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Basic Income is a subject that regularly surfaces in Soylent discussions, so here's a story about Finland's impending experiment with it:
Finland has become the first country in Europe to pay its unemployed citizens a basic monthly income, amounting to 560 euros ($587 US), in a unique social experiment which is hoped to cut government red tape, reduce poverty and boost employment.
Olli Kangas from the Finnish government agency KELA, which is responsible for the country's social benefits, said Monday that the two-year trial with the 2,000 randomly picked citizens who receive unemployment benefits kicked off Jan. 1.
Those chosen will receive 560 euros every month, with no reporting requirements on how they spend it. The amount will be deducted from any benefits they already receive.
The average private sector income in Finland is 3,500 euros per month, according to official data.
Also at The Guardian and swissinfo.ch.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by dublet on Wednesday January 04 2017, @11:58AM
It doesn't mean market forces won't work, it will just give everyone a minimal floor. It removes some pressures so that people who cannot afford to live otherwise, won't have to leave somewhere they don't want to to work a job they don't want to. It means people could move to somewhere outside urban areas to still get a residence.
There will be likely some effects in that jobs that are not terribly desirable (cleaner?) will have to start paying more to attract applicants. I suppose this is the one factor that is likely to drive up the cost of living. However, this discounts the drive to increasingly automate manufacturing and farming. With those ongoing trends, it's likely to see much greater levels of unemployment anyway, which would necessitate a radical proposal such as this.
It has the potential to level out (disrupt?) some housing markets if you remove those people who live somewhere not because they want to, but because they need to out of economic necessity.
Worth bearing in mind that the amount proposed in this experiment isn't exactly frivolous. The recipients are unlikely to be able to live lavishly on it.
It's been known for some time that giving the poorest people money (though benefits or tax rebates, whatever) stimulates the economy more than giving it to the rich by virtue of poor people being more likely to put it back into the economy, rather than simply accumulating wealth. So this could be a great economic stimulus.
We live in interesting times.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday January 04 2017, @02:04PM
Aside from poor people you just gave every small business startup the equivalent of their first $500/month or $1000/month or whatever it works out to in revenue. Double that for two founders or more than double for a family business.
Getting past those early small orders of magnitude are a lot harder than the latter. Getting that first $1K/month of revenue is really hard and with a basic income you just got it for free.
This also extends the runway on longer term investments.
Note this isn't just SV "wrap someone elses project in bootstrap.io and demand your entitled billion" BS startups, but ma and pa restaurants or some dude's corner car mechanic shop or the dude who got his master plumber license last week and all he's got is a truck and willingness to sweat.
I suspect the main result of a BI in the "mid to high IQ" cultural groups is almost everyone is gonna have a side "thing" going on. Sure I do software during the week and fine art level carpentry every Saturday in my wood shop. You want a modernized "43 folders" replica/lookalike in the Wooton desk style for a mere $5K each, well I'm your man I think making those are fun. Ironically $5K isn't very much when expressed as a per hour cost, for something that takes a man-year to make, but if BI is buying me food, and I'm having fun in my shop part time on Saturdays, well...
(Score: 2) by dublet on Wednesday January 04 2017, @06:02PM
That sounds like a good thing to me.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: -1, Troll) by khallow on Wednesday January 04 2017, @02:20PM
It's been known for some time that giving the poorest people money (though benefits or tax rebates, whatever) stimulates the economy more than giving it to the rich by virtue of poor people being more likely to put it back into the economy, rather than simply accumulating wealth. So this could be a great economic stimulus.
No. There are two problems with that assertion. First, we don't actually know that. Investments work on different time scales than mere spending does, but that doesn't mean it is less effective even as economic stimulus even though it takes longer to work. Second, why is economic stimulus supposed to be better than wealth accumulation?
The only non-garbage economic argument I've heard in favor of UBI is that a little extra money for poor people seems to go a long way to making their lives better. For example, there are studies that small gifts of money at critical points can help save people from bankruptcy.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Wednesday January 04 2017, @04:50PM
>why is economic stimulus supposed to be better than wealth accumulation?
Economic stimulus increases the flow of money, increasing wealth for many people - If I get an an extra dollar, which I spend on a haircut, the barber also gets an extra dollar of income, which he can spend on a meal, so that a restaurant gets an extra dollar of revenue, etc. Obviously there's losses at every step, but the gist is that for every dollar you give someone who's going to immediately spend it, you generate several dollars worth of economic activity. Exactly how much can vary dramatically, but I seem to recall that typical estimates put it between $2 and $10.
Money flows uphill in a capitalist economy - every dollar a poor man spends will eventually end up in a rich man's pocket, but the more step it takes on the way, the more total wealth it generates. And that doesn't just benefit the people along the way - it also benefits the rich man, because the more wealth there is in circulation, the more lucrative are the opportunities to profit.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 04 2017, @08:53PM
Bingo :) You're describing the concept known as "velocity of money." The reason this works is because money isn't backed by anything concrete any longer; it's a floating fiat currency, essentially certificates of debt, or what amounts to promises to provide goods and/or services.
