Switzerland considering providing basic income to all ($2500/month)

[cubby1223]

http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/24/new...teed-basic-income/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom


I could get behind this. Scrap all other forms of welfare and give everyone guaranteed income above the poverty line. Those who strive to do better for themselves will continue to do so.

1) Switzerland makes a shit-ton of money through their "banking" system.
2) Switzerland makes it damn near impossible for an outsider to become a Swiss citizen.

Versus the model the citizens of the U.S. follow:

1) Tear down the banking systems.
2) Invite in anyone and everyone who can walk across the border to be a citizen.

There are reasons why that can work in Switzerland but not in the U.S.

 

[Jaskalas]

Wow talk about missing the point, here I will make it easy for you.

Notice how he is saying Basic Income eliminates social programs, specifically food stamps aka EBT cards and housing along with their restrictions, you know the same restrictions that makes sure those funds are used for housing and food.

Now that you have gotten rid of those programs and replaced them with unconditional basic income, tell me , what do you do with the people who take their basic income check and blow it the first few days and have nothing left for the rest of the month since the welfare programs (with restrictions on how funds could be spend) no longer exist?

Especially since these people couldn't use an unrestricted EBT card for its intended purpose in the post I made that you responded to,

unless all these ivory tower lefty pseudo liberals believe that people are going to magically take personal responsibility and pick themselves up by their bootstraps because you know "Basic Income" was what was missing in their lives.

Your contention isn't that we're handing people money, because either way we are. The contention is that they have the capacity to waste, or squander it. Or use it in ways that are not approved. It's government's lack of absolute control over them. You question that as unwise, I question the effort as ultimately being a prison.

Perhaps what we need is a third option, a sort of homeless shelter to enact the government control you desire. But those who beg/enlist for such a thing would be drafted for a labor camp in exchange for their cheap food/housing. Think of it as a middle step between freedom and incarceration. Prison -> Draft/Shelter -> Freedom. Fail at being responsible, get booted down the ladder. Prove yourself, get a chance to "graduate".

It might even be something we need in our current system. To stop prisoners from being thrown onto the street and then right back into prison.

 

[werepossum]

How is it that you've been posting here for 10 years and you still don't understand that as long as debt/GDP ratio is under control we can actually spend as long as we want without things crashing down?

Debt has already surpassed GDP. That meets no rational definition of "under control".

The idea that conservatives give more to charity than liberals do is questionable at best.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ritable-but-they-give-to-different-charities/

It also requires defining religious organizations as charity. While religious organizations undoubtedly engage in significant amounts of charitable activity those donations also serve to maintain and spread their preferred religious belief, which is not charity at all.

All that aside, I'm not surprised that basic income is something conservatives don't like, but you would think it is something they would support if the alternative is our current patchwork of programs.

As for your 'strike two', we have been over that silliness before.

Same applies for the secular left. The Humane Society regifts a lot of its donations to left wing advocacy causes, yet is still considered charity. As for your study, it's not surprising to find one that flies in the face of the others, but it is just one.

As far as our current patchwork of programs goes, most are geared toward either feeding and housing children of shiftless and/or plain unlucky parents or toward supporting people who are not capable of supporting themselves. A patchwork of programs we consider soundly based would be ideologically preferable to simply handing out money to everyone. Doesn't mean conservatives can't be won over, but it's definitely an uphill climb. And I'm missing something about strike two - what is your issue with that?

Your contention isn't that we're handing people money, because either way we are. The contention is that they have the capacity to waste, or squander it. Or use it in ways that are not approved. It's government's lack of absolute control over them. You question that as unwise, I question the effort as ultimately being a prison.

Perhaps what we need is a third option, a sort of homeless shelter to enact the government control you desire. But those who beg/enlist for such a thing would be drafted for a labor camp in exchange for their cheap food/housing. Think of it as a middle step between freedom and incarceration. Prison -> Draft/Shelter -> Freedom. Fail at being responsible, get booted down the ladder. Prove yourself, get a chance to "graduate".

It might even be something we need in our current system. To stop prisoners from being thrown onto the street and then right back into prison.

In my view, these forced labor programs are an area where we should tread very, very lightly. I would argue that it should be one or the other, either checks with work requirements or barracks-style shelters without. To combine them reeks of a return to Dark Ages and early Medieval serfdom, where free men would bond themselves and their families into bondage to obtain food, board and security.

 

[zinfamous]

alcohol, tobacco, lottery tickets, tattoos or adult movies, you call those needs?

let's try again, Instead of deflecting how about answer the question,, since you want to eliminate the welfare programs with their various restrictions and supplant them with unconditional basic income what do you do with the people, that were previously on welfare, that burn through that basic income and now have nothing left for necessities?

