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

[Maxperson]

That's a circular argument.

The bottom line is that some small number of people will refuse to support themselves. One way or another, society will have to pay for them: either the government pays, or charities provide, or they'll turn to crime. Those are the choices - funnily enough, they won't simply choose to starve.

Since society will end up paying one way or another, the question becomes one of how best to do that.

Train them to work or let the charities support them. Free money for them to buy drugs and alcohol is a poor solution.

 

[delericho]

Train them to work or let the charities support them.

The charities giving them support is no different from the government giving them support - they're still getting what amounts to free money. With the difference that the government has a responsibility to ensure that everyone is covered, where charities inevitably have gaps in their provision.

And if people fall through the cracks, they will turn to crime.

Free money for them to buy drugs and alcohol is a poor solution.

Your prejudices are showing.

And if it eliminates the petty crime that would otherwise result, it pays for itself handsomely.

 

[Janx]

That's a circular argument.

The bottom line is that some small number of people will refuse to support themselves. One way or another, society will have to pay for them: either the government pays, or charities provide, or they'll turn to crime. Those are the choices - funnily enough, they won't simply choose to starve.

Since society will end up paying one way or another, the question becomes one of how best to do that.

If we consider examples like where terrorists get their bad guys...it's a few small steps to feeling marginalized, like society isn't helping you to society is the problem, so attack it and take what you need.

Hence, why at some point, paying poor people is basicaly to keep them from robbing you.

If you pay it before they do they become a threat, it's support.

If you pay it after, it's bribery.

 

[delericho]

If we consider examples like where terrorists get their bad guys...it's a few small steps to feeling marginalized, like society isn't helping you to society is the problem, so attack it and take what you need.

Hence, why at some point, paying poor people is basicaly to keep them from robbing you.

If you pay it before they do they become a threat, it's support.

If you pay it after, it's bribery.

There's a lot of truth in that.

Ideally, the situation would be that society would put in a mechanism to protect the very weakest and also provide a whole lot of mechanisms to help people better their lives - "yes, we will pay you to subsist if that's what you want, but why not do this, or this, or this, for a chance of a better life?"

That way, while it's true that your minimum payment to the poor can be seen as a bribe to stop them robbing you, you're also giving them plenty of opportunities to stop being poor altogether.

Too often with our systems at present, people fall into a trap of hopelessness - they're dependent on government money and/or charity support to survive, but the moment they start improving their circumstances that support starts to get pulled away. Meaning they've applied a whole lot of effort to end up back where they started - and that's if pulling the support hasn't left them worse off than they were before.

 

[Neonchameleon]

This has never been the case, and still isn't. It has never been the responsibility of the companies to put you (or anyone else) through college or trade school.

OK.

When Henry Ford came up with the production line he did not expect to have people he hired already skilled in using a production line. How could they be? Using a more recent example one of my friends is a professional fishmonger for a supermarket - they trained her. When someone joined her on the meat counter having previously been a professional butcher they had to retrain him because how he handled meat wasn't how they wanted it handled.

Skills based training has always been the job of the employer. Right back to apprentices and guild systems. Your claims to the contrary are ignorant of history, and of most modern successful workplaces- as far as I know the only major exceptions are startups, and most of those go bust and that mode certainly isn't sustainable.

Because post high school education is the responsibility of the person being educated and no one else.

1: We've switched from training skills to general education here. You've moved the goalposts from learning a skill into a college education. This is an entirely different kettle of fish.

2: Soaring costs of tuition fees, the inability to discharge student loans into bankruptcy, and other factors are making the cost of education rise fast. Average student debt has in the US been rising at more than twice the rate of inflation.

3: Because student debt is much more crippling than it used to be, pay needs to rise to compensate. Otherwise graduates need to jump ship for more lucrative businesses.

And despite the cost of education increasing, and the student debt increasing, and even profits increasing and CEO pay increasing markedly wages have been stagnant for a long time. Other than at the top (during 2012 the income of the richest 1% increased by almost 20% - while everyone else didn't keep up with inflation).

So despite the increasing cost of general education, companies aren't paying more. Which means they aren't paying enough to afford the general educational level they want. The owners and boards are just extracting more and more money and trousering it while complaining that by not paying more when costs are rising they aren't getting what they want and they will pout and scream until they get their way.

