Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult • Hacker News Board

Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult

#191

Post by Systemic33 » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 9:56 AM UTC

sentenza wrote: post #141

konstruktor wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the main questions about something like this is about who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income. I think that with basic income, this question would not make sense, and that's exactly the reason that I like the idea so much. The reason why people do boring, dirty and dangerous work for little money is that there are folks who have no skills that would enable them to get a more fulfill…

Unfortunately, there is actual experimental evidence to the contrary. Some of the Arabian Emirates have cash payments to their ethnically Arabian citizens that are practically equivalent to a high basic income. In those cases, all the "dirty" labor is done by legal/illegal immigrants that are not eligible for said basic income and thus willing to work for much less. IMO this is the central problem with the idea of a…

It's funny you should mention that last part, because that's exactly the situation in Denmark. We have in my opinion a waaay too high basic income, and there is a growing problem, with people who'd rather live on governement payouts, than get a job. And the nationalists are getting anxious about immigration, so there is a populist party that is against immigration, that is getting bigger and bigger support. It is overall a shitty situation.

Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult

#192

Post by netcan » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 9:58 AM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #56

I like to think I am progressive but this minimum income idea is a horrible idea in my eyes. It is like student loans in the USA, everything will rise to the maximum price that people can obtain money.

I think it's an interesting idea. Worth trying in a small country with competent government where a cockup has no effect on me.

Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult

#193

Post by netcan » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 10:01 AM UTC

jre wrote: post #135

tikhonj wrote: post #2

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…

Just to put things in perspective (I'm swiss), 2500CHF is a really low salary in Switzerland. There is another initiative asking for a minimum wage of 4000CHF per month. The median swiss salary is close to 6000CHF[1]. The administration says the poverty line is around 2200CHF per month for someone living alone [2]. You can't really just convert to $ and say it's a lot of money. A lot of basic stuff like food, transpo…

Is that 4000CHF after tax or before?

Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult

#194

Post by Radim » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 10:01 AM UTC

omegant wrote: post #152

jre wrote: post #145

As a swiss citizen, I'm really happy we'll have to vote on this. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to vote (I'm slightly bending towards a yes), but I think this is a very interesting debate to have. Especially because this is not a traditional left-right fight. On the left, you have some unions saying this is going to be counter-productive and that it will reduce the leverage of employees in negotiation ("You've alrea…

Being from Spain and having seen the reaction to high quantities of money available. A system like this will need to be very well monitored, it can help immensely to those in need, but if done unconditionally it will certainly encourage laziness in a sector of the society. My wife is a doctor and before the crisis she used to have patients DEMAND the permanent disability, because they wanted to stop working. They wer…

Upvoted you back.

Discussing such things on HN must feel surreal if you're not the median HN reader (educated, white, entitled westerner with 1st world problems).

Talking about what the "poor" would do if this and that, based on your own "hunches", worldview and ambitions.

Mass social experiments designed by intellectuals from an ivory tower... uhh. Good luck to Switzerland though, they may be able to afford providing one much needed data point!

Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult

#195

Post by jre » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 10:09 AM UTC

netcan wrote: post #193

jre wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to put things in perspective (I'm swiss), 2500CHF is a really low salary in Switzerland. There is another initiative asking for a minimum wage of 4000CHF per month. The median swiss salary is close to 6000CHF[1]. The administration says the poverty line is around 2200CHF per month for someone living alone [2]. You can't really just convert to $ and say it's a lot of money. A lot of basic stuff like food, transpo…

Is that 4000CHF after tax or before?

Before.

Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult

#196

Post by algorias » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 10:11 AM UTC

tikhonj wrote: post #2

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…

>I find with most jobs is that it's much easier to get more pay than less hours

Actually, this is less of a problem in Switzerland than in other countries. Specially at the low end of the income scale, it's easy to get jobs in the 30-50% range (100% being 40h/week). Just the fact that people here think in terms of an x% job should tip you off that it's pretty common.

Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult

#197

Post by rmchugh » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 10:11 AM UTC

Systemic33 wrote: post #191

sentenza wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, there is actual experimental evidence to the contrary. Some of the Arabian Emirates have cash payments to their ethnically Arabian citizens that are practically equivalent to a high basic income. In those cases, all the "dirty" labor is done by legal/illegal immigrants that are not eligible for said basic income and thus willing to work for much less. IMO this is the central problem with the idea of a…

It's funny you should mention that last part, because that's exactly the situation in Denmark. We have in my opinion a waaay too high basic income, and there is a growing problem, with people who'd rather live on governement payouts, than get a job. And the nationalists are getting anxious about immigration, so there is a populist party that is against immigration, that is getting bigger and bigger support. It is ove…

The problem is not that people would rather live on government payouts, none of the unemployed people I know here want to be unemployed. The problem is that there are not jobs for their skillsets. The solution to this is retraining rather than cutting benefits. There are also people with mental health issues, substance abuse issues etc, but that is another issue. In terms of immigration, I think the bigger problem is the Danish labour movement's structural inability to organise migrant workers. This prevents these workers from raising their wages through collective bargaining, thus preserving their comparative advantage over Danish workers. Compare this to the situation in Norway where the construction workers have successfully organised migrant workers, leading to no comparable fall in income for Norwegian workers.

Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult

#198

Post by femto » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 10:11 AM UTC

WiseWeasel wrote: post #164

danenania wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also act as a strong incentive for developing automatic and robotic solutions to these needs.

Either that or the development of robotic solutions to these needs will act as a strong incentive for the enactment of this type of program.

Which begs the question: in a highly automated country, should receiving an income for free, or almost free, be considered the norm?

I'd imagine that in the absence of communal action, the tendency would be for wealth to accumulate to the minority that own the automatons. Either the ownership of the automatons would have to be distributed or people would need to receive a "free" income. The latter seems like a gilded cage?

Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult

#199

Post by rmchugh » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 10:12 AM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #166

gaius wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting to watch from another country . That is the real reason politics moves so slowly, because the usual results of political experimentation is mass starvation.

Political experimentation usually leading to starvation... Have you got a high number of examples to back that up? I can only think of a handful.

Never let facts get in the way of hyperbole.

Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult

#200

Post by rglullis » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 10:15 AM UTC

lmartel wrote: post #165

xavi wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am all for more fair wealth distribution, but I don't see how this would be sustainable. With a basic income so high and higher taxes on the rich, what's the incentive to work for money? Hence, who would pay this? I think Georgism ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism ), which doesn't tax income, but it only taxes land (so, not earned income) is a better approach to get a sustainable and more fair distribution of…

Frickin' everyone would. If someone offered you 30k/year basic income would you quit your cushy programming job, or would you buy more stuff?

I don't know if that was your intention, but your comment smacks of a defense of consumerism. I may be against the idea of basic income exactly because it would allow people to feed a system that does not but expect them to be consumers of whatever crap society produces.

Also, see http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/11/hipsters_on_food_stam...