Finland Is Killing Its Basic Income Experiment (businessinsider.com) 592
tomhath shares a report: Since the beginning of last year, 2000 Finns are getting money from the government each month -- and they are not expected to do anything in return. The participants, aged 25-58, are all unemployed, and were selected at random by Kela, Finland's social-security institution. Instead of unemployment benefits, the participants now receive $690 per month, tax free. Should they find a job during the two-year trial, they still get to keep the money. While the project is praised internationally for being at the cutting edge of social welfare, back in Finland, decision makers are quietly pulling the brakes, making a U-turn that is taking the project in a whole new direction. "Right now, the government is making changes that are taking the system further away from a basic income," Kela researcher Miska Simanainen told the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet.
Duh? (Score:5, Funny)
You didn't need Ms. Cleo to see this coming.
Re:Duh? (Score:5, Informative)
TFA is misleading.
It was never a universal basic income, because it was never universal. Only unemployed people got it.
And it was less generous than the previous unemployment benefits, the idea being to "encourage" people into work.
Re:Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
People like you are always saying socialism doesn't work, it just hasn't been run long enough to collapse yet.
Re:Duh? (Score:4, Insightful)
People like you are always saying socialism doesn't work
UBI is NOT "socialism".
Here is the definition of socialism: Government ownership of the mean of production.
That is what socialism is. That is the only thing it is.
Does UBI involve government ownership of factories, tools, or capital? No, it does not. Ergo, it is not "socialism".
Government run pensions are not "socialism". Unemployment benefits are not "socialism". Depending on your political views, those may be good things, or they may be bad things, but they are not "socialism".
Sorry for going off on a rant here, but socialism is an important concept, and it is a useful word with no obvious alternative. We should not dilute its meaning by using it for all kinds of tangential concepts.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Duh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed. My submission had "basic income" in quotes to recognized that, but those quotes were removed by msmash.
However, I do note that when the program was started, many proponents celebrated it as an experiment in UBI even as critics pointed out that it wasn't really. It is but it isn't; but wait, now it isn't but it is. Whatever.
Re:Duh? (Score:4, Informative)
It was never a universal basic income, because it was never universal. Only unemployed people got it.
Just did a search on this page for the word "universal" - your comment is the first place it shows up. In TFA they clearly denote the difference:
And it was less generous than the previous unemployment benefits, the idea being to "encourage" people into work
nothing in TFA indicates what you claim.
So.. why did you make this post? Knee-jerk reaction to a headline? I am genuinely curious.
Re:Duh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, but it's at least a trial and a data point. If you're starting a research study for a new wonder drug, we don't dose the entire population and see if it works, why would economic policy be any different.
If it doesn't work on a small set with controlled parameters, how would it work on a larger scale without said parameters.
Re: Duh? (Score:3)
Whereas the previous system of grinding poverty and early death was a huge success?
Re: Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't need work. I need money. I could find a lot of sensible things to do with my time on my own, don't worry about this.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, I have. After the dot.com time I had plenty of money to spend so I took a few years off. I picked up a lot of hardware knowledge, developed a few early IoT tools, developed a terrain rendering engine and started into IT security, then spent some time finding out about and acquiring certifications in this area.
At some point I had to earn money again, there's plenty of things I couldn't finish yet, sadly, lacking time.
Re: Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
If only it was UBI, it would have worked.
Is there any way to know that for sure?
Re: (Score:3)
If only it was UBI, it would have worked.
We don't know if it "worked" or not. No results have been published yet. The experiment was defunded for political reasons that may have no bearing on whether it was working or not.
doh! (Score:4, Insightful)
but I absolutely RESENT having things taken from me.
On the other hand, would you resent also having things offered to you for free ?
(Random example of things that you get for free in most of the countries in the developed world, like in Finland ?)
Like the ability to go to university and get a degree for you do have the mental capability, for which your parents didn't save massive amounts of money to pay for ?
Like having a public health system that can help you pay your medical bills - because nobody does choose to become sick and even more so, nobody choose on purpose to have the most complicated and expensive to treat disease on purpose ?
Like having an unemployement system that can cover your back if you happen to lose your job ?
Like living in a country where there's an effective police force that is good at keeping the criminality low, to the point that you con't need to constantly be carrying a gun around ?
For these things come for free to you should you need them, the government should be able to pay for them, and for the government to be able to pay for them it needs money, that is taken in the form of taxes.
