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The Almighty Buck Businesses Government

Swiss Village Votes for Free Money. Now It Just Needs the Cash (bloomberg.com) 191

Posted by msmash from the worth-a-shot dept.
A village in Switzerland has decided to go ahead with an experiment on basic income, with a payout of 2,500 francs ($2,570) per month. The next step is to raise money to finance the plan via crowdfunding. From a report: More than 50 percent of the inhabitants of Rheinau, close to the German border, signed up for the project, according to the organizers website. At least half the 1,300 inhabitants needed to say 'yes,' and the count stood at 692 on Monday. The submitted ballots still have to be checked against government data to ensure eligibility. The decision comes two years after a proposal for a nationwide unconditional state stipend failed to pass in a national vote. Rheinau, on the banks of the river Rhine an hour by train from the banking hub of Zurich, was selected by filmmaker Rebecca Panian for the basic income trial. She says she became fascinated by the notion during the national debate before up the 2016 vote, decided to select a village as a guinea pig, and make a documentary.
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Swiss Village Votes for Free Money. Now It Just Needs the Cash More

Swiss Village Votes for Free Money. Now It Just Needs the Cash

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  • ...and, surprisingly, all the groups involved (city, the council of canadians, 'humans of basic income')...none of them have the budget and all expect someone else to pick up the tab for their free money. Funny how that works.

    • Re:The same thing is going on in thunder bay (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @07:40PM (#57293794)

      Usually socialism fails when you run out of OPM (other people's money).

      This is more efficient, since they are skipping that step.

      --
      GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.

    • This is a fundamental problem with a trial of UBI. The funding from UBI is supposed to come from the complete offsetting and dismantling of all other social services. Obviously this is not possible to do during a "trial" and not possible to do if you apply BI i.e. Not "Universal" since not everyone under the care of a government gets it.

      No doubt this will fail and everyone will point this farce of a trial as another example, however unrelated it would be, of the failure of UBI.

  • Swiss Village Votes for Free Money, Immediately Realizes Problem With Plan.

    • As it turns out, the 5 of us in my immediate geographic region have also recently voted to distribute 1 Billion dollars per month to each person.

      Now all we need to do is do a little crowdfunding or get the government involved...

  • Like all things socialist as (Score:4, Insightful)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @07:32PM (#57293738)
    ex UK PM Margaret Thatcher said
    "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
    Margaret Thatcher said [goodreads.com]

    Just my 2 cents ;)
    • There was never a lack of people wanting to give other people money out. As long as the distributor is better off, there will always be people saying that you need to give money to others. There is nothing wrong sharing with other people, but wrong when somebody else decides for you where the money go.

    • Re:Like all things socialist as (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SoulMaster ( 717007 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @08:21PM (#57293952)

      Except that basic income doesn't require governmental control of all businesses, which is what "socialism" actually is. Basic income (and social programs like welfare) might seem "socialist" because that's what you've been told, but they are not - they do not require public ownership/control of business. Single-payer-government-run health care on the other hand, is totally socialist (because the system is run by the public a.k.a. government).

      In America, the shining example we have of socialism is the Interstate Highway System (most roads really). It is 100% unequivocally socialist with the tiny exception of states that have been retain pieces as toll roads for various reasons, but those pieces can't use federal funds.

      socialism

      noun
      a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

      -SM

      • Re:Like all things socialist as (Score:5, Insightful)

        by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @09:01PM (#57294170)
        I would say that a UBI is about the least socialist form of redistributive wealth policies. I fully understand and appreciate the argument that we shouldn't be doing that at all, but the current reality is that the U.S. spends about $2.5 trillion per year on programs like Social Security, Medicare, etc. as non-discretionary spending. That comes out to about $7,500 annually for each person living in the U.S. That's including non-citizens and minors. If you remove them, you're probably above $10,000 per adult citizen.

        That's a sufficient amount of money to subsist in most parts of the country without doing anything but staying on the dole. The reality is that we already have a massive wealth redistribution system in the U.S., but it's such a poorly designed mess of various programs, rules, and bureaucracy not even the Japanese could make it function efficiently.

