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Unexpected News that nobody could have foreseen.
Since the beginning of last year, 2000 Finns are getting money from the government each month – and they are not expected to do anything in return. The participants, aged 25–58, are all unemployed, and were selected at random by Kela, Finland's social-security institution.
Instead of unemployment benefits, the participants now receive €560, or $690, per month, tax free. Should they find a job during the two-year trial, they still get to keep the money.
While the project is praised internationally for being at the cutting edge of social welfare, back in Finland, decision makers are quietly pulling the brakes, making a U-turn that is taking the project in a whole new direction.
and . . .
Entrepreneurs who have expressed support for UBI include Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, and Google's futurist and engineering director Ray Kurzweil.
These tech moguls recognize that UBI, as well as [combating] poverty, could also help solve the problem of increased robotization in the workforce, a problem they are very much part of creating.
and . . .
The existing unemployment benefits were so high, the Finnish government argued, and the system so rigid, an unemployed person might choose not to take a job as they would risk losing money by doing so – the higher your earnings, the lower your social benefits. The basic income was meant as an incentive for people to start working.
This article gives me serious doubts about whether a program like this can work and whether other countries will try it.
Previously: Finland: Universal Basic Income Planned for Later in 2016
Finland Launches Basic Income Experiment With Jan. 1 Cheques for Those in Pilot Project
(Score: 1, Troll) by Justin Case on Friday April 20 2018, @12:07AM (18 children)
I'm using my free money to buy a pickup-truck-load of popcorn and an easy chair.
Wait, what? Mabel, where's the check?
Oh, damn, the check didn't come yet. Now what am ah gonna do?
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Friday April 20 2018, @12:09AM (17 children)
Grow your own popcorn, Comrade Justin.
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(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Friday April 20 2018, @12:13AM (14 children)
I figured it out. The letter carrier told me he was going to start drawing basic income. So, no mail today, or tomorrow... or checks for anybody. Who could have seen that one coming?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday April 20 2018, @12:24AM (13 children)
You don't seem to be aware of the cost of living in Finland. $690 is survival mode: unpleasant.
The number is set low to encourage people to supplement that income ASAP with a job, without losing that income as a disincentive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @12:40AM (9 children)
And so in the future where automation has taken almost every job, I suppose everyone will just "survive"?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 20 2018, @12:43AM (2 children)
They will hunt and eat Amazon-built robots (Amazonk Prometheans).
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 20 2018, @01:53AM (1 child)
Robots is easy. Just kick em in the nuts.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Friday April 20 2018, @11:35AM
note to self: I've been found out, move reset button elsewhere.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @12:49AM
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday April 20 2018, @01:12AM
In a future where automation has taken most jobs, people of means will own robots.
And, really, people in developed countries at least have, and have, for decades. Ovens that regulate themselves replaced bakers, lights that turn themselves on and off replaced lamplighters, robotic horses under the hood (and other places) replaced a host of professions with the general mechanic. We eat meat sliced by machines, shipped by machines, tracked and sorted by machines, harvest by machines from the corpses of cattle that have been (mostly) raised and guarded by machines. You may quibble with how I used the word 'robots' but replace with 'automation' without changing the point. There has to be a transition from living off a job to living via ownership of automation, or yes, everyone left out of that will 'just survive' - or be used as pawns of some sort, perhaps serving as cannon fodder, or competing in the most cut-throat manners possible in order to get gigs in 'entertainment.'
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @07:03AM (3 children)
No. In the future when all the jobs are taken, everyone will be eating each other since there will not enough government money to cover even the basic survival mode checks. Which is what everyone saying UBI is so perfect fail to realize. If there are no jobs, or not enough jobs, paying into the government to fund the ubi, then wtf is the ubi suppose to do.
Right NOW in all the test scenarios, the ubi is being funded by normal tax dollars since everyone outside the program is still working and paying taxes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @01:01PM
If there is no UBI, what are the robots doing? If nobody has any income, then nobody can buy anything, which means there is no reason to have robots make anything.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @04:02PM
Not everyone who is paying taxes is earning the money by working. The simplest and most obvious case being property owners renting out their property.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday April 21 2018, @05:17AM
The obvious answer is to start taxing wealth. 1% per year should do it. Taxing only (or mainly) income was one of the biggest con jobs ever pulled on the middle and working classes.
And I don't mean Capital Gains tax either, that is just another form of income. I mean, if you own $10Billion worth of assets, you pay $100Million tax. That's the price of society respecting and protecting your ownership of those assets.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday April 20 2018, @04:12AM (1 child)
Oh, I dunno, for $690 you can buy a ton of Dragster 3000, that's both food and heating all in one. Then all you need is a roof over your head.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday April 20 2018, @04:15AM
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday April 20 2018, @05:16AM
Well, any of them could just spend $10 for a 3 hour bus to St. Petersburg, Russia where it is 150% of average salary and just enjoy easy free life with a young blond girl or boy.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday April 20 2018, @01:04AM (1 child)
Got a problem with this. I dont know if I should point out a simple
>communism
>food
Or that anything you grow belongs to the state and any grains left over/missed by the threshers also elongs to the state so don't be a thief
Or that kulak undermine the state and must be destroyed
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 20 2018, @01:47AM
I put 0 thot into dat 1
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