
Finland's Largest Trade Union Slams Basic Income as ‘Useless’ - elsewhen
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-08/-useless-basic-income-trial-fails-test-at-biggest-finnish-union
======
nabla9
This is because unions think they would lose power if basic income is
implemented. Unions in Finland have abandoned part time and low income people
and only look after people who have full time jobs (who are members in the
unions).

Green party in Finland made 560 euro basic income proposal few years ago that
was cost neutral. That was verified with microsimulation model that used real
world data.

~~~
ianai
If they've abandoned part time/low income people then how come they care if
those same people have a means to survive? They should welcome them as
potential, new consumers of goods/services that their members provide.

~~~
nabla9
They are stuck into supporting their shrinking support base for ideological
reasons.

Unions are strongly connected to both social democratic party (SDP). Unions
and social democrats achieved many good things for several decades. But things
have changed and they and their support base is trapped in the past and
looking back to old good times. They are basically party for baby boomer
generation.

------
stuaxo
> but the union also suggests that making it easier to refuse unpleasant jobs
> may create inflationary bottlenecks.

Shitty jobs being valued higher in monetary terms doesn't sound like the worst
outcome I can think of.

~~~
sharemywin
I think it's tricky. If prices go up then demand drops. So businesses have to
adjust to make things work. So late hours, early hours will be dropped so
Revenue/Employee is large enough to be profitable. more self check out lines
at groceries.

~~~
ma2rten
Or the wages go up for these kinds of jobs, leading to inflation, meaning
basic income will not be enough to survive.

~~~
deelowe
Huh? Increasing wages doesn't cause inflation.

~~~
criddell
It can. It depends on the source of the money. If the government just prints
more money to increase everybody's bottom line, then it would be an
inflationary pressure for sure.

~~~
deelowe
Not really. In the situation you've described, the printing of money is what
causes inflation. Wages may change as a result of that, but then again, they
may not. What happens with wages depends on other economic factors.

~~~
criddell
> the printing of money is what causes inflation

Not really. Demand outstripping supply is what causes inflation.

~~~
sharemywin
And if someone chooses to work less supply is constrained = UBI. if someone
chooses to work the same demand goes up = UBI. either way demand is increasing
and supply is decreasing. leading to higher prices.

~~~
criddell
Except when people are working less because robots are doing the job. Now
people are working less and the supply is unchanged.

------
jonwachob91
It's interesting to understand the primary motivator for UBI around the world.
It sounds like the Fins want to use it to take away the minimum wage, while in
the US the primary motivator is to take away the rest of the welfare services.

~~~
youdontknowtho
That is interesting. I kind of feel like Charlie Brown and the football...If
we agree to get rid of the safety net before UBI is implemented, I don't think
the conservatives would follow through. I really don't. I don't think that
they are interested in co-governance anymore.

~~~
mikeash
Seems obvious. It's like the current talk of repealing the ACA and then
replacing it with something later. If you actually mean to replace it, there's
no reason not to figure out the replacement first, and do essentially an
atomic swap of the two.

~~~
clarkmoody
You guys are forgetting that politics is a greedy-search of the issue-space.

The typical politician will say whatever it takes to obtain short-term gains
in power. Come election time, that means appealing to the base. Come
governance time, it means keeping the lobbyists happy and making deals to
advance their own career within the legislature.

Why have Republicans never taken meaningful action on abortion? Because they
wouldn't be able to campaign on it every 2 years.

So when it comes to government benefits / entitlements / welfare, the
politician must weigh the cost of taking away goodies from the constituents,
keeping campaign promises to the base, and keeping lobbyists happy. The choice
will be what yields the most short-term political gain.

Nobody's talking about making the real tax-code reforms that will lead to
long-term benefits: eliminating the mortgage interest deduction and making
healthcare benefits taxable as income. Those will never happen because tax
rates would go up on the middle-class voters for both parties. But the long-
term economic benefits would be excellent. There are other parts of the tax
code that make no sense economically but lots of sense politically.

~~~
aaron-lebo
You are correct. This is politics 101 as put forward by David Mayhew.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress:_The_Electoral_Connec...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress:_The_Electoral_Connection)

~~~
clarkmoody
See also: Public Choice

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice)

------
ende
Union leaders don't like UBI because it empowers individuals, not union
leaders.

~~~
toni
I get what you're saying but it's probably for the best to expand on your
point, and not just a one liner.

~~~
ianai
Any universal income would eliminate or severely diminish the survival factor
of work. The reality that the individual must have work to support
him/herself. People accept less than optimal, for them, work situations as a
result. If people have options - such as a guaranteed ability to survive, no
matter how minimally - they have the power to refuse some situations. That
would diminish the bargaining power against the individual worker of all who
currently employ people at or near the UBI level.

~~~
Chris2048
You're saying the individual worker would then have bargaining power of their
own, without requiring the collective power of a union?

