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

[Kramodlog]

Theirs is a policy for five million, not five billion.

So what? It is a global problem, we all have to do our part. If as individuals we all say our acts do not matter, we'll solve nothing.

What they're doing may not be manageable if scaled up to the whole planet right nowbut it *isn't* scaled up to the whole planet - it may be that this will actually maintain their economy by maintaining confidence, and that may provide the resources to continue to reduce emissions, where a recession would be a roadblock to reduction.

That isn't my point. Its that our life style is the problem. Giving more money to people might solve some problems, but it will not solve the more important one that can only be tackled by lowering our living standards and buying power.

Capitalism is about fufilling unlimited needs by using a planet with limited resources. That doesn't work on the long term.

With respect, there's a logical failure there - "A doesn't always go with B" does *not* imply that you can't have both. It means that *sometimes* you can't have both.

I know. I've chosen that sentence to avoid the opposite reaction: "Using an absolute is not good, because it just takes ones case that says otherwise to invalidate it".

Realistically (yup, I'm exposing myself to other critiques on form, but not content), we can't have both.

So, maybe it can be done, with careful management.

Many things are possible.

 

[Umbran]

So what? It is a global problem, we all have to do our part. If as individuals we all say our acts do not matter, we'll solve nothing.

But "all do our part" does not mean "all do the same thing", or "all do things that can scale up to the entire planet. Allow for local solutions to local problems, man!

On that issue, results matter more than methods - if they can manage to decrease greenhouse gasses sufficiently while doing a bit of consumerism-driving of their economy, who the heck are we to naysay them? You worry about how the Canadians manage it, and let the Finns figure out what works for them.

but it will not solve the more important one that can only be tackled by lowering our living standards and buying power.

With respect, there is no proof that we need to lower our living standards and buying power. That's one fairly simplistic route, but there are others.

Capitalism is about fulfilling unlimited needs by using a planet with limited resources. That doesn't work on the long term.

That is... a definition of capitalism of which I was previously unaware, and that I, at least, have not bought into. Capitalism is about how you finance your industry. That's it. There's nothing about "unlimited needs" in there. We have, to date, generally aimed at fulfilling whatever needs and desires that you can afford, but there's nothing saying that capitalism must be about consumption without caps. There are even ways to manage consumerism - carbon sin taxes, for example, which will tend to direct consumers to appropriate products.

Realistically (yup, I'm exposing myself to other critiques on form, but not content), we can't have both.

Many things are possible.

I see what you did there.

 

[tomBitonti]

I thought the problem was not capitalism, but in forcing payments for externalities. If you believe in capitalism as an efficient mechanism, then you just need to feed in accurate costs and let the market figure out the best practices for those costs.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality, for just one example. There is a huge amount of discussion of externalities and how they apply to pollution.

I've always thought that this is the key problem of pollution: Letting folks (both industry, government, and individuals) know what are the external costs and finding mechanisms to remove external costs (to turn them into actual costs).

Seems to be an ideal place for regulation, if you asked me, and a strong argument for not letting specific groups (e.g., energy producers, farmers, commuters) make decisions without input from all persons affected by a behavior.

Thx!
TomB

 

[Umbran]

I thought the problem was not capitalism, but in forcing payments for externalities. If you believe in capitalism as an efficient mechanism, then you just need to feed in accurate costs and let the market figure out the best practices for those costs.

That is one route - I mentioned the carbon sin tax above. That is, in essence, assigning a real cost to the external cost.

 

[Umbran]

And, as for whether we can have capitalism and do what we need to do...

It is possible we have hit peak carbon emissions - as in, next year we may emit *less* carbon than the year before - and done the turnaround in a time of general economic expansion.

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2892.html

"The projected change of -0.6% (from a range of -1.6% to +0.5%) in global CO2 emissions for 2015 follows the surprisingly low growth of 0.6% in 2014, and contrasts with average growth of 2.4% per year fo rthe previous decade. What makes the 2014 nd 2015 data so unusual is the pairing of relatively stable C02 emissions with continued global economic expansion."

 

[Ovinomancer]

Sure, if you plan the second child immediately and have room to save the stuff. That often doesn't pan out, though, and the amount you spend on electricity and phone is negligible compared the the amount you are losing.

There's some research out there using Dept Ag numbers that pretty clearly show that the marginal cost of a child drops significantly. I think one of the numbers was that two kids costs about 25k a year, but a third kid only ups it by about 3k. The thing is that you stop spending on the expensive luxuries that have high cost per person, and really cooking a meal for one more is usually a fractional cost of cooking normally (a meal for 4 is only a little more expensive to cook than a meal for 3, frex). My experience matches that. When we had no kids, we did expensive stuff all the time. When we had the first, a bunch of that stuff dropped, but we still did some. When the second came along, seven years later, we did even less of the expensive trips, but the daily costs didn't rise much at all (after diapers, mind).

So, yeah, the marginal cost of additional kids is lower.

 

[delericho]

Sure, if you plan the second child immediately

Most people do have their children fairly close together.

That often doesn't pan out, though, and the amount you spend on electricity and phone is negligible compared the the amount you are losing.

It's not negligible. It's one of a multitude of little savings that add up to an overall saving of just over 10% for the second and subsequent child - an average of £52 vs £46 per week in the UK.

 

[delericho]

what is immigration to Finland like?

Actually, that's a really good point.

Finland is part of the EU, and any EU citizen is entitled to move to any EU country and must be treated the same as a citizen in terms of employment rights, benefit payments, and so forth. Which means that, in theory at least, the entire population of Greece could move to Finland and would become eligible for the payment.

I would presume, though, that the lawmakers have considered this, so they'll probably put a residency requirement on it - that is, whether you're a citizen or not, you have to live in Finland for X years before you become eligible for the payment.

 

[Maxperson]

Most people do have their children fairly close together.

Most people don't have room to save old toys, cribs and clothes.

It's not negligible. It's one of a multitude of little savings that add up to an overall saving of just over 10% for the second and subsequent child -

10% is negligible. Instead of $800 you give $720. Big deal.

 

[delericho]

10% is negligible. Instead of $800 you give $720. Big deal.

Not to the person on welfare.