If Bob can't get a job, because there is nothing useful for him to do but Ted has a job and the fancier car, bigger house, more meals out etc that come with it Bob will be jealous! Bob will either demand productive people like Ted provide him these things as well leading to an inflationary cycle where UBI must be forever increased
You know that the "B" in "UBI" stands for "Basic" ? It is here to cover for the Basic needs of the population.
(Cheap housing, cheap but still healthy food, etc.)
It's aiming at the lower levels of the Maslow pyramid
Until the possession of a fancy car can clearly be considered as a basic need that every single member of the human popular absolutely needs to be covered, the UBI won't inflate to please Bob.
(Maybe one day it will. There used to be a past when even shelter and food wouldn't be taken for granted. In several modern European countries, it's hard to *NOT* be obtaining them.
Maybe in the future the society will evolve to the point where every single citizen is entitled to own a car.
But for now, public transportation system is considered to be covering most of the needs every one has).
Its really better for all of us if we occupy Bob doing something....
Don't worry, TV and Internet are very good at keeping Bob busy.
(except that advertisement might also be very good at keeping bob persuaded that it his god-given natural right to own ${SOME ULTRA EXPENSIVE PRODUCT} )
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Film at 11.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The Fed (or the BOE or the ECB or any other central bank) does not control fiscal policy. Fiscal policy is tax and spend policy, controlled by the government.
The central bank controls monetary policy - the expansion and/or contraction of the money supply and the availability of credit.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The real problem is that some people get way too much money for the same amount of work as most people. I'm not advocating the same hourly rate for everyone, but clearly some kinds of limits would be beneficial for society as a whole. If the basic hourly rate is $10 per hour, maybe we should have a ceiling of $100 per hour for top jobs.
Re: Duh? (Score:3)
I think that peopleâ(TM)s impact on productivity varies a lot more than 10x.
Once I come is determined by something others than the free market you get all the standard command economy problems with who decides what people are paid.
Re:Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
They sure as hell do!
The problem is that we've redefined income to mean, "money I get paid directly to do a job", while excluding "wealth gain due to using my money to make more money".
That's still income, and it should be taxed like income.
Re:Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
And the rest of the money ends up in the hands of the business owners who take it out via dividends or capital gains. Just like they do now.
News Flash: The 1% do not have incomes to tax.
Crazily, once you get over about 150k p/y and can afford to take advantages of loopholes you pay less of your income as a % in taxes than you do if you make less than that.
The fact that there are billionaires out there who pay $0 in income tax because they structure their ownings to look like a net negative in the eye's of the law (even though their wealth is growing) is frankly disgusting.
Re: (Score:3)
What's your alternative proposal? Forcing people to work in jobs they hate so they can somehow live another day?
What does that accomplish in a world where those jobs are on the way out due to automation and robots taking them over? We do already not have enough jobs for the people looking for one. What exactly should we do?
Re: (Score:3)
We do already not have enough jobs for the people looking for one. What exactly should we do?
We do? Somebody should inform the Bureau of Labor Statistics because they seem to think that only 4.1% of people who want to work aren't. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2... [bls.gov]
Most economists agree that anything under 5% is considered full employment. Of those that are currently unemployed most are simply in the process of changing jobs or something like that. Of coarse this only represents the U.S. but the U.S. is also one of the biggest users of automation. https://www.themanufacturer.co... [themanufacturer.com]
Therefore, while wha
Re: (Score:3)
Err, yes.
That's what I do...that's what the majority of people since the dawn of time have done.
It is quite rare for someone to make a good living doing exactly what they would like to be doing anyway.
That's why it is called work.
Re: (Score:3)
Again: I do not need a job. I need money. I have more than enough ideas how to sensibly spend my time. Many of them way more sensible than what I do as work.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you so happily revoke someone else's right to live, may I ask what makes you think you deserve to?
Re:Duh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed. These people are worth more pieced out as donor organs. Put simply, in this case the sum of the parts is worth more than the whole. There really is no reason to continue to participate in society if they are not contributing, and this is a way that they can contribute in a very beneficial way.
This prompts a thought: How many people would go for the equivalent of a reverse mortgage, with their organs? I mean, they own their organs, so make a promissory deal with some company for a fixed quarterly income. I suspect the company would want to micro-manage their health care - hell they may even pay for it - but the donor would have to live a "managed" lifestyle: Minimal alcohol consumption, no drugs except as approved by Big Organ(TM), no risky hobbies or sports beyond jogging & aerobics etc. 'Course, if a surgery happened to go awry at a young age when the donor's organs are young & fresh, and worth more, or their sdc had a hiccup on a sharp curve...sounds like a science fiction story (*cough Coma *cough).
