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
Related Stories
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 Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:48AM
Will Linus return to Linux Land? Nah. Linus isn't a smelly socialist hippie. Linus loves the money.
Smelly neckbeard migration to Linux Land? Nah. Can't get off fat asses, and who will pay for plane tickets?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by dublet on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:01PM
It's very simple, requiring only a minimal amount of administration. It guarantees a living standard for everyone and those who earn more will pay it back in taxes anyway. As automation will take jobs away from people it might just free up people to pursue other interests and be productive members of society.
There was this nice quote that says "benefits believe the worst in people, basic income believes the best in people".
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:18PM
that would replace existing benefits
requiring only a minimal amount of administration
This is why we can't have it in the USA. The purpose of the welfare system is to provide middle class jobs to cat ladies to administer the program, sucking 9 out of 10 dollars out before they reach the poor people. Imagine how butthurt all those life long Democrat voters would be if we wiped out their meaningless jobs...
The alternative would be to theoretically stamp a check for everyone but keep the deadweight employees, which would explode the cost of the program and screw up its implementation.
What might work, much like health care, is we have basic income and socialized medicine but only for 65+, so every year drop the eligibility age by 5 years or some predetermined rate until it hits zero. Optimistically the cat ladiest who stand in the way of progress would all have died off or retired by the time they're no longer needed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by rondon on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:46PM
I can get behind your gradual plan, and I think your insight about deadweight employees (phrased in humorous cat lady terms though it is) is actually spot on. It is way easier to not replace a retired/expired employee than it is to fire someone. This is true even in private enterprise.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:27PM
You are very misinformed about the administrative costs of welfare programs: As an example SNAP (food stamps) spends at most 5% [politifact.com] of its funds on anything other than paying for people's groceries. Social Security overhead [ssa.gov] is similarly quite low.
As far as what the purpose is, it depends a lot on which state you're in: In some states, the goal is to do exactly what it's supposed to do, namely keep poor people alive when things go wrong for them. In other states, the goal is to force poor people to take drug tests and be required to take *any* job that they can get, regardless of whether that job is something they can do. In other states, the goal is to have so much ridiculous bureaucracy that people who need help don't get it from the government but instead rely on "faith-based" charity and the like. But the important thing to realize is that many welfare systems in the US are designed to not function correctly.
As far as Finland's proposal goes, yes, it absolutely is socialism. But in my view, that's not a problem, because socialism is an economic system, not a political system. If the people of Finland decide they don't want socialism anymore, they can simply vote in a new government that dismantles it. And seeing as how the Finns are doing much better by most measurements (GDP per capita, life expectancy, educational attainment, etc) than, say, the US, I'd be hard-pressed to argue that they're doing it wrong.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:58PM
And seeing as how the Finns are doing much better by most measurements
There's no dispute of that on either side, which is weird, because there's a lot of hand waving about how Finland will be ruined, as if we should care, as if hand waving proves anything, yet the actual numbers on the ground imply its a lot more likely Finland will be bailing us out rather than the other way around, aside from the size disparity.
I think the opposition tactics at this time are a pretty strong indication everyone on all sides thinks the Finland experiment is highly likely to work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:07PM
Actual Socialism would determine the total amount of work required to be done in the area and divide that equally among the workers available and would have those workers deciding what to do with the profits (with each worker having an equal vote).
If you still have a system where some workers are without work and/or a living wage because of greed [wikimedia.org] or poor planning, you have Capitalism.
If you still have a system where there are idle rich and unequal distribution of wealth, you have Capitalism.
...and Prof. Richard Wolff, a Socialist, does not like the Basic Income notion.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday December 08 2015, @09:41PM
If you still have a system where some workers are without work and/or a living wage because of greed or poor planning, you have Capitalism.
Actually it is you who are totally ignorant as to Capitalism.
In an unfettered market, it is pretty much impossible to have unemployment. This is Econ 101 stuff. The wage rate is the clearing point on the supply and demand curve where all willing sellers of labor find a willing buyer. Unemployment is a feature of government interventionism, government meddling with the unfettered free market, this concept is universally agreed on by all economists. It truly is Econ 101 stuff and you are entirely ignorant of it. Attempts to Handwave reality away with undefinable slogans like 'a living wage' are mere sophistry.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 08 2015, @10:26PM
So let's say there's no minimum wage, none of that OSHA/MSHA nonsense, no Affordable Care Act, and so forth. Heck, let's get rid of child labor laws too. Any other labor regulation you'd like.
Well, in 1900, in the US, those were precisely the conditions in place. So, according to your argument, unemployment should have been at or near 0%. But in fact, it was about 10.0% [ssa.gov].
Attempts to Handwave reality away with undefinable slogans like 'Econ 101 stuff' are mere sophistry.
Oh, and "Unemployment is a feature of government interventionism, government meddling with the unfettered free market, this concept is universally agreed on by all economists." is decidedly not true, unless you think Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, Thomas Piketty, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Ben Bernanke, and Janet Yellen (to name just a few who would disagree with you there) are not economists.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday December 09 2015, @02:03AM
Well, in 1900, in the US, those were precisely the conditions in place.
Why do say these things when you know I will only hurt you. :)
Let us examine this claim, shall we? There are no truly reliable records, according to the U.S. government at least. BLS has nothing and I found some suggestions at ssa.gov which is probably your source since it mentions the 10.0 @1900 data point. Keep reading. They speak of unemployment in various trades and specifically exclude agriculture. What is this? A trade has no unemployment rate, a man laid off as a dockworker can sign on as a crewman on a ship, go be a lumberjack, whatever it takes. This is the unfettered free market, you assure me! But history does not agree. Go ask Google about the history of the organized labor movement and your confusion will be resolved. Labor unions raise the rate of labor and cause unemployment as a by-product. Of course unions are semi-government entities in that they are allowed partial (and usually unofficial) access to the State's monopoly on the use of violence; there ain't be a union yet that didn't crack heads. Modern unions are fully State sanctioned monopolies giving them direct access to the State's force.
this concept is universally agreed on by all economists." is decidedly not true,
Show me somebody who disputes the law of supply and demand and I will show you a politician, not an economist. Most of the people you mention would use weasel words like "structural unemployment" but when you look it up it is fancy language for unemployment caused by things like unions, minimum wage laws and other interference in the market. They know the price of their policy proposals and think it worth it. But at least they know there is a price, you seem to still be ignorant of those basics of your so called economic policy choices. Of course some of the people you cite do not believe in the free market as a concept and can scarcely even be put into the economics category. Communism is not an economic theory, it is a political/religious idea. Marx has about as much relevance to current economic thought as Freud on modern theories of the mind.
Your homework assignment. "The impossibility of economic calculation under socialism." Search that phrase and stretch your mind. The Wikipedia article is OK but the original paper is also available. The Internet is truly a marvel.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 09 2015, @04:40PM
OK, how about going further back, to a time when labor unions were illegal? Say, the 1830's. According to you, without labor regulations, and without legal state-sanctioned labor unions, unemployment must be 0%. But in fact, in 1837, while we don't have exact figures, we do have all sorts of historical evidence that unemployment quickly became rampant after a banking crisis. The same sort of thing had happened in 1819. The onus is on you to explain that obvious contradiction - no labor law, no labor unions, what's causing the unemployment?
That's a classic No True Scotsman [logicalfallacies.info] argument: You said "all economists say X", I provided a list of economists, many of them quite prominent in the field, that dispute that, and you responded by declaring that by definition none of those people can be economists.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:28PM
I'm saying you don't actually know what some of those people actually believe. Other than the hardcore Marxians they do believe in economic basics like supply and demand, structural unemployment, etc. They just also believe in interventionism, mostly for reasons best described as religious since it isn't a position most reason themselves into but accept as articles of faith in the Government as God. Helicopter Ben and Yellen may be dead wrong about just about everything and acting more as politicians in their positions at the Fed but they have at least studied economics.
