Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds • Hacker News Board

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#201

Post by radu_floricica » Fri, May 08, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

hellotomyrars wrote: post #171

radu_floricica wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was born in communist Romania. Thank you very much, but I had one socialist system in my life, I really don't want another. Every single one that humanity tried was either suboptimal, dystopian or straight up humanitarian catastrophe. But sure, I guess they weren't "real" socialism, so let's try and try and try again. sigh . Somebody in my country once said something like: "If you're not communist at 20, you have n…

It's disingenuous to suggest that the thing I am advocating for is the system as it existed in communist Romania. I am not. Just as I do not advocate for the current economic system in the way it exists. However I know that our current system's goal isn't to provide for the people, and the failings of our current system are extreme. My biggest point is that I'm not saying everyone should be provided a luxury yacht by…

What history, literally two comments up I was saying how the standards defense is that "it was not _real_ communism, let's try again and this time we'll get it right". groan

The goal of the system isn't to provide for people. That's the core fallacy that doomed pretty much any socialist system ever. Systems are shit - all of them. More you rely on one, more fucked you are.

What you want is to let people to provide for themselves.

Because yes, they can and they want to. And trying to say that they need a "system" to provide for them... ugh. It's offensive in so many ways. People are not children - children are children.

Now, this being said, things are quite complicated. There are commons problems, which are very hard to solve by the free market. You do, unfortunately, need some system for those, with the inherent shittyness. But as a rule, the smaller it is the better. More you try to do centralized, worse results you get. Even the modern great success stories in social democracy (western countries, northern europe etc) - they either have a catch (like natural resources) or did most of their growth on a small system, and now are spending their success as social benefits.

And yes, you do want a social safety net, for general principles. You don't want old people dying in ditches because an investment firm went bust with their pensions. But that's about it - safety net has nothing to do with treating perfectly healthy adults like they're disabled or children. They are the ones _paying_ for the safety net. Somebody has to.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#202

Post by luckylion » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:21 AM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #183

luckylion wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we could look at Germany. Our welfare system is largely unconditional. You're asked to find a job to pull your own weight, but you're not pushed too hard. You'll get an apartment, TV, utilities, health insurance and a few hundred euros a month for food & what ever you want to spend it on. If we did cut out the theoretical work-requirement and possibly stopped paying the rent and instead paid out money (but then qu…

> Our welfare system is largely unconditional. ALG II is pretty far from unconditional. You only get it after you burn through all your savings, and it forces you to look for work. TV costs 17€ a month per household even if you don't have a TV. Health insurance is pretty far from free, though it matches your income. Don't get me wrong, it's generally a pretty good system, but it's not unconditional.

> it forces you to look for work

Yes, in a theoretic sense. Not practically, it does not run out and you have to be pretty combative and purposefully i-wont-work to be sanctioned.

> TV costs 17€ a month per household even if you don't have a TV

Which is waived for anyone on social benefits.

> Health insurance is pretty far from free

It is for anyone on social benefits, paid by taxing those that work.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#203

Post by luckylion » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:25 AM UTC

hnarn wrote: post #200

luckylion wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's just US culture, European cultures are quite different (wealth is suspect in Germany, for example, a rather collectivist society) and we still have plenty of mindless consumerism. And really, nobody here is forced to work till they are tired. Yet still, the utopian society where everybody is working on bettering themselves is not happening. At some point I believe we can consider that it's not the circumst…

> But that's just US culture, European cultures are quite different Being from a "European culture" I can tell you that it most definitely is not. Materialism is deeply encoded in our DNA, and in my opinion hoarding modern valuables is just the equivalent of our time to hoarding berries or furs or whatever else might be useful in the future. I think our production capacity ran away from us before our ability to adapt…

Materialism is substantially different from consumerism. It's fine to want material wealth, that's just a shortcut for "I want security".

> Are you saying there's noone in the US that is forced to work "until tired" to survive?

I'm talking about NW Europe. We have plenty of benefit systems that you can tap into. Our homelessness is heavily associated with mental illness and substance abuse, not poverty.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#204

Post by luckylion » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:27 AM UTC

fredsir wrote: post #159

luckylion wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's just US culture, European cultures are quite different (wealth is suspect in Germany, for example, a rather collectivist society) and we still have plenty of mindless consumerism. And really, nobody here is forced to work till they are tired. Yet still, the utopian society where everybody is working on bettering themselves is not happening. At some point I believe we can consider that it's not the circumst…

I live and am from Denmark, and I can tell you that at least here, people are indeed taught and forced to do all those things. It's just hidden away behind all the nice stuff. A big part of it is social pressure, from the state, from social groups, and even from yourself, having been taught that one looks down on people not working as a wageslave for this many hours a month, and so on. Obviously, we have it better he…

> having been taught that one looks down on people not working as a wageslave for this many hours a month, and so on

You can also translate this into "please do your share in society and don't rely on other people feeding you just because it's inconvenient to get up and do your part". That's very different from mindless consumerism. Denmark with e.g. luxury taxes on cars is going a very different route from the US.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#205

Post by nicbou » Fri, May 08, 2020, 6:42 AM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #202

nicbou wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our welfare system is largely unconditional. ALG II is pretty far from unconditional. You only get it after you burn through all your savings, and it forces you to look for work. TV costs 17€ a month per household even if you don't have a TV. Health insurance is pretty far from free, though it matches your income. Don't get me wrong, it's generally a pretty good system, but it's not unconditional.

> it forces you to look for work Yes, in a theoretic sense. Not practically, it does not run out and you have to be pretty combative and purposefully i-wont-work to be sanctioned. > TV costs 17€ a month per household even if you don't have a TV Which is waived for anyone on social benefits. > Health insurance is pretty far from free It is for anyone on social benefits, paid by taxing those that work.

