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…
Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult
281–290 of 582 posts
Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult
#282Earlier 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…
Here here. I've travelled through Switzerland, and can confirm that it's really expensive compared to many other countries. I made the mistake once of planning to stay overnight in Switzerland. That was expensive. About €40 to stay in a rural hostel.
Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this is unconditional and on top of any other income you get.
I did not see this anywhere in the article and most models of basic income i know do not do this. They instead only fill you up until you got amount X of money.
Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Before.
Taxing a redistributive payment from the government makes no sense. Why not just pre-calculate how much of it goes to tax and then save everyone the paperwork?
Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Before.
Taxing a redistributive payment from the government makes no sense. Why not just pre-calculate how much of it goes to tax and then save everyone the paperwork?
Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult
#286Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult
#287I've always liked the idea of a base salary for all citizens. However, this plan appears to set the base level far too high -- it needs to be barely enough to fund the most basic of life's essentials, and indexed to an inflation rate of essential commodities. Life on this salary needs to be difficult and unsatisfying. The model I imagine would also: * Be paid to all citizens from age zero. Which means it can replace…
Do you know the purchasing power parity of Switzerland? Switzerland is more expensive than most countries.
Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
As always, you are welcome to take up a very big CHF loan and put your money where your mouth is ;) I expect you have a 50% chance of making money. The actual explanation is a lot simpler; McDonalds employees are more expensive in Switzerland than in the US. You can see the same effect where I live, in Norway.
Your first point isn't too far off the mark. If goods are really 60% more expensive in Switzerland than in the US, then you'd expect people/corporations/institutions in Switzerland to use their CHF to buy dollars, buy goods in the US at a large discount and have them shipped to Switzerland, or for Swiss companies to hire US employees and pay them in USD, thus driving the USD/CHF exchange rate towards purchasing power…
In my experience as a Norwegian, the parity argument isn't even close to true in the real world. There are lots of non-perishable goods here which are imported but are a lot more expensive than they are in the US. For reference, there is a 25% VAT on everything and there is occasionally an import tariff on the order ot 5%. Also some special taxes on vehicles, tobacco, alcohol and fuel, but I'll keep those separate.
Most goods here are a lot more expensive than abroad. Clothes and shoes are 2-3 times more expensive than in the US. Ditto for furniture and most non-perishable goods you would buy in a store. All food is 2-3 times more expensive, even imported, canned goods. This is in line with the labor required to stock and operate a store. Electronics are usually ~30-40% more expensive than abroad if you get them in the right place, which does more or less match the parity theory. My guess is that this is because buying these goods on the Internet is a viable option (in contrast to groceries, clothes, shoes, food, medicine, furniture etc). Hence these retailers are forced to conform, or go out of business. I am not sure how they are able to do this, whereas a clothing store or a supermarket is not. But this is what I observe. The cheapest electronics retailers are very low on staff and high on automation.
Long story short, locally labor-intensive products are obviously a lot more expensive in expensive countries. But higher salaries also have a very large effect also on the cost of imported goods, because there is a lot of labor involved during the shipping, import and sales process. If you are able to automate away some of this, you have a massive business opportunity. But it's a very obvious opening, so it is not a trivial task.
Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult
#289Earlier 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?
Re: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult
#290A 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 believe this would not be a problem in the long run for the following reasons:
- A lot of boring low-pay work is unnecessary (dealing with the endless paper trail of over-complicated bureaucracies, lots of things that companies do, like telemarketing, just because it's so cheap, etc. etc.);
- A lot of it is necessary, so it would just become more expensive. At some price, people will be willing to do this work despite the basic income. Many people actually enjoy doing meaningful work, be it plumbing or being a doctor. It's the soul-crushing pointless work that is so depressing;
- This would then create strong economic pressure to finally use technology for what it's good: automatize labor. No longer would there be the job loss dilemma;
- Likewise, this would create strong economic pressure to simplify everything: no more pointless bureaucracy, no more over-complicated taxation schemes that require an army of accountants, much less pointless meetings and other corporate fat, and so on.
I'm filled with hope by this idea and honestly believe that it has a chance of working. It's time to step into the next era.