
Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters - marcelsalathe
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/results-votes-june-5th-2016-in-switzerland/42153620
======
s3nnyy
Switzerland is the only country in the world that implements direct democracy.
You can really feel the difference to the rest of Europe. Swiss more often
than not stand behind decisions made by their government. When talking about
their politicians, the Swiss say "WE decided that ..." whereas e.g., Germans
say: "THEY decided that ..."

If you look for a coding job in Europe, Zurich is a great place to live and is
the only place where net-salaries are on par with the Bay Area: You can expect
to get 7000 - 12000 CHF / month after taxes. If you are from the EU and
thinking to move, you find my email address in my Hacknews profile. Also you
can read here why I moved to Switzerland to work in IT:
[https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-
moved-t...](https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-to-
switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90#.fnug055jh)

~~~
akerro
As already mentioned, you're ignoring a fact that even by working there for 10
years, it's close to impossible to buy a part of land and build a house
anywhere near a city. Land and house prices are too high to stay there for
live. It's only profitable to live there, make savings and buy 2-3 houses in
Uk/Germany for it. Like two of my co-workers did.

~~~
enraged_camel
I've never understood why people believe/feel that buying land and/or a house
is the pinnacle of... something. Sure, it gives the person a feeling of
control and stability. But rooting oneself in one labor market (vs. being
mobile) decreases one's employment options and therefore their salary. It's
also very risky, as it's the equivalent of putting one's eggs in one basket
and leaves their financial wellbeing in the hands of the real estate market.

Renting is, unfortunately and quite inaccurately, viewed as "throwing money
away." The real estate industry does a great job brainwashing people that they
should buy, buy, buy, that buying a house is a great investment and a very
good way to build wealth. İt's probably one of the greatest lies perpetuated
in modern times.

~~~
akerro
And on the opposite, I never understood how people can not own a house and
waste money on renting for decades. Where market for houses in western
countries is very limited due to stupid regulations and every year a few
millions of people move to that country causing renting prices to increase by
XX% each year. It decreases my financial stability. Losing a job for less than
a month is a financial disaster, I still to have to pay for car-fuel,
insurance, life insurance, pay bills. On the other hand, having a house
without mortgage, yes, keeps me in one place, but value of my house due to the
same reasons is increasing for my benefit, not for my landlords benefits.

~~~
rs999gti
> waste money on renting

How is renting wasting money? Are you not living in the unit? You're gaining
100% benefit by paying rent and receiving a roof over your head.

You must mean a waste by losing out on building equity?

That's a crap shoot in itself. A hot housing market and equity can go into the
toilet at anytime due to very irrational market conditions. Look at the
housing markets of Las Vegas or Miami for examples.

~~~
etatoby
It's very simple actually.

Consider, for brevity, a mortgage where the monthly or yearly payment,
including taxes, is equal to the rent you would be paying for the same place.

Then live in the place and go about your life for several years, until the
mortgage is paid for.

Option 1, you took the mortgage. Now you own a house and you are not due any
more payments. You can keep living there and use the excess income for other
purposes, or you can sell the house and upgrade, or whatever.

Option 2, you kept renting. You are still under a landlord, you are still due
monthly payments, and you still don't own anything more that what you started
with, after all those years.

In this very real sense, rent is wasted money.

~~~
_9MOTHER9HORSE
You do incur a lot more costs as a property owner than as a renter, which you
should bear in mind.

Over the life of your average 20-25 year mortgage you should expect to have to
replace numerous appliances, encounter a couple of catastrophic and unexpected
issues (leaking roof, etc.), and after 10 years the decor will be outdated and
shabby.

To get optimum resale value you will have to sink a lot of time/money into
remodelling (the money you will likely recover, but not the time/effort), then
you have the stress of trying to sell the place.

You are also bearing the risk of a downturn in the housing market, and could
end up in negative equity.

As a renter you have greater flexibility, much greater certainty over your
outgoings, etc.

~~~
bane
_All_ of those costs are simply amortized over the rental agreement. I'm not
sure why people who rent seem to think landlords are appliance/maintenance
charities.

~~~
mgce
Rental prices are what the market will bear. These may or may not be strongly
correlated to the landlord's ownership.