As for the others, it is not a "No True Scotsman" fallacy to say anyone who rejects the Law of Supply and Demand is not an economist. It is definitional, reject that and you need a different term for your new philosophy to avoid confusion. Some things are so basic that it is a requirement. You believe in the ideas of the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, etc or you are not an American. You say the magic words "There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is His Prophet." and mean it and you are Muslim, and if not there is no amount of weaseling that can convince anyone that you are one. Good luck being taken serious as a nuclear physicist if you dispute E=MC^2.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:01PM
That's not the way that works, actually. I'm an American in a legal sense because I was born to at least one parent (actually, in my case, both parents) who were American citizens, and also because I was born within the United States. And in a social and practical sense, I'm an American because all of my permanent residences have been within the United States. But I don't believe in the ideas of the Pledge of Allegiance, both because I think my allegiance should be to the country and its people rather than its flag, and because the bit about "under God" is thoroughly against one of the fundamental values of that country.
Actually, that's not the only thing you have to do to be a Muslim. Many of the splits within Islam come from the fact that various leaders disagree on the specifics of what you have to do to be a Muslim (e.g. ISIS declares that the Iranian ayatollahs aren't Muslims and vice versa), but they do all agree that there are 4 other steps you have to take as a Muslim - charity, prayer, observing Ramadan, and the Hajj if you can somehow manage it.
In 2011, there was an observation in a serious experiment that suggested that special relativity might be wrong. Subsequent retests determined that there was an error in the experiment, and the observation was not repeated successfully, but it's not like the people who made that observation were kicked out of the physics departments they worked for. Furthermore, in science, it's not about belief (like it is with Islam or political allegiance) but about standing up to testing: Physicists support special relativity because it has so far stood up against experiment, not because they think Einstein is an inviolable source of truth.
When we go to apply your definition argument to economics, you basically are arguing that the laws of supply and demand cannot be questioned. Which is a strange notion, since economists such as Thorstein Veblen have found cases where those laws don't hold true in reality, which means those laws aren't laws after all. And behavioral economists have repeatedly demonstrated that actual humans don't even come close to making perfectly rational economic decisions, a pre-condition for those laws. Why would you demand adherence to "laws" that are demonstrably wrong or at least incomplete in order to accept somebody as studying the field where those "laws" were first put forward?
To apply your argument about economics to physics, you are basically arguing that Einstein was not a physicist because he disagreed with Isaac Newton's laws of momentum and force, because up until Einstein Newton's laws were considered basic and inviolable rules.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday December 09 2015, @03:52AM
You aren't talking about reality.
Why don't you expand your horizons [wordpress.com] a bit? I know you won't, but at least you can't honestly say that no one can refute your arguments.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:18AM
Defective premise warning. They accept as given that the government must meddle and then circle around and argue a free market does not currently exist (which is true) and cannot ever exist (which is not).
Point #2 does have virtue though. The current practice of publicly traded corporations is defective in that it allows shareholders to freely reap profits while avoiding all responsibility for wrongdoing. This problem isn't unknown in serious economic thought.
#3 though is a horrible muddled mess. Misses himself discusses the difference in wage rates between unlimited trade and unlimited trade AND unlimited mobility of labor. Yea, unlimited immigration is going to suck hard. Of course the other important difference between wages in different countries is accumulated capital and the effect that has on the productivity of labor.
#6 argues the virtues of inflation. No. Here I stop and just skim, the stupid burns. Natural inflation and deflation which can occur even in a real free market with solid metallic monetary units (i.e. PMs) are tolerable. They are by their nature temporary adjustments, a side effect of money itself being just another commodity subject to supply and demand. Intentional inflation via money printing is always an evil.
#9 has some merit but of course as presented is just commie agiprop
#12 says governments can pick winners and losers in the economy better than the invisible hand. What is it with you guys and the fetish of government competence, a claim utterly unsupported by any tangible evidence anywhere, anywhen. Your philosophy actually requires omniscience by the State, but I'll take a good verifiable claim of merely above average competence sustained long enough to rule out blind chance.
#14 is industrial stupid and envy. If you guys really believe that why don't rich lefty types run their own companies this way? Screw middle management! Pay em crap! Spread the wealth around and show everybody how it should be done. I won't wait to see it, because it won't happen.
#15 is ignorant. We capitalists recommend stable rule of law and property rights as the first step to economic development in the third world. We take it as a given that the people there will engage in entrepreneurial activity if that prerequisite is met, they will accumulate capital and begin the march up and carry their countymen with them.
#16 is exactly wrong. We aren't smart enough to understand the market well enough to meddle. No planner CAN be knowledgable enough. Information Theory has now utterly ended this argument.
#17 is almost sefl evidently true. Rule of law and stable money are far more important in getting economic development kick started. Education beyond teaching the ruling class the importance of limiting their activity to those areas and not killing the goose before it can start laying golden eggs is the most important thing.
#19 is true. Since the author realizes and even makes a point of noting we do NOT live in a free economy it is kinda lame to have the rest of the document, which argues against the current order and uses current events to condemn a free economy.... ah well, intellectual consistency has never been the mark of the progressive.
The summary is full of lulz. "My criticism is of free market capitialism, and not all kinds of capitalism." OMG Give me the effing roll of duct tape so my brains will kinda stay in the same spot when my head splodes reading that. Weapons grade stuff you found there.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:10AM
See. I told you so.
Your inherent biases limit your ability to process differing viewpoints.
How sad for you.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:22AM
And no, I'm not going to respond point by point to your sloppy and selective (and if I do say so myself, ineffective) rebuttal of the source material.
You are a fanatic [reference.com] (although I think this definition [brainyquote.com] applies to you as well), so it's extremely difficult to have reasoned discourse with you, unless I agree with your dotty ideas.
As such, please carry on with your myopic and self-destructive world view.
I won't try to get involved with you and your love affair with the propaganda you've internalized. Toodles!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @02:48PM
Nonsense. It would be true if production of workers were done by worker factories with the intent to sell/rent them to companies. Such worker factories would then just ramp down worker production if less workers are needed. But workers are created by people without asking whether the job market is in need of more workers. Indeed, they don't think of it as producing workers, they think of it as having children.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:29PM
See, the problem is you just told the entire nation "you do not have to work if you're okay getting by on this much or can scam some more under the table". How many do you think will take the offer? How many will continue to work while lazy fucks get to mooch off of their sweat? I know I wouldn't. I'd take the basic income and go fishing every day. Personally, I see this as step one in How to Impoverish an Entire Nation.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zugedneb on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:43PM
Eventually we will still end up there: all will not need to work to provide for all.
When is that eventually, though?
Also, I would still work my ass off...
More free software, more free and open engineering - and for the "greater good", instead of escapism.
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:29PM
This assumes that new and exciting things will never be created and need people to work to produce them. Progress creates more work not less.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:44PM
Only a minority of people work on new and exciting things. The majority of people work on old and boring things that will eventually be rationalized away. And actually, if those people do not need to get boring, badly paid jobs just to survive, maybe they can use the time to learn something that enables them to work on new and exciting things.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:25PM
The majority of people work on old and boring things that will eventually be rationalized away.
Explain otherwise normal people none the less putting on their peasant hat and growing a garden. They'll always be social signalling BS like that. When the weather is foul and I'm stuck doing peasant work on my suburban estate I complain to myself about this, why can't all these bastards just have a natural prairie instead of trying to emulate a crap middle class imitation of a feudal English manorhouse? Bastards. Then I go back to mowing the lawn and clearing brush.
Another example of weird seemingly pointless social signalling is in neocon circles they have a nearly sexual fetish for small retail business, a couple hundred bucks a month guaranteed will go right into renting that quaint little store front for our froo froo antique store. "Job Creatuhs! Job Creatuhs!" Or our filthy family restaurant will be full of people because no one can microwave reheat processed glop from Sams Club quite like we can. Neocons have a huge fetish over it and as long as running a small business gets them immense social capital they'll keep on losing money every year. From an economic standpoint having a hundred people in a city center LARP that they're real retailers is strangely useful and moderately entertaining to the tourists. It keeps them out of trouble and off the streets anyway.
