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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: 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...