So if you make $50,000 per year, you could stop working when your child reaches 9 to spend more time with them? How often does that happen?
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Unconditional base income?
- Thread starter Grisu
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MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
I guess Switzerland wants to be like Detroit.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
They still manage their estate or at least are responsible too. And sometimes, they screw it up so bad they lose their inheritance.
What makes you think that people who inherit wealth don't do anything?
Borachio
Way past lunacy
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Well, are you dividing up the world into the poor who given a bit of wealth, wouldn't do anything, and the wealthy who, although they are naturally wealthy, yet seem to carry on regardless?
I wonder if this is how the world is divided really though.
It seems the promise of wealth* (not actual wealth) is the only thing that will motivate the poor, yet the wealthy aren't automatically demotivated when they have it. Allegedly.
I can't seem to reconcile these two, somehow.
*Or is it just fear of starvation?
(I suspect a lot of quite wealthy people do little but enjoy themselves while their trust fund managers actually manage their estates for them. Still, maybe those are the ones who lose the lot in the end, anyway.)
I wonder if this is how the world is divided really though.
It seems the promise of wealth* (not actual wealth) is the only thing that will motivate the poor, yet the wealthy aren't automatically demotivated when they have it. Allegedly.
I can't seem to reconcile these two, somehow.
*Or is it just fear of starvation?
(I suspect a lot of quite wealthy people do little but enjoy themselves while their trust fund managers actually manage their estates for them. Still, maybe those are the ones who lose the lot in the end, anyway.)
You have to work to have a city like Detroit try to wiggle out of its pension obligations to you.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
I hear you but I cant think that rewarding unproductivity is a healthy thing for a society to embrace over the long term.
Eventually, wont the number of those choosing not to work cost so much as to break the backs of those trying to support them? I would think so given how human nature works.
So Golden parachutes for bad executives should be outlawed?
Borachio
Way past lunacy
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Well, that's the argument against the welfare state and all benefits entirely, isn't it?
Should we then, to be consistent, be like Scrooge and say things like "Not with my tax dollar, Bob Cratchit. Let the feckless* die and save the taxpayer the expense of keeping them"?
*for a given value of feckless - which could include the old, the sick, the young, and anyone, really.
Or do we go to the other extreme and say that a basic standard of living is a fundamental universal human right? And work to abolish poverty wherever it is, and however caused.
And we could go Detroit on military pensions.
Gucumatz
JS, secretly Rod Serling
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I think the above is a really good question ^
Obviously a significant amount of people would stop working. Lets compare with the ultra wealthy who inherit their wealth. Some of them do pretty much nothing. Now are the ultra rich who inherit their wealth without having to do anything automatically all lazy? Of course not. Are there a significant amount who pretty much do nothing? I remember reading study on CNBC once that like half of a certain threshold of parents in like NY (beyond a million or something worth) thought if they left wealth to their children they would be significantly lazier.
People inherently have different utility values. Some people are naturally lazier than others and even those who are mediocrely lazy enough may do nothing presented enough wealth. Now lets look at those rich who inherited their wealth. How many of them do "practically nothing". Relatively this would be of course higher than for those who do nothing as the mathematical utility functions show that that if you can reach certain thresholds for limited labor people will do that to (ensuring that low skill labor still exists)
The people who do nothing, including those inherit their wealth, still return their money to the economy through spending. Likewise those with a basic income still return a much higher proportion of their income to economy through necessity spending.
So while there is a threshold where having too much nonworkers would destroy the system we can extrapolate from the ultra wealthy and although I don't know swiss work rates, if they are anything like German work-rates people's relative utilities should be high enough to ensure the system continues to work
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
Why would you not work when the child is 9-17, but work when the child is 0-9? I would think it would be the other way around.
But I don't know why you chose age 9, unless its based on the "it costs this much to raise a child" stats that typically include the cost of paying 100% of the costs of sending the 'kid' (now adult) to college for 4 or 8 years. I would hope switzerland has free or low cost college tuition (compared to the US) before they contemplate dabbling in this 'base income' experiment.
Whether i worked or not with this hypothetical 'free money', With a third child on the way, do you think I would have $3,000,000 if this "it costs 1 million to raise a child" is to be believed?
I just used an 18 year child rearing span, one child, and a job that would let you have $25,000 per year. You've got to work the first 9 years to have the money for the next 9.
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
My wife and I together earn about as much as we would together get under the proposal in the OP (2700/month *12*2=60,000) and we are doing alright supporting two kids. If we can make the same money (or slightly more), in addition to not paying for daycare and not spending money on gas to go to work, we would have an even easier time.
So we wouldn't need to save up for 9 years to get 9 years off. We would just collect the check from the government and work 0 hours, rather than what we are doing now by working 75 hours between the two of us for less money. When the kids are older then we would go do some work if we wanted to.
So we wouldn't need to save up for 9 years to get 9 years off. We would just collect the check from the government and work 0 hours, rather than what we are doing now by working 75 hours between the two of us for less money. When the kids are older then we would go do some work if we wanted to.
So, without the government subsidy, I am assuming you are going to save up enough to not have to work the second 9 years.
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
Without the subsidy, we would have to work. The proposal isn't capped at 9 years so why couldn't we work 0 hours for all 18 years?
Are you suggesting that if Switzerland enacted this plan it would go bust after 9 years?
I'm saying that there are plenty of people who earn double the subsidy, but it is rare for them save up with the specific purpose of abstaining from work for a significant portion of their child's upbringing.
Gucumatz
JS, secretly Rod Serling
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In Germany I know you can go to university for only a few hundred euros... Just doing a quick google search and tuition fees in Switzerland for foreign exchange students range from 800-2500 Euros p.sem and half of that for citizens
Frankly universities in Europe are incredibly affordable, so affordable some of my family ended up leaving to Europe to get their degrees instead - so slight quibble there
Frankly universities in Europe are incredibly affordable, so affordable some of my family ended up leaving to Europe to get their degrees instead - so slight quibble there
Semester tuition for me cost CHF 600.--, so I guess yes.
Of course you'd get a lot less in the US due to cost of living. CHF 2500.-- in Switzerland isn't much (in fact, I'd say it's the bare minimum to live on as a single. 60k is ok for a family with 2 kids, but just barely.
That's probably not really it. if you earn 5000 now, you'd get 2500 basic incombe, but your current pay would certainly be lower, so you'd get 2500 basic income + 2500 pay to get the same gross income as now. The point isn't to raise the total income, just to make a bare minimum that everybody will get.
Terxpahseyton
Nobody
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I knew from Germans living in Switzerland that cost of living really takes a toll, but I didn't know it was that crass.
Well that changes the nature of the proposal quit a bit.
I knew from Germans living in Switzerland that cost of living really takes a toll, but I didn't know it was that crass.
Well that changes the nature of the proposal quit a bit.
there's currently another popular initiative that demands a minimal wage of CHF 4000.-- (currently, there's no set minimal wage, except through "Gesamtarbeitsverträge", a collective bargaining agreement)-.
The existential minimum for a single parent with 1 kid currently is estimated at CHF 3550.--
So yes, living in Switzerland is ridiculously expensive (thankfully, our wages are rather high too
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