I bet plenty of tech type people here would live in eternal startup land, kinda like every unemployed loser in California has been a wanna be actor for the last century or so, every goof who can string two lines of code together but isn't good enough to actually get hired will be "running his own startup". You get a lot of social capital for being a startup founder, well, at least until everyone else figures out that everyone knows every loser can be a tech startup founder.
boring, badly paid jobs
Market pressure will eliminate boring just like financial markets eliminate lack of capital. Come on, be honest, every guy's got a little kid in him who would like to F around with heavy construction equipment. Due to labor market pressure there won't be obnoxious overseers and crap working conditions either. If you could basically F around with a bulldozer all day with some friends having fun while incidentally digging a ditch, they'll be people willing to do it. Heck, people might pay to access a nice enough playground. Its the minecraft effect. People will build insane stuff in minecraft even if you mildly stand in their way or slightly make fun of them. You can whip slaves to build a pyramid, or you can have a fun working environment and get out of the way of the people who make a pyramid in minecraft for the sheer fun of it. Here's an interesting thought experiment. Making AI to replace people is really hard... Isn't it easier to make an AI that is just smart enough to prevent drunk people from killing each other? So me and the boys from work will head down to the gravel pit with a couple six packs and the AI will make sure we call get home drunkenly safe in a (robot-)cab and maybe we fill some rail cars with gravel and maybe we just dig trenches to spell out obscene words and pix for passengers of airplanes to look at and wonder who let those drunken idiots play with construction equipment...
Its kinda like painting. You can torture an illegal alien with beatings, non-OSHA gear, and low pay to paint a room, but the world also has people that you just can't stop from painting fine art, its gotta be expressed by them or they burst, you don't even have to whip them (unless they like that kind of thing).
You have to pay people a lot of money or threaten them with prison if you want to treat them like soldiers aka treat them poorly. Yet, the boring sequel game industry shows people will pay boatloads of money to run around with guns and shoot anything that moves. How interesting is that, that merely changing management style converts a workplace of mercenaries and convicts into freely paying donors and volunteers...
And from the powerful bird:
Progress creates more work not less.
Progress always eliminates work. Its just that for a century, temporarily, we've been explosively ramping up energy consumption. Mostly by the one time gift of burning fossil fuels. And increasing energy consumption expands work faster than progress can destroy it. So far, for about a century. And that's ending.
Now what happens to work when energy consumption declines because the cheap stuff has all been burnt, and progress destroys another bazillion jobs on top of it? Basically the civilized world looks like the 3rd world, best case scenario, while the 3rd world basically starves and dies. Or fights till we're all dead, perhaps on both sides. Or immigrate till we all starve equally?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:49PM
Many people would still work, after all they still want their cars and houses and smartphones and cable TV while this "basic" income would only really pay the rent on a tiny apartment and basic groceries.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:04PM
Initially it might be small and only pay for a craphole. But it is a certainty, and everyone who voted to enact this is counting on it, that every future election will turn on exactly one issue. Resolved: Basic Income is too low and should be increased. A few politicians will take the con view and prosper due to local conditions but the vast majority will take and win on the pro side.
The whole scheme is wicked and based on an evil idea. Thou Shalt Not Covet. There is a reason those old fractious, covetous Jews put variations of that as three of the Ten Commandments along with Thou Shalt Not Steal. And every other moral code has similar injunctions even if they don't hammer it quite as hard. It leads to very bad things.
There is no money fairy. There is no 'stuff' fairy either. The government doesn't have any free stuff to hand out, all it can do is steal it from the politically weak and give it to the strong. As soon as the poor discover they have the political strength to use the government as a tool to indulge their envy of the productive and wealthy few the whole democracy idea dies. Exactly like it has every time in history. Our Founders tols us that the government (and by extension every Western democracy/republic that copied) they gave us was designed for a religious and moral people and would serve no other. This is precisely why.
(Score: 1) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 09 2015, @12:11AM
And theocracy worked SO well for us in the past, didn't it? Working reeeeeal nice for all those hellholes in the Middle East, huh?
Don't be stupid, Morris. You're as much of a fundamentalist--blinkered, implacable, unreasonable--as any of the mullahs, when your economic shibboleths are at stake.
All of this is assuming that scarcity will always be the rule all the time everywhere forever. We are well past the technological point where the very basics of life (water, basic housing, basic food) should be in any way "scarce." It boggles my mind how pseudo-Calvinistic zealots like you would rather see hundreds of thousands perish than see your ideals tainted.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Wednesday December 09 2015, @01:32AM
All of this is assuming that scarcity will always be the rule all the time everywhere forever.
If food someday ceases to be a 'economic good', i.e. traded for money, then that will be an entirely different situation. But today if you can't stretch forth your hand and call a lasagna out of the Internet or a replicator. If you want one Stouffer's/Nestle has to trade with a lot of people to get the ingredients, hire a lot of people to run a state of the art, safe, clean manufacturing (Ok, I hope the one I have spinning in the microwave was made in such a place...) facility, transport it to Walmart, etc. And they all have to pay taxes. None of those people love you, they certainly don't love me, none do it for the lulz, they all want to get paid; because they want things too. That lasagna I'm about to chow down on is most certainly an 'economic good.' If I am to eat it, you can't so we must all bid on it, resulting in establishing a price. So long as the price we consumers are willing to pay exceeds Nestle's cost to make and deliver them they will keep making them. Yum. This is the division of labor, supply and demand; This. Is. Economics. No government intervention or socialist bullcrap can do anything other than make it harder for me to get my lasagna, and for others to simply be forced to go hungry tonight because you dumb fucks raised the price too high for them.
It boggles my mind how pseudo-Calvinistic zealots like you would rather see hundreds of thousands perish than see your ideals tainted.
Yet it is Capitalism that feeds the hungry and socialism that fills mass graves. Your so-called good intentions kill, while my greed feeds the hungry billions. Every single time each system is tried we see the exact same result. The formula for prosperity is dead simple. Establish the Rule of Law, keep the money sound enough to make economic calculation practical, enough public safety to allow longterm investment and capital formation without fear of roving bands of warlords, freedom to start a business and keep the profits along with suffering the losses. Do those fairly simple things and prosperity results. Every time.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:24AM
Ah, and here you have hit on the problem: loss is socialized. Cronyism. We do NOT have capitalism in this nation. And something I wish to hell you people would wrap your minds around: we never will.
Got it? Humans do not work that way. Purity of ideals is nice and all, but humans are imperfect. Power goes to power, money to money, privilege to privilege. Without some kind of countermeasure, laissez-faire inevitably results in feudalism. The things you decry as socialism are all that's holding us back from a dystopian nightmare. And so long as you speak out against them, I challenge you to quit driving on the interstate, quit drinking treated water, wave the snowplows away from your street, and so forth. What Obama meant by "you didn't build that" is that no man (or woman!) is an island.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Informative) by eapache on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:52PM
I'd take the basic income and go fishing every day
Except that's exactly what the experiments have shown *didn't* happen. In Dauphin some work time was lost primarily by people going back to school (presumably in order to work more productive jobs later) and in Uganda working hours actually went up.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:28PM
Experiments? Pfft... I'd be fishing. Bet on it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:40PM
> Experiments? Pfft... I'd be fishing. Bet on it.
I think that is the essence of the conservative mindset: "Everyone else is exactly like me and I am a total loser so everyone else is too."
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:46PM
Who said I was a conservative, slappy? I'm a proper, oldschool meaning of the word, liberal. You know, the word rooted in Liberty. As in the liberty to do as you like with the products of your labor instead of having it taken from you by big brother for those too lazy or inept to earn their own.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @09:41PM
A Conservative believes that things are pretty much OK the way they are.
He believes in fair play and slow, measured change if the status quo is to be altered.
A huge percentage of those who call themselves "conservative" are actually of the radical Right (Authoritarian Plantation Capitalists); the term for that is Reactionary.
A Progressive believes things are currently messed up and wants change to come faster.
A Liberal believes in these kind of giveaway programs being discussed here in order to keep the masses somewhat contented.
Liberals are Right-Center.
People who are of the you're-on-your-own, pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps variety are Right-leaning Libertarians.
A word often used to describe them is Randian. [xkcd.com]
The tooltip is the nugget there.
