Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 582 posts

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

#391

Post by walshemj »

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…

see the recent news articles about the "guest" workers in Quatar from Nepal some truly shocking abuses.

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

#392

Post by walshemj »

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…

I recall paying 7SF for a coke when skiing 20 years ago

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

#393

Post by backprojection »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #304
jre wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem to be available in English, but the organisation that wrote the initiative say so on their website[1]. They say "It is added to other revenues". So yeah, the intention is really to have an unconditional basic income for everybody and not some sort of negative income tax scheme as has been proposed elsewhere. [1] http://bien.ch/fr/page/initiative-federale#revenudebase

It makes sense to me to do that way, if you're going to do it at all. Then there's no disincentive to work.

There's still an incentive to work with a negative income tax. This is an interesting discussion about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

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

#394

Post by milesskorpen »

ams6110 wrote: post #386
TelmoMenezes wrote: post #290

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 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…

Converting $33,600 basic income (assuming this goes to every adult, 210 million people) to the entire population (318 million) is about $22,200 per capita. Per capita income in the United States in 2012 was $42,693 [1]. Assuming that would remain unchanged, taxes to fund a basic income of $22,200 that would leave $20,500 per capita. Per-capita state tax collections are already 2,435.11 [2] and federal tax collections…

Presumably this would replace Social Security and most other forms of welfare (might even replace medicare / medicaid — people would just buy insurance based on the basic income).

Given that entitlements are ~60% percentage of federal, this might be easier than you think.

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

#395

Post by derefr »

jre wrote: post #153
derefr wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if you take the implicitly-assumed-to-be-ridiculous third option, and give every visitor a green card and a basic income voucher when they cross the border? Then you don't have any illegal immigrants, just lots and lots and lots of citizens. (Don't just reply with the obviously-bad first-order effect on the country receiving the immigrants; remember that bad things would also be happening to the labor po…

I think you raise an interesting point on the second-order effects, but that is only relevant if a big country introduces basic income. In the case of Switzerland, I think the first-order effect greatly exceeds any other effect on the neighbouring countries's labor pools. Because Switzerland is freaking small (7 million people - the size of a big european city) and is surrounded by large countries (Germany, France, I…

Sure. I actually meant to ask the "if a big country does it" version, because that's what makes Basic Income an interesting macroeconomic policy. If the US did this (and the US definitely has the room--both geographically and otherwise--to absorb way more than 6 million people), what do you think would happen?

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

#396

Post by tsotha »

Thrymr wrote: post #349
arjunnarayan wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's Schengen area, so no border checks. You drive across just as you would from Massachusetts to Vermont.

My understanding is that that is true for immigration, but not for customs. There are still limits on the amounts that can be imported into Switzerland, even from the EU, without duties [1]. Some products are more restricted, e.g. a limit of 0.5 kg of meat per person per day [2]. Anecdotally, this is rarely enforced, except during summer barbecue season, and customs officials have the authority to stop vehicles withi…

Without border checkpoints official limits are sort of irrelevant, assuming you don't try to resell what you bought.

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

#397

Post by Mikeb85 »

shubb wrote: post #208
qq66 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A $30,000 designer leather handbag (they exist) is unaffordable for me. I could sell my car, cash in my bank account, give up my apartment, and live in a box on the street with my designer bag. But I'm not going to do that. That's always what "unaffordable" has generally meant.

What about a $30,000 car? Or if you prefer, a $30'000 operation for your favorite child? I think you kind of agree with the post you are replying to...

A $30,000 car is made affordable through financing, and financing rates are affordable because cars are useful.

In civilized countries you're not going to pay $30,000 for any required medical procedure... There are some advantages to universal health care...

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

#398

Post by SnowProblem »

gnaritas wrote: post #368
marknutter wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it differently. If people are receiving a basic income their performance at a job becomes much less important. Why care if you do a good job if losing it doesn't really impact you that negatively?

> Why care if you do a good job if losing it doesn't really impact you that negatively? That statement says a lot about how you think; everyone is not like you. Many people take pride in what they do and do it well regardless of compensation, it's not about the money, it's about the fulfillment one gets from a job well done.

Yes in some cases, like software, I agree that positive motivation naturally exists. Negative motivation may also naturally exist. For example, if you enjoy your work, and the work is desirable, you'll be anxious about losing it. However, I wonder whether it's quixotic to think this applies to all types of work.

I would love to see a small country like Switzerland incubate this policy.

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

#400

Post by Thrymr »

tsotha wrote: post #396
Thrymr wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that that is true for immigration, but not for customs. There are still limits on the amounts that can be imported into Switzerland, even from the EU, without duties [1]. Some products are more restricted, e.g. a limit of 0.5 kg of meat per person per day [2]. Anecdotally, this is rarely enforced, except during summer barbecue season, and customs officials have the authority to stop vehicles withi…

Without border checkpoints official limits are sort of irrelevant, assuming you don't try to resell what you bought.

There are checkpoints, they are (usually) manned and funnel traffic through single lanes, it's just that they rarely actually stop people.
Post reply on HN