Two very relevant examples of when the "amortization" argument won't apply:

\- a rising market in which the landlord bought a long time ago. Their
purchase price was way below the area's current market value. So they can
cover their expenses while you still pay less in rent than what a modern-day
mortgage would be.

\- a home buying market that's expecting continued pricing appreciation.
Homeowners can (and will) rent out property at a loss with the expectation
it'll be made up in a higher sale value years down the line. Whether or not
this actually happens, of course, depends on their ability to accurately
predict the future.

There's also the inverse case of declining markets, when landlords can end up
over the heads financially and simply can't charge the rates they need to
cover their mortgages, because the entire area has turned south.

There are very real financial risks to landlords. They can't just charge
whatever they want. It really depends on the state and future of their market.

~~~
bane
Correct. When rents get too far ahead of mortgages, people simply buy property
instead.

In your first example, the landlord _is_ amortizing expenses by charging rent
above _their_ ownership costs. It doesn't have to be at or higher than then
current new mortgage rates.

The second example does happen. However, if the landlord's bet is wrong, and
they have the runway to float the extra expenses for a while, they can simply
wait for rents to rise and over decades make it back and begin amortizing
then. Or they can sell and hope to make it back.

Property owners have many more financial options with their property than do
renters.

------
Zarkonnen
Coming from Switzerland, this is not at all surprising. No one expected this
initiative to pass. It was really more of an attempt to get a conversation
started, and it's succeeded in that.

As a (tentative) supporter of basic income, I'm already quite happy that
something like a fifth to a quarter of voters went for it.

~~~
a-saleh
Question, how does Switzerland avoid becoming more polarized country with so
many referendum questions each year?

Do you think there is a risk passing a referendum resolution that passed just
by a small margin?

I have been thinking about this since the result of Austrian presidental
elections, and how more polarized the politics in Europe is becoming, while
trying to figure out if there is a way how to move politics to a a place where
it would strive for finding society-wide consensus and compromise on most
issues.

~~~
Hermel
> Question, how does Switzerland avoid becoming more polarized country with so
> many referendum questions each year?

As a Swiss, I would say a high number of referenda works against polarization.
This Sunday, we had to vote on five national questions and additional local
ones. This high number of questions makes it very unlikely that you agree on
everything even with your family and best friends. Thus, we automatically
learn to disagree without getting polarized.

My grand-father always encouraged his children to vote even though he knew
they nomrally had different opinions and "neutralized" his vote. To him,
voting at all was much more important than what the vote was, as long as you
vote for what you honestly believe is right. I fully share this view.

~~~
studentrob
That bit about your grandfather is incredibly mature. I wish we saw this
sentiment more often in the US.

------
nairboon
One of the reasons why it was rejected, is because the supporters were
slightly too idealistic. The elephant in the room is obviously, who would be
eligible for the BI.

Most of the supporters and some of the initiators of the initiative, that I've
spoken with, were strongly for a idealistic implementation, meaning everybody
physically located in Switzerland would be eligible. While the number one
argument against a BI was that exactly this absolute unconditionality would be
a recipe for a disaster, especially given the current migration situation in
the EU.

The Swiss are notoriously risk averse, so any proposal that does not take into
account any possible side effects, usually gets rejected with a margin just
like this one.

To have a realistic chance of acceptance, I think the 'unconditional' needs to
be dropped. Add a conditional on citizenship, flesh out the financing some
more and just try again. The problem here is that a "national basic income"
instantly catapults you politically very far right, even though it's a very
leftist position.

~~~
gonvaled
I hope that if your BI is only for citizens and since this is presumably
financed by taxes, you are going to grant a big tax exemption to non Swiss
nationals, since they (according to your plan) will have no chance of
benefiting from BI. What other ramifications this can have is difficult to
foresee.

The nice things about simple plans is that they are simple: once you start
complicating matters, it gets really messy.

~~~
nairboon
A citizens-only BI is just an example to maximize the difference to the
current rejected proposal and setup a spectrum of possible implementations.
There'd be probably some reasonable solution in the middle, where after
working and paying taxes for n years makes you eligible for an BI.

Actually, I'd be in favor of a pragmatic vesting form, where the BI-payout is
not binary, but you'd become eligible for a bigger share gradually over time,
not just for non Swiss nationals, but especially for Swiss nationals. So that
we youngsters won't just get a big payday, but it could be tied to a vesting
scheme connected with your total taxes ever payed. Meaning, after taking on
some small jobs and earning money the hard way first, even young (Swiss)
people would have to 'earn' their BI.

