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

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

There is also another view on this whole "burden" or "free money" thing:
There are things we deem every human to have - in the US it's for example the Pursuit of Happiness. Even if you never did anything for anyone else, we claim you have the right to the pursuit of happiness. We don't expect people to first work their asses off before they can get a chance to do something for themselves - no, we (or rather, the US constitution) says everyone has a right to try that.

Basically, there seems to be already some form of consensus that a human has an innate worth.
We're just haggling the price - can he be worth 800 € a month? Is it a few food stamps and emergency care? Or is he not even allowed to walk the tax-funded boardwalk?

 

[Cristian Andreu]

In principle, I have no ideological objections to the measure, though it's clear the effectiveness will be critically dependent on how responsible the people are in using this extra money to fit into their basic budget.

However, I do wonder about the impact this would have on inflation within the short-to-mid term, with so many millions of euros suddenly being available for spending among the populace.

 

[Maxperson]

And this is where the right wing and the left wing will never see eye to eye.

To put it simply there are two factors in play here.

1: No one deserves to starve to death or die of exposure. That is far, far more important than any penny pinching worry that people might get things they don't deserve that are nice.

2: If we're talking about what we deserve then based on the history of the world I don't deserve anything more than to be a subsistence farmer earning less than the equivalent of $1000/year if I'm extremely lucky. If I'd been born at most times and in most places of history that's what I'd be. Likewise you. And I don't deserve more than that - but I'm lucky enough to be born in the West in the late 20th Century with a working body and good mind and to a well off family.

1: That's a strawman. I said money for nothing and you give an example of exposure or starvation, clearly indicating that something is going on, probably being poor or insane.

Money for nothing is a horrible thing and is the product of an entitled society that is getting worse as more and more entitled people are created. Money for being poor (with strings of course) I can understand. Money for being disabled I can understand. Money for being elderly I can understand. Money for nothing? Nope.

2: Is just plain false. This is not 100 or 200 years ago. I work and earn my keep. I don't sponge free money that I'm not entitled to.

I therefore have a lot more than I deserve by the good fortune of where and when I was born. It seems to me therefore mean-spirited to deny others similar benefits.

Then let them earn it.

The easiest and cheapest way of doing this is giving them money to let them break poverty traps. Just as the easiest, cheapest, and most effective way of solving homelessness is ... to give people houses.

The math proves this false. $800 a month is $9600 a year or $96000 in 10 years. You can train someone to be a contributing member of society by giving them money for a year and spending 10-20k teaching them a marketable skill. There's no way in hell that spending hundreds of thousands on every person for multiple decades of dependence is cheaper than 20-30k.

I trust you don't use the roads and never took advantage of the education system by going to school? I trust you aren't using any government funded research in your use of the internet? I trust you have never in your life taken advantage of any sort of tax break. That whatever you work for has never had any form of corporate subsidy. And that they don't use roads put up by the government or food that passes government inspection.

Yes, I'm prepared to say categorically that you personally are a burden on the government and the rest of society if your only measure is how much you take. And the same is true for me. And every other human being that has ever lived. And that anyone who thinks they aren't is fooling themselves by not seeing the interconnected nature of society.

I pay my taxes and have for decades. I contribute my share to the roads, etc. that I use.

 

[Maxperson]

That's nice in theory, but in practice it doesn't work. It's called the poverty trap, where a person who is extremely poor finds that as soon as they start digging themselves out of it they find all the systems work against them - if their earnings go above this threshold then their benefits disappear, while if they go above that threshold then their debts must be paid back, and so on. With the net effect that they're better off not digging themselves out of poverty - because they could slave away for five years for no benefit, or they could do nothing, enjoy the free time that results, and have the same standard of living for those same five years.

Eh, no. In practice it does work. It has just never been practiced due to those systems you mentioned. That's why I said it SHOULD be done, not that it is currently being done.

In the case of California, the humiliating bit will be going to get the card in the first place and/or going to get it loaded with the 'free' money. And, yes, some people would rather starve than be thought of as being so poor as to need that handout.

It gets mailed to you and there is no going to get it loaded. It's attached to the card though some sort of system. The money just shows up in an account that the card accesses. California went out of its way to remove the humiliation.