I think this is true, but there is still virtue to unions; they will just have
to work harder to justify benefit..

~~~
ianai
There would absolutely still be market share/place for unions. My guess is
they simply refuse to tolerate anything that could even possibly diminish the
status quo.

------
Rezo
"Not only does SAK say that the system may reduce the labor force -- for
instance by tempting mothers of small children or those close to retirement to
take more time off"

As long as the unemployment rate is > 0, that sounds like a net benefit for
UBI. Someone else who isn't at the same life stage can then fill the freed
position. You would only think this is a bad thing if you see workforce
participation as the end-goal in itself, while all signs point towards massive
societal upheaval due to automation without something like UBI.

------
digi_owl
In the end it all seems like a no-win situation.

basic income, much like housing debt, will just set a new price floor. This
any merchant worth their salt will price things at that point plus a markup.

Thing is that going the other way and freezing the amount of currency in the
economy, like say with a gold standard, will do crap all as well. As that just
means things will be prices fractions of fractions, and the pay will be
likewise.

In the end the only thing that can really solve things is massively, and i
mean Star Trek scale massively, crank up supply of goods and services.

And unless we have something like Deuterium (aka the handwaved wonderfuel of
every space age sci-fi) and replicators to go with, thats not going to happen
as we run into an energy crunch sooner than we like to think.

Effectively humanity can't win.

~~~
recursive
If my income is $10, and your income is $100, you can buy 10x the stuff I can
buy. If you add a basic income of $20, (ignoring taxes lol) now you can buy 4x
the stuff I can. It might not affect high end luxury items, but I can probably
afford some staple items like socks now.

~~~
mixmastamyk
He's saying the price of socks will rise to eat your new income, no?

~~~
usefulcat
Which would require a lack of competition in the sock market.

~~~
lolsal
I'm guessing that's implied since people would not longer 'have' to work. Why
compete in the sock market when I can survive and not compete?

------
jcon321
I don't understand the principle behind UBI. If everyone makes +$X amount more
doesn't everything just raise by +$Y?

~~~
logfromblammo
What I don't understand is how people can support Fannie Mae/Freddie
Mac/Sallie Mae loan guarantee programs and not UBI-style welfare programs.

They're almost the same thing. The government is essentially providing a
subsidy, and middlemen suck up most of the value, leaving the presumptively
intended beneficiaries with almost nothing.

Government encourages mortgages with loan guarantees. Home prices rise.
Existing builders, owners, and lending institutions benefit, and the new
buyers are less able to afford the higher prices and debt loads.

Government encourages student loans with loan guarantees. Tuition prices rise.
Universities and lending institutions benefit, and the students are less able
to afford the higher prices and debt loads.

UBI encourages purchase of lifestyle necessities with monthly checks. Rent,
gas, and grocery costs rise. Landlords and business owners benefit, and people
still have to work in addition to the monthly check they are now utterly
dependent on.

You can't move the supply curve by fiddling around with prices or demand. You
can't provide _everyone_ with their lifestyle necessities independent of work
or trade just by sending out checks.

If you want to make home ownership increase, you have to build more affordable
(and more-affordable) homes. If you want higher education to expand, you have
to build more universities and hire more professors. If you want more
unemployed people to not starve and not be homeless, you have to acquire and
distribute more food and beds. Why do people persist in thinking you can solve
problems by just printing/taxing more money and transferring it to certain
groups?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
The old "prices will rise to absorb UBI" argument. That takes a profound
distrust of the free market to even imagine.

As for supply curve, wake up and notice how industry is changing. In the last
10 years, automation has been explosive. Factories coming back to America from
overseas don't do it because somehow labor has become affordable. They do it
because robots are cheaper than even Chinese and Indian labor.

The robots are ready to lift the yoke of labor from humanity. As expected,
folks are reacting with panic and alarm. Yes, it'll be different. But perhaps
not the apocalypse that keeps getting threatened.

And yes, we _can provide everyone with necessities by handing out checks_.
We've been able to over-produce food, clothing and many other things
essentially without limit for decades. The rest is not going to be far behind.

~~~
lolsal
> And yes, we can provide everyone with necessities by handing out checks.
> We've been able to over-produce food, clothing and many other things
> essentially without limit for decades. The rest is not going to be far
> behind.

I don't think this is accurate. You can provide everyone with money by handing
out checks. You can't make them buy necessities with it. We seem to still have
a social welfare problem in those cases.

------
digitalronin
How utterly pointless is it to say "This experiment _will_ fail" \- they seem
to have missed the point of what an experiment is.

------
ptaipale
One reason for the opinion of this union organisation is, of course, that
they're intertwined with the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and to some extent
the Leftist League, who both are currently in opposition. So it is rather
natural that it is against something that the governing parties (a coalition
of centre-right parties with different support bases) has initiated.

------
drallison
"Finland’s _basic income experiment_ is unworkable, uneconomical and
ultimately useless." writes the author of the Bloomberg article [emphasis
added]. This article is not the concept of a basic income; it is specific to
the particular choices made for the Finnish experiment.

The content is disappointing. The article collects opinions about the the
Finnish experiment primarily from detractors and presents only hearsay
anecdotal evidence for strongly held conclusions.

The present pilot program is small,selective, and embedded in the existing
economy. I suspect that it will work only when scaled up to the economy as a
whole.

------
ilikeatari
I cannot recommend enough Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano as a great thought
provoking material on the UBI topic. It made me rethink its potential
implications.

------
amelius
BI is just a negative form of income tax. So can't we just reduce the relevant
income taxes slowly until we start running into problems?

