by ams6110 »

taneq wrote: post #168
akerro wrote: post #143

Earlier 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…

It's only a waste if you don't put the difference to work in some way. Owning a house outright is great (I'm 1/3 of the way there) but for most, a 30-year mortgage is no more of a wise decision than a rental. You're just swapping landlord for bank.

The mortgage interest is deductible, and for many people the one thing that makes it possible to itemize deductions rather than take the standard. That's an advantage that renting doesn't have, all else being equal.

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#309

Post by dghughes »

Zarkonnen wrote: post #24

Coming from Switzerland, this is not at all surprising. No one expected this initiative to pass. It was really more of an attempt to get a conversation started, and it's succeeded in that. As a (tentative) supporter of basic income, I'm already quite happy that something like a fifth to a quarter of voters went for it.

Who is this basic income aimed at in Switzerland? Somehow I can't picture homeless people living on the streets of Bern but like anywhere else I'm sure there are homeless there people too.

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#310

Post by kasey_junk »

mortehu wrote: post #293
tptacek wrote: post #233

Earlier 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.

But by European standards, Chicago is a small city of about 100,000 people surrounded by an enormous commuter town.

Which standards would those be?
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