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

reuters.com

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

#131

Post by cabalamat »

kijin wrote: post #98
cabalamat wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Define "unaffordable". It's really annoying that people say "it's unaffordable" to mean "we don't want to pay", when the phrase is supposed to mean "we can't pay, we don't have enough money". I understand why people don't want to part with money, but at least let's be honest. If you sort everyone from poorest to richest, and plot their incomes on a graph, basic income just means that the slope is flatter than before…

> Define "unaffordable".

The Swiss people might not want to pay the amount of tax that would be necessary to have citizens income at that level.

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

#132

Post by drob »

adventured wrote: post #126
drob wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention this does away with all the administrative overhead of the dozens of piecemeal welfare programs we have in the US. Rather than whitelisting narrow sets of allowed expenditures and making people prove that they're poor for each program, I suspect giving people an income that allows them to live decently without all the red tape and attached strings will make for a much more efficient way to fight povert…

The piecemeal programs are on purpose. They're buying votes. The entire modern structure of the US Government is set up around vote buying, on both sides. There's zero chance they'll switch to direct payments. It does away with the power, which is the entire point of having a sprawling bureaucracy - so people like Reid and Boehner and Pelosi can act like they're little kings.

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.

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

#133

Post by thaumasiotes »

jbri wrote: post #55
robomartin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking of a family with five adults. No reason for the children to leave such a profitable nest. The other scenario is a group of adult friends or relatives.

That seems like a bit of a sideshow, considering they'd get exactly the same (combined) amount of money if they weren't living together. What makes it any different from a bunch of working adults living in a large house and splitting the rent?

Well, families often do a better job putting up with each other than roommates do...

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

#134

Post by chmars »

cabalamat wrote: post #119
icebraining wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you discounted the 20-25% of immigrants who are counted in the GDP per capita, but who almost certainly won't receive this income?

No I haven't. If 22.5% of the population are foreigners (who won't get it), and 80% of Swiss people are adults, then the calculation becomes: 33600 0.8 0.775/79000 which is the lower figure of 26.4% of GDP. Edit: fixed typo.

The initiative mentions the 'whole population', the text is not limited to adults with Swiss citizenship only.

In today's Swiss welfare state, all people living in Switzerland already have full access to what actually already is a basic income (or even more), just not fully unconditional.

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

#135

Post by jre »

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, transportation, housing are really expensive in Switzerland.

[1] http://archives.tdg.ch/actu/suisse/suisses-gagnent-moyenne-5...

[2] http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/themen/20/03/bla...

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

#136

Post by Udo »

TheEzEzz wrote: post #127
chronolitus wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't disagree that my country has had (and in some aspects still has) a backwards mentality, I fail to see how your comment has anything to do with the conversation.

I take the point as a counter to the notion that a pure democracy is inherently superior to other mixed forms of democracy, where voting is less direct.

If 50% of the population aren't allowed to vote, it's not a pure democracy.

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

#137

Post by e12e »

unsigner wrote: post #52
rickjames28 wrote: post #15

go for it. and let's see the extrapolation to a economic juggernaut like the U.S. It's always the "norway" argument. If Norway (pop 4 million or so) can do it so can the U.S. Yes, I guess Los Angeles could do something like that, but..

4 million AND oil-rich.

Like North Dakota?

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

#138

Post by chmars »

riffraff wrote: post #62
psuter wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1:12 project is at the same stage as the basic income one: up for referendum. Latest polls showed people were still undecided (vote is at the end of November).

I was under the impression the 1:12 vote already happened and was voted with an overwhelming majority, e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21647937 http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/03/switzerlan... Could you explain the discrepancy ?

Your impression is wrong. The vote you are referring to was on shareholders' rights, i.e., shareholders will get more influence on the compensation of the executives of 'their' companies.

The vote on the 1:12 initiative will be on November 24, 2013.

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

#139

Post by [deleted] »

marcamillion wrote: post #120
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…

> With a decent basic income scheme, i.e. the basic needs of the people taken care of, 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. This is an interesting premise. It would probably cause a lot of firms to be started, that compete to do those 'shitty jobs' - that could potentially drive the cost down and be done much better.…

[deleted]

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

#140

Post by danenania »

konstruktor wrote: post #105
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…

> 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…

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