Re:Duh? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's almost as though the idea that helping people is bad comes from miserable SOBs who are only ever happy when other people are miserable, too.
Re:Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Poor people in my home town use a windfall to fix or replace their cars because they are tired of throwing money into their rolling wreak that is always broken down. Or to pay off credit cards (which they probably shouldn't have) to get that 22% APR monkey off their backs. Admittedly most of them fail to stop using the credit cards entirely, most people use them for "emergencies" but when your poor everything feels like an emergency. Kid has no school clothes or shoes? Charge it.
Re: (Score:2)
Handing out free money to the unemployed. Doesn't meet the definition of 'universal'. But then I don't think the people running this experiment ever expected it to represent the whole of Finnish society. The worst that could have happened is that this group of theoretically job seeking unemployed would say "Oh boy! Free money!" And stop looking for work. The experiment would have run it's term, a report would have been written and people might have said, "Bad idea. Lets not do that anymore."
But something h
Re:Duh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parliamentary elections about a year from now could be a reason...
Doesn't work as an experiment (Score:3, Interesting)
It has to be universal and permanent to really reflect the outcome expected.
I support a Universal Dividend, anyway, which is self-funding and doesn't have concerning fiscal issues presented by UBIs. The whole UBI thing is a clunky proto-ideal that I regard as old technology.
Re:Doesn't work as an experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
So, we can't try it out to see if it works, we have to implement it on a massive scale and only then can we know? Yeah, we're not going to experiment with all of society like that. Those kind of social experiments have a bad history of negative outcomes, something that educated people know.
Plus you pull out something completely new, that is also untested and unknown? Huh?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, we can't try it out to see if it works, we have to implement it on a massive scale and only then can we know? Yeah, we're not going to experiment with all of society like that. Those kind of social experiments have a bad history of negative outcomes, something that educated people know.
Plus you pull out something completely new, that is also untested and unknown? Huh?
We already have a ton of test cases. Just look at lottery winners. If you want even better data, create some more specific lotteries. Sell lottery tickets that give the winner 20k for life (or whatever amount you decide you want to test). It's not completely random because it has a slight selection bias of those people that buy lottery tickets but it's a big enough pool that it's close enough and it requires no tax money to do it.
Re: (Score:3)
That's still not a good test unless you also give all of the winner's descendants the same allowance (adjusted for inflation of course).
Anecdotally, someone who lives a couple of miles from me actually did hit a million dollar lottery. He took the $50K for twenty years, moved his girlfriend into his house along with his wife and lived like his version of a king for twenty years.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
We have tried that.
We have tried it several times over and it lead to about 100 million dead by starvation and secret police.
People are not working for free to sustain people that don't. Ownership of one's labor, ownership of anything that one worked for is a deeply moral concept and it is impossible to take that away without removing the core concept of morality and with it removing the basis of a peaceful society.
That is why socialist countries routinely murdered insane numbers of people, because they too
Re:Doesn't work as an experiment (Score:5, Informative)
What are you talking about? There was not a single socialist or communist country with UBI ever.
In socialism and communism people were forced into labour, unemployment figures were neglectable and everybody was "dragged along" at the work place, whether they were drunk and incapable or not. It was the worst case scenario for the productivity and for those who weren't willing or capable of doing the work they had chosen or were chosen for. The people who didn't meet expectations were constantly cautioned and 'educated', and it was hard and took serious efforts to change workplace, especially if you weren't in line with the party.
UBI is the opposite of that concept. The only similarity is that less people had to live on the street and people were less afraid of their future, after that the similarities end. UBI has never tried in any country so far.
Re: (Score:3)
People are not working for free to sustain people that don't.
I think that depends on why they're not working and what they're asking for. If we are talking rice and blankets so they don't literally starve or freeze to death then I'd go pretty far. I also have a lot of compassion for the mentally and physically handicapped who are unable to work. But healthy people who just want to be a beach bum or WoW addict yeah not much sympathy there. Or when you're past the level of real need and just want nicer things. You want more fancy clothes? More cafe and restaurant visit
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sweden , Danemark seem to work because these were very rich capitalist countries before they became solcialist. Still corporate taxes are very low. Anyway, one day money runs out and then you will be saying that this was no real socialism. Venezuela was also greate example of working socialism before it stopped to be good example.
