
Finland considers basic income to reform welfare system - pierre-renaux
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33977636
======
netcan
Basic incomes have always been an interesting idea, appealing to a lot of
smart people from radically different economic-political camps. There are some
potential massive wins on long term unemployment that come from eliminating
incentive issues, some answers to the "living wages" and other positive rights
problems. Less bureaucratic micromanaging of people's lives. There's a reason
it hold attention on HN, it's a real interesting idea. But…..

Basic income is the type of idea that is very, very hard to implement within
our current (possibly any) political systems. There is very little room for
compromise, half measures and gradualism. It does not lend well to caveats
exemptions, and design by committee.

One of the big selling points is that basic income is funded largely by
_replacing_ different welfare state institutions: unemployment benefits, child
benefits, housing subsidies, state housing, pensions… This allows (A) A big
enough basic income (B) big savings on welfare institutions running costs, (C)
the simplicity needed for a clean re-write of incentives.

Where do the "efficiency savings" come from? Largely they come by cutting
salaries associated with managing a welfare system. Can a government reduce
public sector employment to that extent?

The danger for any country implementing this is that once they get into the
political procee, they will chop and compromise and water down the idea until
it is just another item on the big list of ingredient in the social welfare
soup €212.13 per month that you qualify for while keeping everything else that
exists.

Reforming the tax system and the welfare system as radically as required in a
short time is a tall order. Maybe the Finnish can pull it off. They have a
good track record. More broadly, I expect that this would have a high failure
rate.

The best chance (IMO) is for very a small country to try it first.

~~~
surfmike
The problem with a basic income is that for it to be close to enough to live
off, it'd be very very expensive — way too expensive. Giving everyone in the
US enough to be above the poverty line, say $12,000 (which is hardly enough to
live off in many areas), would cost $3.8 trillion, which is what the _entire_
US federal budget is now.

So, people with disabilities and people who are unemployed would be left worse
off, with an amount they can barely live off. Not exactly the situation we
want after enacting our utopian basic income program.

The only way around that would be to give people with disabilities and the
unemployed more money. But then that means you can't eliminate the welfare
institutions needed to identify them and cut them checks.

~~~
xienze
There are additional problems:

1\. It's not going to be an amount barely above the poverty line. If it's
implemented "correctly" it needs to be enough to do away with all the other
welfare programs. Think way, way higher than $12K per person per year.

2\. With less revenue coming in, guess who's going to be hit with higher
taxes? All those suckers working to make a marginally higher income.

3\. If the BI is sufficiently high (think in the $45K range), there will be a
lot of people leaving their jobs to live a life of leisure and avoid having
their income taxed at a >50% rate. I know I would.

This utopian idea is like every other: sounds great on the surface, may even
work reasonably well at a small level, but doesn't scale. Human nature is what
it is.

~~~
netcan
BI alone is by definition the poorest you can be. That's never going to be
nice. It's almost certainly never going to be $45k. So long as money motivates
people, people should still be motivated to have more than the poorest.

OTOH, BI does not disincentivize recipients from working, like current schemes
do.

The specifics vary by place but almost everywhere unemployment benefits recede
rapidly when you are.. employed. If you are disabled but manage to work part
time, that can be used to invalidate your disability claim.

The whole point is to get more people working, and make it worth their while.
If BI results in fewer people working, it has failed.

~~~
surfmike
The benefit will be universal, but then you have to pay for it with increased
taxes. So the increased marginal rate will disincentivize people from working.

~~~
seanflyon
With BI, You will never be in a situation where you will be poorer for earning
a dollar you just won't be an entire dollar richer.

~~~
surfmike
We could scale back benefits more gradually than we do today. That would be a
lot cheaper than giving everyone a guaranteed pot of money.

------
lordnacho
The article alludes to the fact that you remove marginal disincentives to work
by doing something like this. Many existing systems have some form of means
test, which in practice results in very high effective tax rates.

Once we decide we want to support people on low incomes, there's a question of
how the best way to do that is. The Nordics especially have built up enormous
bureaucracies that in themselves cost a lot to administer various handouts and
benefits. It might make more sense just to cut a cheque to everyone.

~~~
scotty79
What could be great about basic income is that you can safely fire a lot of
bureaucrats without harming them. Some of them might even welcome the change
from being paid to do meaningless job to being paid for literally nothing.

