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posted by martyb on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the handouts-instead-of-gov't-jobs-or-worker-owned-cooperatives dept.

Common Dreams reports

As a way to improve living standards and boosts its economy, the nation of Finland is moving closer towards offering[1] all of its adult citizens a basic permanent income of approximately 800 euros per month.

[...] The monthly allotment would replace other existing social benefits, but is an idea long advocated for by progressive-minded social scientists and economists as a solution--counter-intuitive as it may first appear at first--that actually decreases government expenditures while boosting both productivity, quality of life, and unemployment.

[...] The basic income proposal, put forth by the Finnish Social Insurance Institution, known as KELA, would see every adult citizen "receive 800 euros ($876) a month, tax free, that would replace existing benefits. Full implementation would be preceded by a pilot stage, during which the basic income payout would be 550 euros and some benefits would remain."

[...] Under the current welfare system, a person gets less in benefits if they take up temporary, low-paying or part-time work--which can result in an overall loss of income.

[...] As Quartz reports, previous experiments with a basic income have shown promising results:

Everyone in the Canadian town of Dauphin was given a stipend from 1974 to 1979, and though there was a drop in working hours,[PDF] this was mainly because men spent more time in school and women took longer maternity leaves. Meanwhile, when thousands of unemployed people in Uganda were given unsupervised grants of twice their monthly income, working hours increased by 17% and earnings increased by 38%.

[1] Link to The Independent in TFA was redundant IMO.

...and, before anyone shouts SOCIALISM!, this is actually Liberal Democracy (of the Bernie Sanders type).

An actual move toward Socialism would subsidize the formation of worker-owned cooperatives. An initiative to do that was floated in 1980. 5 percent of taxes would have gone into a pool (kinda like USA's Social Security fund). The Finns rejected it. Source: Prof. Richard Wolff


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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:40PM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:40PM (#273552) Homepage Journal

    It's not a complicated or nuanced thing. You want money you're not entitled to because you did not earn it. You want men with guns to take it away from the ones who did earn it and give it to you. That is armed robbery and that is greed.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
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  • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday December 08 2015, @07:28PM

    by q.kontinuum (532) on Tuesday December 08 2015, @07:28PM (#273580) Journal

    First of all, I don't believe anyone "earned" multi-million dollars. Some were lucky, most inherited it. Inheriting power instead of earning it is Aristocracy, not Democracy.
    Second, in a Democracy the majority rules. The majority has every right to take corrective actions, when a minority finds ways to accumulate more than 90% of all wealth. I believe in personal property, but I do not believe in Aristocracy and inherited privileges.

    --
    Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @09:30PM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday December 08 2015, @09:30PM (#273637) Homepage Journal

      1) Wealth is not cash. The rich have most of the cash because you keep giving it to them for other forms of wealth like that second television for the bedroom or spinning rims. Save/invest it instead of blowing it and you too can be rich one day.

      “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” -- Ben Franklin

      2) Never heard of the tyranny of the majority, have you? Bullshit statements like that is exactly why we live in a representative republic instead of a straight up democracy, the founders damned well knew it would be abused as soon as someone figured out they could vote themselves money and put in a few safeguards. Safeguards that people have become so overwhelmingly greedy that they've managed to get around.

      3) Once money is earned, it's mine to do with as I like. Including giving it to my children when I die. They didn't earn it but it was earned and you can go piss up a flagpole with your jealousy.

      4) The lucky argument... Aside from lottery winners, this is utter bullshit. Every last one of them who didn't inherit their wealth (inherited wealth is almost always gone within three generations) had to take the risk to be in the right position at the right time for luck to have any say in what they made. You never made a gerzillion dollars because you have the mind of a wage slave rather than a creator.

      5) Bottom line, if you don't dig that you have very little wealth, figure out a way to get more and do so. Or stop your bitching. Either of the two is fine. Stealing money from those who earned it is not.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:22PM

        by q.kontinuum (532) on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:22PM (#273662) Journal

        1) So you still do believe in the American Dream? Work hard, save your money, and you will be rich some day? Warren Buffet [youtube.com] and others disagree...