Re:Doesn't work as an experiment (Score:4, Interesting)
Those kind of social experiments have a bad history of negative outcomes, something that educated people know.
You mean like popular sovereignty?
What about unemployment insurance? Old-age pensions? National medical care?
How about minimum standards for treatment of prisoners?
There's a distinct history of phenomenally-positive outcomes that educated people seem to know about.
Plus you pull out something completely new, that is also untested and unknown? Huh?
Kind of. It's engineering.
The Universal Dividend is mainly the result of an interesting financial exercise, so the fiscal impact is well-understood in the same way that the fiscal impact of buying or leasing a car is well-understood (you look at the numbers and do the math).
The Dividend behaves as a tax cut (by being a rolling tax refund) and a Keynesian economic stimulus, both of which are well-understood. A Keynesian stimulus generally involves deficit spending to create consumer spending so as to kickstart a downed economy (e.g. 2008 Great Recession, halted by a stimulus refund and a bunch of infrastructure spending); the Dividend doesn't create deficit compared to 2016 (the new 2017 tax law is broken), so essentially has the upside without the downside.
The rough fiscal model ends up cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 33.5%, and the top tax rate from 39.6% to 36.2%. That's adjustable, but actually adjusting it requires fiscal data most people shouldn't have: the CBO has to get involved.
Because the Dividend makes people less-poor--especially the poorest--it eases the pressure on the welfare system. This in turn allows welfare to reach farther and keep everyone stable: no homeless, no food insecure. The greatest proportional impact is in the poorest households, and thusly in the poorest local economies, and so consumer spending increases and corresponding employment opportunities appear most-significantly in these areas, creating jobs where there is most likely higher unemployment.
That sort of creates a runaway effect: people start moving up out of poverty and, thus, off welfare, lowering the cost of welfare. Because there's less welfare coming to any given household and the Dividend cannot be revoked, getting a job is less-risky and has lower direct cost, so this effect is stronger. We can improve welfare, lower deficit, or do other things.
The increase in employment and work translates to higher GDP-per-capita and GNI-per-capita, causing the Dividend to increase, creating a feedback loop. That causes a temporary runaway effect of economic growth as well. Without sufficient labor force, this growth creates an employment shortage, wage pressure, and inflation.
To control this runaway economic growth, we must shorten working hours, thus reducing the amount of productivity (per-capita, not per-hour) and spendable income, thus labor demand. People will have to work fewer hours and take home only a moderate amount of additional wealth instead of an enormous and unmanageable amount.
After that tuning, economic stability sets in: the Dividend is a permanent stimulus and thus rebuffs economic damage, so is constantly and continuously reversing transitional unemployment and any recessions which begin to form. This results in a permanent high rate of productivity growth.
All basic, known economic devices, just plugged together in strange ways (i.e. engineering). We know what an engine does, we know what gears do, we know what wheels do; let's build a go-kart.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You've made some major "assumptions" and declared a number of economic issues as well known. If being poor was only economical, then all of what you said would work. Unfortunately, this is looking at the problem in a vacuum. If simply giving everyone money would bring people up economically, we would have already succeeded by now.
For example, there are a lot of people who don't have a huge drive to better themselves. They just want to live how they are. Nothing wrong with it, just as you find you're mo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Universal Dividend is a portion of all income being taxed and redistributed flat. The rough financial model actually winds up cutting taxes a whole lot [google.com].
Re: Doesn't work as an experiment (Score:3, Insightful)
Either you run out of other peoples money to spend or you run out of businesses willing to participate in a country where the money they make doesnt primarily go to them. Then you have all of the corrupt policy makers that will somehow want a cut of some kind so they get favorable kickbacks in the form of fund raising.
Jesus kind of summed it up:
You will always have the poor...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would you say it is "self funding"? It only appears that way. I can assure you, that eventually you'll run out of other people's money.
Socialism has failure built in. There is NO possible way for it to work, given human nature. The assumptions of socialism are flawed. Universal Income is just as flawed as all other attempts at socialism.
Here is how it will fail.
Universal Income is implemented.
Everything looks good initially (success!!!)
Slowly over time, universal Income is increased (doesn't cover "bas
Re: (Score:3)
"Socialism has failure built in. There is NO possible way for it to work, given human nature. The assumptions of socialism are flawed. Universal Income is just as flawed as all other attempts at socialism."