~~~
bmir-alum-007
Purpose, or keeping busy at a minimum, is a tentpole of avoiding depression...
even if it were seemingly "busywork."

~~~
Hytosys
People tend to want to work, really. But to your point, many people can't find
work that pays the money they need to survive, so they become depressed. Also,
people often lose their jobs.

There have been several studies/deployments that convince me that your worries
are unsubstantial in practice. Really great resource:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/basicincome/wiki/index#wiki_that.27...](https://www.reddit.com/r/basicincome/wiki/index#wiki_that.27s_all_very_well.2C_but_where.27s_the_evidence.3F)

~~~
bmir-alum-007
Disclaimer: I'm stupid broke, live in a van and take a highly-effective
antidepressant, so I might have a little authority on this subject. ;)

Depression is terrible (anti-social, self-destructive, painful, etc.) but
useful when it's grounded in an existential crisis... it makes people reflect
on themselves and think about what else they can do or change.

They're not worries, they're concerns. Also, that resource doesn't list a
single successful, large-scale deployment. Finland is _considering_ it. (The
US will never, ever have such a fanciful thing because the plutocracy prevents
it, even with Bernie 2016.)

And another concern: if people don't earn money themselves, the tendency is to
_waste_ , in all regards. This tends to reinforce learned helplessness, even
farther away from the brutal reality of life/business/nature.

~~~
RobertoG
"And another concern: if people don't earn money themselves, the tendency is
to waste, in all regards."

I have not observed the same.

My impression is that the trend is we, people, like to waste when we don't
have to pay, but if the money come from our accounts, we start to get careful,
independently how the money arrived to our account. People would not like to
waste their money even it's from a basic income.

~~~
htns
The motive for wasting is that the money-giver might want to see your bank
account balance before giving. Not having savings is generally a requirement
for receiving welfare after unemployment benefits have run out. It's something
basic income would do away with.

------
jfaucett
This is great. One of the main reasons I think political progress is so slow
is because its near impossible to experiment with any new ideas. Few countries
can just scratch something and say ok that didn't work lets try something else
- because 10s of millions of people are already working in or dependent on
said system. There are however a handful of countries in the world that can
actually do this, because of the wealth and relatively small populations they
have. Finland is one of those, so this is exiting.

The same problem exists in city planning. I'm sure civil engineers could
design much more environmentally friendly and efficient cities, free of cars
and with optimal transit, waste, and housing systems. But you always have an
existing city where millions already live and work, and you have to have 20/30
year plans to get anything changed.

Its like trying to build a new piece of software but having to mold it out of
a 20 year old monolithic legacy app where everything is interconnected and you
have to maintain full backwards compatibility.

------
jmadsen
I don't "know" if any of this is a good idea, but I'm glad to see it at the
top of HN & elsewhere, where people can start to consider different ways of
dealing with a changing world economy. We need to allow ourselves to consider
new ways of thinking about work, welfare and income

~~~
gpvos
Things like this have been posted quite often lately (some cities in the
Netherlands are also starting small-scale experiments, and a rather high basic
income was proposed in Switzerland a few months ago; I think all of those were
posted here). I'm all in favour of a basic income (or at least of testing
whether it works), but I wouldn't actually dare post here about it in fear of
creating an overload...

------
kfk
The problem in those countries is taxes and social contributions. You need to
make 10 in order to bring home 5, that kills work, completely. Now the basic
income, so basically we want the State to manage even more of the economy. If
past experience would prove this effective, then OK, but it just proves the
opposite!

Let me do some back of the envelope calculations for you. In Europe we pay
around 40% of income tax. On top we pay at least another 8% for pension, which
we will never see, and another 8-10% for health insurance, which is not great
at all. On top of that, companies have another 30-40% of cost, _on top_ of the
bruto salary of an employee in taxes and similar to pay to the state. Bottom
line: more than half of your cost to the company goes to the government.

It's just incredibly bad. If you have a 10% unemployment the most effective
way to help people is to bring that down to, say, a 3%. That will help most
definitely. But for that to happen you need to bring down the cost of labor,
which is just too high.

And don't let me start with pension. Europe is basically starving an entire
generation, you don't see it now, you will see in 30 years when the young of
today will start to go into retirement age. There will be no money to pay a
real pension to everybody. You know how much you need to have a very
comfortable pension? At a 6% rate, about 500 euro a month for 40 years. That's
it, that's all you need. Right now we are paying close to this amount for a
public pension, will we see that money? Absolutely not.

Bottom line: they have to fix the economy. That's the only long term solution
and the only way to bring people out of unemployment and poverty.