Do you tell them so sorry, to bad, and let them eat cake, they had their money and should have been more responsible and just go get one of those non existent high paying jobs to supplement their wants,

or do you go back to the taxpayer, that you promised basic income was going to fix the welfare problem by eliminating it by using basic income, and ask for more money (welfare part 2) to take care of the individuals and families that mismanaged their basic income under some think of the children rhetoric?

I thought you guys liked 3 things in relative order:

--bootstraps
--less government
--free will.

This proposal essentially enforces all of those things. Shouldn't you not even care about the things they spend their money on? Shouldn't you accept that they will rely on their bootstraps to pull them up and into sensible money-spending habits, and further carry them on to the necessary means to generate even more income to live comfortably? You guys are always talking about bootstraps, at least until presented an opportunity to utilize them.

I find that strange.

Perhaps we should call this the Bootstrap Act and it will be passed with Universal praise in a nonpartisan, highly popular fashion.

 

[cubby1223]

I thought you guys liked 3 things in relative order:

Two problems with your post:

1) don't assume everyone "on the other side" is the same.
2) when people squander what has been freely given to them, the important question is what will the bleeding-heart liberals demand be given to them in addition. Will liberals leave the situation as-is? History suggests not. And asking this question is not contradictory to what you claim.

 

[werepossum]

Two problems with your post:

1) don't assume everyone "on the other side" is the same.
2) when people squander what has been freely given to them, the important question is what will the bleeding-heart liberals demand be given to them in addition. Will liberals leave the situation as-is? History suggests not. And asking this question is not contradictory to what you claim.

Eskimospy actually had a pretty definitive answer to that: People who squader their EBT allotment today don't get extra largesse, why would we assume they would if the hand-outs are handed out by different rules? (I have been agreeing with Eskimospy a lot lately; I obviously need to get more sleep. 😀)

Zinfamous makes an excellent point though. We conservatives (or at least, we on balance non-leftists) do advocate self-sufficiency, less government, and more individual liberty. These things are all in conflict with program restrictions which ban "sin" items "for their own good." I too like these restrictions, especially where these funds are earmarked for the support of children, but he is correct about the conflict. I should have caught that myself since I have that exact conflict. (Especially egregious since I KNOW how people get around these restrictions to get their beer and ciggies, and I KNOW that these methods leave even less for the children.)

Having been reminded, consider me chastened, and I'll flip my support toward individual liberty. Even though I can support more infringement on that individual liberty when one is on the dole, in the end, offering these charity cases the right to make their own mistakes might give them enough pride to learn good decisions. Can't be easy to go through life knowing that society considers you too stupid to be trusted with your own grocery shopping.

 

[Zaap]

Giving people money out of someone else's pocket... and twisting that into a personal responsibility/individual liberty argument isn't really flying.

 

[zinfamous]

Two problems with your post:

1) don't assume everyone "on the other side" is the same.

fair, but then you kinda:

2) when people squander what has been freely given to them, the important question is what will the bleeding-heart liberals demand be given to them in addition. Will liberals leave the situation as-is? History suggests not. And asking this question is not contradictory to what you claim.

...make the same assumption. What do you know of the "bleeding heart liberal" coalition and of their intentions in such a hypothetical scenario?

If you admonish me for making broad assumptions about a default conservative position (on a proposed policy), why do you give yourself free reign to make similar bold proclamations regarding how the evil left will respond in the event that reality develops differently than hoped? (based on a hypothetical response to policy)?

You support yourself through "history tells me thus." Why can't I use "history tells me thus" as adequate support to paint broad strokes over what history has taught me about conservatives?

Do you think that, perhaps, you don't know as much about liberals as you think you do?

 

[zinfamous]

Giving people money out of someone else's pocket... and twisting that into a personal responsibility/individual liberty argument isn't really flying.

so no welfare, no medicare/medicaid/social security/nothing?

none whatsoever?

Back to Ancient Rome for this version of Western civilization, then? ....you do realize that many of these programs actually come back into your own pockets as well, right?

 

[MajinCry]

Giving people money out of someone else's pocket... and twisting that into a personal responsibility/individual liberty argument isn't really flying.

Ah, the Fuck You I Got Mine train of thought. Benefiting from society, but not helping the lower rungs in return.

Stay classy, Anandtech.

 

[sandorski]

Debt has already surpassed GDP. That meets no rational definition of "under control".


Same applies for the secular left. The Humane Society regifts a lot of its donations to left wing advocacy causes, yet is still considered charity. As for your study, it's not surprising to find one that flies in the face of the others, but it is just one.