------
chvid
I think this is a nice demonstration of how well direct democracy can work.

The argument against direct democracy (referendums on any subject any sizeable
group wants to put on vote) is that people will be economically irresponsible
and vote themselves popular, expensive goodies with no regards of financing or
cost.

This shows otherwise.

~~~
patrickaljord
> This shows otherwise.

Switzerland is one the most highly educated and richest country on earth. Do
you think the results of direct democracy would be equally responsible in
Egypt, Syria or Bolivia? (I'm half-Syrian).

~~~
nickik
Maybe it is the richest country because of direct democracy ...

~~~
saiya-jin
it's a mixed bag. I know in my home country (Slovakia), if they had same vote
as Swiss few years back, people would vote for some ridiculous bad stuff. One
example out of many - extending minimum paid vacation per year from 4 weeks to
6. Swiss population said NO, because of the financial consequences to
employers. Now tell me, how many countries out there would end up with same
result given this option?

Quality attracts and breeds more quality. Somehow, they manage to pull it off
for last 800 years, in one way or the other.

------
elcapitan
I wish I would live in a country where essential political decisions like that
are made by the people and not by some professional political elite in a far
away capital.

~~~
_nalply
The downside are populistic decisions like the Swiss minaret referendum. Now
we have the sentence «The construction of minarets is prohibited.» in the
constitution. ([https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-
compilation/19995395/...](https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-
compilation/19995395/index.html#a72))

I think such regulations should be decreed as a law and not as a constitution
norm if at all. But if everybody has a say you get bikeshedding in the
constitution.

~~~
alva
Out of interest, why is populistic commonly used as a pejorative? It seems to
be the best friend of democracy.

~~~
zo1
Because democracy and "people voting" are all fine and dandy until the outcome
is one you don't like. So "populist" gets thrown out when the outcome is the
majority deciding on something that is seen as "wrong", but popular. It's
quite a disconnect from the definitions themselves. As most people think
democracy means "everyone get's a say, and the leading opinion is the one that
the ruling-body should take".

On the other hand, when people complain about "populism", they expose another
problem with democracy I've long complained about. Opinion gets swayed by all
sorts of reasons, actions and emotions.

E.g. In the Brexit vote, the vote-stay side is trying to use fear and no-doubt
some will be swayed by that. Does that mean that they actually want it? Would
they have voted it if they weren't exposed to that influence? Must we keep the
voters in a sterile-bubble until they decide? What about making informed
decisions? Who decides what is fear-mongering vs informing the voters?

Next up, you have influential persons. This can be everyone from your local
community activist, your overbearing and opinionated family member, to public
figures such as actors and artists. You can see it now with Donald Trump's
campaign. Every single person that has any wide "reach" to the public is using
it to promote _their_ view of Trump, whether good or bad. I call them vote-
multipliers; their singular vote means a whole lot more than yours or mine, no
matter how valid or factual our arguments are. When opinion and emotion sways
voting, the "one-person one-vote" mantra doesn't hold up anymore.

~~~
Latty
I mean, we have to recognise that democracy can, and (in some cases) does,
produce bad results (to a given definition of bad). For democracy to truly
work, people need to vote based on more than just something being good for
them. If you are not a slave, slavery probably benefits you (again, this can
be argued against, but at least in a short term simple view of things), etc...

Generally the term seems to be used by people worried about knee-jerk
reactionary voting, "it's what I want, therefore force everyone to do it", or
"it's good for me, so yes, even if it is bad for others".

> In the Brexit vote, the vote-stay side is trying to use fear

Both sides are using fear almost exclusively. The in side claim the economy
will collapse without the EU, the out side claim it's doomed if we stay in,
and these are hardly the only examples - the out side shamelessly perpetuates
the 'all immigrants are criminal freeloaders who want to take over' that is
basically pure racism, the in side will gladly paint _anyone_ who wants to
leave as a racist.

It's really terrible, and is hardly surprising - the exact same thing happened
in the AV referendum, where the two major parties (who use AV internally) came
out with what was essentially 'you are too stupid for AV, stick with nice
simple FPtP'.

------
lolc
I got up early this morning because I'd missed the date to vote by post.
Somehow it feels like your vote matters more when you go cast it in person :-)

20% is not a bad result, I think they expected around 15%. A lot of people
would've gone "Fuuuuuuu I voted for that" if it'd been accepted.

------
hsnewman
As technology advances, I would assume that work will become more scarce.
Taking this scenario to the extreme will mean that the majority of the world
will at some point will be unemployed in the future. Some form of basic income
will result.

------
raverbashing
I found it funny how most major news outlets made a big deal of this

Yeah, there's your answer. It seems the Swiss are conservative with how they
spend their money

------
scboffspring
Offical now, cantonal majority cannot be reached (12 no, 11 to go)
[http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/results-votes-
june-5th-2016-in-s...](http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/results-votes-
june-5th-2016-in-switzerland/42153620)

------
paulsutter
Taking a long-term view, 23% in favor is strong progress for an idea that was
once considered outrageous.

Let's see the trend in future referendums. You could argue that basic income
may be impractical today. But over the next 10, 20, 30 years, the world will
change dramatically.

------
jdlyga
It's an interesting idea, but I don't think the time is right just yet for
basic income. When AI is to the point that most skilled jobs can be automated
and humans don't really need to work, then we can start giving people money.