~~~
_petronius
> If past experience would prove this effective, then OK, but it just proves
> the opposite!

Can you cite some examples? I'm interested, because I seem to read a lot about
how experiments with basic income actually tend to work out very well. (It
certainly does in Alaska, although that isn't much money[0], as well as other
examples[1] cited in this thread.)

> Europe we pay around 40% of income tax. On top we pay at least another 8%
> for pension, which we will never see, and another 8-10% for health
> insurance, which is not great at all. On top of that, companies have another
> 30-40% of cost, _on top_ of the bruto salary of an employee in taxes and
> similar to pay to the state.

I don't know how much you earn, or where you work in Europe, but I have never
paid this much. Income tax and social security (including NHS contributions,
so all my health insurance) in the UK was never more than 30% of my salary.
It's about the same for me in Germany right now, if anything a little lower.

Maybe you're in a really wealthy income bracket, though, in which case --
congratulations?

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanent_Fund_Dividend)

[1]: [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/1970s-manitoba-
povert...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/1970s-manitoba-poverty-
experiment-called-a-success-1.868562)

~~~
throwaway12309
If you are in the UK, 50k a year (above average but honestly, if even remotely
close to London, not that much) will bring you a tax bill of around 38% (19k)
if you consider employee NHS contributions ( data from
[http://www.listentotaxman.com/50000](http://www.listentotaxman.com/50000)? ).
So you are already at 38% and you have council tax (probably another 2k or
more a year) plus VAT (21% or something?) on stuff you buy. I don't remember
other taxes I paid while in the UK but these were the big ones. It isn't hard
to get to the end of the year and see that you(+ employer) paid around 50-60%
in taxes.

I live in Portugal, and if I consider VAT+income tax+social security
contributions (self employed so I pay both parts or approx. 33% in social
security) and ignoring other extra taxes (property, road tax, etc) 62% or so
of the money I earn goes to the government (this was for 2014, my accountant
did the math). I could probably get this lower with some creative accounting I
guess.

~~~
HappyTypist
That's the marginal tax rate. It's not your effective tax rate.

~~~
throwaway12309
Sorry, can you explain the difference? When I was in the UK that was basically
what I paid and never got anything back.

------
bmir-alum-007
Food for though:

raw cost for a _below_ -poverty annual subsidy of $12.5k to all adults in the
United States:

209,128,094(&) * 12,500 = 2.6 trillion USD/year

That's equal to about _66%_ of the 2015 federal budget or _15% of 2015 GDP_.

Would that make it affordable or unaffordable?

Notes:

&
[http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/demographic.html](http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/demographic.html)

~~~
adventured
It would make it impossible unless you dramatically slash Social Security,
Medicare/Medicaid, and the military.

Every time basic income comes up, the one thing persistently avoided is
running the budget and taxation numbers needed to support it (and there are
endless excuses raised for why that discussion is avoided).

$2.6 trillion (basic income) + $600 billion (military) + $1.2 trillion (SS) +
$1 trillion (M/M) = $5.4 trillion, and that's before you get into all the
other costs of government. Throw on another $400 billion in other mandatory
spending costs, and another couple hundred billion in other discretionary
spending items.

$6 trillion is the minimum out of that, just for the Federal Government.

Now throw in $3 trillion for local and state.

