Finland is killing its world-famous basic income experiment
nordic.businessinsider.com/Finland-is-killing-its-world-famous-basic-income-experiment–/
Presumably this pays, though it’s done little to thwart the rise of stocks on Wall st since last year.
Macron slams ‘Anglo-Saxon’ tech giants for distorting competition
UBI basically allows the Billionaires to keep their lifestyles, their factories, banks and to use the Socialist term the means of production whilst paying a subsistence payment to the general population who will find it more and more difficult to find jobs that haven’t been automated away. It would be unlikely you’d be able to afford a house or even a holiday on UBI. The billionaires get to keep their gains whilst nothing would accrue to the lumpen proles who are not related to the Billionaires.
Surely the point of UBI is to provide a basic income without the administrative burden of means testing, reconciling multiple payments from different government sources etc. The Finnish case above, for instance, is about equal to Finland’s unemployment payment. Nobody suggested you could buy a house on it. For that presumably you have to work.
You’re right, but UBI will be paid to everyone not just those on the scratcher. I’m conflating this thread with the automation, they took our jobs thread. Ignore my tangent until I can put down a reasoned post joining the two 
Ok, maybe I got the wrong end of the stick. I suppose that is what “universal” implies. Doesn’t sound right though. Are the billionaires going to get it too? I was thinking of it as more akin to the Universal Credit in the UK, i.e. a universal replacement for all other social welfare benefits, not something everyone gets regardless of other income. The Universal Credit is a mechanism (or a Tory ploy, depending on how you look at it) to incentivise work by reducing overlapping government payments and allowing a certain amount of income from employment without losing the credit.
I guess the other question about UBI is what the “basic” part implies. Does that mean keeping the wolf from the door or having a house, two and a half kids, and holidays?
Well UBI/‘Robots taking our jobs’ might just be a clusterfuck. Brought to you by the same people who brought you the 2008 GFC and the global land bubble.
I go by the saying “if you can’t figure out what is for sale then YOU are the product”
if you cant figure out who is paying for UBI, then YOU are.
I don’t think robots are going to take our jobs – I don’t give that theory much credence at all. Automation has always increased jobs in the past. No, I think poor(er) people are going to take our jobs. Or rather, they will collectively bring wage levels down. The competition for better paying jobs will be fiercer. Standards of living will be lower. But they’ll be higher in places where they were low before. It’s not all bad. But it’s bad for people who expected to have a certain standard of living and to own the roof over their heads.
Right, but that administrative burden provides secure, well-paid, pensionable jobs…
Only by making the welfare system bewildering for the punter. Bullshit jobs can be replaced by something more productive, to everyone’s benefit. But I get your point – there are vested interests who don’t want that to happen.
From that news report.
Why is it being dropped?, it depends on who you ask I suppose.
Reading between the lines it appears that it may have been too successful at eliminating the stigma of unemployment and that some people realised that working for minimum wage jobs was a mugs game. Also UBI recipients are “bad consumers”, they buy very little, not good for business.
All jobs are bullshit jobs, beyond a certain point. Some are just more obviously so than others.
I blame farming. Once we figured out how to feed ourselves with the efforts of <5% of the population, we were on the slippery slope to Socialites and Cat Behaviour Consultants.
Also, what is “productive” anyway? And why don’t we organise ourselves to do more of those things right now? It’s not like we’re short of people or resources.
Here’s another spanner to throw in the works. If you believe this, 10% of the population are not fit for any job, and never will be ( – summary points are in first 60 secs):
Private companies are generally extremely productive and can restructure to suit the working environment as time changes/things progress. The people that work for these companies are the productive workers. The are not a liability on the public. Government bodies/socialism/welfare etc are all items that or non productive and an expense on the general public. These items are paid for by taxing the private sector - eg the productive economy.
The lower the amount of expenses on the general public, the more money can be diverted to productive businesses etc. The more productive an economy is the wealthier the residents become. Taking Hong Kong for example.
*Hong Kong’s economic policy has often been cited by economists such as Milton Friedman and the Cato Institute as an example of laissez-faire capitalism, attributing the city’s success to the policy.
*
1 in 7 people in Hong Kong are millionaires with a similar population size. It’s a pity Ireland has taken such a socialist approach to things.
The EU (Germany) however seems to be forcing Irelands hand to have less government & liabilities etc, so slowly it’ll keep improving.
I’m a fan of UBI as a way of massively simplifying the tax system & making casual work and the welfare system work together. We’ve already kind of done it in one respect, for children.
At the moment we have tax credits and then a complicated mish mash of if you earn less then this you get that and stuff.
Get rid of the lowest tax credit, give it out as UBI. (Bump up amount so that it’s a good but not huge amount) Reduce welfare payments accordingly. Flat tax at 20% ish from the first penny you earn all the way up to €30-€40k or thereabouts. Higher tax after that.
Most people working casual or part time then know exactly what’s getting deducted from their pay check. The uncertainty of moving away from unemployment benefit is greatly reduced because you’ll always have UBI coming in.
Average new property price in HK is apparently 1.8m USD. That’s probably why they have a lot of “millionaires”.
Ireland might achieve the same if it contributes to fuck up its housing market thorough free market fundamentalism coupled with State-of-the-art controlled restrictive planning. That’s not socialism.
Anyway, wealth is not a measure of productivity. If I happen to have sat on 1000 bitcoins for a few years I am wealthy but not productive.
Ideological twaddle.
So roads, electrification, health, policing, ports, safety regulation, quality standards are non-productive? Even though they contribute to productivity?
edit: education? Public hygiene? Let’s see how the lawless Darfur is getting on with it’s excellent capitalism… ah, it’s a shithole.