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

#251

Post by jpatokal » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 1:11 PM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #103

ashray wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just bear in mind for your calculations that in Switzerland a cup of coffee often costs $6 as does a can of coke. Cost of living is extremely high. But still, this does look like a decent deal. Zurich is like San Francisco in terms of expenses.

Switzerland seems to be really expensive (I only went there on holiday a few times and then expensive doesn't matter too much as it's expected). I was going to rant about the fact not everyone lives in Zurich and in the countries I have lived the divide between rural and urban places is huge, price wise. Where I live, with the same behavioral patterns, living in a city is at least 5x more expensive than living in the…

Switzerland is small and has a famously efficient train system, so it's common to live a fair distance from the city: I have friends who work in Geneva but live in Lausanne, work in Zurich but live in Rapperswil, etc. If you draw circles around the main cities depicting the diameter of how far you can get in one hour by train, there's not much "rural" land left.

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

#252

Post by AndrewDucker » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 1:11 PM UTC

I'd imagine that for most people this would make little difference - you can adjust income tax and remove the basic allowance so that it balances out somewhere near the median wage.

The main thing it would do is to remove the welfare trap - whereby you can earn less from starting work. Suddenly, every Franc you earn adds something onto your income. And you get rid of a whole tranche of bureaucracy at the same time.

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

#253

Post by jpatokal » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 1:16 PM UTC

marcamillion wrote: post #122

If this passes, I suspect that Switzerland would see a MAJOR, MAJOR spike in inbound immigration requests. I would love to see what that spike would look like.

Probably not very big, since getting a Swiss residence permit pretty much requires a job, and it takes 12 years of residence to be able to apply for citizenship -- and only then would you qualify for basic income.

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

#254

Post by alextingle » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 1:19 PM UTC

seeken wrote: post #210

There have been experiments with NIT (Negative Income Tax) in the US. My impression was that they were a disaster, but in looking for them I found this article,[1] which explains some of the history of NIT in the US. http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_1_income-tax.html

Negative income tax seems quite hard to administer when compared to a basic income. Why bother with all the bureaucracy required to deal with accounting for millions of minuscule incomes, when a simple flat payment would do the same job?

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

#255

Post by david927 » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 1:20 PM UTC

marcamillion wrote: post #122

If this passes, I suspect that Switzerland would see a MAJOR, MAJOR spike in inbound immigration requests. I would love to see what that spike would look like.

I didn't read the bill but I would venture this only applies to citizens, not those on work permits; and Switzerland has historically been an extraordinarily difficult place to get citizenship. (You, personally, have to be voted on, with your picture on the ballot, if I remember correctly.)

I lived there for almost ten years but since around 2008, as an American, I am not welcome anymore. The process for a company to hire non-EU citizens is essentially insurmountable.

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

#256

Post by da02 » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 1:21 PM UTC

tpainton wrote: post #236

Atlas shrugged... and the leaches attacked. I find it hard to believe Swit doesn't already have some welfare system that provides for those who actually need it... but now, 30k a year just for breathing? Sounds like communism to me.... only you don't have to produce anything. Utopianism like this doesn't last. Eventually you run out of payers. it's human nature to eventually grow tired of working hard so someone else…

Are you saying you are against: democratized wealth re-distribution, democratized theft, and charity at gunpoint?

How did you "see the light"? Was it Rand or someone else?

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

#257

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 1:23 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #228

drob wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a general disdain for the poor, rooted in just-world fallacy. As American politics would have you believe, the poor can't be trusted with cash. "They'll just spend it on drugs and plasma TVs!" Thus, the only politically salient form of aid to the poor is in the form of vouchers for specific things, e.g. food and medicine. This is dogma on the right, but it echoes surprisingly often from the left as well.

Is it really dogma on the right? At least in the right circles I run in, the EITC (extra cash for working: earn more, get more) is way more popular than food stamps. I am absolutely in favor of cash as the best anti-poverty method. It's also the most respectful of people who are, after all, citizens. If you wouldn't like to be told by the government what foods you are permitted to buy for your family, why should you…

>If you wouldn't like to be told by the government what foods you are permitted to buy for your family, why should you feel good about imposing those restrictions on anyone else? //

The difference is that when one is receiving charity it's expected that the giver is free to apply conditions. If I see you're starving and give you money for food and you instead spend it on a weapon so you can rob people then I'm going to next time buy the food first and give you that.

As food transport is costly and solved within the markets already food vouchers make sense.

I would prefer to be given food than to starve. Indeed I think an identity linked card with food credits would probably be best, then the vouchers can't be stolen.

Of course people could barter away the food ...

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

#258

Post by hackinthebochs » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 1:25 PM UTC

alextingle wrote: post #249

_random_ wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, you just described UK. Multiculturalism doesn't work - it has been tested here.

I wish we could deport racists.

I'm confused, are you accusing the idea that multiculturalism doesn't work as being racist? There is ample evidence that it in fact doesn't work: that an underclass is inevitable and that status applied to an entire culture is immensely damaging.

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

#259

Post by hackinthebochs » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 1:28 PM UTC

femto wrote: post #198

WiseWeasel wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Free basic income would be inevitable in a highly automated country. The owners of the robots would essentially corner the market on labor. The entire premise of our current social system would be thrown into chaos. Large swaths of the population are not going to starve quietly. We only need to look at history here: once income inequality becomes severe enough and it can't be hidden anymore, redistribution happens. It'll either be by decree or through violence, but it is inevitable.

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

#260

Post by downandout » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 1:40 PM 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 am not an economist, but this sounds like a recipe for massive inflation. At some point, the spending power of the basic income, regardless of the actual amount given, will approach zero. Free money, health care, food, and unicorns for everyone sounds great, but these models are notorious for not working out well.