$9 trillion in total government costs out of an $18 trillion economy. Pretty
obvious what would happen to that system. And it's why nobody ever wants to
discuss actual numbers.

~~~
IanCal
> And it's why nobody ever wants to discuss actual numbers.

I do. I want to talk about actual numbers because I think it'll be interesting
to work out what might or might not be affordable. But I get rather frustrated
that people either provide no numbers or do what you've just done and multiply
the basic income amount by the total number of people and go no further.

You're making the assumption that everyone gets $12.5k more post-tax. That's
not what many people would propose. There's also a reduction in the number of
benefits and other programs that need to be funded (in the UK, anything above
£4000 would eliminate the need for job-seekers allowance and several other
benefits). SS is $1.2T, but some portion of that would be covered by BI.

The money also doesn't evaporate, one of the arguments in favour of large
scale wealth redistribution like this is the people you distribute it to are
the ones who are most likely to spend it.

It's an extremely complex issue, and both those saying "everything would be
wonderful" and "X * Y = $$$ is too much" are doing it a disservice.

------
Sknowman
Canada tried something like this in the 70's, it worked.

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/1970s-manitoba-
povert...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/1970s-manitoba-poverty-
experiment-called-a-success-1.868562)

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-mincome-experiment-
daup...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-mincome-experiment-dauphin)

------
jbb555
You remove the marginal disincentive to work at the low income end. This is
good.

However you add a large incentive to give up work at the higher end.

As an example, I own a house in london. I'm by no means rich but I have a
fairly decent income and significant savings. Enough that if I downsized my
house and lived frugally I could support myself for 10-15 years.

That's not enough to retire on. If I was to receive £4-5 free income a year
though, it would make enough different that my saving would last 20 years or
more and I'd be able to give up work now.

There might be a relative small number of people in my situation, but together
we probably pay a great deal of tax that would be lost.

I think it is this that dooms any such scheme.

~~~
onion2k
_There might be a relative small number of people in my situation, but
together we probably pay a great deal of tax that would be lost._

You've made a basic error in your assumptions - you're assuming that when you
quit your job ceases to exist. It doesn't. Someone else would do it instead,
being paid what you're paid, and paying the tax that you pay. So long as the
number of people leaving the workforce to live on their basic income + savings
is smaller than the number of currently unemployed people then the tax
receipts wouldn't change. In fact, with the consequent savings on employment
benefit, the amount of tax to spend on services would go _up_.

~~~
krrrh
You're assuming that the pool of unemployed workers would have the same skills
and abilities as the early retirees, many of whom would be in the most
productive phases of their careers. There may not be anyone who can fill the
job _and_ justify the same pay. If unemployment rates decrease the
availability of skills drops off.

~~~
onion2k
I'm not suggesting that unemployed people do the jobs of the people who leave
the workforce - just that _someone_ does it, and someone moves job to do their
job, and so on, until eventually an unemployed person gets a job. There might
be people who are _really_ hard to replace, but they're so unusual that
they're not really worth considering when you're talking about national
policy.

No one could reasonably suggest that a nation should base their welfare policy
ideas on whether or not _a few thousand people_ will be hard to replace if
they retire.

~~~
notahacker
No one could reasonably suggest that _only_ a few thousand people would opt to
retire early if every adult had an automatic right to a sum in the region of
the present basic state pension.[1]

There's nothing particularly unusual about the OP's circumstances, and they
made a good point in that a BI would be particularly attractive to asset-rich
people who had paid off their mortgages even whilst poor BI recipients
struggled to pay rent without their housing benefit

[1]a touch under £6k per year in the UK, which is certainly in the ballpark of
BI proposals, as well as probably not enough to replace other subsidies in may
parts of the country.

~~~
onion2k
_No one could reasonably suggest that only a few thousand people would opt to
retire early if every adult had an automatic right to a sum in the region of
the present basic state pension._

Suggesting that people will decide not to work if you give them £6k a year is
a ridiculous strawman.

The basic income (and the pension for that matter) aren't high enough to buy
_any_ significant assets. There's an assumption with a pension that you've
already bought a home, you're not going to invest in a new car, that you're
unlikely to want the latest expensive gadgets (I'm not arguing that the
assumption is _right_ , just that it's there). With a basic income being the
equivalent the only people who'd use it to 'opt out' of the workforce are
those who already have the assets they want and have decided they won't ever
want new or better ones (a vanishingly small number who could probably opt out
of the workforce _now_ if they wanted to) and people who have decided they
don't want those assets in the first place (a much larger number, but still
very small in the grand scheme of things).

