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European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

eci.ec.europa.eu

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Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#31

Post by nickff »

didibus wrote: post #28
mkl95 wrote: post #14

As a middle class Spaniard, these are a few things that stand out about my country's economy: 1) Unemployment rate is very high (16%+) 2) Under 25 unemployment is extremely high (40%+) 3) Inequality is very high, with 10M+ people struggling to make ends meet 4) The country lacks affordable housing (property and rent are expensive when compared to salaries) Some areas of Spain have implemented different forms of basic…

Supposedly it would help with #3, because you'd need to tax something to get the money no? Also, I've always wondered, if unemployment is so high, is it because the work just isn't needed? Does spain already produce and provide services in a way that scale to all its population?

The barriers to employing people are very high there; they have secured jobs for the elderly at the cost of jobs for the young.

There is no 'sufficient' quantity of services for a given population, there is always demand for more industrially manufactured goods, personal services, or artisinal wares.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#32

Post by spenat »

A state job guarantee (everyone who wants a minimum wage job can get one), with or without the rest of the MMT package, would:

1) Be less repulsive to those who think that salaried work is virtuous in itself. 2) Not discourage work (people would still need to do something)

These "jobs" could include any activity that is good for the person and/or society, like taking care of old/dependent people, studying, working for a non-profit, even looking for private employment, depending on the needs of the state.

(Of course, if the person does not show up for work, then they get the pay docked)

UBI would be ideal, but job guarantee might be a less radical approximation.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#33

Post by js8 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #10

The summary in the link means nothing as it does not address the key points: What is meant by "unconditional universal basic income"? How much would it be? How would it be financed? What are the expected effects? Why would that be 'better' than the existing welfare state schemes in the various EU countries? These are too often not described when discussing UBI or discussed without much facts or data.

It's just a petition. If it succeeds, the only thing EU has to do is to discuss it, and these things can be discussed.

Personally, I would like UBI to be tied to GDP per capita, like say 10% of the GDP would be redistributed to every person. It would help to solve the wealth and income inequality problem that causes huge misallocation of resources (for example, EU has twice as many empty apartments than it has homeless people).

IMHO, it is generally better than welfare because it is less overhead and less patronizing. It should replace a portion of existing welfare system. (Things like pensions are often considered welfare but they are really not.)

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#34

Post by bassman9000 »

mkl95 wrote: post #14

As a middle class Spaniard, these are a few things that stand out about my country's economy: 1) Unemployment rate is very high (16%+) 2) Under 25 unemployment is extremely high (40%+) 3) Inequality is very high, with 10M+ people struggling to make ends meet 4) The country lacks affordable housing (property and rent are expensive when compared to salaries) Some areas of Spain have implemented different forms of basic…

Decade after decade education in Spain has been attacked, reducing the amount of hours spent on basic subjects (check OECD stats), and allowing 17 different education systems to appease nationalists. This meant the bar had to be lowered, which affected college output.

Spain has also absolute and radical aversion to the private enterprise collaborating with universities, meaning that research is poor and underfunded.

Barriers to entrepeneurship are high, both in the form of red tape, and taxes.

Spain has, at any point in space and time, AT LEAST 3 bloated and redundant administrative layers: local, Comunidades, central state, with some areas having more (e.g. cabildos, diputaciones). More red tape, more redunancy, more pensions and benefits. This means more taxes.

Like in the US, Spaniards have massively invested, with money they didn't have, in real state. Unlike in the US, though, Spaniards have been convinced any private property other than housing is useless, or plain evil, so there's ZERO equities culture, other than those having the 401k equivalent. Major Spanish corporations are less owned by Spaniards, compared to other countries like the US.

And all these UBI equivent measures just feed into the same narrative: the State will feed you, no need to innovate, no need to work hard, and if you want to thrive, affiliate to a major party.

The country lacks affordable housing

See above: high taxes (e.g. IBI, property taxes), plus housing being the only true value reserve, inflate the prices.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#35

Post by enaaem »

jdmoreira wrote: post #17

What I would like to support is a large and long term study involving multiple families in multiple European countries with multiple values.

I don't think the outcome is very interesting. There are all ready subgroups in society who have some kind of UBI like pensioners and trust fund babies.

I want so see the effects on the total economy. If for example UBI leads to massive inflation it would completely nullify the UBI.