 

[Maxperson]

There is also another view on this whole "burden" or "free money" thing:
There are things we deem every human to have - in the US it's for example the Pursuit of Happiness. Even if you never did anything for anyone else, we claim you have the right to the pursuit of happiness. We don't expect people to first work their asses off before they can get a chance to do something for themselves - no, we (or rather, the US constitution) says everyone has a right to try that.

Basically, there seems to be already some form of consensus that a human has an innate worth.
We're just haggling the price - can he be worth 800 € a month? Is it a few food stamps and emergency care? Or is he not even allowed to walk the tax-funded boardwalk?

You have the right to pursue happiness. That does not mean you will catch it. Happiness not guaranteed to you.

 

[delericho]

You say...

Money for nothing is a horrible thing and is the product of an entitled society that is getting worse as more and more entitled people are created. Money for being poor (with strings of course) I can understand. Money for being disabled I can understand. Money for being elderly I can understand. Money for nothing? Nope.

And then...

I pay my taxes and have for decades. I contribute my share to the roads, etc. that I use.

Question: where do you think the proposed 800 Euros per month is going to come from?

For the majority, that 800 Euros won't be "free money", it will be a refund of part of the money they have paid in taxes. They will already have contributed their share.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You have the right to pursue happiness. That does not mean you will catch it. Happiness not guaranteed to you.

The point is that this right is unconditional.

You don't need to do something special to get this right. Just exist, and you have this right to pursue your happiness. You don't need to prove your worth to the community to get this right.
Your pursuit of happiness might create worth to the community, but it might also not.

 

[Neonchameleon]

1: That's a strawman. I said money for nothing and you give an example of exposure or starvation, clearly indicating that something is going on, probably being poor or insane.

Given that you can always create a fig leaf justification for anything then your "money for nothing" clause is meaningless.

Money for nothing is a horrible thing and is the product of an entitled society that is getting worse as more and more entitled people are created. Money for being poor (with strings of course) I can understand. Money for being disabled I can understand. Money for being elderly I can understand. Money for nothing? Nope.

And what you are blatantly ignoring here is that money is a consensual myth. Those pieces of paper in your wallet, those bank notes, even those coins, are utterly worthless without the context of the society you live in. (Pennies actually cost more than a penny to make, but I digress). Most currencies are fiat currencies - i.e. backed purely by mythmaking.

And apparently you can understand money for being elderly or for being young but not for being human.

2: Is just plain false. This is not 100 or 200 years ago. I work and earn my keep. I don't sponge free money that I'm not entitled to.

The "free money that I'm not entitled to" is irrelevant. With a citizens income we are talking about changing the rules so everyone is entitled to some money.

And just because you don't think you are a sponger doesn't mean you aren't. What's your environmental impact like? How many earths would it take to support everyone the way you live? (One reason our current economy is simple is we just externalise most pollution).

So. You earn your keep. Based on technologies created by other people. You are fortunate to live in the early 21st Century and in America. And unwilling to have others be fortunate so far as I can tell.

The math proves this false. $800 a month is $9600 a year or $96000 in 10 years. You can train someone to be a contributing member of society by giving them money for a year and spending 10-20k teaching them a marketable skill. There's no way in hell that spending hundreds of thousands on every person for multiple decades of dependence is cheaper than 20-30k.

The math doesn't prove that false. First Citizens Income is a gamechanger, allowing them to make more out of any skills they have that they want to market (e.g. professional music). Second it's paid for by progressive taxation. When you're earning more than $40k or so you end up paying the citizens' income back in tax anyway. So it costs nothing for that group. Third, Congratulations! You've just solved unemployment! What an amazing thing no one has tried setting up "marketable skill" schemes. Riiight. Fourth money from a citizens' income circulates amazingly well through an economy. It's an even better economic stimulus than infrastructure building.

I pay my taxes and have for decades. I contribute my share to the roads, etc. that I use.

And to fixing global warming?

 

[Janx]

1: That's a strawman. I said money for nothing and you give an example of exposure or starvation, clearly indicating that something is going on, probably being poor or insane.