If you don't have tooltips enabled (nothing pops up when you hover over the image), check out the Properties for the image.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:14PM
Is, not was. Hence my qualification. Yes, today I fall somewhere in the libertarian camp. Any time before Bush Jr., I would have been considered a liberal socially and any time before FDR's socialist ass I would have been considered a liberal fiscally.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by SanityCheck on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:02PM
Maybe Finns are just different people than you, time will tell.
Personally I would still work, or open my own company staffed initially with like-minded individuals also on Basic Income, so our initial overhead would be very low since I don't have to cover their salaries.
Scandinavian countries have been showing us different way of doing things for decades. It's very refreshing. If the culture wasn't so alien (I don't think I can survive another culture shock in my life), the weather was nicer, and my family and friends weren't all in the U.S. I might move their and try it their way.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday December 08 2015, @04:17PM
Lots of people make lots of money off sport fishermen. The Buzzard is trying to be funny but going fishing would be economically useful. I hope he takes nice long fishing trips at expensive resorts in rented boats with hired guides and pays his state DNR fishing license and buys all kinds of gadgets and gear.
Right now there's probably some dude doing something he hates thinking "I'd hand tie artificial fly lures all day if I thought I could make ends meet" and with a BI that's exactly what he'll do and then Buzzard will boost the economy by purchasing his hand tied fishing lures.
The guy at Gander Mountain who sells line, hooks, and boats loves Buzzards idea, the guy who delivers fishing bait to the rural convenience store love Buzzard's idea, heck yeah Buzzard go fishing, that's great for the economy.
Now I feel like going fishing. This is as bad as when we talk about food then I get hungry. Start with renewing my license, I guess...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:28PM
No way man, I got my own boat last month. Witness my dance of joy! No, it does not either look like the Snoopy dance.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday December 09 2015, @01:17AM
Last time I went to a Subway, it was a man behind the counter.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 09 2015, @01:42AM
No worries, I won't judge you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by TobascoKid on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:39PM
I think the problem with the experiments is that they don't really model an entire nation getting a basic income. That it's an experiment is part of the problem - no one is going to jack their job in because they know the experiment is going to end at some point and the free money will disappear. I'm also not sure that a single small town or a small random group of unemployed people is all that representative of an entire nation.
No one will really know if BI can work until some country pulls the trigger and a few decades have passed. I have a feeling that Finland would be a terrible country to pull the trigger on it's own (it's not in full control of either its welfare policy or its currency, and I think a country would need full control of both for BI to have a hope of working) and I don't see an EU/EZ basic income happening anytime soon.
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Tuesday December 08 2015, @12:57PM
So how much money do you get paid for working on soylentnews?
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:27PM
Six times as much as the editors.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by theluggage on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:36PM
How many will continue to work while lazy fucks get to mooch off of their sweat?
Thing is, the "lazy fucks" are the people who will probably work out how to mooch off the existing benefits system anyway, and any attempt to clamp down on them tends to miss the moochers (who have the time and energy to game the system) and cause hardship for the genuinely deserving (who feel embarrassed about claiming benefits, do silly things like filling out application forms honestly or don't have the stamina to appeal every decision). Then, your benefits system gets more and more complex as you try to target the deserving with lots of specific benefits, and you end up with "poverty traps" where going back to work costs people more in lost benefits than they gain in wages.
The point of the Finish system seems to be to take a step back, a deep breath and look realistically at the modest cost of subsidising a small minority of moochers vs. the administrative cost and unintended consequences of targeted benefits.
Plus, the elephant in the room is that automation and global outsourcing are making full employment more and more of a pipe-dream than it was before. Sooner or later the choice will come between something like the Finish system, or opening up the, er, "special re-training centres."
Anyway, the problem with western benefits systems at the moment is generally not the cost of the small number of 'long-term unemployed' people but the huge hidden subsidies that governments are, indirectly, giving to industry by handing out benefits to full-time workers so their employers can get away with not paying them enough to live. I wouldn't like to call how the Finish system will work with that - it could mean employers have to pay more to tempt people to work, or it could just be another route for the subsidy. It all depends on finessing the rate at which the tax system claws back the stipend.
Plus, no, I wouldn't chuck it all in and go fishing for 800 euro a month. That's a bit over half the monthly minimum wage in the UK [google.co.uk] - so you'd have to be pretty sure of catching enough fish to feed yourself and get used to digging your own bait.
Of course, we need to fix the tax system so a bigger share of that "sweat" is getting paid by people on 7-digit salaries plus a $2M bonus for successfully blaming your screw-ups on someone else.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:45PM
Yes, it's totally fair to soak the rich just because we can. It's not at all theft if you get the government to do the armed robbery for you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:38PM
Yes, it's totally fair to let the poor compete for far to few jobs while the rich use the worlds resources and distribute/use them as they please, just because they can. It's not at all theft if you get the government to do the armed protection for you.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:40PM
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.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday December 08 2015, @07:28PM
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:40PM
Try to realize that the rich are just the top of their own little pyramid scheme. Takes money to make money, if you have enough of it you just get people to do the work and you get the payout. Trump is evidence that even a screwup with lots of money can still be successful.
You can't eat money, so you need to have a functioning society where people can provide for each other. This pyramid system we have is causing anxiety and anger everywhere, and it is breaking down as the base of the pyramid keeps getting squeezed. But you drank the koolaid along with many others so its gonna be a miserable time sorting it all out.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:38PM
Get a clue. This is one of the richest nations in the world. Our poor are better off than 90% of the rest of the world. All your little rant boils down to is "Mommy, Timmy got three cookies and I only got two!" Yeah, greed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Friday December 11 2015, @03:18AM
It's more like: "Mommy I only got 2 cookies and Timmy got the cookie factory, 2 yachts, and an island."
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 11 2015, @02:14PM
Scope is irrelevant. Envy and greed are envy and greed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @06:30PM
Scope is entirely relevant. You can't have a fair and just society with that kind of wealth disparity.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 13 2015, @06:49PM
You can't have a fair and just society if you're constantly stealing from those who would better themselves. Wealth disparity only makes a difference to those driven by envy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @02:41AM
Money is power. People with excessive amounts of money consequently have excessive amounts of power, you can't have a fair society when the rich are able to buy the laws they want. Some wealth disparity is fine, and likely necessary (at least for as long as we need money), however the degree of wealth disparity we have today is just obscene. Is it really fair to have millions live on the breadline just so a few can have even more multiples of what they are able to spend in a lifetime?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 14 2015, @11:24AM
Absolutely as long as they came by it honestly. Being poor is almost always a deliberate if foolish choice and people should not be protected from the consequences of their foolishness. Now if you want to institute schooling standards to teach them simple things like living within a budget, saving money, acquiring skills that will make them money, and making wise investments, I'm all for that; our public school systems are all but useless in training you for later life right now.
I'm no bigger a fan than you of people buying laws but that can be fixed much easier than poverty.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by TobascoKid on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:54PM
Of course, we need to fix the tax system so a bigger share of that "sweat" is getting paid by people on 7-digit salaries plus a $2M bonus for successfully blaming your screw-ups on someone else.
At which point the 7-digit salary people leave, taking their companies with them. There's always some semi-developed nation that will be more than happy to have the world's wealthy move their businesses into special tax zones, complete with high skilled though low paid labour.
I really think the solution requires something other than wealth transfer (beyond maybe an initial transfer to build up a sovereign wealth fund).
(Score: 3, Informative) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:22PM
I had a colleague who earned not too far away from the 6 digits and went back to Finland, getting less income and increased cost of living, because he appreciated the social peace caused by better social benefits for the poor and more homogeneous income distribution. He's not a natural born Finnish guy, nor German, was an immigrant in both countries. For me I could imagine the same. Also, I think the point the article makes is that there are good reasons to expect overall productivity to increase with this concept.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:27PM
Yeah well those 7 digit salary people prepared to take their ball and play elsewhere tend to be (a) avoiding their personal taxation responsibilities (b) running companies that avoid their taxes or even claim corporate welfare and (c) underpaying their employees to the point where those employees are actually a drain on the economy.