Should we just take your word for it in spite of the fact that every successful economy in the world has socialist institutions?
UBI isn't communism. Poor people who dont want to work will still be poor.
Re: (Score:3)
The tax rate is permanently-fixed and never increases.
Until enough people decide they want more and vote in politicians promising them what they want. Why have less when I can vote for more?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Misleading headline (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
It would probably take a couple of decades to be a decent experiment. How people react in 2 years may differ from how they act over 10. Even if more time makes no significant difference, at least that fact would be confirmed empirically.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
There's precisely no evidence that this is what happened. (Evidence, it's one of those science things.) In fact, the results won't even be published until next year. (Publishing results, another one of those science things.)
You're an ignorant cargo cultist who can type the words - but has no idea what they actually
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Good (not for the reason you expect) (Score:4, Informative)
The article and the current Finnish Government may say that, but that's not what is actually happening. They are not trying anything else.
The current Finnish Government is a right-wing coalition that does ideology-based policy making to a point where they ignore all potential negative consequences, criticism and even studies done AT THEIR REQUEST, if they happen to contradict what the Government has already decided they'll do.
Specifically with this issue they don't want universal income or anything that could be perceived as a hand out. Instead they want unemployed people to work for unemployment benefits (wait...what?...yes, exactly)
They're pursuing a very traditional conservative, right-wing economic and political agenda familiar to anyone who knows about what Margaret Thatcher did in the UK, and the GOP has done in the United States for a few decades now.
Re:Good (not for the reason you expect) (Score:4, Informative)
It's also worth noting that it isn't generally isn't the nature of experiments to try one experiment to test an idea one time, and then abandon it. If an idea has any merit, you might try a few different methods and repeat the experiment a few times, see the results, and use information gathered from those results to perform a new experiment.
I say this because I'm sure a lot of people will say, "See? Universal Basic Income failed. People should just give up on the idea." The first design of an airplane didn't fly, but that doesn't necessarily mean airplanes can't work. The first iteration of a social program might be a disaster, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's time to give up.
In any case, we're getting ahead of ourselves because the study hasn't published the results. We don't know yet how successful the experiment was.
And I say all of this as someone who has a lot of doubts about the idea of Universal Basic Income. But I've been wrong before, and no doubt I'll be proven wrong again, about something or other (though maybe not this).
The issue remains - what to do with people (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, what going to happen when half of working population is automated or no longer relevant to get a jobs? For example, when self-driving becomes a reality, what is going to happen to all people that drive for living? Poverty and massive social unrest, that what happens. Autocrats and strongman with "Bring back jerbs" and "Kick out jerb-stealing other people" get elected.
Yes, basic income is really expensive. It will also reduce productivity. However devolution of Western Liberal societies to totalitarianism will be even more expensive. Even nukes might start flying.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What type of magical "automation" is coming that is going to massively replace jobs? People keep talking about "automation", but is there some magic technology coming that is going to automate out waiters and lawyers and doctors and trash collectors?
We're already close with current technology. As technology improves your examples become even easier to accomplish.
Waiters-could really already be done to a limited extent. A lot of causal chain restaurants have gone to those little tabletop kiosks that let you pay and order food/drinks. All you need is a delivery mechanism for the food.
Lawyers-plenty of firms are looking into "AI"-lite programs that can quickly search through case law, do research, etc. And don't forget that chatbot that helps people
Re:The issue remains - what to do with people (Score:5, Informative)
How many % of the population are actually waiters and lawyers and doctors and trash collectors?
Sales cashiers are being automated away through self-checkout. McDonalds staff are being automated away through ordering booths and robotic burger flippers. Drivers are forseeably going to be automated away through self-drvinf vehicles. Call centers have voice-recognition AI, web pages have customer query chat bots, trash collection can be easily roboticised once self driving vehicles happen. Factories are already automated. The numbers of available jobs in industries which require either manual labor or scriptable interations is falling and will continue to do so.
Re: (Score:3)
Who is designing that self-driving truck that can pick up trash cans automatically?
Several cities already have trucks with just one driver which automatically pick up trash. Here are a few off the top of Google: Albuquerque [cabq.gov].Calgary [youtube.com]. Minot [youtube.com]. Salem [salem.com].
Meaniwhile Tesla, Uber and others are designing self-driving trucks and are already testing them on the roads. It's obvious that putting the two together is just a matter of time.