Again, those social benefits only kick in after you have burned through your life savings, including your retirement savings. If you are on ALG II, you don't have so much left. You are also expected to report to the job center, and act on the help they provide you.

It's not just "stop working, get free things".

If you are not a citizen, it's also going to ensure your visa doesn't get renewed. The government had to make an exception this time for COVID-19.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#206

Post by danielscrubs » Fri, May 08, 2020, 7:16 AM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #162

gustavo-fring wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't have UBI, you had a well-paying job. The main UBI proposals for the US target $1k per month and that target means a budget of about 3 trillion per year and does not take into account health insurance. I don't know about you, but living off $1k a month where I live (and it's a relatively cheap area) isn't feasible. Either you get roommates or you are going to end up in the cheapest most out of the way apart…

> living off $1k a month where I live (and it's a relatively cheap area) isn't feasible Nor is an additional $3 trillion/year expenditure feasible forever. That's what's so disturbing about discussions around UBI: there seem to be people who, genuinely and unironically, believe that the reason some of us are concerned about the concept is because we don't realize how happy not having to work would make people. They a…

I agree.

For anyone else that has a hard time knowing how much taxes the US has to play with, I checked the US military budget and it's around $721.5 billion for 2020.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#207

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Fri, May 08, 2020, 7:30 AM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #181

Non24Throw wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm happy to answer more questions. How much are you willing to tell us about the income source? I’m finding it difficult to think of anything that generates a small but consistent revenue stream with no babysitting, that is also completely unresponsive to low-effort attempts at scaling it. Usually if there’s no babysitting, that means low-effort scale. Or if it is hands-free but still can’t scale, it’s because you…

Here it is: https://allaboutberlin.com/ My niche is "make knowledge of Germany approachable to non-Germans". This website works because moving to Germany implies paying for certain things, like health insurance. It also works well because most of the existing information is only available in German. This content also ages rather well, unlike programming tutorial or cellphone reviews for example. I don't need to const…

That's really cool.

How do the website generate money though? I haven't seen any ads or paid content.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#208

Post by yurishimo » Fri, May 08, 2020, 7:32 AM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #195

true_religion wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand all the comparisons to the US here. The article is talking about Finland, and the comment poster is from Germany. Is anyone saying this is appropriate for the US right now? In my opinion, the US has a long way to go before even beginning to consider such practices. The UBI is something EU nations can experiment with, not the US.

Can you elaborate? Why can EU countries experiment with UBI but not the US?

The US can’t even figure out healthcare. How do we expect to facilitate paying everyone vast sums of cash when we can’t even coordinate a public option for healthcare due a variety of reasons? The stimulus check nonsense around covid is a prime example. So many people got screwed because they didn’t have a bank account or were exempt from paying taxes.

Those structural issues aren’t present in most European countries due to the expanded social safety nets. The US needs to implement a lot of infrastructure between the government and the citizenry to facilitate and distribute a program like UBI effectively.

I’m an American who wants a ubi, but we’re not ready structurally to handle it in the current political climate of any foreseeable political future in the next decade, IMO.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#209

Post by fredsir » Fri, May 08, 2020, 7:40 AM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #204

fredsir wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live and am from Denmark, and I can tell you that at least here, people are indeed taught and forced to do all those things. It's just hidden away behind all the nice stuff. A big part of it is social pressure, from the state, from social groups, and even from yourself, having been taught that one looks down on people not working as a wageslave for this many hours a month, and so on. Obviously, we have it better he…

> having been taught that one looks down on people not working as a wageslave for this many hours a month, and so on You can also translate this into "please do your share in society and don't rely on other people feeding you just because it's inconvenient to get up and do your part". That's very different from mindless consumerism. Denmark with e.g. luxury taxes on cars is going a very different route from the US.

> You can also translate this into "please do your share in society and don't rely on other people feeding you just because it's inconvenient to get up and do your part".

We could all share and show solidarity and meet everyones needs, and not work 40+ hours/week hours a week. We are producing many times more than enough. But the structures are so, that most people work so, so much, while not seeing comparable compensation. This is because a few people take most of all the wealth and keep it for them self. Because of this, we need to work so much, but it's only because of this deep, fundamental flaw in our structures. If the wealth was more evenly distributed, we could probably get by with working maybe 15 hours/week, and still have all our needs met, including having more time to relax, enjoy life, be with family and friends, and sit down and do nothing, which would provide a better environment for these inventions and ideas that propels humans forward, as hnarn was talking about, that in history, and very much still, are kept for the nobility because only they have the time to "sit down and do nothing".

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#210

Post by PeterStuer » Fri, May 08, 2020, 7:59 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #83

gustavo-fring wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not giving us the full story. Did he have health insurance (seems like he's in Germany, so yeah)? I made under $30k this past year and did not have health insurance. I promise you that I'd rather have that than try to live off $1k a month. If it sounds so great to you, I challenge you to live off that amount and see if it is as grand as he describes. I'm guessing he's making more than $1k. There are a lot of men…

Implementing UBI without universal healthcare certainly would be a silly approach, yes.

That is why I am in favor of universal basic services, but not UBI, and why I called UBI the 'hail mary' of neoliberal market capitalism.

UBI wants to change nothing abut the socio-economic structure that drives millions into extreme poverty. It just wants to slightly reduce the rising flood of people that are just run so far down into the ground by the system that they are abandoning society altogether and threaten collapsing it.

Make sure all your people have decent healthcare, housing and food. It is obvious that in some (rich) countries these basic levels of social security are failing hard.

UBI just wants the current rent-seeking financialization machine to keep churning even when its forced in the extreme to trow the bottom of the pyramid some breadcrumbs to prevent them from bailing out.