~~~
sbardle
YC is taking the long term view, which is great. But what concerns me is the
way in which Basic Income is already getting heavily politicised. Politicians
are already using it to attract voters (front page of UK Guardian today,
Labour party are "considering" a basic income). We are still very much at the
research stage.

------
mpitt
Change the title? It's misleading to imply the results are final.

~~~
rubyfan
Pretty clear trend at ~20% across a number of their regions. Unless the
uncounted regions are drastically different than the rest of the country I'd
say this one is easy to call.

~~~
_nalply
They are drastically different. These are rural, conservative, catholic and
weakly-populated regions.

~~~
rubyfan
Well, as it turns out not that drastically different.

------
Zelmor
Good thing for the majority to reject this ridiculous idea. There is no such
thing as a free dinner.

------
_nalply
It's too early to say that. The urban cantons did not finish counting,
especially Zurich, Basel, Bern and Geneva. I'd expect that there will be 30%
yes votes, but of course there are always surprises.

~~~
scboffspring
Would agree if the final result we already know where not 80%. At 55% we may
have had a surprise, not in that case.

EDIT: Moreover, provisional results for ZH shows 75% no (French)
([http://www.20min.ch/ro/news/suisse/story/Revenu-de-base--
les...](http://www.20min.ch/ro/news/suisse/story/Revenu-de-base--les-
resultats-par-canton-13107562))

------
known
Wisdom of the Crowd
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd#Problems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd#Problems)

------
anoplus
Let me start by saying this is one of the most important topics to discuss.

I would argue that UBI itself will have unexpectingly positive effect on
productivity by removing the bias causing people to justify unnecessary work
because they need to make a living. This will give individuals the confidence
to take the time and pursue further more value for society. There will always
be laziness, of-course, but we try to achieve freedom for a change.

------
boulos
It seems like the submitter meant to link to the "story" of the same title
([http://www.swissinfo.ch/directdemocracy/vote-june-6_basic-
in...](http://www.swissinfo.ch/directdemocracy/vote-june-6_basic-income-plan-
awaits-voters-verdict/42200378)) rather than editorializing a voting results
page.

------
bjourne
It seems like a lot of modern politics is not "we should have more" but
instead "you guys should have less". I think the election result is an outcome
of more and more people thinking along the latter lines.

To bad. Would have been fun watching Switzerland try something new.

------
andrewjl
This was a proposal long on rhetoric and short on concrete action steps.
Future referendums that are more substantive may be treated differently by
voters.

------
known
Wonder what majority Swiss will say if they want to pay taxes or not?

------
highCs
Would a UBI potentially hurts switzerland main businesses?

~~~
saiya-jin
it would hurt many businesses in long run and country overall. they work in
different ways

------
wokulski
Is this d3.js?

------
areyoucrazy
Why is Basic Income such a popular topic on Hacker News?

~~~
nickik
Because hackers tend to believe in the idea that automation and advanced AI
causes a reduction of jobs and the destruction of middle class. This leads to
a lot of rich people who control the AI and robots and a lot of poor who can't
find jobs.

