Topic: Switzerland to vote on $2,800 monthly ‘basic income’ for adults - page 5. (Read 7996 times)

this is one of the better topics coming up for a vote and judging by how many times we get to vote, it was bound to happen; although the chances of it passing are pretty slim.
Some basic cleaning up and the obvious, in my humble opinion, misunderstanding.

The obvious comment is the source of payment, who will pay so much money !!
In my ideal conception, this one is very easily solved considering the roughly 480 Billion Euros accumulated by the Swiss National Bank in just a few years, with the grandiose illusion of maintaining a minimum exchange rate and bailing out the Euro and the more real reason of European solidarity and piling on debt on the Swiss economy. This is lost money in the near future anyway, so one could even consider just handing out Euros.

Secondly, as pointed out, this money is readily reinjected in the economy providing ripple effects, so just printing out the damn paper with 0% interest rate and handing it out to the citizens would work just fine.
And no, not unlimited amounts like now leading to potential massive inflation (be it to the banks in the US for example who then get to 'lend' out that free money, eventually extracting more money than was put in), but a basic amount with no exponential interest and where the money circulates to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. Some balancing mechanism through taxes to take money out and so on depending on growth, infrastructure etc. How someone can be okay with handing out free money to banks and not to the end user directly is puzzling.

Thirdly, this idea of bums just living off the system misses the larger issue at hand of providing dignity and basic living conditions and the possibility of exploring and delving into what interests us and providing value to the lot that way rather than just surviving. It is of my belief that ignorance is the cause of most problems and our collective naiveness has lead us down a road with pretty bad choices and negative consequences. Actually putting into use technology and a sound monetary system would be a good thing in our current times. If someone wants to bum around all his life, so be it; he will do less damage to the collective that way anyway and somehow that the current rat race can serve as an incentive to do something good is rubbish, or at a minimum, a reflection of pretty poor intelligence.

Furthermore, as additional benefits, whole piles of bureucracy and useless paperwork for the unemployment agencies, Social services and actually put out of business this criminal enterprise of handing out credit at 18% interest rate to buy a couch, can be be reduced and all this energy put to some venture more profitable for everyone.

Lastly, that this would attract all the foreigners !! OMG !! Right, lets just follow the EU and in the words of our late National bank president, let's strive to make the swiss franc less attractive so as not to set the example but rather join in the race to the bottom so that no one would want to come. That's a vicious circle and not a virtuous one and is absurd..
Despite the progress made by the gangsters, there is still a process to go through before gaining the nationality. And doing a revote on the Schengen stuff that passed at 50.1% would make things clearer.

The scam of this entire monetary system worldwide is to such an extreme that the relevance and pertinence of a sound system and dare I say common sense, is difficult to grasp.

By all means, try it!

I'm not sure if this is a good idea, but at least we'll find out what happens.

What I like about this is that it acknowledges that technology keeps making jobs disappear and you can't have a system where everyone has to keep working to earn money in order to survive in the face of such a development.

OTOH since this is a government in charge of doing this, I shudder at how badly they will probably mess it up 

Good one. I am asking this for the past many days and those who supports this measure are not ready to answer me. Very basic question... but so far I've got no answers.

from air , and there is plenty in their heads

OK... Tax revenue and all other revenue received by the Swiss government is much less than the 188 billion USD required for this plan. So from where the remaining money will come?

Your question is really the only valid argument against this proposal. Also the only factor one ought to consider it not feasible.

Hard work is overrated though. People with more free time are more creative and innovative. They take better care of themselves and their families. The idea of everyone getting paid as being inflationary is pretty antiquated. People don't eat 12 meals a day because they can suddenly afford more than 3. Automation and mass production brings costs down for larger consumption base, and globalisation distorts the issue a lot. You think the price of iphones would go up if everyone is Switzerland could afford one? There's only 8 million  people there.

Now as for giving everyone in China 28k that would be more interesting. Because they would stop going to Foxconn for sure. That would drive the price of an iphone way way higher. Seems an obvious primary question, should countries support global firms whose employment practices would be illegal in the destination market? If an unemployed Swiss is getting 28k a year and buys an iphone made by a kid working 100 hours a week for 80 cents an hour... well that seems pretty messed up. Of course somewhere in Switzerland is a banker's grandkid living on the interest garnered off fencing the teeth of holocaust victims. He's not working hard.
 
Inequality is more complicated nowadays than hard work= success. That's just a myth perpetrated by successful hard working people to justify their greed and selfishness. I include myself in this category. I've worked hard but not any harder than some third worlder who will never have the chances I was given just by being born.

 

I'm surprised no one posted this yet: http://basicincome2013.eu/. Basically the same proposal, but for Europe. Also, this movie might help explain a little better how it could work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExRs75isitw.

