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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
(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.