Topic: Switzerland to vote on $2,800 monthly ‘basic income’ for adults - page 6. (Read 8028 times)

I am quite surprised to see so much support for the welfare state model here.....

The population of Switzerland is 8 million (of which ~5.6m are adults). At 2.8K USD per month, the benefits will cost the Swiss exchequer some $ 188 billion. The current tax revenue is much lower than this figure.

So from where the remaining money will come? Remember that the taxes in Switzerland are already very high.

On other hand pretty much all of the income would go to spending. And most of it on local level. Rich people don't spend all their money, poor and middle class do...

2.8k is probably too high, but at resonable level I see it as positive way of doing things.

Wouldn't this push business out of Switzerland?  Let them do it.

You can't punish someone for being rich. But I'd support increasing the inheritance tax though.

It is true that tax rates are lower in the US when compared to the EU. But insane tax rates (75% as in the case of France) can trigger complete economic collapse and capital flight. Just wait for a few years... and we will see the economic collapse of a large number of EU nations.

while i think that the elite don't pay enough taxes (at least in the U.S.), a minimum $2,800 monthly income rate is a bit outrageous. is this pre-tax or after? either way, that's almost a minimum of $34k a year for everyone.. the cost of everything is probably going to rise out of proportion.

Switzerland is having tough immigration laws, and it doesn't have to follow the orders from the EU. So no chance.

On the other hand, plenty of them are heading towards England.

2 millions Romanian gypsies heading their way.
I know how it will end.

Taxes used to be so much higher (I'm talking about top brackets) in the US and there was less equality, now they all want lower taxes but the rich don't really share in terms of the proportion they receive.  In the US it doesn't seem like "trickle down" is working, which is one reason I like BTC.

There is only so much fat in the system to play with

Matter of time before the Northern European welfare model implodes

Basic income is also discussed in Germany (esp. by the Pirate Party), although not that high in amount by far (maybe ~ EUR 800-1000 a month).

It would be economically viable if it would replace all other forms of already existing subsidies and would therefore dramatically reduce the related bureaucracy (if that would actually happen in practice is another question).

They made surveys and almost everybody said they would still go to work, so the argument "no one would work" is not viable.

It would take away existential fears, and people would prefer the work they actually would love to do, resulting in a boost of productivity.

None other than Milton Friedman proposed a negative income tax, which is a similar model.

It makes sense in a more and more automated society; production is unfortunately already quite centralized and controlled by a few corporations, and their profit and wealth does not easily flow back into society. Stock markets are corrupted, laymen cannot easily have their (literal) shares of this wealth.

The problem I see is, of course, the centralization that would be required to manage the collection and distribution of wealth, and the corruptible bureaucracy that would almost certainly come with that. States (and central banks) can't even manage money supply, as we all know.

Maybe a more libertarian-compatible approach would be to try this model in several independent city states (for which inhabitants would simply own shares) and see how it would work out.

An alternative might be a more syndicalist model: People own shares of the means of production directly, similar to how it's done at Mondragón: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-obHJfTaQvw

That's really old news you know it's also not mathematically viable.

See this. Absolute madness. If someone gets $2,800 pm for free without doing any work, then how many adults will actually work for a living? In effect this is punishing hard working people, while rewarding the welfare kings and queens.