If the cheap-ass companies want actual skilled workers they can either pay for them (they aren't - the costs are rising and pay isn't) or they can work on cutting the cost of education. Or they can sit round whining and making sure that going to college is a deal that is getting steadily worse. The long and the short of it is that not paying what it costs means you don't get the thing.

And general education requires a lot more than you are suggesting spending. It also leads to an experience trap.

Oh, and the only way I can interpret your statement about "if charities want to help people more power to them" is as you not actually caring if people die in the streets. Charity income is pathetic - especially once you take into account that much charitable giving in the US is to Churches, and most of that money goes to support the Church itself.

I wondered how long it would take before "Let them starve" was on the table in addition to economic and historical ignorance.

Actually, the big corporations have been quite willing to pay for schooling for their employees. My friend got her masters degree that way. Some folks lacking bachelors who still got into engineering positions, have been sponsored to get those.

Granted, times have changed and budgets have tightened up where that's more rare, but I assure you,it used to be a thing in the 90's at least.

Absolutely. And in Britain a lot of companies have graduate training schemes following that (although few pay for degrees because until about 15 years ago we didn't even have tuition fees, and student loans are currently repayable as an effective grad tax of 9% over £15,000 p.a. until paid off). I'm unsurprised that companies in the US are trying to abdicate their responsibility to train staff. Disappointed but unsurprised.

 

[Neonchameleon]

If we consider examples like where terrorists get their bad guys...it's a few small steps to feeling marginalized, like society isn't helping you to society is the problem, so attack it and take what you need.

Hence, why at some point, paying poor people is basicaly to keep them from robbing you.

If you pay it before they do they become a threat, it's support.

If you pay it after, it's bribery.

If you want to start with threats "You don't have a roof over your head, and you probably won't get to eat" is a pretty nasty one. Attacking the people who are benefitting from you starving and taking what you need from them is not attacking so much as defending yourself.

And one of the points of a basic income is to ensure that that doesn't happen.

 

[Janx]

If you want to start with threats "You don't have a roof over your head, and you probably won't get to eat" is a pretty nasty one. Attacking the people who are benefitting from you starving and taking what you need from them is not attacking so much as defending yourself.

And one of the points of a basic income is to ensure that that doesn't happen.

Just saw in the news today. baltimore cop shoots a guy who tried to rob him with a fake gun. the guy had been without a home for a couple of weeks.

So, an example of how being desperate leads to crime and somebody getting hurt.

 

[tomBitonti]

It has never been the responsibility of the companies to put you (or anyone else) through college or trade school.

In effect, it has. Folks who have paid for education charge more for their employment.

I'm not saying that government sponsored training is a bad thing, but it does shift a cost from the employer to the taxpayer. (How that works out depends on the distribution of taxes.)

Similarly, student loans shift risk from employers to employees. I'm not saying that we ought not have student loans. We do need to understand the value they provide to employers.

Thx!
TomB

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...th-to-fight-unemployment/page20#ixzz3uyJwKOc1

 

[Maxperson]

The charities giving them support is no different from the government giving them support - they're still getting what amounts to free money.

Saying charities giving money is no different than the government giving money, because it still amounts to free money is like saying that murder is no different than killing in self-defense since the person still ends up dead. It's flat out bupkis.

And if people fall through the cracks, they will turn to crime.

Then they will get three hots and a cot. If they choose to fall through the cracks and not go to a shelter, then they have chosen jail. This thinking that somehow giving people money is going to make them into paragons of spending so that they don't turn to crime is naive. Most of those who turn to crime have mental problems and/or are substance abusers. Those people aren't going to miraculously fix themselves because we give them $800 a month.

And if it eliminates the petty crime that would otherwise result, it pays for itself handsomely.

If it eliminates petty theft, it will also fix global warming and land a man on Mars.

 

[Maxperson]

In effect, it has. Folks who have paid for education charge more for their employment.

I'm not saying that government sponsored training is a bad thing, but it does shift a cost from the employer to the taxpayer. (How that works out depends on the distribution of taxes.)

No it doesn't. Those employers are going to pay for the skills just the same as if the government has not paid. There is no shift in cost. There is only ADDED money from the government to help people learn skills and fill the massive deficit in skilled workers this country is facing.

Similarly, student loans shift risk from employers to employees. I'm not saying that we ought not have student loans. We do need to understand the value they provide to employers.

Student loans won't go away. We'd be adding in an avenue of training so that people who can't go to school to even get a loan will be able to join the workforce as a contributor.