To counteract this, Basic income is a good idea because it allows for low risk
job switching, furthering education and a small bureaucracy but extensive
social safety net.

~~~
PunchTornado
Some say UBI has no connection to technology. It is just about eliminating
welfare administrative costs and making people contribute to their communities
in other ways.

~~~
lisivka
am pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim
imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res
anxius optat, panem et circenses.

------
fiatjaf
Die, basic income.

Of course, leftist supporters of democracy will say this does not count and
wasn't "democratic".

~~~
dang
> _Die, basic income._

Please stop posting unsubstantive ideological comments to Hacker News. We
don't want this level of discussion here. If you can't make a point
thoughtfully, please don't post until you can.

The name-calling undermines your argument too. It's surprising to me how
people who post comments like this don't seem to realize that they're
diminishing their own cause in the mind of the reader.

------
MikeNomad
Not happy with the headline. They voted no for an "unconditional" basic
income. I think that is a huge difference, especially when a majority of the
voters also want immigration reform.

~~~
greendesk
My understanding is that basic income can only be "unconditional." If there
are conditions attached to it, what might be they?

~~~
tgb
While that's how I read it, perhaps the condition would be citizenship. I.e.
they don't want to simultaneously allow more people into their country and
also give everyone in their country a lot of money for fairly obvious reasons.
However, the article doesn't give translations of the actual measures so it's
hard to say.

~~~
_nalply
That's because the referendum is open ended. The referendum text: «The
confederation provides for an introduction of an unconditional basic income.»
It's a very short text.

[https://bedingungslos.ch/de/pages/initiativtext](https://bedingungslos.ch/de/pages/initiativtext)
(German)

The referendum committee made a non-binding proposal to give Fr. 2500 and if
someone already earns Fr. 2500 they would not get additional money. The
details would still need to be worked out by the parliament. In Switzerland
being founded on consensus this means that after a «yes» a huge discussion
would start how to implement the basic income. But it seems that the
referendum is going to be rejected.

~~~
tgb
Interesting, thanks.

------
DrNuke
It is premature but inevitable: automation, stagnant growth, migrations and
deflation are all pushing towards universal basic income. Not 2k euros/month
but enough to allow surviving and decency.

~~~
raverbashing
Welfare without limits is incompatible with Open Borders

Remains to be seen who will want to actually do the (needed) jobs when staying
at home is enough

I am in favour of Basic Income, but it's not such clear cut

~~~
yummyfajitas
Given that open borders will help hundreds of millions escape dire poverty,
whereas basic income will (at best) reduce some administrative costs and allow
some people to live a life of leisure, how do you justify this preference?

Do the prospective brown people who might want to escape dire poverty (i.e.,
gain access to clean running water, flush toilets, and adequate food) just not
count? Even if they counted only as 3/5 of a person, the numbers would still
be drastically in their favor.

~~~
patrickg_zill
Your snide comments imply that those who disagree with you are racist. Not
exactly your highest quality contribution to HN.

~~~
harryh
Those that disagree with him are racist. They're explicitly valuing the lives
of some people over others simply because of where they were born.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Technically that's not racism (in the original sense of bias due to race),
since the people being discriminated against due to an accident of their birth
might be white.

Of course, if we adopt the modern left's definition of racism (which includes
actions which have statistically disparate impacts) then this pretty clearly
is racism.

------
ck2
But the swiss have guaranteed health care right?

I'd like to see the USA get basic healthcare guarantee someday.

If you are a human being, you get $2000 per year in healthcare regardless of
proof of income, etc. Just being a human being in need.

I hope the Bernie Sanders movement now focuses on the 26 states that are
preventing health insurance for millions of people instead of trying to change
the USA from the top down.

~~~
kgwgk
Healthcare is guaranteed in Switzerland in the sense that you are forced by
law to have insurance (you can get subsidies if you're poor enough, though).
And the basic insurance coverage may not be up to USA standards (you may share
the hospital room with five other patients, for example).

~~~
mxo8
What are these USA standards you are talking about (just curious)?

~~~
kgwgk
I don't know, which is why I said "may". I think part of the higher spending
in healthcare the US may be due to a higher level of service (which in fact
may not be really needed in some cases). Of course there are many other
reasons (for example, doctors are paid much better in the US:
[http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/how-much-do-
doc...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/how-much-do-doctors-in-
other-countries-make/?_r=0) ).