Let them go live in Elbonia, they aren't contributing anything positive here. Any hole left in the economy will soon be filled by smaller, more ethical businesses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:49PM
The rest of the world is catching up and there won't always be the third world country to exploit. Also, a lot of modern work now requires more education and skills which the average third worlder won't have. Once they DO have the skills it doesn't take long for them to "correct" the system. Ugh, the apologist comments rationalizing greed and theft are almost worse since they try and drive out any resistance.
(Score: 1) by TobascoKid on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:00PM
The rest of the world is catching up and there won't always be the third world country to exploit.
The exploitation will then move to de-industrialized first world nations clawing at anything to get a working economy again.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:58PM
And with Europe's love for importing the islamic, a meal ticket. Plenty of time to sit at the local terrorist center (mosque) and become radicalized. Then you turn against your meal ticket provider because you have nothing better to do thanks to your religion of violence, intolerance, oppression and ignorance. Europe thinks it's some bastion of progressive thinking when in reality they are committing cultural suicide. In 100 years Europe will be a shell of its former self. The vibrant and individual peoples and cultures of each country will simply be part of a history forgotten.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dublet on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:58PM
I think that says more about you and your attitude than it does about society. If you want to go fishing, fine go fishing. Evidence consistently shows that people want to contribute to society and they far outweigh those who want to "scam" or "mooch".
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:43PM
[Citation Needed] because I have never heard a single credible study anything remotely like that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:04PM
Well it is good to run a small experiment surely? Finland has a population of 5 million, so a moderate sized state. Let's see what happens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:01PM
I'm sure Anesthesia will complain it's not a good experiment because of Finland's high degree of racial homogeneity.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:51PM
I think you're confusing me with someone insane. That's the exact opposite of the kind of argument I typically make.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @04:30PM
So do you think this is a good, or at least interesting experiment? Will it tell us anything about how we should run our society?
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 08 2015, @04:58PM
I've already posted exactly that sentiment elsewhere in this thread.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:22PM
Looks like you have a new AC admirer. Lucky you!
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:41PM
S'no skin off my nose. The entire wang of europe's GNP has been trending downward since roughly the time they decided socialism was a good thing anyway, I'm not averse to even more proof that socialism does not work and is evil.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Nr_9 on Tuesday December 08 2015, @08:43PM
Aha... Just to be clear, when do you think "Europe" decided that "socialism was a good thing"? And could you tell me what you mean by "Europe's" GNP trending downwards? Do you mean in absolute terms or, compared to somewhere else? If you mean in relative terms, could you specify which countries/continents you compare it to?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheLink on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:28PM
See, the problem is you just told the entire nation "you do not have to work if you're okay getting by on this much or can scam some more under the table".
But isn't that what the dream future is supposed to be like? Robots doing most of the jobs and people not having to work if they don't want to?
So basically Finland has started down a better path towards such a future.
In contrast the "upgrade" path for countries like the USA seems a bit more dystopic - the robots do most of the jobs, the 0.1% get most of the wealth and those without jobs get "spare change" or worse. Yes a lot of stuff will get cheaper, but if you have no job and no income how much cheap stuff can you buy for free? In the "expensive countries" more and more people would be unable to get steady decent jobs - they may find crap jobs, and the jobs will get crappier[1].
A significant number of poor would have it really bad. The rest may be able to afford lots of virtual stuff (circuses) so they can save their money for food (bread). So if you're one of the poor you can have lots of virtual clothes, wallpapers, houses, fashion accessories, but there won't be much "real stuff" for you. If you're unlucky and the path is worse, with all the oligopolies, copyright protections and DRM, you might not be able to afford that much virtual stuff either.
The biggest issue I see with a guaranteed income even if you don't work is you may eventually have to institute breeding limits. Stuff like you are not allowed to have more children than you can afford (based on your basic income + other income + donations + gifts etc). So for example if the country is poor and you only have basic income, you might be allowed up to 1 child or maybe even zero, but if the country is rich your basic income is higher so you can have 3 children. Or if the country is poor, and you are poor, but other people/organizations think you should have more children (great genes, great parenting skills etc) and commit $$$$ upfront for them or donate their child support quota to you, then you can have more children. And if you keep having children indiscriminately despite not being able to afford to raise them you are sterilized.
Yes I'm an evil fascist pig. But if you don't have such limits, you would be breeding for indiscriminate breeders. There will be a few who will have 10 children where many of whom will also have 10 children and so on and eventually those few will be many (think selection and evolutionary pressure). After a number of generations of this you would hit more unpleasant limits than my fascist limits. It's not like we don't have enough people on this planet already. With 7+ billion around we are more likely to have mass deaths due to problems related to overpopulation than due to people not being allowed to have many children.
And remember I'm not saying don't allow people to have children at all, I'm just saying don't let people have more children than they can afford to support. Most won't be affected by such rules - since most parents want their children to have a decent life. But there are some people who don't think or care about such stuff, and frankly I don't think we should feel so sorry about such people not being allowed to have very many children. If you really do feel so sorry for them, you could go donate your child quota and $$$$$ to them so that they can have more children.
[1] Lots of vehicle drivers would lose their jobs once the AI driving stuff gets good enough - and there are millions of such workers. When automobiles were invented, what happened to the horses? Did most of them get new nice jobs? When AI drivers arrive who will be the horses? Are most truck/bus drivers horses or buggy whip makers?
(Score: 1) by TobascoKid on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:53PM
Yes I'm an evil fascist pig.
In which just claim "it's their own fault" and let the poor starve. It's a lot less work (though I'm guessing not having a go at violating basic human rights might be a downer for you).
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:44PM
I'm a poor evil fascist pig, not a rich and powerful evil fascist pig. So I'm not going to suggest letting the poor starve.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday December 09 2015, @01:36AM
China. Imposed a limit on the number of children a couple can have. Running out of children to support their parents and grandparents in old age.
Japan. Imposed no such limit, and births per woman has voluntarily dropped way below the replacement rate, lower even than the rate China imposed.
Japan is an extreme example because of widespread misogyny, but birthrate reduction happens in just about every industrialized country. Educating women appears to be a key factor,
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Wednesday December 09 2015, @03:53AM
My point still stands that without those limits you would be breeding for indiscriminate breeders. The majority you are talking about who persist in not breeding would eventually be bred out of the population. You are unlikely to have to introduce these "election losing" policies and limits till it becomes a visible problem - which would probably take a few generations as I mentioned so it's not a problem for the politicians who implement Basic Income.
In many cases a lot of people aren't breeding due to economic concerns (too busy trying to survive), if the basic income gets high enough they may start breeding.
Japan is not a good example to use. From what I see the Japanese are very different from other countries in very many ways. I actually used to joke about Japanese fans leaving stadiums cleaner than when they arrived and I've friends who have lived in Japan who said "I can believe that". And seems like it's true: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/world-cup-2014-japanese-fans-clean-stadium-after-losing-2-1-against-ivory-coast-9539793.html [independent.co.uk]
There's plenty of misogyny in some countries that are growing, and low misogyny in some countries that aren't, so I don't think it's that correlated.
As for China's "Running out of children to support their parents and grandparents in old age.", how many children directly support their parents and grandparents in Finland or similar welfare states- as in live with them and provide care and $$$? There's no basic income in China, so parents suffer if they get old and they have nobody to help them. So the problem with China is there's no basic income and China is not rich and developed enough yet (high productivity per capita due to increased automation and other stuff) to have such a thing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:01PM
And I'd probably salute you on my way to my job :-) Most people tend to be competitive and want to have just a little more than the neighbour. In the current society, once you are on social welfare, earning some money on top is punished, because reductions on benefits can easily be more than you earn. So, unless you go from unemployed to real good job, chances are you are punished for trying. Fixing this can be quite complex because the rules as they are now didn't appear out of thin-air.
With basic income, the administrative overhead would vanish, peoples self-respect would be increased, and even if the base-tax for every dollar earned on top is 50% you would start having a plus right from the first dollar you earn.