As far as our current patchwork of programs goes, most are geared toward either feeding and housing children of shiftless and/or plain unlucky parents or toward supporting people who are not capable of supporting themselves. A patchwork of programs we consider soundly based would be ideologically preferable to simply handing out money to everyone. Doesn't mean conservatives can't be won over, but it's definitely an uphill climb. And I'm missing something about strike two - what is your issue with that?


In my view, these forced labor programs are an area where we should tread very, very lightly. I would argue that it should be one or the other, either checks with work requirements or barracks-style shelters without. To combine them reeks of a return to Dark Ages and early Medieval serfdom, where free men would bond themselves and their families into bondage to obtain food, board and security.

Although not a great comparison, most who have a Mortgage have surpassed their Income with Debt.

 

[zinfamous]

Eskimospy actually had a pretty definitive answer to that: People who squader their EBT allotment today don't get extra largesse, why would we assume they would if the hand-outs are handed out by different rules? (I have been agreeing with Eskimospy a lot lately; I obviously need to get more sleep. 😀)

Zinfamous makes an excellent point though. We conservatives (or at least, we on balance non-leftists) do advocate self-sufficiency, less government, and more individual liberty. These things are all in conflict with program restrictions which ban "sin" items "for their own good." I too like these restrictions, especially where these funds are earmarked for the support of children, but he is correct about the conflict. I should have caught that myself since I have that exact conflict. (Especially egregious since I KNOW how people get around these restrictions to get their beer and ciggies, and I KNOW that these methods leave even less for the children.)

Having been reminded, consider me chastened, and I'll flip my support toward individual liberty. Even though I can support more infringement on that individual liberty when one is on the dole, in the end, offering these charity cases the right to make their own mistakes might give them enough pride to learn good decisions. Can't be easy to go through life knowing that society considers you too stupid to be trusted with your own grocery shopping.

see, here we go.

I'm not sure if I think this is the best idea, but I see the appeal. The evil liberal in me does wonder about what happens to the crack heads and the unwanted forced-to-be-born babies of crackheads when they spend their dole on crack and cigarettes. My bleeding heart forces me to sympathize with those hated babies (this is no fault of their own, mind you), and even their sick parents even though they are no real use to society.

At the same time, I like the pure freedom it proposes. I see the appeal to quasi-pretend-libertarians such as myself and ultra pure no-BS libertarians like yourself: Let the corpses pile up where nature and personal choice dictates they must. Harvest the bodies for renewable resources, etc.

Either way, I think the efficiency is hard to ignore. While it is hard not to imagine the natural tendency to eventually start piling on more "tiers" of aid based on specific cases or broad classes (thus falling back into more levels of bureaucracy and waste), I can't image not combing this with a model similar to what Denver has been doing for many years now, that provides very basic and dependable housing for chronic homeless people, provided they meet certain incentives. But then, simply providing that housing with no strings is cheaper to taxpayers than simply letting them live on the streets.

 

[werepossum]

Giving people money out of someone else's pocket... and twisting that into a personal responsibility/individual liberty argument isn't really flying.

If it helps, I am assuming that we will be giving the people in question other people's money anyway. Ideologically it goes against my druthers, but I also do not wish to live in a nation where people starve to death or die of exposure in the streets. My ideology is my starting point, not my end position.

Although not a great comparison, most who have a Mortgage have surpassed their Income with Debt.

That's true. It's also true that having obtained that mortgage, one had best have a plan for paying it off that does not include "and then a miracle happens".

see, here we go.

I'm not sure if I think this is the best idea, but I see the appeal. The evil liberal in me does wonder about what happens to the crack heads and the unwanted forced-to-be-born babies of crackheads when they spend their dole on crack and cigarettes. My bleeding heart forces me to sympathize with those hated babies (this is no fault of their own, mind you), and even their sick parents even though they are no real use to society.

At the same time, I like the pure freedom it proposes. I see the appeal to quasi-pretend-libertarians such as myself and ultra pure no-BS libertarians like yourself: Let the corpses pile up where nature and personal choice dictates they must. Harvest the bodies for renewable resources, etc.

Either way, I think the efficiency is hard to ignore. While it is hard not to imagine the natural tendency to eventually start piling on more "tiers" of aid based on specific cases or broad classes (thus falling back into more levels of bureaucracy and waste), I can't image not combing this with a model similar to what Denver has been doing for many years now, that provides very basic and dependable housing for chronic homeless people, provided they meet certain incentives. But then, simply providing that housing with no strings is cheaper to taxpayers than simply letting them live on the streets.