Money for nothing is a horrible thing and is the product of an entitled society that is getting worse as more and more entitled people are created. Money for being poor (with strings of course) I can understand. Money for being disabled I can understand. Money for being elderly I can understand. Money for nothing? Nope.

2: Is just plain false. This is not 100 or 200 years ago. I work and earn my keep. I don't sponge free money that I'm not entitled to.



Then let them earn it.



The math proves this false. $800 a month is $9600 a year or $96000 in 10 years. You can train someone to be a contributing member of society by giving them money for a year and spending 10-20k teaching them a marketable skill. There's no way in hell that spending hundreds of thousands on every person for multiple decades of dependence is cheaper than 20-30k.



I pay my taxes and have for decades. I contribute my share to the roads, etc. that I use.

I hope your job is replaced by robots tomorrow.

You are not getting that in our modern economy, there are not enough jobs for everybody. If we could force everybody to work, there wouldn't be enough positions to actually employ them.

And that jobs are continuously made obsolete, meaning whatever skillset you had, especially if it was one that took specific training, is likely going away after awhile.

And that in the USA, you cannot force somebody into a skillset. I can't take you and force you to go to plumber school and be a plumber.


What I can do is create the opportunity for you to decide what you want to learn and decide how you want to contribute to society.


And remember 1-2 centuries ago, the answer to not giving people money for nothing was they would rise up and have a revolution and chop off some heads.

Given that Eugenics is frown upon, my next option is to keep them fed so they don't rise up and chop my head off. I should also encourage them to use birth control.

What can happen is that children born in poor, but stable families have a chance to get an education, get some student loans and go to college, and enter the middle class job market. That only happens if we throw some money at poor people to stabilize their situation so the single mothers can do a better job raising their kids. (drop your snide comment, this is how I got to where I am).


I would bet, only 10% of poor people are looking to get a free ride. Most humans are properly wired and WANT to contribute. But life keeps them down. They don't make enough to afford a better car, so every other paycheck is a crisis to cover an expensive car repair or medical issue, etc, so they drop out of school so they can work more, to stay on the treadmill. Achieving escape velocity is not easy.

 

[Maxperson]

Given that you can always create a fig leaf justification for anything then your "money for nothing" clause is meaningless.

Valid reasons =/= weak justifications.

And what you are blatantly ignoring here is that money is a consensual myth. Those pieces of paper in your wallet, those bank notes, even those coins, are utterly worthless without the context of the society you live in. (Pennies actually cost more than a penny to make, but I digress). Most currencies are fiat currencies - i.e. backed purely by mythmaking.

Entirely irrelevant. You're throwing up smoke screens and I see through them. Where money comes from and how it is valued has no bearing on whether or not people should get free money.

And apparently you can understand money for being elderly or for being young but not for being human.

You don't deserve money for being human. You deserve money that you earn. Children, the elderly and the disabled can't earn like the rest of us. The poor who need some education to be productive can be helped, but only to teach them to be productive.

The "free money that I'm not entitled to" is irrelevant. With a citizens income we are talking about changing the rules so everyone is entitled to some money.

Everyone is not entitled to free money. The rules should not be changed for reasons of entitlement. That way lies Greece and other countries who are drowning in their entitlement programs.

So. You earn your keep. Based on technologies created by other people. You are fortunate to live in the early 21st Century and in America. And unwilling to have others be fortunate so far as I can tell.

Um, no. I'm willing to have them be just as fortunate as I am. I learned a skill and earn my keep. They can be just as fortunate.

Third, Congratulations! You've just solved unemployment! What an amazing thing no one has tried setting up "marketable skill" schemes. Riiight.

Nobody has tried it here in America. We have many, many jobs just sitting around because people who are skilled aren't out there to take them. The current programs for the poor are designed to keep them poor. The programs slap down anyone who tries to get that schooling.

And just because you don't think you are a sponger doesn't mean you aren't. What's your environmental impact like? How many earths would it take to support everyone the way you live? (One reason our current economy is simple is we just externalise most pollution).

And to fixing global warming?

The environment does not belong here. If you want to discuss it, you should create a new thread. I'm not going to engage.