Every single person who has £6k x years-they're-likely-to-live could opt out
of the workforce _right now_ by your reckoning. It just doesn't happen.
There's no reason to believe it would suddenly become popular if a basic
income were enacted.

~~~
notahacker
> Suggesting that people will decide not to work if you give them £6k a year
> is a ridiculous straw man.

Around 1.2 million people over the pensionable age live on _only_ the state
pension (and that has other qualification requirements). That's a little more
than the number of people over 60 actually in work.

Sure, 40 year olds typically have a little more energy than 70 year olds and
quite probably a few years of mortgage payments left, but I still think you
can safely add more than a few thousand early [semi]retirees if you open it up
to everyone and remove all qualification requirements.

------
tarvaina
Although there seems to be enough support by MPs for basic income so that it
realistically could be trialled, I wouldn't be holding my breath. The
government has too many other things on its plate.

Finland is suffering from a period of slow growth and rising unemployment. The
three immediate reasons are the economic troubles of euro area, the decline of
Nokia, and the trade sanctions against Russia, one of Finland's largest
trading partners. Add to that the quick rise of wages until 2008, the aging
population, an expensive social welfare system, and the inability to devalue
the local currency, and the troubles seem very hard indeed.

The government's main goal is to adapt the Finnish economy to the new reality,
by spurring growth and improving state fiscals. It has many options on its
plate, basic income being one of them.

Currently, however, the government's focus seems to be in short-term. The
current hot topic is the so-called "social contract", which is essentially
government trying to make a deal with labor unions to increase the length of
work week from 37,5 hours to 40 (or a similar reduction in wages). This plan,
perhaps not so surprisingly, seems to be failing. After it is buried (probably
within the next few days), the government may try "fiscal devaluation", i.e.
moving tax burden from companies to citizens. And then some painful public
finance cuts. And after that, who knows what?

Regarding long-term efforts, other pending reforms have more support than
basic income, but still not enough agreement to be hammered out quickly. The
two most important ones are health care reform and the change of municipality
responsibilities. Both of these have been in talks for years without signs of
being resolved.

All this is made more difficult by the fact that the rising populist party
'The Finns' is in government for the first time, still learning how it wants
to play the game.

In summary, it isn't clear when the government will move from short-term
considerations to longer-term restructuring, and if the basic income will
still be on the plate then.

Edit: grammar.

------
jpatokal
Finn here. Some figures to put the floated numbers of 500-1000 euros/month in
perspective:

Average salary, before tax: 3150 EUR

Average salary, after tax: ~2000 EUR

Market rent for one bedroom apartment in central-ish Helsinki: 1000 EUR

In other words, 500 EUR/month is a tolerable budget for a skin-flint student
living in subsidized/free accommodation, but it's going to be pretty tough
going for an adult, and completely prohibitive for eg. raising a family. 1000
EUR would be more realistic, but obviously also twice as expensive to
implement.

~~~
aft42
> completely prohibitive for eg. raising a family

But if it's an unconditional guaranteed income, i.e. each member of the family
is making it, then it shouldn't be a problem. For example, a single mother
with two kids would get her 500 EUR/month plus 500 EUR/month for each kid,
bringing in a total of 1500/month for the family. While this certainly isn't
massive, with a part-time job and being frugal, it should enable her to pay
the bills.

~~~
adventured
How would 1,500 euros enable her to pay the bills, if rent alone is 1,000? It
wouldn't be even remotely close after all life expenses are added in.