        There are a lot of things you can do with a UBI that are utterly stupid, but that doesn't mean that a UBI is necessarily bad. Even free market advocates like Milton Friedman proposed solutions like a negative income tax that fundamentally amount to a UBI. Just avoid doing the stupid things that incentivize undesirable behavior (e.g., don't give parents additional UBI for each kid they have and if you do give kids a UBI, lock it away until they reach adulthood) and it's going to be a much better system than the mess we have now. Of course, adopting a UBI probably necessitates other changes (immigration, etc.) but it's a better system than what we've got right now and we could probably get away with spending less for better outcomes.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by guruevi ( 827432 )

          But it will never be "just UBI". Give everyone UBI but take out Medicare and Medicaid? Have you ever seen a drug or alcohol addict? Oh, then we just do it like EBT? Have you never seen someone spend an EBT card in a liquor store - inner cities have entire economies built around transferring and redeeming EBT for "other things"?

          The range of IQ implies that ~20% of the population has an IQ that is too low for them to be 'functional' in society. That means they cannot do anything, they cannot follow basic inst

        • There are a lot of things you can do with a UBI that are utterly stupid, but that doesn't mean that a UBI is necessarily bad. Even free market advocates like Milton Friedman proposed solutions like a negative income tax that fundamentally amount to a UBI. Just avoid doing the stupid things that incentivize undesirable behavior (e.g., don't give parents additional UBI for each kid they have and if you do give kids a UBI, lock it away until they reach adulthood) and it's going to be a much better system than the mess we have now. Of course, adopting a UBI probably necessitates other changes (immigration, etc.) but it's a better system than what we've got right now and we could probably get away with spending less for better outcomes.

          My point exactly. Well put.

          -SM

        • Don't forget that the military is the largest government jobs program by far.

          • I think
            the military is ~ 1.3 million
            the civilian Federal employees number just over 2 million excluding the US post Office
        • The main problem with UBI programs that I've seen is that they're just not financially viable without a major external source of funding or a massive growth in the productivity of labor. All of the UBI schemes that I've come across actively incentivize people to work less or not at all, thus significantly increasing the share of net recipients and as a result necessitating significantly reduced payouts or increased taxation of net payers, which in turn further incentivizes net payers to work less and thus p

        • Actually the US has a very good and widespread welfare system. It is called the US Department of Defence. The only difference is that, when joining that Welfare program you are expected to do work of sorts, which is fine by me.

          https://aeon.co/essays/how-the... [aeon.co]

          If you could get something like the DoD, but where people can do non-military work for a few years in exchange for the social and medical benefits (or for even longer) then maybe it would be better. Germany used to have Social Work as an alternative to

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )

        You take a rather strict interpretation of socialism.

        As your own definition states: Regulation. You have to regulate the money out of business to pay for UBI. You could do that by regulating a minimum wage (eg. Bernie Sanders' $15 minimum wage), by regulating an extra tax on the richest people and corporations (eg. Bernie Sanders' BEZOS tax), by regulating how and when a company and workers can do business and with whom (eg. Bernie Sanders' mandatory 40 hour workweek, collective bargaining etc)

        What is the d

        • Well, socialism is everyone 'putting in/taking out" from the Government, including businesses. Fascism is the Government forcing businesses to do their bidding via regulation and threat of force. Bernie likes to mix socialism and fascism together...

        • No - I take an actuarial definition of socialism.

          You're equating regulation with taxation. I can assure you that they are entirely different things. More importantly, increasing minimum wage, or taxing individuals is entirely antithetical to UBI. It makes absolutely no sense at all. True UBI would eliminate both of those concepts. They're unnecessary. Clearly you don't understand UBI as well as you think you do. This is apparent in your mis-use/hodgepodging of things Bernie has mentioned (at various ti

          • The current system is not working, and literally every single person on the planet knows that it's not.

            There were a lot of stupid things in your rant, but this one takes the cake. Things are better than they've ever been in human history. Productivity is at record highs, violence is down, malnourishment is down, access to healthcare is way up (yes, even in the US), people have more free time, more access to information, more ability to travel, learn, and experience the world, and less risk of starving, dying of disease, or being violently killed than at any other point in the history of our species. But y

            • And you want to replace "the system" with some untested theory you've dreamed up which is going to change everything.

              Worse. These theories have been tested, and they didn't work.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by guruevi ( 827432 )

              It's been tested. North Korea is a great example. Everyone has jobs (according to the government), everyone has food (according to the government) etc.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by guruevi ( 827432 )

            Your socialist utopia cannot exist. Again, you have no idea how the brain of an addict and those of IQ 90 works. They do not think about buying food first. They think about whatever they want today. You give them money, it will not go to food, they will STILL die of hunger.