For you, I do believe you that you might spend a lot of time fishing, but I don't believe you'd stop being a productive member of the society. You are working on soylentnews, whihc is a net-gain for society, and you are not getting paid for that, either. So you do know the feeling of intrinsic motivation. There are probably lots of other jobs where intrinsic motivation wouldn't cut it (I imagine there aren't that many people who do a cleaning-job for the job-satisfaction), but just because people have a base-income it doesn't mean they don't want to earn more.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:11PM
> (I imagine there aren't that many people who do a cleaning-job for the job-satisfaction)
You'd be surprised [channel4.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:35PM
S'true but I wouldn't be doing it if it didn't benefit me as well; in the form of a useful site for example. I don't do altruism, it's evil.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday December 08 2015, @07:40PM
What goes around, comes around. In a smaller society people help those in need, expecting them to help when the tables are turned. No one keeps exactly track, but generally people learn to know each other, and a known leach in need might receive the help he needs anymore. This is an efficient arrangement because it takes corrective action without administrative overhead. It's give and take, not altruism. But it requires people to have some time left to work together. If everyone has to juggle 3 jobs to get his stomach full, society dies.
In a state, this unfortunately doesn't work, because the society is too big to keep an overview...
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:06PM
No you wouldn't. Because the basic income is just that: basic. As in, with a basic income, you can't afford to go fishing every day because the basic income doesn't cover the cost of maintaining your fishing gear, nor the travel to whatever body of water you're fishing in. And you probably want to live somewhere other than a tiny apartment in the bad part of town. And you probably like other kinds of entertainment, and being able to eat at a restaurant now and then. Yes, you wouldn't be dead if you didn't work, but you would probably lose a great deal that you value.
Policies like this are one way of dealing with high productivity to the point where we have an overabundance of many of the things we need. For example, a staggeringly large percentage of food is thrown out rather than eaten, which isn't surprising because we produce approximately 2-3 times as many calories worth of food as we need. We have more than enough vacant homes to house every single homeless person. Workers today do more in a couple of hours than our parents did in an 8-hour work day and our grandparents did in a 40-hour work week.
Laissez-faire capitalism is a perfect system for handling scarcity of resources. Where it falls apart, badly, is in handling an abundance of resources.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:23PM
I think it's not that black and white. I could imagine the basic income would be enough to sustain some simple pleasures. But the basic income is also the dial to calibrate, if more or less workers are required. If everyone turns lazy and just wants to go fishing, yes, the basic income will be reduced to a level not sufficient for fishing-gear. If enough people are still interested in working to get a better live (like, having a car, travel for vacation, having newest and nicest entertainment-equipment, motorcycle, whatever) and automation can still be improved, there will be enough left for those who just want fishing.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:42PM
I strongly disagree with the parent post (although I think it inadvertently reveals more about the poster than about his opinions), but wouldn't call it a troll.
Modders, Troll =/= disagree.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:31PM
Yeah, that's why everyone gets mod points. So we as a community can self-correct bad moderations. This moderator in particular knows damned good and well I'm not trolling because we've talked politics on multiple occasions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday December 08 2015, @04:38PM
This is good because it removes the poverty trap. I spent the weekend with someone who's smart, but can't find enough work in her specialist field to make it worth dropping out of the unemployment system (and has she's had over a decade as a wage-earning taxpayer, she gets plenty of unemployment benefit). With the current system she'd have to get up and running with ~30 billable hours a week as a freelancer to make it worth not mooching. With the new system, every single hour of work earns her something.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:27PM
Have you considered that you're projecting your own moral failure onto everyone else? Personally, I've met a number of people who came out of their well earned retirement to return to work because it was cheaper than the mental ward.
We live in a world where the OS created by a bunch of people in their spare time with no expectation of compensation has driven a number of very expensive OSes from the market and, with no expensive marketing, no carpet bombing ad campaigns, etc., recruited considerable corporate resources to the cause.
Right now, you are working hard only to see a fair chunk of the fruits of your labor being appropriated by a small but very wealthy leisure class. I guess you better get that fishing pole out.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:25PM
And how many people do you think spend their spare time thinking how much they'd enjoy picking up your garbage, for instance? Some things would happen without financial incentive, some wouldn't.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:48PM
And that's why it's the BASIC income, not the Carribean island yacht club income. I'll bet there's probably plenty of people willing to drive a garbage truck in order to have more than the bare minimum. Especially now that it's mostly possible to do the job without ever getting out of the truck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @02:03AM
I often wonder when I'm at the Yacht Club: where are the poor people's yachts?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 08 2015, @07:30PM
I'd take the basic income and go fishing every day.
Meanwhile, the commercial fisherman could quit and screw around on computers all day.
(Score: 2) by bziman on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:10PM
That would be great. I would guess relatively few people would leach off the system. But I'd much rather have you leaches out fishing than dragging down the productivity of everyone else at a job you don't care about. For many years, my favorite solution to project delays was not adding headcount, but removing it. I'd be happy to pay you to go away.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:20PM
Oh I'm not currently a leech. I'm quite happy making as much money as I can by trading work of equal value. I absolutely despise the idea that I should work to feed the lazy though. I'd rather stop working and have both of us starve than feed someone who can but refuses to support themselves.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 09 2015, @12:18AM
This is the most revealing post I've seen from you yet. I wish there were a "+1, Unintentionally Honest" mod. Also that you die and rot in Hell.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 09 2015, @12:37AM
Nothing unintentional about it. If a waiter comes to me and tells me I have to pay for some schmuck's dinner because he can't afford it or I don't get to eat, I'm not going to eat. I'm not going to carry dead weight. I'm under no moral obligation to. Thieves like you are the ones violating moral principles, not I.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:27AM
I have never taken a cent of welfare or SNAP. I pay my taxes. And I make under $17,000 a year gross, some $6,000 of which this year has gone to support a friend of mine who was a victim of child sex trafficking.
You have a lot of fucking balls, little man, to call ME a thief. Have you got the grace to take that back, or are you going to double down on it because you can't stand anything disrupting your narrative?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 09 2015, @11:46AM
Are trying to take money you have not earned by proxy from those who actually did earn it? Thief it is then. It really doesn't matter if you're stealing for yourself or for someone else who didn't earn it. Theft is theft.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:08PM
Did you fucking read nothing I said?! I don't take one red cent of government money! Get your head out of your ass and listen to what people are telling you!
I hope you don't call yourself a Christian, buddy. You're a Sodomite, in the actual sense that the Bible uses the word. (Ezekiel 16:49:" Now this was the sin of thy sister Sodom; pride, and fullness of bread, and idleness of ease were hers, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor").
You're another one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. How much is peace worth to you? How much is not being knee-deep in the dead in a dystopian, neo-Feudalistic hellscape worth to you? How many corpses will you step over, how much blood will you wade through, to keep your tax money?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 10 2015, @12:48AM
All of them. You will not take what is mine.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday December 10 2015, @04:58PM
Then may what is yours do you much good in hell *bows*
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 10 2015, @06:46PM
You know the really fun part? You and your cronies don't get to take one drop of moral credit for any social policy implemented with taxes. A) You stole the money at gunpoint from those who had rightfully earned it. B) That which is outside the bounds of choice is outside the bounds of morality.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday December 10 2015, @08:45PM
"That which is outside the bounds of choice is outside morality."
Please please please tell me you're an atheist. That just makes you an awful person, as opposed to an awful person and a hypocrite on top of it. This is darkly amusing, but only because your kind are a tiny, powerless minority in the world.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 10 2015, @10:52PM
Did you just fail to understand what you quoted? Here, I'll enlighten you. It means if you have no choice in the matter, you can claim neither moral credit nor blame for an event. And in this instance you have no choice in how the government uses tax money.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 11 2015, @12:15AM
Ah, so you're okay with the actual money being extracted from you, so long as you personally are able to say where every last cent of your particular tax burden goes? Interesting idea.
Unfortunately, Herr Buzzard, most people in this country are not as smart as you are. I wonder sometimes if the libertarian problem is being too cynical or not cynical *enough* about the rest of the human race; it seems to be a weird combination of both depending on the circumstances.