Re:The issue remains - what to do with people (Score:5, Informative)
What type of magical "automation" is coming that is going to massively replace jobs? People keep talking about "automation", but is there some magic technology coming that is going to automate out waiters and lawyers and doctors and trash collectors?
Not paying attention, are you? Waiters and trash collectors are already losing jobs to automation. It's not a 100% replacement, but automation is cutting the numbers of workers in those (and many other) industries down.
Just look at checkout lines at stores - most of the ones around here have less manned lanes open because they're pushing the "self checkout" lanes - which are automated with video and weight sensors - which let a single employee run 4-12 "lanes" at a time. Even your examples of waiters and trash collectors suffer from this: Several national restaurant chains are moving to have a tablet-like device on the tables from which you can place orders and pay your bill. Doing this reduces the time waiters need to spend at your table, and results in more tables served with less employees. In the last 20 years, most garbage trucks have moved to a system where a driver uses a robotic arm to pick up and dump trash cans. Compare this to how it used to be, with 3-4 workers riding the truck with the driver to do the job that one robot arm does now.
Worth a shot, but no point in crying on failure. (Score:4, Interesting)
Basic Income seems like an interesting experiment. Which comes down to the a root issue.
Do people live to work, or work to live.
This article was kinda wimpy about giving us its findings. Just supporters crying that it didn't have enough time.
However things I would like to see.
For these people on Basic Income, what did they do in their lives? Even if they didn't get jobs, what did they do with their lives? Did they just sit at home watching TV and playing X-Box? Or where they out being active in the community. Volunteering their time and talents to help make things better?
If people live to work. Even if they are not able or unwilling to get traditional jobs, their instincts will still have them being productive member of society, just in ways that Supply and Demand doesn't give a lot of money too.
If people work to live. Then basic income will be negative effect, as having enough to survive is means they are not motivated to do anything else, other then their own benefit.
I expect there is a mixture of these people, but having this targeted at only the unemployed may have found a concentration of the work to live folks vs. people who are on short term job loss, or who are under paid.
Re: (Score:2)
All good reasons. But if we are to actually follow the scientific process, such tests should be measured.
They were many Hypothesis created on solid thinking, that just didn't show to be true.
The question comes down to numbers. Will UBI be a net benefit or a net burden.
Re: (Score:3)
I guess this means a random selection of people who are unemployed.
For such a test it would actually be very important to see why are these people unemployed, because they could possibly have very different results based on that.
If someone has been unemployed for a couple of weeks, really between jobs or someone who has been unemployed for 3 years. The results could be very different.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because you have to start somewhere and the easiest place is people who would already be getting unemployment benefits anyway. The point was to gradually expand the trial, but it got nixed (likely for political reasons).,
Re: (Score:3)
Because 1: this isn't an actual Universal Basic Income trial. It was more of an extension to unemployment programs, looking to see if people with a guaranteed income ( even if it's a very small one ) will continue to look for a job to supplement that income.
Because 2: if the people that actually need it are in a narrow subset of the population, statistically you will get very few of them in your data set. Why bother making a data set if the vast majority of it is garbage data that you can't use to look at w
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The project involves 2000 unemployed Finns, who receive roughly $690 every month - no strings attached. No official findings have yet been published, but some participants reported lower stress levels at an early stage.
Re:Random (Score:5, Interesting)
Because most people want to have more than just the basic necessities of life: a nicer car, a nicer house, holidays, gadgets, whatever. That requires money and so requires finding a job.
Reducing stress while looking for that job makes it easier, it means that you can look for a better job or get training without worrying where the next meal is coming from.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Because most people want to have more than just the basic necessities of life
What evidence do you have to suggest this? Why are there more people accepting of mediocrity than those pursuing higher life goals to get more than basic necessities?
Why work and find a job when I can use a sob story to get legislation passed to give me what I want without work from suckers that do work?
Reducing stress while looking for that job makes it easier
Less stress != easier. Stress can be a good thing. You still have to go through the same crap of finding a job regardless of the stress. Handling stress is part of life and again can be a good thing.
Re: (Score:3)
thoughts are, "don't mess up, don't mess up....."
If those are your thoughts you are going to mess up. Part of doing a good interview is knowing how to relax. The people on the other-side of the table have been the interviewee before they understand people are nervous and likely will be accepting of some level of nervousness. After-all, it isn't (likely) an interview for an actor or public speaker but if you completely fumble because you keep thinking "don't mess up, don't mess up" and come off as a nervous wreck then it seems more likely that is your char
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about working for a living instead of leeching of society?
