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This is not an appropriate venue for chanting political slogans.
This entire thread is political. That much is clear from the get-go. It will come down to the usual polarizing arguments that you see here every day.
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You forgot democracy. Note that this bill was introduced by the people, not the government. In Switzerland, as long as you can get 100'000 to sign a referendum, you can get a bill to be voted on. We also vote 4 times a year on bills, that is we the people, not we the politicians.
And in 1990 women could even vote!
This is a peculiar initiative. Surely, a plot by the commies, or is it not?
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I was thinking of a family with five adults. No reason for the children to leave such a profitable nest. The other scenario is a group of adult friends or relatives.
This raises another interesting question. Will there be a population explosion in Switzerland in the medium term?
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You forgot democracy. Note that this bill was introduced by the people, not the government. In Switzerland, as long as you can get 100'000 to sign a referendum, you can get a bill to be voted on. We also vote 4 times a year on bills, that is we the people, not we the politicians.
And in 1990 women could even vote!
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Do you remember where you read that most people on welfare in the US live with expensive hardware but do little work? I'm curious about different ways of providing welfare and the behaviour of people w under each.
The "welfare recipients with plasma TVs" is a common trope that comes up every election, but is (almost) entirely untrue. I've actually lived on the wrong side of the tracks in a poverty-stricken industrial city. The reality is that most people don't have big screen TVs. The home of the average poor person that I've seen, welfare or otherwise, is pretty damned frugal. The few that do - and they do exist - finance the…
Obviously, anecdotes don't prove the point, but of the families I've known in that situation, you are completely right. They were far more focused on getting their kids to school with full stomachs than fancy electronics or other status symbols.
A Swiss franc is currently worth a little bit more than a dollar, so this works out to $2800/month or $33600/year. By US standards, this actually seems to be a good salary: significantly better than working full time at minimum wage. It would cover all my current expenses handily. Of course, I'm young and single but by no means frugal. (I find that the little costs involved in worrying about my expenses easily outwei…
The people who already do them: immigrants, which make up more than 20% of the population of Switzerland.
A Swiss franc is currently worth a little bit more than a dollar, so this works out to $2800/month or $33600/year. By US standards, this actually seems to be a good salary: significantly better than working full time at minimum wage. It would cover all my current expenses handily. Of course, I'm young and single but by no means frugal. (I find that the little costs involved in worrying about my expenses easily outwei…
> this works out to $2800/month or $33600/year. Switzerland's per capita GDP is about USD 79000/year, so assuming 80% of the Swiss population are adults and citizens, this would cost about 34% of GDP, which may be unaffordable.
It's really annoying that people say "it's unaffordable" to mean "we don't want to pay", when the phrase is supposed to mean "we can't pay, we don't have enough money". I understand why people don't want to part with money, but at least let's be honest.
If you sort everyone from poorest to richest, and plot their incomes on a graph, basic income just means that the slope is flatter than before [1]. As long as the area under the graph (GDP) remains the same, it's technically affordable.
The flattening is accomplished by (a) taxing the rich more, and (b) a gradual reduction of salaries and/or working hours as the market finds a new equilibrium.
What matters is political will, and it seems that Switzerland has more of it than most of the other developed countries.
[1] http://i.imgur.com/IGkHoma.png (Sorry, it looks like crap because I just drew it in MS Paint.)
Edit: Fixed graph. The red line is now curved properly.
Less workers, higher wages, more money in circulation... What an inflationary mess that would be.
A Swiss franc is currently worth a little bit more than a dollar, so this works out to $2800/month or $33600/year. By US standards, this actually seems to be a good salary: significantly better than working full time at minimum wage. It would cover all my current expenses handily. Of course, I'm young and single but by no means frugal. (I find that the little costs involved in worrying about my expenses easily outwei…
> this works out to $2800/month or $33600/year. Switzerland's per capita GDP is about USD 79000/year, so assuming 80% of the Swiss population are adults and citizens, this would cost about 34% of GDP, which may be unaffordable.