        2) I don't know much about the specifics of a representative republic. I just read a bit, and according to United States v. Cruikshank [wikipedia.org], every citizen is supposed to have equal rights. Currently the rich are lobbying for the laws in their favour. The playing filed is not level anymore. New businesses are often ruined by bigger businesses using ridiculous trivial SW patents and other means to suppress competition. The rich are evading taxes. which were agreed and codified in the law long before they became rich. Just stopping them from those forms of tax evasion would be enough to Pay for a Job for Every Unemployed American ...for two years ...at the nation's median salary of $36,000 ...for all 8 million unemployed [soylentnews.org].

        3) I'm not living in US, and while I'm far from being a millionaire, I do consider myself lucky enough and might lose a bit of my income with this scheme. I'm still all for it, provided everyone participates and e.g. my children will also benefit from the social peace and safety it brings; so much for jealousy. Also, the money was often not earned. Just take a look at the bonus the bankster from Goldman Sachs and others collected for the mayhem they created. If this is lawfully gained, the laws need to be changed and the bankster chained.

        4) Yeah, that's why all the startup-founder who sold their startup were so quick to found the next successful startups, and there are virtually no one-hit-wonders among the artists, because it's all talent. They know what they did and can therefore reproduce their success, right? Wrong. You need the mind of a creator, fair enough. Just like you need a lottery ticket to win lotto. But then you also need a ton of luck.

        5) I agree. Therefore the tax-evading thieves, the lobbyists who got politicians to do their bidding and to cash in on it, the bankster with their crooked schemes, the Disney with their paid lex disney, all those have to be deprived of their wealth immediately because it was stolen in the first place. Finally we seem to agree on something :-)

         

        --
        Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:08PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:08PM (#273687) Homepage Journal

          1) You've got that wrong. It's work hard, save your money, and you may be rich some day. Someone sufficiently valuing the product of your labor matters a hell of a lot, which is why you don't expect to get paid for digging a hole in your front yard and filling it back in every day.

          2) I agree. Laws should not be for sale. Not to the rich for money and not to the poor for votes.

          3) Good for you. The money was earned though. Making a bad deal with an executive does not mean the deal was not made and the company doesn't have to live up to its end of the deal. They should learn to make better deals if it bothers them. Or you should learn to sway your fellow shareholders if you have an interest in the company. If you've no interest in the company then there is no possible motive but envy to ascribe to your dislike for how the deals went.

          4) People who wait around on luck will almost never find it. You have to put yourself in a position to exploit any advantages that happen to crop up. That's not luck, that's good forward planning. Occasionally people do hit the metaphorical lottery but they are the exception not the norm.

          5) There's not a thing wrong with evading taxes, assuming you do it legally. That situation is the fault of the lawmakers for sucking at their job not those smart enough to legally avoid having to pay. As for buying laws, yes we do agree. Capitalism is a competitive sport and getting help from the referees is cheating, whether you're in the bottom of the rankings or the top.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:37AM

            by q.kontinuum (532) on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:37AM (#273813) Journal

            1) I don't think I got that wrong. As I said: It's like playing lottery, with odds getting worse year by year because the house gets to change the rules the way they want (SW patents, extention of copyright for existing material, etc.) and you don't get to play at a different lottery.

            2) So, what corrective action do you suggest when taking back the ill-gotten gains is not an option to you?

            3) I think you got that wrong. I'm getting a good sallery, is all. With tax changes to level all income a bit, I'd therefore probably lose a bit. I could do with less, I'd be willing to sacrifice some for a mor just society.

            4) Maybe I and the people I deal with on a regular base have a different mentality about that. I can understand and accept your literal-minded world-view and apprecciate it as a SW-developer as something close to my way of working. However, in my world-view, there are things like the spirit of a deal and the letter of a deal. If both consistently diverge strongly, people tend to not make any deals with that participant anymore.