            So you take away all the rights of people for it to work - regulate the price of food (USSR, Venezuela and Cuba did that), automate as much as you can already happens today - the USSR actually found it doesn't work and went the other way

      • There are way too many people these days that just don't know much about socialism, capitalism, or anything else. They split the world into two, and anything that isn't socialist must be capitalist, and anything that isn't capitalist must therefore be socialist. It's way too simplistic, but there you go, people like simple things and ignorance is bliss.

        For instance, I've tried explaining that the fascists were neither socialist nor capitalist but people push back hard on this idea because if violates thei

    • Also applies to some capitalist theories as well, such as the common myth that an economy can grow forever. The whole point of capitalism is to get other people's money while giving up as little of yours as possible. Sharing the wealth is often called socialism by binary thinkers, whereas acquiring and hording the wealth is a natural tendency in capitalism. (of course, there are more than just those two economic camps but too many people these days can't count beyond 2)

    • UBI is self funding. But this isn't UBI. This is just another social security program applied non-universally and specifically to one group. Unless you can shutdown the other social programs the government runs and close the relevant departments the funding doesn't exist.

  • Create a Cyber currency (Score:4, Funny)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @07:34PM (#57293750)
    And pay everyone with it. It worked for Venezuela.

  • Another, But It Will Work This time, scenario? (Score:5, Informative)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @07:35PM (#57293764) Journal

    Didn't most of the basic income projects fail, and this says the government wouldn't be able to fund it?!

    What am I missing here, how is this not just socialism (or communism) being called something else? That money has to come from somewhere, this trial is donation based, but if this was at the national level it would have to be funded by the the workers, which by this account is less than 1/2 of the people. Why would someone paying most of their wages want to it taxed at over 50% to support people not wanting to work?

    Wouldnt it be better for them to just start a commune in some remote area, where the cost of living is extremely low, and let each person contribute? If its so easy they should be able to get people to join freely, with some doing all the work, and some people just living off everyone else's hard work. No hard feelings right?

    How you can fund this "Utopia" without taking workers income or owning the corporations to milk them, seems impossible.

    When countries are increasing the retirement age, you can be many people in their late 50's will want to quit, working sucks.

    • Re:Another, But It Will Work This time, scenario? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @08:00PM (#57293872)

      All the people pushing for this basic income never own up to the fact as who will be paying. Ask them flat out where the money will come from and they will tell you to read this article or watch some video on the subject. The bottom line is it's going be taken from the middle class. Tax rich people enough and they'll simply move, or move their assets overseas.

      • In the case of the U.S. we're already spending trillions of dollars for terribly implemented social programs. If you took social security, medicare, and the other mandatory spending and rolled it into a UBI, you could give every adult $10,000 per year based on the current spending levels. We're already paying and if you look at where the U.S. tax revenues come from, the middle class aren't paying for most of it. The top ~15% cover about 80% of income taxes (2015 figures) and that puts the cutoff at around $

        • So let's suppose you give everyone 10k and some tiny percentage of the population, let's say 0.01%, uses it to buy a car and some booze then totals the car and cripples themself. Do you just say "tough luck, you used up your UBI; no ambulance or hospital treatment for you, either crawl home or die there in the street"

          It's easy to claim that UBI will cost less than the sum total of current services, but are have you really thought about what it looks like face to face when even a small percentage of the popu

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by e3m4n ( 947977 )

        or they say 'the 1% will pay for it', not bothering to add up all this total of free education, free money, etc. If they added everything up, the entire total amount, it would be obvious that the entire wealth of the planet would not even be able to pay for it. When money is free, what do you care if your doctor charges $50 for his 7min office visit with you, or $500. And thats exactly what has historically happened next. If you're going to mandate the government start providing services free, you're also g

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tkotz ( 3646593 )

      Socialism or communism can at least work in theory as there is an economic flow between the individuals and government. Maybe with reduced freedoms or rampant inflation, but there is a money cycle.
      This is just begging. They state the government can't support it, so it is just a city wide crowdfunding scheme. I'd say scam , but they are at least open about it. It's unsustainable and they obviously have no intention of sustaining it. It really is a testament to something that almost half the voters, voted aga

      • Socialism or communism can at least work in theory as there is an economic flow between the individuals and government.

