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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, 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]"