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Finland Is Killing Its Basic Income Experiment (businessinsider.com)
tomhath shares a report: Since the beginning of last year, 2000 Finns are getting money from the government each month -- and they are not expected to do anything in return. The participants, aged 25-58, are all unemployed, and were selected at random by Kela, Finland's social-security institution. Instead of unemployment benefits, the participants now receive $690 per month, tax free. Should they find a job during the two-year trial, they still get to keep the money. While the project is praised internationally for being at the cutting edge of social welfare, back in Finland, decision makers are quietly pulling the brakes, making a U-turn that is taking the project in a whole new direction. "Right now, the government is making changes that are taking the system further away from a basic income," Kela researcher Miska Simanainen told the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet.
It has to be universal and permanent to really reflect the outcome expected.
I support a Universal Dividend, anyway, which is self-funding and doesn't have concerning fiscal issues presented by UBIs. The whole UBI thing is a clunky proto-ideal that I regard as old technology.
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Basic Income seems like an interesting experiment. Which comes down to the a root issue.
Do people live to work, or work to live.
This article was kinda wimpy about giving us its findings. Just supporters crying that it didn't have enough time.
However things I would like to see.
For these people on Basic Income, what did they do in their lives? Even if they didn't get jobs, what did they do with their lives? Did they just sit at home watching TV and playing X-Box? Or where they out being active in the community. Volunteering their time and talents to help make things better?
If people live to work. Even if they are not able or unwilling to get traditional jobs, their instincts will still have them being productive member of society, just in ways that Supply and Demand doesn't give a lot of money too.
If people work to live. Then basic income will be negative effect, as having enough to survive is means they are not motivated to do anything else, other then their own benefit.
I expect there is a mixture of these people, but having this targeted at only the unemployed may have found a concentration of the work to live folks vs. people who are on short term job loss, or who are under paid.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
SJW types want free shit for themselves and their minority pets. That's why. The tech world has been hijacked to push left-wing political agendas.
Because most people want to have more than just the basic necessities of life: a nicer car, a nicer house, holidays, gadgets, whatever. That requires money and so requires finding a job.
Reducing stress while looking for that job makes it easier, it means that you can look for a better job or get training without worrying where the next meal is coming from.
Because most people want to have more than just the basic necessities of life
What evidence do you have to suggest this? Why are there more people accepting of mediocrity than those pursuing higher life goals to get more than basic necessities?
Why work and find a job when I can use a sob story to get legislation passed to give me what I want without work from suckers that do work?
Reducing stress while looking for that job makes it easier
Less stress != easier. Stress can be a good thing. You still have to go through the same crap of finding a job regardless of the stress. Handling stress is part of life and again can be a good thing.
Agreed. My submission had "basic income" in quotes to recognized that, but those quotes were removed by msmash.
However, I do note that when the program was started, many proponents celebrated it as an experiment in UBI even as critics pointed out that it wasn't really. It is but it isn't; but wait, now it isn't but it is. Whatever.
"McDonalds staff are being automated away through ordering booths and robotic burger flippers."
This could have been done decades ago. Again, what magical technology is coming along that is going to do this? Who is designing that self-driving truck that can pick up trash cans automatically? That would be quite a feat. And don't point me to some youtube video of some self driving truck on a closed course picking up trash cans. That ain't reality.
... for people who are really bad at math... and economics.
The reason the UBI is a terrible idea is because economies tend to filter out constants. Well, they don't tend to, they just do. If you give everyone $1000 per month, economic activity will increase, demand will increase, and prices will rise to absorb that $1000, and nobody will be any better off than they were, once that happens. People will be better off in the beginning but they will settle back down to their prior state. I call this, "pushing up the cost of existence."
The "cost of existence" is the amount of productivity a person must generate to pay for the resources they consume.
This leads to the next point: their experiment was crap. The outcome on a large scale would be totally different than on a small scale, as the small-scale experiment is basically irrelevant to the economy as a whole, but a 100% rollout would be devastating, especially to those who are unable to take advantage of the program for whatever reason.
There are so many problems with UBI it's hard to fathom how rational human beings actually go so far as to implement it. They have to know these facts, so the reasonable explanation becomes, "they are trying to dupe people into giving them more power with free stuff," which has been the modus operandi of the leftist movement for.. well.. forever.
Parliamentary elections about a year from now could be a reason...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What happens when you Give Poor People Cash? They spend it on the things that it makes the most sense to them to spend it on. Things like livestock, tools, and housing repairs. Things like health care and education.
It's almost as though the idea that helping people is bad comes from miserable SOBs who are only ever happy when other people are miserable, too.
Agreed. These people are worth more pieced out as donor organs. Put simply, in this case the sum of the parts is worth more than the whole. There really is no reason to continue to participate in society if they are not contributing, and this is a way that they can contribute in a very beneficial way.
This prompts a thought: How many people would go for the equivalent of a reverse mortgage, with their organs? I mean, they own their organs, so make a promissory deal with some company for a fixed quarterly income. I suspect the company would want to micro-manage their health care - hell they may even pay for it - but the donor would have to live a "managed" lifestyle: Minimal alcohol consumption, no drugs except as approved by Big Organ(TM), no risky hobbies or sports beyond jogging & aerobics etc. 'Course, if a surgery happened to go awry at a young age when the donor's organs are young & fresh, and worth more, or their sdc had a hiccup on a sharp curve...sounds like a science fiction story (*cough Coma *cough).
Well, but it's at least a trial and a data point. If you're starting a research study for a new wonder drug, we don't dose the entire population and see if it works, why would economic policy be any different.
If it doesn't work on a small set with controlled parameters, how would it work on a larger scale without said parameters.
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In my opinion, there should be no welfare for healthy adults.
However, there should be a "universal basic job" that is available for everyone. It should have slightly fewer hours than normal and, in turn, have lower than the minimal monthly salary. It should involve doing community service or something like that, which requires little skill. Or even digging a hole one day and filling it the next day.
The idea would be that everyone who is able to work, should work. If they cannot find a job, then the government should provide them with one. It wouldn't be very desirable, but better than starving to death.
As it is currently in quite a few countries, unemployed people get paid welfare for basically sitting at home and drinking alcohol.