But the issue is really the same either way. People receiving highly restricted EBT cards will trade them to others for enough cash to buy their cigarettes and alcohol, if they indulge in such.

One small correction: I am nowhere near a pure libertarian. I approve of sensible regulations to protect workers, the environment, even the business cycle; I'll happily trade a sightly lower rate of growth (especially given that the Fed will determine the "correct" growth rate and bludgeon it down to that level anyway) for less volatility (read: pain) in the business cycle. I don't want government out of the fire and EMT business (except in sparsely settled rural areas where volunteer fire departments make sense. I don't - well, you get the idea. Suffice it to say I am all in favor of individual liberty up until it encroaches into another's freedom or property, including common property such as the environment at large. Corporate liberty . . . Trust, but verify.

 

[Zaap]

so no welfare, no medicare/medicaid/social security/nothing?

none whatsoever?

Back to Ancient Rome for this version of Western civilization, then? ....you do realize that many of these programs actually come back into your own pockets as well, right?

Lol.
Your dumb arguments fail so you go straight to extremes. Typical.

I ofcourse said none of that. I merely pointed out your attempt to sell giving people other people's money as a personal responsibility argument isnt working.

 

[Zaap]

Ah, the Fuck You I Got Mine train of thought. Benefiting from society, but not helping the lower rungs in return.

Stay classy, Anandtech.

Any amount of money says beyond a doubt you're the least charitable person here. Your whole holier-than-thou attitude reeks of it.

 

[zinfamous]

Lol.
Your dumb arguments fail so you go straight to extremes. Typical.

I ofcourse said none of that. I merely pointed out your attempt to sell giving people other people's money as a personal responsibility argument isnt working.

you did say that.

you said all of those things. All of those things is exactly the result of your proposed policy. Tell me how you protect these programs from your "no money out of anyone else's pockets!" proposal.

don't run away and hide. You said it.

 

[Zaap]

you did say that.

you said all of those things. All of those things is exactly the result of your proposed policy. Tell me how you protect these programs from your "no money out of anyone else's pockets!" proposal.

don't run away and hide. You said it.

Lol!
It's always hilarious when you double down on stupid.

And I've noticed: you do it OFTEN.

 

[JSt0rm]

Two problems with your post:

1) don't assume everyone "on the other side" is the same.
2) when people squander what has been freely given to them, the important question is what will the bleeding-heart liberals demand be given to them in addition. Will liberals leave the situation as-is? History suggests not. And asking this question is not contradictory to what you claim.

Liberals also work hard and make money.

 

[zinfamous]

Lol!
It's always hilarious when you double down on stupid.

And I've noticed: you do it OFTEN.

Don't ever let anyone confuse you for a sharp man, Zaap. You stay strong, dear.

 

[Sulaco]

Swiss voters overwhelmingly reject the proposed basic income, with 77% against as opposed to 23% in support.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060

 

[brianmanahan]

Swiss voters overwhelmingly reject the proposed basic income, with 77% against as opposed to 23% in support.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060

as expected.

it's like the economist in the article said, "If you pay people to do nothing, they will do nothing." maybe not everybody, but the majority of people.

not to mention that every lazy person in the world would want to move there.

 

[MovingTarget]

I'm honestly not surprised about the result. The plan was pretty vague with the specifics on how that money would be collected. Switzerland is a fairly conservative* country overall.

*does not mean the same thing as it does in the US

 

[Greenman]

as expected.

it's like the economist in the article said, "If you pay people to do nothing, they will do nothing." maybe not everybody, but the majority of people.

not to mention that every lazy person in the world would want to move there.

That is a fundamental truth.

 

[zinfamous]

as expected.

it's like the economist in the article said, "If you pay people to do nothing, they will do nothing." maybe not everybody, but the majority of people.

not to mention that every lazy person in the world would want to move there.

You were too scared to leave your house to visit London for a week.

Have you ever been to Switzerland? I lived there for a month.

It is straight uphill, everywhere you want to go. Think about San Francisco, and add a factor of 6. That is Switzerland.

What the fuck kind of lazy person would go there?

It's also really high (Fatties can't breath), really fucking cold and covered with snow 60% of the year, and expensive just to get there and live a week, basic income be damned.

 

[zinfamous]

I'm honestly not surprised about the result. The plan was pretty vague with the specifics on how that money would be collected. Switzerland is a fairly conservative* country overall.

*does not mean the same thing as it does in the US

you are correct.

"The US will never have liquid soap!"

..(this, proclaimed to me, by a retired, absurdly well educated and well-traveled uber-Swiss natural patriot c. 2001)

crazy place.