How about productivity? Saudi Arabia is an interesting example, since their economy pretty much runs on free oil money. Saudi nationals are notorious for having bad work ethics, and they have to import foreign workers to run the economy.

I personally don't believe in UBI, but I'm willing to change my mind if proven wrong, as long as my own country is not part of the experiment.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#36

Post by erik_seaberg »

bassman9000 wrote: post #34
mkl95 wrote: post #14

As a middle class Spaniard, these are a few things that stand out about my country's economy: 1) Unemployment rate is very high (16%+) 2) Under 25 unemployment is extremely high (40%+) 3) Inequality is very high, with 10M+ people struggling to make ends meet 4) The country lacks affordable housing (property and rent are expensive when compared to salaries) Some areas of Spain have implemented different forms of basic…

Decade after decade education in Spain has been attacked, reducing the amount of hours spent on basic subjects (check OECD stats), and allowing 17 different education systems to appease nationalists. This meant the bar had to be lowered, which affected college output. Spain has also absolute and radical aversion to the private enterprise collaborating with universities, meaning that research is poor and underfunded.…

“The State will feed you” is pretty reasonable when the state temporarily forbids you from working to feed yourself.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#37

Post by bassman9000 »

lcamach84 wrote: post #21
mkl95 wrote: post #14

As a middle class Spaniard, these are a few things that stand out about my country's economy: 1) Unemployment rate is very high (16%+) 2) Under 25 unemployment is extremely high (40%+) 3) Inequality is very high, with 10M+ people struggling to make ends meet 4) The country lacks affordable housing (property and rent are expensive when compared to salaries) Some areas of Spain have implemented different forms of basic…

The aim of the economy before the covid is to produce things and this production is no longer synonymous with increased comfort. For example, Spain has many more houses than families but these families have more difficulty in paying rents. However this production has to exist in order to maintain a profit of a few and above all to give work to the rest. But what we have to do to avoid anthropocene is not compatible w…

post-work society

What does that mean?

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#38

Post by bassman9000 »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #36
bassman9000 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decade after decade education in Spain has been attacked, reducing the amount of hours spent on basic subjects (check OECD stats), and allowing 17 different education systems to appease nationalists. This meant the bar had to be lowered, which affected college output. Spain has also absolute and radical aversion to the private enterprise collaborating with universities, meaning that research is poor and underfunded.…

“The State will feed you” is pretty reasonable when the state temporarily forbids you from working to feed yourself.

Not talking about covid. Talking long term.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#39

Post by js8 »

oblio wrote: post #22
Scandiravian wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

National debt and private debt are two very different creatures. National debt is for the most part a good thing, since it's a measure of the amount of a national currency is in circulation Modern economic theory proposes that nations, with full control over their currency, have infinite spending power (aka can go into infinite debt) without any issues, as long as full-employment hasn't been reached This is of course…

I don't know what kind of economic books you've read, but mine had terms such as "hyperinflation" in them :-) If anything, stuff like global currencies ($, €) bail out their respective owners because they're world reserve currencies. Some of the smaller Eurozone countries would have definitely defaulted, had hyperinflation, etc, without the Euro. Now they're in recession instead, which sucks a lot but still less than…

MMT doesn't say you can't have hyperinflation due to economic mismanagement, it just says you can bootstrap yourself out of unemployment (a crisis) by printing money.

Just because a government is printing money it doesn't yet mean they practice a sane economic policy, which would be to increase the demand to meet the supply of labor.

Re: European Citizen's Initiative for Unconditional Basic Income

#40

Post by polskibus »

mkl95 wrote: post #14

As a middle class Spaniard, these are a few things that stand out about my country's economy: 1) Unemployment rate is very high (16%+) 2) Under 25 unemployment is extremely high (40%+) 3) Inequality is very high, with 10M+ people struggling to make ends meet 4) The country lacks affordable housing (property and rent are expensive when compared to salaries) Some areas of Spain have implemented different forms of basic…

How come you don't observe massive emigration with such levels of unemployment? In Poland it is hard to find workers (observed for example by long waiting queues when asking around for builders, heat or water specialists, etc. In general construction and house refurbishment market is booming during covid. PL demographics projection is very bad , further worsening the forecasts on the market. Wages are growing but the workers shortage is too big to be fixed by this. Is it different in Spain? Or maybe the young are not skilled in the work that is in demand and would only accept office work?
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