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Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

nytimes.com

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Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#331

Post by rwmj »

anonymfus wrote: post #330
rwmj wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only true if your country is completely covered in houses up to the maximum possible height of buildings. I'm not aware of any such country (or even city or town -- possibly Singapore or Hong Kong come close).

You assume that limiting factor for houses is land, but in real world it's infrastructure, especially transportation.

Fine, housing and roads. I'm still wondering which country the OP lives in where both housing and infrastructure are so dense that "when someone buys a big house, someone else must have a smaller house."

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#332

Post by slavik81 »

ScottBurson wrote: post #253
slavik81 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are conditions, it's not universal. The distinguishing feature of universal basic income in comparison to traditional welfare was that it doesn't have the disincentives to work caused by means testing. If you add means testing back in, you've defeated the purpose.

No. As I said previously [0], means testing is not the problem per se . The problem is a particular simplistic way of doing means testing, which is what mathematicians call a step function : below a certain income value you get 100% of the subsidy, and above it -- even very slightly above it -- you get zero. So there's a point where increasing your earned income very slightly results in a massive decrease in your tot…

You are advocating partial basic income, not universal basic income.

Your argument has a place, but it's tangential to my point.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#333

Post by ido »

gambiting wrote: post #317
JackFr wrote: post #19

If its only going to jobless people, not UBI. This is not a meaningless distinction -- one of the features of UBI is that it is universal . If this just goes to unemployed people we cannot see the change in behavior with people who are earning close to their reservation wage. Do they stop working? This is streamlined rebranded welfare. Not a paradigm shift.

I'm from Poland, where recently the government introduced a "500+" program, which means that every family in the country receives 500PLN per month, per child, from the day they are born to the time when they are 18 year old. Now, my parents run a company which mostly has physical workers - and for a physical worker, in the "poorer" part of the country, 1500PLN/per month(after taxes) is an ok salary. The day the 500+…

And yet "Kindergeld" (same principle in Germany & Austria) is more money than that and has existed for decades, and neither country has a much higher unemployment rate than Poland (much lower than Poland in Germany, about the same as Poland in Austria). Furthermore they have fewer children per woman, so this apperantly did not spur a huge baby boom.

So not really sure what we can learn from that. Perhaps salaries are simply too low in Poland?

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#335

Post by austinjp »

grigjd3 wrote: post #282
austinjp wrote: post #250

What's to stop UBI from "cancelling itself out" due to inflationary effects? Prior to UBI, the lowest possible income is zero. After UBI, the lowest income is X. The poorest people in the nation will have an income of X, so X becomes the new relative zero, the new baseline. Prices of everything (food, housing, whatever) will reset relative to X. So uni will become worthless shortly after it's introduced.... but only…

You're confusing the distribution of money with the supply of money. The distribution of money affects economic priorities. The supply of money (as total income per unit time) affects the overall inflation. While the priorities of an economy will certainly affect prices, it's that some prices will go up and others go down.

Unless money is redistributed then new money will indeed have to be introduced under UBI.

If it is redistributed, then taxes seem an obvious method. And clearly the richer should be taxed more, since we're attempting redistribution.

Unfortunately we all know that trickle-down economics fail, and corporate/elite lobbyists work hard to restrain corporate/elite taxes, to keep worker wages low, and to engage in practices such as zero-hours contacts.... and so on.

So... introducing new money risks inflation. Redistributing money risks perpetuating the existing broken system.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#336

Post by paulddraper »

ido wrote: post #333
gambiting wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Poland, where recently the government introduced a "500+" program, which means that every family in the country receives 500PLN per month, per child, from the day they are born to the time when they are 18 year old. Now, my parents run a company which mostly has physical workers - and for a physical worker, in the "poorer" part of the country, 1500PLN/per month(after taxes) is an ok salary. The day the 500+…

And yet "Kindergeld" (same principle in Germany & Austria) is more money than that and has existed for decades, and neither country has a much higher unemployment rate than Poland (much lower than Poland in Germany, about the same as Poland in Austria). Furthermore they have fewer children per woman, so this apperantly did not spur a huge baby boom. So not really sure what we can learn from that. Perhaps salaries are…

> So not really sure what we can learn from that.

Having UBI produces similar unemployment rates?

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#337

Post by mrleinad »

lacampbell wrote: post #261
mrleinad wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corruption exists in corporations as well. Who do you think pays bribes to state officials? The state can be efficient too, regardless of it being a monopoly. It just needs the same thing an efficient company does: overseers and the right push to be efficient (a.k.a. an informed and well educated population that knows when they're being scammed and demands better services for their taxes)

The US Federal Government can't deliver a fully socialized healthcare system despite spending more money per head than many other developed nations that manage to provide full coverage. What makes you think they could possibly efficiently administer UBI? What possible overseers can a government have? Authority begins and ends with them. It has token overseers sure, the same way a dictatorship to china might point to…

The problem with US healthcare is not the government, is the health industry and their overpriced services.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#338

Post by mrleinad »

tgfgvc wrote: post #197
saycheese wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting that less than 100 people on Earth have the net worth of half of Earth's population; half of the world's population is 3.5 billion people. Notable source: https://theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/18/richest-62-bill...

Do less than 100 people on Earth have taxable monthly income (which can be used for UBI) same as half of world's population? Or same income as UBI for half of world's population? Net worth is irrelevant.

It's far from irrelevant. It's the core of the problem.

I don't give a cp about taxable income. They should not have that much power. Period. Take it away from them and put it to good use.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#339

Post by e12e »

vsl wrote: post #307
jcoffland wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone be pissed? If someone else does well how does that hurt you?

By taking your hard earned money away to fund such schemes (taxes, you know?)

So, people will be angry that someone stops net receiving tax money and starts net paying tax money (relative to the services they receive)?

Don't get me wrong, I know full well many people are irrational and petty - but aren't these people that'll find some other irrational detail to get angry about?

Being angry that a cheap system for welfare helps someone get off welfare makes no sense. Especially if one disagree with having a welfare system?

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#340

Post by ChrisjayHenn »

komodo wrote: post #45
JackFr wrote: post #19

If its only going to jobless people, not UBI. This is not a meaningless distinction -- one of the features of UBI is that it is universal . If this just goes to unemployed people we cannot see the change in behavior with people who are earning close to their reservation wage. Do they stop working? This is streamlined rebranded welfare. Not a paradigm shift.

Why don't we do a basic income lottery? - Anyone except previous winners can enter. - You can only enter once per drawing. - As the pool increases the payout does not, only the number of winners. - Winners get a basic income for life. - As another condition they agree to an amount of monitoring so that we can effectively study how they behave with the basic income. - This one would be hard, but you might have to be m…

The only bit i'd quibble with is becoming ineligible for other assistance programs - one concern pro-UBI economists raise is that if it replaces social programs, the cost of necessities like childcare and housing will just increase proportionally. There's a good argument to be made that certain social goods are actually better when there is no profit motive for the people providing it.

Aside from that, I really like your idea. Given the number of people who want to see a UBI, this might be one celebrity endorsement away from getting crowdfunded.

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