Here's a happy little gedanken: suppose this was reality, and a whoooooole bunch of people wanted their taxes used to build a wall along the Mexican border. This is a logistical nightmare, to say nothing of the moral cost. Would you still support it? Or suppose they wanted to take every single tax dollar and drop it into Planned Parenthood; what then?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 11 2015, @02:19PM
I'm okay with money coming out of my pocket if I agree to let it out of my pocket. Anything else is theft. Very simple, no gray areas. What my personal feelings on this government project or that government project are are irrelevant; the only relevant factor is was the money taken from me by force.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 11 2015, @06:21PM
It's coming out one way or another. As long as we adhere to a paradigm of scarcity--and we do NOT need to do this any longer with the technology we have--you're going to see some people somewhere drop the facade of ideological purity and, as I'm sure you put it, "loot."
Your problem is an inability to see past the currency. The USD is fiat money; it has no value but what people believe it has, and that's just on the inside. On the outside, it has what value the US government FORCES people to agree it has (see: petrodollar, status as worldwide reserve currency).
This is why I laugh a bit when you go on about how money leaving your pocket against your will is theft; fiat currency itself is theft (debt). You're really saying "Whaa, whaa, people are stealing my power to steal and I don't wanna give it up!"
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @12:50PM
So would I, and many others on this site, I believe. However, we do not represent society as a whole.
Through human evolution, there were three functions: Leaders, warriors and explorers. Leaders made the decisions, warriors did the work (war, hunting, building huts), and explorers went off on their own, only returning once in a while to tell the tribe about that area they just found with plenty of fruit, berries and animals to eat. It would then be up to the leaders to make the decision whether or not to move the tribe to the new area.
In modern society, the leaders became managers and the warriors became workers. The explorers, however, don't really fit into modern society. Some become inventors, some build startups, and then leave when the company gets large enough that they start to need managers, but the rest of us are either forced to become workers or become unemployed.
However, warriors/workers were always the majority. Explorers were more like the leaders in numbers, and we already have a society that tolerates management doing no real work, and getting paid (a lot) for it.
As I said, in our current society, most explorers end up forced to become workers. At the same time, some workers become unemployed. This is a problem for their mental health, they end up with depression and similar health problems.
For every explorer that willingly leaves his job, we can have a previously unemployed worker replace him, and thus the mental health of both of them improves.
Less mental health problems, less crime, and if the cost is that the leaders need to pay a bit more tax, I'm all for it.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday December 08 2015, @07:26PM
The whole concept seems devoid of basic economic analysis.
The cost of living the basic lifestyle will rise to consume much more than the basic allotment.
Drug costs rise to consume all insurance payments.
Tuition rises to consume all education loans.
Minimum wage earners lifestyle rises to consume all mandates minimum wages.
You can't pay for even a basic cost of living with an ever shrinking work force. Unless of course yyou country was blessed with incredible wealth in natural resources (Saudi Arabia style).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:07PM
First they give you money, then you grow to depend on that money, then you are their slave. It is how we dealt with the Indian's up here in Canada, it is how every Drug pusher works. First we gave them alcohol, then we demanded payment. Then, after the war, we gave then housing, food, and money, and used it to destroy their culture.
This living wage will be the death off all human rights and rules of law. The government will no longer need a judge to sign off on a warrant, no longer need probable cause, will no longer need evidence. They will just threaten to cut off your living wage unless you do exactly what they ask.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:12PM
I think you missed the safety net part. This income does not preclude you earning your own living.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:55PM
For $800 a month, I'd just sit on the couch and surf soydot all day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:07PM
I give you six months tops before you find something more productive to do. Unless you're a statistical outlier, then who cares?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:19PM
This. I don't think most people have had to just sit around for any extended period of time, like in the case of an injury which requires it. It is completely miserable. You feel like a caged animal.
Would some or even a decent portion try it as this program began? Yeah, probably. It really wouldn't last long though.
People have an innate desire to be useful and a part of something greater than themselves. That pie-in-the-sky utopia we all want is possible, but it takes cooperation and the admission that monarchy and the king of the hill bullshit that permeates our world societies is better off in the past.
Let's evolve, together, now.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Tuesday December 08 2015, @04:22PM
I must say I agree with the above to some degree. I had spent some time at home, and by the end of it it was mind numbing.
However, there were reasons which exist now that made it slightly less bearable that may not be there in the future. For one thing you felt disconnected from others who would go to work everyday. This is really a big one that makes staying home so insidious. But if a lot of people stay home, there would be a societal change. People might end up hanging in Starbucks more with others who also stay home for example. So your feelings of isolation will subside.
I'm not saying that it will be all good, but it will be easier than it is now, and definitely different. Some new and exciting things might arise from all this free time, or the time could just be pissed away, we will have to wait and see.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @04:27PM
Weed is legal where I live, man.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Tuesday December 08 2015, @04:31PM
First, off, no. No matter how much money you make on the side, you will be relying on that 800 extra. And secondly, the cost of living will go up. That is what the free market is designed to do. The cost of everyu handbuger and every rental unit is directly based on how much money the people make.
(Score: 2) by Marco2G on Tuesday December 08 2015, @04:00PM
One wonders how this got voted Insightful.
Then again, going from the US government you may well be right.
I salute the Finns for having the guts to try this. I'll be interested to see the outcome.
(Score: 3, Informative) by timbim on Tuesday December 08 2015, @09:24PM
You're an idiot. And dont bother to visit Finland, please.
(Score: 2) by khakipuce on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:08PM
This is something I have thought was a good idea for a long time. The amount of bureaucracy it does away with is worth it whatever, now lets hope they lead the way on a flat rate of tax.
(Score: 1) by TobascoKid on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:09PM
I'd be really interested to here how this interacts with EU benefits rules. If someone moves to Finland, do they get 800 euros a month right away (as is the way with tax credits) or is there a length of residency requirement?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:18PM
This will apply only to Finnish citizens. If you aren't already a Finnish citizen, you'd have to go through the naturalisation process. Already being a citizen of another EU nation would make it easier to fulfil the residency requirement, but that's just a first step.
(Score: 1) by TobascoKid on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:03PM
This will apply only to Finnish citizens.
In which case, it violates fundamental EU Freedom of Movement rules. Which is why I don't think that's actually the case.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:43PM
The giant plus - if true - is eliminating bureaucracy and bureaucrats. If you have seventeen different, overlapping programs, each with its own rules and conditions, you keep a lot of bureaucrats busy, and also open the way to gaming the system. It may well be cheaper to replace all of that with a simple, flat payment to everyone. If you really, truly get rid of the seventeen programs, their rules and their bureacracies.
The disadvantage is simply that EUR 800 is not enough to live on, not in Norway, and not in most of the EU. Which gives lie to the idea that all other programs will stop.
Moreover, people forget that a large part of the poor lack basic life skills. Give them EUR 800, and it will be gone in the first week. Blown on drink, loaned to "friends" who never will pay it back, there are a million ways for it to disappear, and it will. Then what? I don't see the Norwegians saying "tough, go freeze to death". So, again, those other seventeen programs are not going to end. All you've done is add an eighteenth, overlapping program, with its own accompanying bureaucracy [xkcd.com].
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:04PM
You are assuming the worst of everyone. It turns out that most people on welfare programs (in the us) are families that work but don't get enough income. The true scammers, drug addicts, etc. are the minority. You've obviously bought the propaganda being sold to you by the media.
The poor lack basic life skills? Jesus, you have your head stuck somewhere... Substance abuse problems are more often a symptom not a cause. Our entire system sucks, and the myth of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps falls apart when you do the math.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @04:53PM
Sounds like a libertarian paradise
(Score: 2) by TGV on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:46PM
I think it's a brave move, and only time can tell what will come of it. I, for one, do not expect it to work in the long run (if they make it that far), but it depends on many factors, and the chances of failure are high.
BTW, the article is precisely accurate about The Netherlands. That is no basic income experiment. It's a quasi-experiment at best, one where they change the rules for receiving unemployment benefits, without changing the rest of the system, for a small group (50 people), and I think they have already drawn the conclusion before starting the experiment.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:48PM
...and, before anyone shouts SOCIALISM!, this is actually Liberal Democracy (of the Bernie Sanders type).