            5) Law-makers are elected. Elections are based on trust of intent and promises (see point 4), it is fundamental to any brand of democracy or republic. If the law-makers receive money from one party afterwards and then pass laws that put those spending the money at an advantage (e.g. lex Disney, raising the value of their assets considerably by extending their usage-monopoly, or by leaving loop-holes for tax-evasion), they are not doing the job they were elected for.
            You were right that there is no direct democracy. The legislative is responsible to do what they were trusted to do, and its their business to protect the interests of the people. If they instead gave the treasures away to some minority, no matter if by accident or because they were bribed, there are two ways to look at it:
            5.1) They had the right to deprive the masses of their money and give it to the few by passing such laws. In that case they have the same right to re-distribute the money in the other direction.
            5.2) They did not have the right to shove the money in one direction. In that case the laws were illegal, they should be liable, and the outcome of the process needs to be reverted.
            In your words: The top end did pay the referee and the rule-maker dearly already, and got quite some help. The help may have been incompetence and not related to the bribes, but I think it's time to reset the score and start a new game.

            Now, I think the spirit of what I wanted to say is quite clear. I will follow this thread read-only, because I think there is no chance either of us will convince the other anyway.

            --
            Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 09 2015, @11:40AM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday December 09 2015, @11:40AM (#273892) Homepage Journal

              3) And therein lies the difference. I'm not. Society is a made up word used to keep those who excel down at the expense of those who are unable to. I owe "society" nothing, not fiscally and not morally, and that is exactly what it will get from me.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:26PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:26PM (#273664)

        More of the Thatcherite "There is no such thing as society" bullshit.

        Just try to make money without gov-t-provided infrastructure: roads, bridges, clean water systems, sewers, a postal system.
        ...then there's gov't-provided right of way for power lines, telephone lines, fiber, regulated spectrum.
        Add safe and effective medicines, food that isn't poison, cops to handle situations, courts to regulate behavior.

        It all needs to be paid for and the folks who benefit the most should be paying the most--not the least.

        ...and during the administration of that well-known PINKO, Dwight Eisenhower, the marginal tax rate on what would be billionaires today was 91 percent.
        Without that, you get Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers buying off the gov't.

        Somebody needs to take a trip to Somalia or Honduras and see how Libertarianism actually works out.

        -- gewg_

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:52PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:52PM (#273678) Homepage Journal

          I paid every cent asked of me for all those things you seem to think I'm taking for granted. I have every right to use them and owe nobody a thing for such. I am not, and will never be, in "society"'s debt for so much as a nickle.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:31PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:31PM (#273699)

            Fess up. You're really Joe "the plumber". Right?
            Y'know, the guy who wasn't actually a plumber; he was a low-grade apprentice who never completed the training program.
            He was never anywhere near the $quarter-million/annum that would have put him in the bracket he was bitching about.

            Your M.O. is very similar.

            Would you now like to discuss people who actually do draw massively on the system in the process of acquiring giant piles of dough but who squirrel away their wealth offshore without ponying up?

            ...or maybe about the folks who amass giant piles of cash by using public infrastructure then use that to bribe^W contribute to gov't officials?
            ...or maybe about the Reactionary judges who think that money is the same as speech?

            -- gewg_

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 09 2015, @12:02AM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday December 09 2015, @12:02AM (#273714) Homepage Journal

              Who I am doesn't matter unless you're trying to set up an ad hominem attack.

              As for the rest, nobody following the law with however much wealth they can legally acquire owes you or anyone else anything. Not a thin dime. They have not one iota of debt to you either financial or moral. You have done nothing for them to be in such a debt. Unless you have and you'd like to point it out? Did you build a road and not get paid for it? Did you ever have your hands on any of the infrastructure you claim they owe for and not get compensated for it?

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday December 08 2015, @09:58PM

      by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday December 08 2015, @09:58PM (#273653)

      First of all, I don't believe anyone "earned" multi-million dollars.

      So where did it come from? The money fairy? Unless you are talking about outright conmen like Bernard Ebbers , Bernie Madoff, etc. people with money got by convincing other people to give money they had to them in exchange for something they wanted even more. If they inherited it, somebody still earned it and go look, fortunes in America do not tend to hold up for too many generations.

      Second, in a Democracy the majority rules.

      Which is why everybody who designed America understood Democracy was an evil to be guarded against. Have you even read The Federalist Papers? Might I suggest #10 to your attention as especially impacting on your bad ideas on this subject?