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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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 Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 4:32 am Post subject: Switzerland to vote on $2,800 monthly ‘basic income’ |
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More than 100,000 residents in Switzerland have signed a petition demanding that the government ensure a minimum monthly income of nearly $2,800 (2,500 Swiss francs) for all adults in the country.
The 120,000 signatures are enough to formally call a vote in the government over whether or not to approve the “CHF 2,500 monthly for everyone" (Grundeinkommen)” funding proposal.
For comparison, the average U.S. worker earned $3,769 in pre-tax, monthly salary in 2011. Food service industry workers earned $1,785 in pre-tax income during the same period.
MSN reports that in a public display of support, advocates tipped over a truck full of 8 million five-cent coins in front of the Swiss capital on Friday, one coin for each of the country’s citizens. |
Aside from ending absolute poverty this would prevent economic depressions as the min income provides a high floor where aggregate demand rests.
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| “I can’t believe that Switzerland would cause such great harm to its economy,” Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg told the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. “And I say that not just as the head of a company, but as a Swiss citizen.” |
An excellent example of internationalist feeling. Glasenberg is a 'citizen' of Switzerland, Australia, South Africa and Israel. The Swiss are expressing populist loyalty towards those with whom they share a home and Glasenberg sees the nation as an economy.
Anyway, yay or nay? Should the state guarantee a minimum income? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 4:41 am Post subject: |
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| Were I a Swiss legislator, I would be voting yes. Though I would be following that yes vote with another yes on a near total ban on immigration, which would include an end to "refugee" immigration and other such things. |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 4:51 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Were I a Swiss legislator, I would be voting yes. Though I would be following that yes vote with another yes on a near total ban on immigration, which would include an end to "refugee" immigration and other such things. |
100pc agree. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 4:51 am Post subject: |
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| Just curious, does anyone know how far that much money would actually go there? |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:01 am Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Were I a Swiss legislator, I would be voting yes. Though I would be following that yes vote with another yes on a near total ban on immigration, which would include an end to "refugee" immigration and other such things. |
100pc agree. |
Don't need to ban immigration, but limit it to citizens actually born in the country, or citizens born and immigrants who've spent x-years in county. I'd say 30 years is long enough to show your dedication to a country and it's the the bulk of most people's tax paying working years.
And most likely in a situation like this a lot of the lower, service industry jobs will go unfilled by young natural born citizens and be gladly taken by immigrants who don't get the universal-income. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:08 am Post subject: |
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| It would be interesting to see this implemented in a country with a much bigger populations. Say in Germany or the UK, to see if this can actually work in larger countries. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:15 am Post subject: |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
Don't need to ban immigration, but limit it to citizens actually born in the country, or citizens born and immigrants who've spent x-years in county. I'd say 30 years is long enough to show your dedication to a country and it's the the bulk of most people's tax paying working years. |
The only serious immigration I would consider is marriage to a citizen. What is a non-citizen who is not married to a citizen doing in the country for 30 years anyway? Whatever skills he has, 30 years is more than enough time to train the citizenry in them.
| jvalmer wrote: |
| And most likely in a situation like this a lot of the lower, service industry jobs will go unfilled by young natural born citizens and be gladly taken by immigrants who don't get the universal-income. |
If they were foolish enough to make it cancelled out by income, so that the first 2800 a month you earn essentially earns you zero, this would be true. If they avoid that pitfall, service industry jobs would still find plenty of workers, with the proviso that they treat those workers as fellow human beings. American-style institutions in the character of Wal-Mart would be out of the question, but working for money is working for money. The biggest problem with "welfare"-style income programs has always been that they vanish when you get a job. Let a young Swiss man keep his 2800 on top of whatever he can earn in his service job, and he'll likely work it, assuming he's treated with some modicum of respect. You'll get a loafer here and there, but so what? At least he won't be stealing your car radio to pay his rent. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:23 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
| Don't need to ban immigration, but limit it to citizens actually born in the country, or citizens born and immigrants who've spent x-years in county. I'd say 30 years is long enough to show your dedication to a country and it's the the bulk of most people's tax paying working years. |
The only serious immigration I would consider is marriage to a citizen. What is a non-citizen who is not married to a citizen doing in the country for 30 years anyway? Whatever skills he has, 30 years is more than enough time to train the citizenry in them. |
I'm saying that for larger countries, like Canada, a blanket Basic Income for every citizen might not work. So, I'd limit it to citizens born in country, and citizen-immigrants who've spent 30 years working in country. So that would prevent immigrants coming in just for the income. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:24 am Post subject: |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
| It would be interesting to see this implemented in a country with a much bigger populations. Say in Germany or the UK, to see if this can actually work in larger countries. |
If anything, it would work better in larger economies; the bureaucracy required to administer such a program is finite, and would be more cost-effective as population increases. The real problem is not population size, it is population quality and population homogeneity. Quality because you need an intelligent, educated, conscientious population to maintain adequate productivity, and homogeneity because, whether one likes it or not, most people are far less willing to adopt such broad social programs when "other groups" will benefit from them. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:38 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
Don't need to ban immigration, but limit it to citizens actually born in the country, or citizens born and immigrants who've spent x-years in county. I'd say 30 years is long enough to show your dedication to a country and it's the the bulk of most people's tax paying working years. |
The only serious immigration I would consider is marriage to a citizen. What is a non-citizen who is not married to a citizen doing in the country for 30 years anyway? Whatever skills he has, 30 years is more than enough time to train the citizenry in them.
