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

#531

Post by mdkess » Sun, Oct 06, 2013, 3:12 PM UTC

cabalamat wrote: post #88

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…

> 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.

The idea with a basic income is that it's taxed back from the wealthier. There's no way without knowing income distribution and tax rates, but I would imagine that someone making $150k pre basic income is not seeing any change in their take home salary post basic income, and someone making $500k before basic income will actually come home with a little bit less (that is just my hypothesis - I don't know the details surrounding this).

Basic income is just a redistribute tax mechanism, but it's one that tries to remove bureaucracy and politics from social security programs surrounding qualifications, etc.

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

#532

Post by WCityMike » Sun, Oct 06, 2013, 3:12 PM UTC

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #512

eplanit wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the phrase is "hear, hear".

Both of them are phrases. Everyone understands the, strictly speaking, incorrect one. It's nice to know the origins of the phrase, but when more people use the 'incorrect' variant than the 'correct' one, it becomes 'correct'; that's the nature of language.

Under that theory, texting will swiftly become 'correct' English, and I refuse to believe THAT.

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

#533

Post by TheCoelacanth » Sun, Oct 06, 2013, 3:14 PM UTC

parasight wrote: post #494

svantana wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the job market would probably flip: You would have to pay people very well for doing unpleasant work, and not so well for fulfilling jobs. Isn't that already the case? Boring jobs = accountant, lawyer, engineer (to most people), fun jobs = musician, actor, artist (again, to most people, or at least teenagers). I shudder to think what the median income is for those fun jobs.

The fun of law, engineering, and arts is a matter of taste. I am not sure if that applies to flipping burgers and delivering pizza. I know a lot of people developing software for free just for the fun of it. I doubt there would be that many people flipping burgers for free (or a very low salary) if there would be an unconditional basic income.

Developing software is fun. Developing the software that they want you to develop usually isn't. You don't get paid to develop software; you get paid to develop the software that they want you do develop.

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

#534

Post by jhuckestein » Sun, Oct 06, 2013, 4:12 PM UTC

crassus wrote: post #455

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income is given to everyone, not just the poor and/or unemployed. It's actually a very good idea, supported by people all across the political spectrum. You should read up on it before dismissing it.

Personally I can't imagine working 60 hours a week to pay taxes for someone else staying home and playing World of Warcraft

Another aspect of basic income usually is to pay higher taxes on consumption and lower taxes on work

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

#535

Post by marcosdumay » Sun, Oct 06, 2013, 4:17 PM UTC

iliis wrote: post #450

As a swiss I'm quite excited about this. Even if I'm pessimistic about a successful vote. I want to mention a side-point which I haven't encountered so far: In the 'problem of lazyness' (i.e. "who will do the boring work if you are paid anyway?") one answer that often comes up is automation. Menial/low-skill jobs will be done by robots. It's a common image that in the future robots will clean our toilets and grill ou…

> However, if AI research has told us one thing it's that this view is quite wrong - the opposite is true.

AI research has told us a lot of things in the last decades. We are in a point where we have a quite good idea on how hard it is to automate most tasks, and robots that clean toilets, build rockets and drive cars aren't very far away. But robots that decide that a rocket should be built or a toiled should be cleaned are.

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

#536

Post by marcosdumay » Sun, Oct 06, 2013, 4:26 PM UTC

psuter wrote: post #5

Before anyone gets too excited, let's remember that this is also the country where the people voted against raising the required paid holidays (2012), for substantial cuts in unemployment allowances (2010), and for increasing the VAT (2009), just to give some recent examples. Regardless of its merits, it is going to be nearly impossible to gather popular support for an idea such as basic income. But hey, at least we'…

> raising the required paid holidays And thus reducing the part of the salary they get in monetary form.

> cuts in unemployment allowances And thus increasing the part of the salary they get in monetary form.

> increasing the VAT And thus making space for more government spending.

Those not as clear-cut propositions as you comment imply, and I'm now impressed by the amount of maturity the swiss population just displayed by making those calculations. I guess when you put some responsibility into the hand of The People, they stop acting like irresponsible children.

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

#537

Post by marcosdumay » Sun, Oct 06, 2013, 4:28 PM UTC

habosa wrote: post #495

Economic question: won't this just eventually result in a rise in prices to reflect the fact that everyone has more money? I guess imported goods will remain about the same price, but things produced locally would almost definitely go up in price. If I knew all of my customers had $2500/month more, I'd raise prices.

And I'd undercut you by selling at the older price, increasing my total profits... Except that I'd lose market too, because somebody would use the newly achieved scale to save costs and undercut me too.

Distributing money does not make capitalism go away.

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

#538

Post by marcosdumay » Sun, Oct 06, 2013, 4:38 PM UTC

erichocean wrote: post #30

jrockway wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always want more, so this will allow people to live comfortably while they, for example, acquire a more profitable skill than what they currently have. Then they will earn more, and pay more taxes, and the cycle continues. Alternatively, the Swiss government may have enough money to invest it all and pay for this out of dividends. Just because the US is broke doesn't mean that everyone is.

People always want more Based on the reading I've done on the subject, in places where a minimum basic income well into the poverty range was given, people actually just cut back on everything until it covered their expenses, i.e. people preferred poverty to working low-wage jobs. That makes sense to me. That said...I'm still in favor of a universal minimum basic income, because I always expect social regressions whe…

I'd really like to know where are those places that tried minimum basic income, and if they were unconditional (or if people did lose money by working).

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

#539

Post by prostoalex » Sun, Oct 06, 2013, 5:08 PM UTC

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #489

prostoalex wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> today, most employees have a choice between complying and starving Really? What's the grand total number of starvation deaths in United States or Switzerland?

People go hungry in the US. To suggest otherwise is, frankly stupid. People go hungry and people are poor enough that their main options for food are cheap, unhealthy, high caloric. So is it your contention there are no charity soup kitchens or charity groceries in the US, because you seem to imply it.

Unemployment rate is not 0%. Starvation rate is 0%.

Grandparent was implying that the only choices are sub-par employment or starvation, end of story, which sounded a bit sensationalist.

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

#540

Post by philwelch » Sun, Oct 06, 2013, 5:42 PM UTC

moocowduckquack wrote: post #514

philwelch wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US military budget is probably not too high for the existing requirements of the US. The US is obligated, by treaty and policy, to provide mutual defense to most of the world. The US military has additional moral obligations to minimize civilian casualties, as well as political obligations to minimize both time expenditure and friendly casualties. These requirements are historically unprecedented and contributes…

You are just lifting the political premise of Heinlien's Starship Troopers. I am not sure that this would make a society less likely to go to war, because the society itself will become more obsessed with the military and is more likely to look for things that look great in military terms, like conquests.

Lots of real world countries have or had national service requirements. Hopefully it would make war less likely because it would more equally distribute the human costs of war. You wouldn't have these chickenhawks who never served themselves.