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A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

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Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#71

Post by Merovius »

hueving wrote: post #36
onion2k wrote: post #33

One of the first pieces of advice I had when my company landed its investment was to pay ourselves a decent (not extravagant) wage so that my time went on worrying about the company rather than how I was going to afford to do things in my personal life. The same is true for employees - if they're paid a good living they will spend more time on thinking about problems in their job instead. If a government were to do t…

>people will spend their time working on things to improve everyone's life Some people will. I have met many plenty of people though that don't care about other people regardless of their income.

I never understood, why this is a problem. We live in a society of abundance. Tying coverage of living expenses to work done, just leads to people doing pointless work. This is at least the reality in Germany: There aren't enough jobs for everyone, people live under the illusion that it is wrong to just subsidize people living, thus the government rather subsidizes jobs, that are not profitable to be done by people (my mother crimped cables from home for a living, something that can be done by a machine for a fraction of the price in orders of magnitude less time).

Apart from that, it is called "basic income", not "luxurious income". Ask these people if they still wouldn't work if the alternative is not being able to afford a smartphone, Game console, plasma TV or car.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#72

Post by JupiterMoon »

moonchrome wrote: post #15
mtsr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. If every euro you earn there adds to your unconditional minimum income, instead of replacing a euro from welfare, the motivation to work for that new car, or whatever, becomes pretty tangible. Note that €900 (or €1300 for a family) is pretty barebones. You won't be putting much more than bread and potatoes on the table using that. And you'll probably live in a rather small house too.

Income has a diminishing return, once you're out of "minimum income" the ammount requred to take the shit job is not linear. You can either lowball the minimum income to the point where you can't realistically live on it for long or a lot of services get more expensive + tax hike to support it = lower standard of living for normal people (unaffected by minimum income but not rich enouh to ignore the costs)

The idea of basic income is to take people out of starvation and lack of shelter. It would still leave people wanting to earn in order to e.g. go on holiday, own a computer, go to a bar, go to a restaurant, eat nice food, own a car (in Europe where owning a car is not required at least) etc - i.e. still plenty of incentive to work, earn and save just more freedom to take risks by e.g. starting that business...

You also miss a basic premise of basic income - everyone gets it with no means testing. It is a different concept to current benefit systems. Normal people would receive it as much as unemployed people.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#73

Post by anticon »

Fuxy wrote: post #70
onion2k wrote: post #33

One of the first pieces of advice I had when my company landed its investment was to pay ourselves a decent (not extravagant) wage so that my time went on worrying about the company rather than how I was going to afford to do things in my personal life. The same is true for employees - if they're paid a good living they will spend more time on thinking about problems in their job instead. If a government were to do t…

I would wager there will be people who will take advantage of the system and use it as a opportunity to not work and laze around all day however those people will be the one who are not particularly productive in their work anyway. They might find something else to do they might not but that's OK it is an acceptable loss. On the other end companies which used to take advantage of the job market and the fact that ever…

You don't mention the fact it's completely unworkable mathematically. In the UK I believe it'd cost £240 billion a year. Where the hell would anyone be able to find that money from? (Tackling tax avoidance from Starbucks isn't a credible answer).

Just to put it in context, that's twice the entire NHS's budget, or 5 times our defence spending.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#74

Post by jamesbrownuhh »

caminante wrote: post #69
DanBC wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plenty of European examples abound where despite generous - some would argue very generous - state dispensed benefits certain sections of the society just do not respond positively in measures of improvement of their own station in life much less "working on things to improve everyone's else (lives)". For many years people on English out of work benefits were not allowed to do voluntary work or be a student - those…

I'm looking at the wiki[2] and 1. it's a documentary 2. it's on Channel 4 -- a public-service (non-commercial) channel in the UK. Can you help add more context for what you're getting at?

Channel 4 is a "public service" channel only in the sense that it was one of the first four channels to come into existence at a time when the quid pro quo for having a broadcast licence was that challenging, worthy, high-quality programmes were broadcast.

Today, Channel 4 is still technically a PSB, but it's not and has never been "non-commercial" - it shows adverts and makes profits just like any other commercial channel.