| jvalmer wrote: |
| And most likely in a situation like this a lot of the lower, service industry jobs will go unfilled by young natural born citizens and be gladly taken by immigrants who don't get the universal-income. |
If they were foolish enough to make it cancelled out by income, so that the first 2800 a month you earn essentially earns you zero, this would be true. If they avoid that pitfall, service industry jobs would still find plenty of workers, with the proviso that they treat those workers as fellow human beings. American-style institutions in the character of Wal-Mart would be out of the question, but working for money is working for money. The biggest problem with "welfare"-style income programs has always been that they vanish when you get a job. Let a young Swiss man keep his 2800 on top of whatever he can earn in his service job, and he'll likely work it, assuming he's treated with some modicum of respect. You'll get a loafer here and there, but so what? At least he won't be stealing your car radio to pay his rent. |
I think that this wouldn't work without immigration mostly due to Swiss demographics.
http://www.indexmundi.com/switzerland/demographics_profile.html
An aging population with a .91% birthrate and long life expectancy would make this very hard to do I think. |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:51 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| jvalmer wrote: |
| It would be interesting to see this implemented in a country with a much bigger populations. Say in Germany or the UK, to see if this can actually work in larger countries. |
If anything, it would work better in larger economies; the bureaucracy required to administer such a program is finite, and would be more cost-effective as population increases. The real problem is not population size, it is population quality and population homogeneity. Quality because you need an intelligent, educated, conscientious population to maintain adequate productivity, and homogeneity because, whether one likes it or not, most people are far less willing to adopt such broad social programs when "other groups" will benefit from them. |
It might pacify the Vibrants.
Regarding if people would still work: I'd still work, though I'd take off the white collar monkey suit and throw away my suitcase, smart phone etc. Move somewhere nice and be a carpenter or something. It'd give me the freedom to spend my time doing something I enjoy. That's an individual intangible benefit that in aggregate might cause some problems. It'd probably cause a meaningful decline in economic productivity. Paradoxically, wages might appreciate under such a policy as people don't need to slave away for The Man. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:56 am Post subject: |
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| Immigration as a solution to low fertility is demographic suicide. Identify the reason the Swiss are having an insufficient number of children and address it instead of importing Italians, Yugoslavians, Turks, and third-world refugees. The basic income itself, through the security it provided, could assist in that regard, though I suspect other steps may prove necessary. |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 6:00 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Immigration as a solution to low fertility is demographic suicide. Identify the reason the Swiss are having an insufficient number of children and address it instead of importing Italians, Yugoslavians, Turks, and third-world refugees. The basic income itself, through the security it provided, could assist in that regard, though I suspect other steps may prove necessary. |
You sound like Vlad Putin.
What better way to encourage babies then ensuring that the citizens can afford them? |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 6:07 am Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Immigration as a solution to low fertility is demographic suicide. Identify the reason the Swiss are having an insufficient number of children and address it instead of importing Italians, Yugoslavians, Turks, and third-world refugees. The basic income itself, through the security it provided, could assist in that regard, though I suspect other steps may prove necessary. |
You sound like Vlad Putin.
What better way to encourage babies then ensuring that the citizens can afford them? |
Except, counterintuitively, this doesn't appear to happen. Instead it seems that as countries industrialize birth rates fall, and the richest countries (Japan, Scandinavia, Switzerland, etc.) all have the lowest birthrates in the world. Not sure what the answer is, or if having a continually growing birth rate should be thought of as a good thing, but prosperity doesn't seem to be the key. If this proves successful, it would probably not affect the rate, or possibly cause it to decline. I don't think wholesale immigration is an answer, just playing devil's advocate to poke holes in something that I would actually like to support. (the policy itself, not the total ban on immigration if that wasn't clear.)
There is always the Singaporean approach to increasing the birthrate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jxU89x78ac
http://cherokeegothic.com/2013/04/26/a-singaporean-strategy-for-increasing-the-fertility-rate/
I suspect that these tactics won't work, but who knows.
Last edited by Leon on Tue Oct 08, 2013 6:14 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 6:12 am Post subject: |
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| The most wealthy nations are also the highest cost. |
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