I for one would like to see this implemented in a small scale, to test it out, pretty much like it was done in Canada with Mincome.

Well they don't leave exactly in my neighborhood , and in this 300k town , this is the safest place.
Currently there is no town without such a community that is spreading inst tentacle everywhere.

Definitely. Inflation will skyrocket. People will be careful with the money as long as they earn it. When they get it for free, money loses value.

Someone has to answer my question which I had posted yesterday. From where the $188 billion will come up for these welfare payments?

Hard work was what made Switzerland the wealthy nation which it is today. If someone want to turn it to a nation of lazy boozers, then I can't help.

Me also.  But I've seen it over and over again in thread after thread here.  It seems there's a long way to go to get economic truths to people.

Maybe when you buy a currency which goes up in value by such massive amounts in a short period of time you start to believe money comes from thin air.

With the basic income you would also see a great deal of inflation.  You have money being spent with much less production of goods.  More money chasing less goods and services equals inflation.   Which would then require a bigger basic income which just increases the cycle of inflation.

Then it may be time for you to change your place of residence. I have never lived close to them, but had enough bad experience. 


The problem is with the lax rules which some of the EU nations are having. The only place where these people lived by abiding the laws were in the former USSR, which severely punished any sort of crime. However, ever since the fall of the USSR, gypsy crime has increased by manifold in Russia and Ukraine.


If they come back, then put them in jail.


Yes... Vlax is a white ethnic group (Used to speak the now near-extinct Aromanian language). However, a subgroup of the Roma are known as Vlax Roma (mostly found in the former Yugoslavia).

I agree with the taxation of the wealthy, I mean why tax the poor for small amounts of money when you can tax the wealthy for big amounts of money?

about the "basic income", it is a great idea but what would we lose with it?
a lot of stuff wouldn't be free anymore would it?

well, i don't support overtaxation of the wealthy, but there's a reason why there's all that money in offshare accounts. if everybody paid a flat tax and loopholes weren't exploited, that would probably bring in more revenues. it'd effectively be a tax increase on the wealthy.

I've been living with them close to my neighborhood for almost 20 years.
Even before Romania was into the EU , those people had no problem entering Italy and Germany. No r will they have with Switzerland.

You can't deal with people who grow kids and send them 1 years to school to qualify for state aid , then send them to beg at every corner.
You can't deal with people that refuse to work for 500 euros , but will gladly stay and watch the sun all day long for 100.
You can't deal with people that refuse work , but would rather spend hours and hours watching an unguarded road then work 5 house to cut cables or street signs or even railway tracks to sold them for a few pennies.
You can deal with people you spend so much money into deportation that come the next day back.


Also , vlax are not gypsies.
And the term Roma is used for far more peoples than gypsies alone.

I live outside the EU. And I know enough about the Roma, to distinguish a Lovari from a Kalderash and a Sinti from a Vlax.

I get your point. You are claiming that the local law enforcement will be powerless against the Roma, as has been the case in France, Italy, Spain.etc

Anyway both of us agree that measure will lead to the financial ruin of Switzerland. 



My bad. Forgot that Norway was outside the EU. They are quite rich (due to oil) and don't want to give two-thirds of that to the EU budget.

But as far as I know, the immigration controls of all Scandinavian countries (perhaps with the exceptions of Denmark and Iceland) are near-Zero. At least when compared to Switzerland, the immigration rules in Norway are more or less toothless.

By American standards maybe, but by the standards of most of the rest of the developed world, they're on the low side as a percentage of the GDP.


Norway is not part of the EU.  They're part of the Schengen zone, the European Economic Area, and the European Free Trade Association, but not part of the European Union, much like the Swiss, except that the Swiss aren't in the EEA.

There's a bunch of "European" groups.  Here's how they fit together.

edit : Bah.  I guess SMF doesn't like svgs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Supranational_European_Bodies-en.svg

Before we continue on this topic , where do you leave (name the country I don't need your address , not sending you any pizza and how much do you know about this gypsy community?

Norway and Sweden are welfare states and are part of the EU. They should abide by the European laws on immigration. They can't deport the gypsies.

On the other hand, Switzerland is not a part of the EU. It is an independent country, which can deport people illegally entering its territory.

Yeah , right!
Like some laws can stop those people.
They've already reached Norway and Sweden , what do you think it will stop them from Switzerland?
How can you stop them without shooting them?

you think work is hard you should try being homeless.

I think the 2,800 was overly ambitious but the concept is a good one. Once the only job left is robot repairman, even robot repairmen won't be able to make a decent living.

You can only kill so many jobs with technology before you have to acknowledge that you aren't subsidizing lazy people, you are compensating them for replacing their livelihood and all alternative livelihoods with a microchip.

What's a mere human to do...


(edit - sorry I meant to quote OP )