The government (on behalf of "society") takes control of something and decides what is to be done with it. How is that not socialism? If you like this or you like socialism, where is the shame in admitting it? I don't like socialism, but I don't use it as a name-calling epithet. I simply disagree with it. Can't we just talk about whether we think this kind of thing is a good idea or not?
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:51PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:23PM
Show me your research. I think you're just angry that taxes go to help people you see as undeserving. I hope that you run into hard times so you can personally see how necessary it is to help each other out. Everyone for themselves has never worked in all of history. Lifting people out of poverty and despair goes a LONG way towards preventing worse situations from developing. You depend on people you will never meet, yet you have internalized propaganda designed to divide our society by turning the people most in need into scapegoats. Your wages have stagnated, yet you will blame the poor because you can't see past the deductions on your paycheck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:10PM
You swallowed too much Cold War bullshit.
Trading 1 set of overlords for another set of overlords is NOT a move from Capitalism to Socialism.
State capitalism [wikipedia.org]
If you leave Democracy outside the door when you arrive at work, the economic system you have is Capitalism.
A way to describe Socialism is "Democracy everywhere".
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:55PM
You swallowed too much Cold War bullshit.
Rotflol, no - the cold war was all bs designed to prop up a gigantic oppressive nation state. I vomited out what I swallowed, years ago.
A way to describe Socialism is "Democracy everywhere".
I agree with you - and I don't believe in democracy.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @08:53PM
That sounds very cynical.
Are you sure it isn't "the republic" (now an oligarchy) that chafes your hide?
I'm reminded of the gal who asked Ben Franklin after the constitutional convention "Mr. Franklin, what have you given us?"
"A republic--if you can keep it."
Actual Democracy actually works quite well.
Check out how it worked in ancient Athens. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [dissidentvoice.org]
Citizens actually got involved.
("Jury size" will be a real eye-opener for you.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Wednesday December 09 2015, @02:00AM
It doesn't come from cynicism. I just don't believe the majority should have the right to rule the minority or make decisions for them. If I think that in order to be safe a war needs to be fought in the middle east, for example, then I and people like me should get together and fund it and fight it - not force everybody else who disagrees to do it. I believe in self-government, not democracy.
Without loss of generality what I believe applies to republics as well. It's just an extra layer of indirection and may help (or hurt) some things, but it's still people getting their way at the expense of the freedom of others.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2, Informative) by MadTinfoilHatter on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:18PM
Seems that someone jumped the gun on this one...
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taloussanomat.fi%2Fkansantalous%2F2015%2F12%2F08%2Fsuomi-takaa-jokaiselle-800-ekk-tieto-on-virheellinen%2F201516255%2F12&edit-text= [google.com]
The weird "reel" that keeps popping up in the article is a Google mistranslation of the abbreviation KELA (=KansanEläkeLAitos which is the organization responsible for the social security system in Finland)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:33PM
Finally someone has put their money where my mouth is. Can't wait to see how this works out. I am confident that (although there will doubtless be teething troubles and right-wing handwringing) this will increase the efficiency of the benefit & taxation system, reduce poverty (and thereby crime, drug abuse etc) and generally improve Finnish peoples' lives without causing significant harm to their economy. Finland, Finland, Finland, it's a country where I'd quite like to be...
However for better or worse, most of all I am glad that finally (after a few years, anyway) we will be able to discuss basic income with some real-life data and experience.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:45PM
The problem with this kind of scheme is that it only functions if there are more suckers working than freeloaders. It discourages work, because the more you work, the more you pay for freeloaders. So why not just freeload, instead of work hard to support others? The law of perverse incentives kicks in. There's a tipping point where not enough people have incentive to work to pay for the freeloaders, and it collapses.
I actually ran into this when I had a second job. Getting a second job put me over a limit to pay an income surtax. Every marginal dollar I was making by working hard and contributing to society was being so heavily taxed to support freeloaders that I was discouraged from working extra. I might as well watch cat videos on YouTube and relax than to do more work.
Perhaps this sort of scheme can work in small countries,but it sure won't work in a large country like America. We not only have too many freeloaders, they know how to game the system. Gaming the system becomes their full-time employment.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:09PM
There is no more system to game. The ubi gets rid of most other programs. As for freeloading, it is hardly enough to do more than survive on. Plenty of people will work at least part time to have disposable income.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:32PM
You know, USA is made of states. States that most are about as big as Finland. So if the state handless all this, then it has just as good chances as it does in Finland, sizewise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @12:04AM
Alaska already has something similar, from the pipeline money. Sarah Palin doesn't talk about it much when she's on Fox News.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 08 2015, @05:54PM
The problem with this kind of scheme is that it only functions if there are more suckers working than freeloaders.
We already have that. Your employer derives more benefit from your labor than he/she/it pays for.
(Score: 1) by jon3k on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:26PM
...and, before anyone shouts SOCIALISM!, this is actually Liberal Democracy (of the Bernie Sanders type).
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/aug/26/bernie-sanders-socialist-or-democratic-socialist/ [politifact.com]
"Do they think I’m afraid of the word? I’m not afraid of the word," he said in an interview with The Nation published in July. "When I ran for the Senate the first time, I ran against the wealthiest guy in the state of Vermont. He spent a lot on advertising — very ugly stuff. He kept attacking me as a liberal. He didn’t use the word ‘socialist’ at all, because everybody in the state knows that I am that."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @06:15PM
Do you believe everything that every politician says?
Bernie can call himself whatever he wants.
It doesn't make it true.
An example I like to use about self-naming: Democratic People's Republic of Korea
That's North Korea.
This stuff has been explained previously. [soylentnews.org]
Here's the embedded link with better markup. [googleusercontent.com]
Another previous explanation of Bernie's position on the political spectrum. [soylentnews.org]
If you click "Liberal Democrat", it should be come clear to you that economics-wise Bernie is a Keynesian.
He thinks that tweaking Capitalism a bit will make things good enough so that workers will continue to accept a top-down system.
Bernie is farther to the Right than Liberal Democrats FDR and LBJ.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @07:15PM
Just with a couple of stipulations.
First, ditch other social spending. Social security? Gone. Medicare/Medicaid? Gone. Obamacare subsidies? Gone. Food stamps? Gone. Minimum wages? Gone. The federal savings in reduced bureaucracy alone should be amazing, and people should be delighted not to have that FICA nonsense in their paystubs.
Next, to up the savings on bureaucracy, you can massively downsize the IRS by removing personal income taxes, and replacing them with a payroll tax on corporations. You hire people? The feds get a cut. Period. No more tax dodging, probably need 10% of the people, the federal savings will be phenomenal.
In the mean time this will also help solve the immigration situation. All these goodies go to citizens only. OK, OK, green card holders too if you insist, but really you want this for citizens. Some brown dudes come north of the border to pick strawberries? They don't get the money, and they get to compete with americans who are getting that basic income, so need less cash on top to make a good wage. Bye-bye, Miguel!
Let's see what else we fix this way. Dependents get half their money in a trust fund that pays out when they reach some age (18, 21, whatever) and the rest goes to their head of household. That money shall be deemed sufficient for all tertiary tuition and other fees, so there we have an instant education benefit - no more bitching about university fees because there's an instant cap on the whole sum. Of course, people not legally in the country get to figure it out for themselves, but hey, that folds into the immigration solution! Efficiency!
.... or you could put this on top of all your other social payouts, and just ratchet up the budget to the next level. Go go, Leviathan!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @09:46PM
Apparently the submitter didn't expect this to be published in December. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:00AM
Contrary to reports, basic income study still at preliminary stage. There have been misleading reports in the media about the Finnish experimental study on a Universal Basic Income. Only a preliminary study to explore possibilities has begun.
http://www.kela.fi/web/en/news-archive/-/asset_publisher/lN08GY2nIrZo/content/contrary-to-reports-basic-income-study-still-at-preliminary-stage [www.kela.fi]
(what a cute URL...)