~~~
sp332
A lot of people at the lower end of the income scale are already paying no
taxes. So they can't be reduced without going negative right away.

~~~
refurb
What about the earned income tax credit in the US? It's a negative income tax.

------
leke
It's a bit early to be saying that I think. I was disappointed not to get on
it. I would have become self employed in a heartbeat.

------
markhahn
Unions want to present themselves as the only possible savior for the
downtrodden. But of course! Since when have any two saviors been willing to
coexist?

Also a bit strange to hear capitalist-incentive reasoning coming from a
union...

------
known
Does UBI provide impetus to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

------
ar0
Almost all of the comments here are very dismissive of the trade union's
arguments, but I think it is very important to look at the key problem UBI
faces IMHO: Proper work is not just a source of money, but also a source of
pride and a feeling of purpose / usefulness. And UBI alone cannot replace
this.

This is not only a problem with UBI but with all welfare-focused policies,
regardless of how well-intentioned and useful they might be. Put yourself into
the shoes of someone on the receiving end. The story a blue-collar worker you
are automating away is hearing is this: "We are sorry, but in our AI-fuelled,
robot-driven world you are useless. We have no need for you anymore because
you can't program deep neural networks. You just don't have what it takes to
be a useful member of our society. But - don't worry! We recognize this is a
problem, so we have introduced UBI / <insert other welfare programs here> to
make sure you are financially covered and don't have to worry about your
mortgage."

Is this something you want to hear? No. And that's why people are dismissing
UBI and vote Trump - because "You are a hard-working, very capable individual
whose job was unfairly stolen by an illegal immigrant" is a much, much better
story for your self-esteem. And self-esteem is important [1]!

Not all people have a bucket list of things they would want to do in their
spare time, like contributing to cool open source programs or writing the next
Harry Potter series. Many just want to live a "regular" life and want to feel
useful by providing for their families. They benefit from having a job where
they feel useful and are accepted and where someone else (their boss)
structures their work and tells them what to do. Taking this away and
replacing it with UBI cannot be the (whole) answer. [And, no, I don't have the
right answer, either.]

Money is not everything.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-
esteem#Importance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-esteem#Importance)

~~~
benibela
>Proper work is not just a source of money, but also a source of pride and a
feeling of purpose / usefulness. And UBI alone cannot replace this.

That can also be used as pro-UBI argument to countering the argument "With an
UBI everyone would quit there job and society would collapse."

>"We are sorry, but in our AI-fuelled, robot-driven world you are useless. We
have no need for you anymore because you can't program deep neural networks.
You just don't have what it takes to be a useful member of our society

Well, if robots actually can run everything one day, that is just what they
will be told. UBI or not.

>Not all people have a bucket list of things they would want to do in their
spare time, like contributing to cool open source programs or writing the next
Harry Potter series.

If they do not want to do one of these things, they can do something similar
to what they do now in their job. Or do they not want to do their job? That is
quite a cognitive dissonance. Neither wanting to do it nor wanting to stop
doing it.

If they want to be told to do something against their will, they can find
someone to draft them to something. Most open source projects could draft
people to do something (If they can't contribute to an open source projects,
they are useless after all in the robot driven world). I have 1800 unread
mails about my open source project. I really could draft some people to check
them out.

------
sharemywin
I would be much more in favor of a employer of last resort program.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Wouldn't that just result in 'busywork'?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busy_work](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busy_work)

Wouldn't it be better to free people from having to work rather than
generating a large volume of work for work's sake?

~~~
criddell
The military is famous for using busy work to occupy people's time during the
long periods of waiting. Do you think in that context busy work has value
aside from the actual work? If so, then maybe the same principle applies
generally.

~~~
ZenoArrow
>"Do you think in that context busy work has value aside from the actual
work?"

No, I don't, because I don't think standing armies are a good thing. I'd
rather most people in the military were trained (with re-training on a
periodic basis) but were otherwise left to pursue their own interests until
they were called upon to defend their country. This has been normal in times
past.

~~~
criddell
If an aircraft carrier is needed around the world, there's a lot of time to
fill while the ship steams into position. Even in the middle of the war,
there's a lot of waiting.

~~~
ZenoArrow
What part of "I don't think standing armies are a good thing" was unclear?
Aircraft carriers are useful for waging wars beyond national borders, but far
less useful for defending the borders of your own country. Without a standing
army, the odds of fighting a war of aggression against another nation are
likely to be drastically reduced. In other words, manning aircraft carriers is
not necessary.

Furthermore, in war the situation is different, standing armies are trained
armies ready to deploy at all times, not just in times of war.

------
snarfy
Automation will replace all of those trade union jobs, and then they will find
basic income not so useless.