Calling "Benefits Street" a documentary would be like saying that Jersey Shore or The Osbournes was a documentary. It's not.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#75

Post by jon-wood »

anticon wrote: post #52
onion2k wrote: post #33

One of the first pieces of advice I had when my company landed its investment was to pay ourselves a decent (not extravagant) wage so that my time went on worrying about the company rather than how I was going to afford to do things in my personal life. The same is true for employees - if they're paid a good living they will spend more time on thinking about problems in their job instead. If a government were to do t…

People starting companies are driven, determined people who want to create things. The vast majority of people are not. You're vastly over-estimating the general population. The majority are lazy, and if given money, will sit watching reality TV and stuffing their face with ice cream. (Step outside the startup bubble for a while). Most people are also selfish. The idea that they'll all start doing things to benefit o…

So what if some people decide to use their money to watch TV all day? Its a trade off, in return for some people being able to do things improving society they couldn't have done otherwise, or being able to spend time with their kids rather than work a bullshit job which mostly pays for childcare so they can do their job, we have to put up with a few people having more reality TV to bore us about in the pub. Sounds good to me.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#76

Post by dagw »

wozniacki wrote: post #47
onion2k wrote: post #33

One of the first pieces of advice I had when my company landed its investment was to pay ourselves a decent (not extravagant) wage so that my time went on worrying about the company rather than how I was going to afford to do things in my personal life. The same is true for employees - if they're paid a good living they will spend more time on thinking about problems in their job instead. If a government were to do t…

If a government were to do that for everyone it seems pretty obvious that society will be better off - people will spend their time working on things to improve everyone's life rather than worrying about how to afford their rent The incredulity of this is plainly galling. How does one draw a broad conclusion like that? Plenty of European examples abound where despite generous - some would argue very generous - state…

The huge 'problem' with most European benefit systems that I am aware of that as soon as you take the money, your time is no longer your own. You cannot go to to school or take courses, start a company, do odd freelance work, do certain types of charity work, travel freely or a whole host of other potentially self improving things, without losing your benefits. Living on benefits is also living in constant fear that your benefits can be removed at any time for any (or no) reason. Remove all those barriers and requirements and remove the need to keep jumping through time consuming and seemingly arbitrary hoops to get your money and perhaps people will react differently.

Personally I come down on the skeptical side of the fence, but would really love to be proven wrong.

Also Benefit Street is not a documentary interested in facts, but reality TV at its finest, interested in entertaining, and should be judged as such.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#77

Post by piokoch »

When I see that discussion about basic income I am always wandering, who is going to pay for that?

I assume the money will not be printed (this would not help, as inflation would make that income very small).

So the country that applies such policy must have some way of finding money. Some countries have natural resources that they can sell, so the problem is solved. But how about the rest?

I guess this will be financed by those, who are earning more money.

Let's forget about the question if this is moral or not to take away money from people who are working hard just to give away these money to those, who are not working at all.

However the taxation will make costs of work higher and higher. Country economy would become less competitive.

In addition avoiding taxes would start to be really profitable - people would start opening fake companies abroad, create fake costs, etc. it happens now as well, but the scale could be much bigger.

As usually, big players would be able to avoid taxes, so the one who would be hurt most are the "middle class". Taxes will eat their profits and the gap between the best earning people and the rest would be growing and growing.

For me it looks a bit as if we were trying to solve the problems caused by goods redistribution by applying more goods redistribution.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#78

Post by kentt »

beeglebug wrote: post #61
anticon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People starting companies are driven, determined people who want to create things. The vast majority of people are not. You're vastly over-estimating the general population. The majority are lazy, and if given money, will sit watching reality TV and stuffing their face with ice cream. (Step outside the startup bubble for a while). Most people are also selfish. The idea that they'll all start doing things to benefit o…

Communism: "A theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community, and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs." Basic Income: "An income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement." I dunno, they sound pretty different to me.

There are different if course. I think other people are saying they have very similar flaws, not that they are the same.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#79

Post by weddpros »

Basic income usually assumes money comes from nowhere, from "the state"... This experience is fun, but to be correct, those who find a job should in turn pay 1300/m... because the money cannot come from anywhere else than people.

Or you'll get VERY biased results.

Think of it: they could have tested the financing instead. 300 workers get to pay 1300€/m to the city. Who wants to be first?

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#80

Post by mkingston »

anticon wrote: post #68
beeglebug wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism: "A theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community, and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs." Basic Income: "An income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement." I dunno, they sound pretty different to me.

So in effect Basic Income is even worse as it doesn't means test recipients. If you're a billionaire, the state is still going to give you money.

Yes, but the state will take more than it gives from the billionaire. This is actually more bureaucratically efficient than manually means testing every possible recipient.
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