~~~
moftz
Thats why he said part-time job too.

~~~
aft42
Yes, the "with a part-time job and being frugal" was a critical part of my
post that @adventured clearly missed. Thank you for highlighting it.

------
kisstheblade
As long as this cuts off all other social security payments, like for housing
and child care etc. So if you are poor then you have to live cheaply. It's
ridiculous that the only people who can afford to live in downtown Helsinki
are the very rich and the unemployed... "They have to live near where the work
is!", what a joke...

------
iamcurious
I wonder how this interacts with savings, credit and location. Knowing that
you are guaranteed an income would mean that people could spend all their
income. It would also mean that it would be a lot less risky to offer certain
level of credit. Lastly, it would allow people to go and live where life is
cheaper.

It seems to decouple many complex concerns.

------
wahsd
Isn't basic income really pretty dependent on closing borders? So you have a
basic income ... here come the stampedes of African and East European low
skilled immigrants looking to get a basic income without having to do
anything.

Essentially, also how do you move people from basic income to being ambitious
to pursue more than basic income. People become complacent when they become
comfortable with their circumstances. I don't think that is appreciated enough
in this discussion. People really need to be kept slightly "on their toes".

If you look at the USA, that is precisely what happens here, for better or
worse and even to an extreme and unhealthy manner. We have extreme poverty
relative to other societies we want to consider ourselves to be peers of, but
at the same time we have these unachievable dream motivations in the form of
grotesquely wealthy people in the form of CEOs, athletes, movie stars,
musicians, etc. that 99.99999% of people will never ever get even close to
reaching.

------
Gustomaximus
Rather than a guaranteed income, I think a better system would be a guaranteed
jobs. This would work better than basic income as there are 2 type of
unemployed (let's leave out the disabled for this discussion). Those that want
to work, but can't find work. And those that simply don't wish to work or
conform to a work environment. Given this why not have a 2 tier unemployment
offering.

The first is a guaranteed job. Ideally covering areas that don't compete with
non-essential open market business. So things like looking after parks and
helping out in nursing homes. General community benefit programs. This way if
someone is out of work the government guarantees minimum wage at X hours a
week to keep people in work and not go into that unemployment rut where after
extended time they find it hard to re-enter the workforce.. The remain a
productive member of society for their own self-worth while working gives the
opportunity to upskill or show they are productive people while looking for
better paying work. And given they are already working there is not the
problem that taking a job earns them little more than being unemployed anyway.

For those that are capable but refuse to work they are offered a bare minimum
living environment for pure humanity sake. Something like a bed in a dorm and
3 hot meals environment but they lack personal luxuries until they are willing
to be productive and this keeps costs are kept at a minimum. It also solves
the view of people who feel like unemployed are all bludgers as it separates
those that are victim of circumstance vs unwilling to work.

This way we don't punish people who are willing to be productive but the
economy does not have capacity to offer employment, and minimise the cost and
incentive for people to abuse the system.

I'm sure it's not that simple in reality but having a one size fits all seems
limiting. Something down this route would better allow for people in differing
circumstances.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
India has this, and it involves moving dirt back and forth between ditches.
Pointless and soul crushing.

~~~
Gustomaximus
I'm not sure the point of this comment. Is it just for anecdotes sake? If not
it sounds like you have a problem with the type of work being offered in this
particular example. Not the concept. One (arguably) bad example doesn't make
an entire concept void.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
If you tie benefits to work for moral reasons, but have no real work for them
to do, then you'll just end up with pointless labor. Consider many people on
welfare are not very employable anyways, their labor is not valuable or in
demand. That is why they need welfare in the first place!

The British Victorians solved this problem with treadmills. But eventually
this archaic thinking was replaced with more enlightened solutions to poverty.

------
kpil
Great, the Finns can have our 100.000+ refugees that comes to us in Sweden.

~~~
sopooneo
I wondered this too. If a small country implements basic income, they really
will have to put strict limits on immigration. If the whole world was doing
it, it wouldn't matter as much.

~~~
troels
There are already a lot of restrictions on immigration in rich countries for
this exact reason.

------
acd
Finland has an aging population and too low birth rate 1.8 / little migration
to support the elderly. The need to fix the 0.2.

~~~
jpatokal
Unconditional basic income is certainly not going to hurt, as it'll make one
parent staying home to take care of the kids a lot more feasible financially.

~~~
adventured
With 10% unemployment, and the last eight years consisting of a non-stop
stagnation / recession (Finland has had zero net GDP growth since 2007) - how
would removing workers from the labor pool not crash the economy even further?