        Well yes, this has been tried many times. "Give us money or we'll shoot you" tends to facilitate that flow. Murdering a million here ten there fifty millions there lets people know you're not making idle threats.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Re "How you can fund this "Utopia" without taking workers income or owning the corporations to milk them, seems impossible."
      Any advanced nation can do that.
      Find all the citizens who are not working, doing education. Support them with under a payment system as needed.
      Show citizenship photo ID, have a bank account and the gov support is paid in. Some get help from a charity and the citizens bank account gets a gov payment.
      No longer in approved education? A different type of gov payment is made.
      Ge
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • How you can fund this "Utopia" without taking workers income or owning the corporations to milk them, seems impossible.

      It should be noted that the USA (hardly a socialist bastion) has, at the Federal level, about $2.8T per year in social programs (Welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, that sort of thing). The States total north of $500B in social programs.

      Take that big pile of money, and divide it up among the 330M people as a UBI, and you get more than $10K per person per year.

      A family of four would get ~$40K.

      • You might want to see who really pays the income tax [taxfoundation.org] in the US. It actually is the rich, paying well more than their "fair share", unless you mean they should pay a much higher share of income taxes as compared to their share of total income.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by djinn6 ( 1868030 )
          There's no such thing as "fair share". The rich are able to pay more, and so they do. If they don't like how much they're paying, they're free to move to Somalia or something.
        • That is true, but it leaves out the fact that federal revenue is not just income tax. And the rich aren't paying the lions share of those other sources. Plus all the borrowing, which is essentially just taxing poor people through inflation.
        • I looked up how much of federal intake is income taxes, according to this [taxpolicycenter.org] it is 47% (2016)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cederic ( 9623 )

        Take that big pile of money, and divide it up among the 330M people as a UBI, and you get more than $10K per person per year.

        Immediately the person that gets really poorly and needs more than $20k in medical care is in serious shit, because Medicare/Medicaid don't work on average payouts, they work on paying as needed and stay affordable because of the majority of people needing much less care.

        Unless you mandate that everybody buys private medical cover, but then the poor have no income left for food/accommodation/etc.

    • Didn't most of the basic income projects fail, and this says the government wouldn't be able to fund it?!

      Yes they do. Basic Income will always fail. Only Universal Basic Income has a hope of succeeding as funding for such a program would depend on shutting down all other government social security services. If you only apply BI rather than UBI you need to keep all the other programs running too, hence extra funding is required.

    • I agree that these UBI trials are silly, but don't be too quick to equate them with socialism or communism. There are underlying philosophical differences that add up to more than the superficial similarity. To my limited knowledge, one might be able to summarize it in this way: UBI awards money based on the basic objective dignity of the human person, with the hope that this will result in work. Communism ensures employment based on the dignity of the worker, according to his or her ability and need. UBI i
    • It seems like an easy "Yes" vote to me. "Do you want $2600 free every month, voluntarily paid by idealistic fools through crowdfunding?" Definitely yes, provided that I'm not forced to be one of the crowdfunders, where it would be a definite No. Of course, the latter is what will ultimately happen.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shotgun ( 30919 )

      What am I missing here, how is this not just socialism (or communism) being called something else?

      This is not communism, because it leaves out "from each according to his abilities". The UBI says, "You get according to your needs, but you don't even have to kick back a little effort in return."

  • Suddenly, while staring at his declined debit card for a 6-pack of brew with a $20 sales tax, Joe realized "free money" isn't free....someone has to pay taxes to fill the Government coffers for redistribution of "basic income"!
  • It could work globally, as we produce a huge amount of wealth measured by GDP, but unfortunately most of the money is sucked into financial bubbles by agents out of reach of a Swiss village.
  • well maybe i should move there and mooch. Where is the motivation to work hard and live within your means anymore?

    • Where is the motivation to work hard and live within your means anymore?

      Well, this just changes your means, so I don't see how it wouldn't also encourage you to live within your means. Actually, it may help, because you can afford to make decisions on a longer timeline.

      As for what the motivation is to work hard, well, a lot of people like luxuries. Or maybe just existing beyond minimum sustenance.

  • WTF? Crowdsource it? (Score:4, Informative)

    by BBF_BBF ( 812493 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @07:55PM (#57293844)
    The only way the experiment will yield anything close to credible results is for the "basic income" to be self funded. As in the village pays for it by taxing citizens earning money above the basic income more to make up for the ones not able to pay taxes and just collect.

    .

    If it is funded by outside sources it'll be a love fest since nobody in the village has skin in the game and people just get free money without having to take it from other citizens in the same village.

