Finland to pay all its citizens 800 euros a month to fight unemployment

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CapnZapp

Legend
Because it's cheaper to pay a handful of rich people that money than it is to run a bureaucracy to check whether they should get it or not.



There's some truth in that. But those jobs are going away anyway. There's virtually nothing in a McDonald's kitchen that can't be automated - it's just a matter of cost, and the cost of labour goes up every year while the cost of automation comes down. As for WalMart, those self-scan checkouts are making those jobs increasingly redundant.
Yes, the idea that McJobs and "full employment" is the solution is something that will crash and burn with technological automation.

The very idea that everyone should work is fundamentally unsustainable.

Finland is simply first. Probably because the Nokia debacle has crashed their country so suddenly and thoroughly.

Basic income should be viewed as the alternative to forcing people into crime.
 

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CapnZapp

Legend
What do kids do when you leave them alone? They have fun, learn, explore, break things, and eat a bunch of candy. I figure something similar will happen, with a tweak that some adults will realize they can make their lives better by doing something other people find useful.

Like, it's akin to what the very first humans did when they were bumbling their way into the first ever 'economy.' Only now there's less chance of people starving.
Obviously nobody is saying the change won't mean short term problems.

Paying for children is perhaps the biggest one. If you only get money between 18-65 you basically can't live an honest life if you get kids unless you get a job.

But these issues are transitory. They are not fundamental to the system.
 

CapnZapp

Legend
If you try to create a breakpoint at which people will have earned enough (some amount $Y) that they will not receive the handout, you need to pay close attention to what kind of perverse incentive that has. $800 a month is $9.600 a year in non-taxed salary. Assuming that all payroll taxes still remain to fund the program (roughly 23% in Finland), and that you're in the 21% income bracket, that's equivalent to about $16k in salary a year. What you're going to find is that there will be a 'dead zone' in wages at the $Y to $Y+$16k range. In that space it's more profitable to take no raise and continue to draw your $800 monthly.

Of course, you can set $Y so high that the $800 monthly is small enough potatoes that no one really does this, but at that point the number of people is also a minuscule fraction of your population and the effort to cull them from automatic payments, even if mostly automated, will be more expensive to run than to pay them anyway. Programs for universal wages should be universal -- methods to exclude people cause weird and perverse incentives or just cost more to execute than not.
You get the €800 no matter what you do.

Even if you're only paid one dollar at your job, that still leaves you with more.

Perhaps you assumed each dollar earned would mean one dollar less on welfare?
 

CapnZapp

Legend
Giving people money feeds consummerism, so it doesn't solve capitalism's environmental sustainability problem.

It seems to be a race for the bottom right now, with only cosmetic variations depending on whom is in power. Politicians are subservient to the economic elite. Our ritualistic elections are just a variant of Saturnalias when Roman masters served their slaves for a day.

There was a federal election here not too long ago. The Trans-Pacific Partnership was agreed upon during the election. The treaty wasn't made public during the election and no party really said that they would refuse to sign it. We didn't have an option to chose. It was inevitable.
It's not designed to solve capitalism. It's designed to keep the unemployed out of crime and rebellion.

Not saying your problems don't deserve to be solved but please don't mix them into this discussion. Thank you.
 

CapnZapp

Legend
Giving people money well beyond their needs feeds consumerism. Giving them enough to just barely scrape by without much security feeds discontent. Giving them enough to survive with a basic and dignified quality of life... we don't know what this feeds, because we've not done it on any scale.
And this is precisely why we need somebody to be first out the gate.

Hopefully to shut up those critics whose main argument boils down to "it's never been done, so let's not even try"
 

CapnZapp

Legend
I knew I should have been clearer. The people with low or no income aren't so much at the heart of the problem as a good chunk of the middle class, who will be able to buy more crap with the extra money, is.
Their wages can be lowered by €800.

The point isn't to hand out free money to the already well off.
 

delericho

Legend
Paying for children is perhaps the biggest one. If you only get money between 18-65 you basically can't live an honest life if you get kids unless you get a job.

The article linked in the OP suggested it would replace the state pension, as well as other benefits, so it probably doesn't stop paying out at 65. Which is sensible.

You're right that about the problem for people with kids. It would seem there's a relatively easy solution to that one, though: an addition payment for those with children (probably a certain amount for the first child and then an additional, but lesser, amount for each additional child beyond the first).
 

Ovinomancer

No flips for you!
You get the €800 no matter what you do.

Even if you're only paid one dollar at your job, that still leaves you with more.

Perhaps you assumed each dollar earned would mean one dollar less on welfare?
You've failed to understand what I was responding to, which is funny because...
Their wages can be lowered by €800.

The point isn't to hand out free money to the already well off.
... this is the idea I was responding to. At no point did I suggest you'd get less welfare for earning a wage, I pointed out that if you're going to have a cut off where someone is 'well off' enough to not get the money, then you'd be creating a perverse incentive to NOT earn between whatever amount 'well off' is and whatever amount 'well off + $16k a year" is.

It's not designed to solve capitalism. It's designed to keep the unemployed out of crime and rebellion.

Not saying your problems don't deserve to be solved but please don't mix them into this discussion. Thank you.

You should take some time to read and understand the concepts of positional goods. That's one of the better arguments against this plan keeping people out of crime and rebellion. It will maybe keep people fed and housed, but it's not going to touch many of the causes of crime, of which things like positional goods are a strong motivator.
 

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
The article linked in the OP suggested it would replace the state pension, as well as other benefits, so it probably doesn't stop paying out at 65. Which is sensible.

You're right that about the problem for people with kids. It would seem there's a relatively easy solution to that one, though: an addition payment for those with children (probably a certain amount for the first child and then an additional, but lesser, amount for each additional child beyond the first).

I've never understood that logic. If you've determined that the minimum needed to sustain a kid is X dollars, would you give the second kid less than X.

Government: Here's enough for you to survive. Here's enough for your first child to survive. Here's not enough for your second child to survive. Enjoy watching him slowly fail!

Parent: I need to take my money and go buy a gun so I can feed him.

Give all the kids enough to survive or don't give any of them money, but don't jerk the parents around like that.
 

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