When the money hits the rich, who have all the goods and services they need, they effectively take it out of circulation *while not reducing the money supply de jure.* So the supply remains inflated, while the actual purchasing power of the dollars in circulation drops, instead of rising as it should if the money the rich remove from the system were counted as deflationary loss.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 05 2017, @01:15AM
Allow me to introduce you to the concept of investment. Without investment, you would have to save up the entire cost for a home/car/small business before you ever got one. Maybe it's just me but that doesn't sound like money sitting idle. It in fact sounds like money being in motion and benefiting both the investor and the recipient.
Now allow me to inform you what the rich really do with their money: they invest it. Nobody with two brain cells to rub together sits on cash when there is inflation happening and the Fed does its best to make sure there always is some happening.
Now I know this won't convince you because your narrative relies on the rich being evil but it is the plain and simple truth.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 05 2017, @03:36AM
Hey Uzzard, I don't *have* a "narrative" aside from "fuck the lying liars and the lies they tell." You can stop projecting now; just because you personally are as faith-based as any frothing Theonomist ("muh fwee markkit!") does not mean your opponents are. Incidentally, you are one of said lying liars, and your entire post history proves it.
Now, onto the meat: Holding money offshore, evading taxes, and buying up legislation and legislators is NOT investment in any economic sense of the word. That shit is "investment" in approximately the same way pimping is sex education. Every last thing I said above still stands, and doubly so in the case of lobbying, because what we have THERE is regulatory capture. That is an example of evil people deliberately perverting the system for their own ends; "playing both ends against the middle" is much too polite a description.
And on that note: when you disingenuous little fucks diarrhea on about how regulation is the great Satan and point to regulatory capture as your evidence, you are committing the EXACT same fallacy you accuse "gun grabbers" of. Regulation doesn't, after all, kill business; it's corrupt PEOPLE who misuse it that do. See how that works?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 05 2017, @01:28PM
Oh, I agree on your first statement on regulatory capture. It's a shame you flipped the coin and came down with the exact opposite position for your proles. This is why I can never have any respect for a position you hold. Your ideals and ethics are subordinate to your emotions. You literally do not give a single damn about right and wrong as long as your team ends up better off. This makes you equally as corrupt and without morals as any lobbyist; come to think of it, that's precisely what you are.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 05 2017, @05:52PM
Jesus fucking Christ, Uzzard, I can't keep replacing the fuses in the ol' Irony-o-meter. The sheer level of selfish projection and hypocrisy in this post actually made a mental record scratch sound go off in my head. I literally went "*vzzzzzrrrpt?!*" reading that.
You seem to fancy yourself some kind of radical, and I believe you even used the word to describe yourself here. Unfortunately, you are completely and diametrically wrong on this too: the word you're looking for is "reactionary." Only someone with a grasp of history to rival, say, a slightly stunned oyster, would advocate the things you do and think they're in any way new or innovative.
The real festering colon-cancer-polyp cherry on this shit-sundae of a cake is when you, YOU, accuse ME of pure emotional reasoning. Listen and listen good, carrion breath: tone policing is not an argument. Being angry does not make someone wrong. If you don't like my tone, feel free to fuck off and never come back; you can be replaced. You can't even throw a proper tu quoque fallacy, you festering moron.
Stick to coding. It's the one thing you're any good at.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday January 05 2017, @10:57AM
Now allow me to inform you what the rich really do with their money: they invest it.
This is true, but the important question is where they invest it. The bit of 'free trade' that no one talks about so much is free movement of capital. If you have a lot of money to invest, then you're not in any way limited to investing it locally, and if you can get better returns investing it in companies in India or China then you will. This often doesn't benefit any of the people in the places where the rich made their money.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 05 2017, @01:19PM
I tend to agree. The problem is the very same people who want to steal from the rich are the ones touting globalism for the most part. Sanity is not in their color wheel.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 05 2017, @12:25AM
Economic stimulus increases the flow of money, increasing wealth for many people
No, increasing the flow of money can be inflationary, but it's not wealth producing.
If I get an an extra dollar, which I spend on a haircut, the barber also gets an extra dollar of income, which he can spend on a meal, so that a restaurant gets an extra dollar of revenue, etc.
The same for investments except that something of lasting value is created in the process.
Money flows uphill in a capitalist economy - every dollar a poor man spends will eventually end up in a rich man's pocket
Two problems with this. First, it's not true. Rich people employ a lot of people and the money flows downhill when they do. Second, rich people don't keep money in their pockets. In an inflationary world, that's a recipe for losing wealth. They primarily invest it, which again means the money is now available to be used for other purposes such as employing poor people.