    • Hahaha, the citizens who make the money don't want to fund parasites. Universal basic income always gets the parasites around here excited.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by djinn6 ( 1868030 )
      Yes, for a real experiment they need to self fund and pair up with a neighboring village who can act as the control. They should also set a much lower amount because $2500 is way above what most people need to live and much higher than what most UBI proponents are proposing.

    • The only way the experiment will yield anything close to credible results is for the "basic income" to be self funded.

      Basic Income will never yield credible results and will always need external funding. The problem is that the only way to self fund Basic Income is to provide it Universally. UBI allows the funding source to come from the closing of all the other government social services. BI does not allow this as it is not applied universally to everyone under the care of the government.

      It is doomed to fail.
      It is also nothing to do with UBI.

    • For a full trial, yes, self-funding is important. A limited trial without self-funding can be useful to see what people will actually do when they receive a basic income. If the basic concept relies on a large number of people looking for work to earn extra income, it's a real good idea to make sure this will actually happen before implementing more ambitious trials.

  • Sounds like (Score:5, Funny)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @07:55PM (#57293848)

    They ran out of other peoples' money before they even started.

  • I got it!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @07:58PM (#57293858)
    They should start a GoFundMe page and everyone world wide will send them money ;) And every place else can start GoFundMe pages also and then everyone will send money to everyone world wide ;) And poof you have a socialist world ;)

  • "Crowdsourcing"? (Score:3)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @08:00PM (#57293868)

    Wait- so they are voting themselves free money, and then "crowdsourcing" (I guess online begging) to pay for it? Who do they expect will donate money to such a thing and why would they?

    Why not just put the town on "gofundme" with a description of "We want your money, because we want to give it to our citizens. Please give us money, we like money and would like some free money. Thanks"

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Wait- so they are voting themselves free money, and then "crowdsourcing" (I guess online begging) to pay for it? Who do they expect will donate money to such a thing and why would they?

      Why not just put the town on "gofundme" with a description of "We want your money, because we want to give it to our citizens. Please give us money, we like money and would like some free money. Thanks"

      I think they're expecting wealthy ideological socialists to fund it so that an example of successful UBI comes to exist.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I think they're expecting wealthy ideological socialists to fund it so that an example of successful UBI comes to exist.

        I remember! Like Cuba did with the Soviets!

  • I'm trying to come up with fair/reasonable rules for a basic income experiment. I'm thinking of the following:
    1. 1. Basic: the amount must meet basic income requirements (housing, food, transportation, health care, etc.), replacing all other welfare schemes.
    2. 2. Universal: the payment must go to everyone in the community.
    3. 3. Funding: the money to fund the experiment must come from within the community.
    4. 4. Freedom of movement: people should be free to move in our out of this community, choosing whether to par

    • people who make money move out of the community. this is how you make a ghetto.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by galabar ( 518411 )
        Oh, I forgot:

        5. Containment: 50 foot border wall with machine gun turrets on the top to keep the rich in.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by djinn6 ( 1868030 )
      Sounds stupid. If UBI is working out well, why would they let anyone else in for free? You didn't help them create it, you don't deserve the benefits.

      If I were running the show I'd have anyone trying to move in to pay the equivalent of 5 years of UBI as entry fee and demonstrate they have positive net worth.
  • Funded by taxing the crowd who keep their spare change in Zurich banks.
  • Isn't this sort of exactly scheme Chairman/CEO's typically pull? They run the board of directors and then get to vote on their own pay packages funded by other people's money
    "Hmm, I think I deserve a 50% raise this year, all in favor? The motion is carried."
    "Next topic, employment expenses are rising drastically, we need to start making company-wide reductions."

  • In some ways basic income is more efficient than ad hoc benefits that currently exist. The problem is when there is an economic downturn and benefits that EVERYONE relies on are cut. A small percent of population is rioting. Everyone rioting at the same time because benefits they are demanding from each other do not exist in their economy is terrifying.

  • Before any of you 'UBI' fanbois start sperging out over this, yet again: it is ***1300 people***, not ***350,000,000 people***, and they DO NOT HAVE ANY MONEY TO PAY FOR THIS. It's pointless bullshit.

    Of course they voted for 'free money every month'; who wouldn't? But there is NO MONEY. Their 'vote' amounts to an 'opinion poll' because there's nothing real to back it up.

    UBI fools need to STFU. It'll never work and anyone with basic arithmetic skills can see that.

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