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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

#451

Post by polarix »

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…

So, if the low-skill jobs stay around, but nobody wants to do them, their price increases, because nobody is forced to do them to stay alive.

Then we have a greater incentive to automate and deprecated the immorally unfulfilling jobs.

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

#452

Post by iliis »

polarix wrote: post #451
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…

So, if the low-skill jobs stay around, but nobody wants to do them, their price increases, because nobody is forced to do them to stay alive. Then we have a greater incentive to automate and deprecated the immorally unfulfilling jobs.

Yes, the economic argument looks solid. Good old supply and demand.

Problem is, we may not be able to automate these jobs so easily.

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

#453

Post by dinkumthinkum »

marvin wrote: post #181
Kiro wrote: post #47

Wouldn't basic income just lead to higher prices and inflation?

Remains to be seen. That's why it's a great idea that a small country like Switzerland might test out this at scale, because then we can see if the vocal opponents who use your argument are right. You have a legitimate point, but I think a lot of the most vocal opponents of a basic income have a political agenda beyond wanting a system which is good for everyone.

I'm not sure that a small country would yield applicable results, though.

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

#454

Post by dinkumthinkum »

astrange wrote: post #443
SCAQTony wrote: post #99

If they did that in America 50% of the population would quit working and prices would quickly shoot up to MARS! Less workers, higher wages, more money in circulation... What an inflationary mess that would be.

> If they did that in America 50% of the population would quit working And do startups! > What an inflationary mess that would be. The US could use some more inflation. There's no reason this would cause an increase in the money supply though.

You think they would quit working and do startups ... You know our community is a sheltered bubble right? ... Ok just going to assume you're joking. :)

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

#455

Post by crassus »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #216
adventured wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100 million adults in the US currently hold no job. $33,600 * 100 million = $3.36 trillion (20% of GDP) Good luck with that. That by itself is about $900 billion more than the total federal tax haul for 2012. Then throw in the other 50 million adults making less than $33.6k per year, assume a solid added cost of at least 25% of GDP. It's pure fantasy, and completely falls apart when you start doing the actual math.

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

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

#456

Post by crassus »

Suncho wrote: post #265
eatitraw wrote: post #176

There are so many people excited about all these "equality" bills, and nobody criticizes it. So I'll just leave it there: http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html

Paul Graham misses the mark here. I agree with him that it doesn't make sense to try to get rid of income inequality and that income inequality can actually be a positive driving force in the economy. However, it's possible to take money from the rich and give it to the poor, thereby making the poor richer, without preventing income inequality from continuing to increase. Just do it at a low enough rate. And it's not…

What if competence is learned in the work force? Basic income decreases the competence of a civilization as a whole.

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

#457

Post by Dewie »

Systemic33 wrote: post #446
scarmig wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denmark does not have a basic income.

Indeed that is correct, my comment wasn't fully inline with the thread topic, but since government aid, basic income, and national immigration politics are very much intertwined, I thought my comment would have value to the discussion.

If you want your comment to add value to the discussion you should edit your comment that says that Denmark has basic income, since apparently it does not.

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

#458

Post by ericd »

phunehehe0 wrote: post #323
jre wrote: post #135

Earlier 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…

Another perspective here, I actually converted that into dollars and realized it's more than my salary (me being in Vietnam). However I quickly came to my senses and comfort myself that prices are different in Switzerland. Thanks for confirming this. Out of curiosity, I wonder if you can use that money to live somewhere cheaper, maybe without letting the government know. If you can, I think that's a problem to solve…

Meh, you don't have to solve all the corner cases up front. Some small percentage of the population will always try to game systems, sometimes it's just cheaper to deal with it than to try to fix it.

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

#459

Post by hikarudo »

"It is an elementary requirement of economic incentive as well as justice that the man who works for a living should always be better off because of that, other things being equal, than the man who refuses to work for a living." [1]

[1] Henry Hazlitt, The Conquest of Poverty

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

#460

Post by ericd »

JDulin wrote: post #305
eatitraw wrote: post #176

There are so many people excited about all these "equality" bills, and nobody criticizes it. So I'll just leave it there: http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html

I agree with almost everything pg said in that essay. But I also agree that the the best economy of the future will (someday) include a minimum living wage like this. That's because it's not a bill in pursuit of some Utopian equality: It's a survival bill. Giving someone $2,800 a month without explicitly taxing the rich to fund it is hardly an attempt at eliminating income inequality. I would call this type of wage a…

This hits the mark, hard. It would introduce so much more flexibility into the economy. Some people would abuse it, and critics of these bills generally harp on how no one would do anything, but that's overblown, and the flip side is that people will be free to reeducate and relocate themselves rather than getting stuck in poverty traps and becoming slaves to their short term needs. The lack of that severe risk will allow people to take much bolder risks. This won't eliminate people's drive to excel, become wealthy, etc - we're biologically driven to try to look better than other people to be more attractive, and to provide our children with a good start. This will just make the failure mode not so bad, and enable people to try again, or switch course.

If we can stomach the direct tax impact, I think this would be the most positive transformative change we could make in the near future. Being able to eliminate almost every other entitlement program and their associated bureacracies would be a nice side benefit.

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