Finland is very likely to see its GDP stay at 2007 levels for at least a 15 to
20 year period of time. There's nothing indicating growth or recovery is
inbound (things have only been getting worse the last three years). I don't
see how it can all be paid for with a broken economy.

Unless the premise is to drop concern for total economic output, and strictly
focus on redistribution to raise the median. That seems like a huge leap of
faith, unless you can get tax revenues to climb with greater economic growth.

------
firichapo
Has anyone tried to implement basic income using crypto-currencies? Is it
feasible?

------
pluma
In response to the deleted comment because I had already typed it out when the
parent was deleted:

> proof that unemployment benefits incentivizes staying at home

I have yet to see conclusive evidence for this "people are lazy" argument.
Humans aren't rational actors in a vacuum (except psychopaths). There is
social pressure to contribute to society and "carrying your own weight" \--
just ask anyone who's ever spent a non-trivial amount of time unemployed.

BI can be more than a replacement for current welfare but it aligns very
nicely as a replacement for the current systems of unemployment benefits. Of
course there are people with special needs and of course BI can't replace _all
of_ the welfare system but it significantly reduces a lot of complexity.

In my opinion, the potential effects of a BI are far greater than just
redistributing wealth (which the tax-sponsored welfare system already does).
It raises the barrier from zero to a liveable wage. IMO this entirely
eliminates the need for minimum wages and drastically changes the dynamics of
the job market. It significantly reduces the inequality in the labour/capital
struggle -- it eliminates the major social factor of "will I lose all of my
possessions and ruin my family's lives" from fundamental job decisions.

Instead of having to worry about your (and your family's) continued financial
and social existence when you lose your job (or your company tanks or
whatever) you have a built-in financial safety net making sure that even if
you do fall, you won't hit rock bottom.

Basically it's "rich parents for everyone".

> everyone thinks "I'll get more" or "they'll get more"

But that's not what it's about. In all likelihood, if implemented correctly,
most people will get pretty much what they have now or maybe less. But as with
existing unemployment and welfare systems, BI guarantees that you won't be out
on the street if your employment situation changes. Unlike most existing
unemployment or welfare systems, BI also creates a smooth transition for when
you do find a new job (or start a new company).

It's a zero sum game. It has to be. Everybody can't be better off financially
merely because of a universal basic income. It's the market dynamics that
change, not the amount of money in the system.

You're basically arguing against welfare, not against the BI. BI is no more
about closing the gap between the rich and the poor than welfare is. It's like
socialised healthcare (a recent import from communist East Bloc countries like
the UK): it's not about helping you when you're already fine, it's about
preventing your life from being ruined when you're not fine anymore.

> it's not popular to disprove BI here

You're merely _disapproving_ , not disproving. That's why you get the
downvotes.

------
elcct
They just want to set 0 level a bit higher. Basically having basic income will
be considered as having nothing. What a stupid idea.

------
alexivanovs
Typical Hacker News comment section on something innovative and something that
takes the next step in global economy; "I don't know.", "hmm, looks like a bad
idea.", "yeah, it doesn't affect me so I guess it's pretty bad."

------
TheSpiceIsLife
This always reminds me of that quote "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent
form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote
itself largess out of the public treasury."[1]

1\. presumably someone did actually write or say this at some point, seems to
be unclear as to who that person was.

~~~
dTal
I did the googling for you:

<<[It] is a variant expression of a sentiment which is often attributed to
Tocqueville or Alexander Fraser Tytler, but the earliest known occurrence is
as an unsourced attribution to Tytler in "This is the Hard Core of Freedom" by
Elmer T. Peterson in The Daily Oklahoman (9 December 1951)>>

Source:
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville)

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Yep, I've done the Googling a few times and as I looked further in to the
attribution change it became progressively unclear. Not sure how much we
should trust an "unsourced attribution".

------
jsf666
So i should work so that a lazy bum gets my money? Seems like a plan. Or we
just hand the money everyone and see hyperinflation?

