Topic: Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult (Read 4897 times)

Mincome is an official Pirate Party (of Canada) policy. I was surprised by the hostility in this thread after reading this quote form one of our members:
- Lets talk about Mincome

This has to potential to make the free market more efficient by encouraging small business. Entrepreneurs are free to experiment if they are not worried about having a roof over their head or where there next meal if going to come from.

As a socialist, I can assure you that I do not believe Mincome should be in addition to all social programs. Health care and Education are a public good that should be kept public (As I understand it, Obamacare is not public health-care, only mandatory insurance).

Things Mincome would replace: Employment Insurance, provincial Welfare, and many other specialized social assistance programs. I think the Canadian Pension Plan should stay, since in theory, it is self-funding. These systems have large bureaucracies and complicated rules to prevent people from "abusing" the system. Because of the complexity, people fall through the cracks. People on welfare get taxed at at 100% rate (called a "clawback") if they actually find enough work (or even federal grants) to double their pittance. Even the top tax bracket in Canada is only 29%. Edit: the top tax bracket is 39% or more if provincial tax is included.

so what's it take to get in on this? you need to be a citizen? 

8 millions of 5 cents Swiss francs coin put on a street to support/advertise basic income !

http://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/5265891-l-initiative-pour-un-revenu-de-base-inconditionnel-deposee-a-berne.html

Not a bad idea, where do we apply?
But no Landsknecht please.

If the EU doesn't FOAD, the next best thing it could do is join Switzerland.

This is retarded. Can Switzerland please join the EU?

May be it will add incentive to rollout automation and robotics without raising prices. Robots' prices fall rapidly, I think "hardware substitutes" for janitors and waiters you mentioned will be more affordable than worker's wages within next 5-10 years.

Wouldn't it simply be an artificial reduction in the supply of janitorial work?  Not economically ideal, but the market can adapt to it the same way it adapts to a sudden shortage of some raw material.

I say not economically ideal, but that's overlooking any positive externalities it would have by improving the morale of the society.

Only one thing makes me hesitate to support it wholeheartedly: the dilemma of citizens vs non-citizens.  Giving the basic income to citizens only would mean that their gain comes at the expense of non-citizens, both immigrants and tourists.  Giving it to everyone could lead to complications of its own.

Going by OECD's comparative price levels and the current exchange rate, 2500 Swiss Francs is equivalent to about $1718 USD, or as much as you'd earn at a full time (40hr/week) job at a wage of $10.73/hr.

If that's the case, then I agree, the second option may actually be an improvement over what they have now. Then just either lock the payout amount and inflate a bit, or set the payout amount to decrease by a few percentage points every year, and hopefully the payments will eventually get uncomfortable enough to incentivize people to start looking for work again.


Problem is, average Joe's understanding of finance and economics is limited to "I get paycheck, I spend money until bank account says 0" and "those people have more money than me, and that's not fair." We have plenty of examples of this throughout  the world's history, and plenty that are catching up with people now, in places where people keep voting to give themselves more and more money, and never consider where that money actually comes from (the PIGS in Europe, Brazil and some other South American countries, California and Detroit, etc.)

Which is exactly what I meant by this distorting market signals for which jobs are more important. And yes, this would cause prices to rise, whether due to inflation or not. A basic caffe that had, let's say, one waiter, one cook, and one janitor, will unlikely lower the wages for the cook and the waiter, but will now have to raise wages to be able to hire janitors. Total costs go up, price of products has to go up for them to stay in business, too. I'm not entirely sure how such a system will find equilibrium though. Is everyone having more money mean that each unit of money is now worth less? Or, since the money is coming more from those who are actually able to earn it, and the total remains the same, does it mean that each unit of money will be worth the same, but at an enormous expense to the people and organizations that are actually able to earn it? And if it's the later, will them increasing prices to compensate just end up making the extra stipen not really be able to pay for anything anyway?

Basic income should be used with some tax restructure. As such the "high" income people end up not gaining anything from it.

The overall gains come from simplifying the bloated bureaucracy of current system. It's simpler to pay people money and then take it away with taxes, than the current messes we have.

In my mind: Point isn't giving everyone free money. But to simplify the welfare system and remove some cases where working doesn't increase the standard of living.

Wrong, if it is implemented so, it would be a total disaster.

Basic income is basic income is basic income.

If you "give it but take it back" it is just like not giving it, i.e. just like the systems we already have and do not work.

In reality the likes of programmers and much before that income don't gain anything from basic income. Atleast if the system isn't totally crazy. Their tax burden is increase by the amount of basic income.

Though they still get double or more to hand than those on basic income.

Actually it matters a lot, if you think about it.

If a programmer is paid, say, 8500 CHF per month, and basic income of 2500 CHF is intruduced, then someone with basic income will actually get 11000 CHF per month.
Then, why should you go to work there from abroad, when natives are paid much more than you?
You'll likely search elsewhere.

Mh yes probably it should be also available with the people having a "C" residence permit (need a job for this).

But I think there would be a strong Pull-effect on immigrants, no matter if they can get the basic income (C residence permit) or not.
It has the same effect like now for all the Africans thinking they can get money / work in Europe, no matter if it's true or not, they hear it everywhere and they believe it.

They are awesome     

The biggest problem IMO is that it is subject to inflation, hence either you inflate the base supply causing even more inflation, or inflation will de-facto destroy that base supply to be worthless.

Solution would be instead of giving a money base supply, provinding for free everything you need to live (and I do mean everything), and using money only for people who actually work and want to spend on "extras".

Big +1

The question here is about human nature. One must be careful when reasoning about it, because all people are not the same (like oneself, for example):
- "all people think like me, and I would (not) work, so the system would be great (not)"
- or "I work exclusively for money, thus nobody works for fun or any other motive"
- or "I would not work as a janitor, so nobody would"

Nobody even considers other possibilities to get something done; that is maybe there would be no janitors in Switzerland: even if there is no official janitor in some facility, maybe people would do simple janitorial work themselves. Or not, who knows. The point is it is better to try change the system BEFORE the system destroys itself.