The problem is that when robots take your job that "working for a living" might just turn into grabbing a Kalashnikov and taking whatever you want. Especially if there's no other option available.
UBI will come and it will be a simple writeoff for functioning societies. Think of it as a tax so the pitchforks don't come for you and other smart-alecs.
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of it as a tax so the pitchforks don't come for you and other smart-alecs.
This is what a lot of folks miss about social welfare programs in general. Often it's cheaper to feed a person with food stamps than it is to lock them in a cell and feed them anyhow. Sometimes it's even cheaper to give them housing, food, and a stipend then it is to incarcerate them. This is because removing a person from society costs society more than just the lost economic value of that one person. Sometimes there are children or other dependents left on the outside who then become a drain as well.
It's basic economics, but most self-described "conservatives" never bother trying to do the math. To them, economics is more about ideals than actual money.
Pitchforks (Score:3)
Whoa.. you had two ideas there which, I think just combined into my loony idea of the day.
NOT SO FAST ON PREVENTING THE PITCHFORKS!! Maybe they're exactly what we need, but as tools rather than as weapons.
Instead of free cas
So? (Score:3)
RObot overlords, AI, automation (Score:5, Insightful)
Because when AI, robots and automation displace more people, the people will need some way of getting a living.
Retraining is a fairy tale - especially for the middle aged - and it is based upon the myth that there is some other industry that is need of those workers.
And we are going to have to get over this Puritanical idea that one must work to make living.
Because just ignoring the problem and telling those displaced people nonsense platitudes will end in revolution. And remember here in the USA there are over 300 million guns out there.
That thing with the Google buses a couple of years ago is just the prelude of what's going to happen if the wealth and income disparity continues. THe election of Trump is another symptom. And the next demagogue may be a Hugo Chavez.....
That will not end well. I'm hoping for a Bernie Sanders Jr.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It gets the fake libertarians on here riled up. All nerds seem to believe that they earn six figures because of their intelligence and effort, and not because they happen to be in an industry that has been hot for a few decades and they got lucky.
Translation: I don't understand economics.
Re: Why does basic income keep appearing here? (Score:3)
So the people that invested in engineering, IT and comp sci degrees and training lucked into their multiyear career evolution: got it.
Would you also agree that people who looked at wealth-generating careers in tech or health and then decided to get that Masters in helping people fill out forms (e.g. social w
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
" My point is we got lucky, in that we entered an industry that is particularly hot right now. It isn't an insult to you."
It was luck that I chose an industry where it was likely I would succeed? Huh. How about that. I thought it was because I didn't think I could support my self with a degree in philosophy.
And yeah... calling it "luck" to peruse a career where I could support myself and family rather than a career in a subject I thoroughly enjoyed is very insulting.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm assuming most of us are pulling down six figures
. . . "earning" six figures . . . and paying five figures in taxes.
Re: (Score:2)
Because if it ever comes to this..it will be YOUR ass that is paying for it.
Re: (Score:3)
More than one reason.
First, we know that automation and robotics WILL eliminate jobs. And AI will ensure that there aren't any new ones propping up that cannot be filled with AI guided robots. We're getting close to the point where low skill labor is virtually eliminated. And you can't simply turn everyone into a highly skilled person, no matter what that skill supposedly would be. Half of the population have a sub-average IQ. And these people will soon not be employable anymore. In no jobs. Right now their
Re: (Score:3)
This is an extraordinary claim. What evidence do you have (other than PR marketing press releases and dystopian movies that you happened to see) that "AI guided" robots will exist?
Re: (Score:3)
The Soviet Union had something close to a basic income. Everyone got money. Everyone had a job too, but there were basically no expectations and you couldn't be fired. There seemed to be little pride in workmanship, faucets hooked up randomly (Hot - Cold), live electrical wires sticking out of walls, hanging from the ceiling, out of street posts (I walked into one of these), big holes in sidewalks, high rates of alcoholism (on and off the job). All construction was nonsquare and misaligned.
This guy has a go
Re:Why does basic income keep appearing here? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Soviet Union had much, but basic income it didn't have. What it had was forced labor. You worked. You better did if you didn't want to be labeled "unsocial" and end up in a prison or worse.
What you have in Russia is what you get if you force people to work for a set amount of money, in a job they cannot quit and can't be fired from.
Re: (Score:3)