~~~
jsf666
The people who downvote could elaborate on how this magnificient plan should
work. And why it should be implemented? Because communism on paper also seems
like a valid idea and then millions die

~~~
tariqali34
Plans in general fail as soon as they hit cold reality. There will be problems
with implementation, inglorious watered-down compromises, corruption,
unforeseen consequences, etc. The funny thing is though that political
radicals will not view their original plan as flawed, only the 'deviations'
from that plan.

For example, some communists would argue that the reason communism failed was
because it deviated from the "paper" version. See 'actually existing
communism' and the Nomenklatura (New Class) for more information.

~~~
jsf666
How much more genocides are needed before some crazy idealists realize that
communism is a utterly dangerous idea that has little to do with reality? We
had/have the Soviets, NK, China, Cambodia and few others with the toll in tens
of millions (or more than a hundred) and some entitled middle-upper class
pricks still want to "save the world" with this flawed to the core idea?

------
bmir-alum-007
The next concern of implementation: extremely common for people whom aren't
good with money tend to not budget or buy what they need, and end up in crises
of failure-to-plan ahead (economists call them "high MPC"). Some people will
need guidance as to what to buy. Others won't.

A related concern is when people whom aren't good with money suddenly receive
a pile of it: the sad Anna Nicole Smith syndrome: excesses in all things apart
from improving or acquiring basic necessities. It's common in human nature to
really screw up, and it literally kills some people. There has to be some
programs/assistance which can offer/help locate specific recommendations and
get people out of a bind at least once.

Hopefully, it can be implemented in a way which reduces risks of negatives and
offers useful, advantageous advice without treating people as children or
dipping into their privacy without permission.

~~~
audunw
> The core question of basic income is: if people work, do they lose it
> entirely?

That's not a question in basic income. If you would lose it when you start
working, that's just basically your standard welfare system. Basic income is
by definition given to everyone without discrimination.

To compensate, you adjust tax levels. In my country you don't pay tax the
first few thousand dollars. You can remove that. Then you can increase the tax
rate a bit, especially in the higher brackets. Then you end up with most
people getting the same net income after taxes and basic income. And you get a
smooth and bureaucracy-less progression from unemployment to full employment.

I agree with your comment on people not being good with money or budgets. You
would still need some social support system for people with issues or mental
disability. Perhaps the government could be granted the power to take some of
the income and putting it directly towards housing.

~~~
radu_floricica
Increasing taxes "a bit" in the higher bracket does not have proportional
effects. Beyond a certain level the higher brackets simply opt out of paying
taxes - and this level is not much higher than the price of a competent
accountant.

------
1971genocide
I suggest we use basic income to even pay wall street ceos - and here is why.

Give everyone a salary that allows them to afford food and rent. Including
rich wall street bankers. This will help unsigmatize the "welfare queen"
factor.

Second - since we have this habit of treating humans as lab rats and need to
dangle "incentives" to drive them to be productive. Create a sliding scale on
top that goes from 0 to S_max.

Everyone from the Walton family members to Jeff bozz gets paid S_max + food +
rent and every homeless person gets paid 0 + food + rent.

If the overall GDP of the country improves S_max goes up. If there is food
shortages or housing shortages then S_max does down.

~~~
Cthulhu_
There's a different matter though; Wall Street bankers implies they live in
NY, where the cost of living is enormous; the basic income as described in
this and similar articles wouldn't be nearly enough to cover even half of the
cheapest cost of living.

~~~
pluma
And you need to live in expensive places because why exactly? Because the jobs
are there. And why do you need to be where the jobs are? Because you need a
job. And why do you need a job? Because you need to pay for your livelihood.
And why do you still worry about that when you have BI?

Sure, some people still might want to do the kind of jobs you can only find in
places with astronomical costs of living, but even BI can't prevent you from
making unsound decisions like taking a job in an expensive place for a wage
that barely pays your cost of living.

What BI can do, however, is eliminate the necessity of taking on that job or
moving to that expensive place. And maybe if you can't find a job in the
places you can afford to live, you just start your own company and create jobs
for other people who can't afford to move to those places.

BI changes dynamics. I'm not saying people will stop moving to NY to work low
income jobs but at least they have less incentives to do silly things like
that.

