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The Next QE? Switzerland Prepares A "Living Wage" Of $2,600 For Every Citizen
With Japan planning a few trillion Yen stimulus plan of airdropping "gift cards" directly to the poor to spur spending (and the virtuous awesomeness of economic utopia), it appears Switzerland is about to go one step further. As Motherboard reports, Switzerland could soon be the world’s first national case study in basic income. Instead of providing a traditional social net - unemployment payments, food stamps, or housing credits - the government would pay every citizen a fixed stipend. The proposed plan would guarantee a monthly income of CHF 2,500, or about $2,600 as of November 2014; meaning every Swiss family can expect an unconditional yearly income of $62,400 without having to work, with no strings attached. What could go wrong?
Switzerland could soon be the world’s first national case study in basic income. Instead of providing a traditional social net—unemployment payments, food stamps, or housing credits—the government would pay every citizen a fixed stipend.
The idea of a living wage has been brewing in the country for over a year and last month, supporters of the movement dumped a truckload of eight million coins outside the Parliament building in Bern. The publicity stunt, which included a five-cent coin for every citizen, came attached with 125,000 signatures. Only 100,000 are necessary for any constitutional amendment to be put to a national vote, since Switzerland is a direct democracy.
The proposed plan would guarantee a monthly income of CHF 2,500, or about $2,600 as of November 2014. That means that every family (consisting of two adults) can expect an unconditional yearly income of $62,400 without having to work, with no strings attached. While Switzerland’s cost of living is significantly higher than the US - a Big Mac there costs $6.72 - it’s certainly not chump change. It’s reasonable income that could provide, at the minimum, a comfortable bare bones existence.
There are pros and cons (well really short term pros and longer-term ugly cons)...
The benefits are obvious (according to the supporters). Such policy would, in one fell swoop, wipe out poverty. By replacing existing government programs, it would reduce government bureaucracy. Lower skilled workers would also have more bargaining power against employers, eliminating the need for a minimum wage. Creative types would then have a platform to focus on the arts, without worrying about the bare necessities. And those fallen on hard times have a constant safety net to find their feet again.
Detractors of the divisive plan also have a point. The effects on potential productivity are nebulous at best. Will people still choose to work if they don’t have to? What if they spend their government checks on sneakers and drugs instead of food and education? Scrappy abusers of the system could take their spoils to spend in foreign countries where their money has more purchasing power, thus providing little to no benefit to Switzerland’s own economy. There’s also worries about the program’s cost and long term sustainability. It helps that Switzerland happens to be one of the richest countries in the world by per capita income.
But of course the muppets that are in power will be gone by then. Is it any wonder the government and central bank are opposed to the Save our Swiss Gold initiative if this is the fiscal plan for the future?
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Given that 60% of American households are already net takers from the government, codifying this in Switzerland is not such a huge surprise for the Keynesian cult.
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We are sure it is obvious what the problems are with this approach... but one quick (rhetorical) question - what do you think will happen to the prices of goods and services if everyone in the country is suddenly flush with $2600 more cash every month? And if $2,600 works - why not $100,000!
Q.E.D.
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Let's put 'er to a vote here in the U.S. LOL........
I welcome the post-Jobs society.
Vonnegut wrote a book about it years ago.
This will be fun.
Government gets involved in home loans = people priced out of housing.
Government gets involved in student loans = people priced out of college.
Government gives away free money to every single person = people priced out of everything.
Wow, I give this about a few months before we start hearing about switzerland having to do austerity BS like greece...
Hell people in Alaska get Moar than that!
If you're going to print money it's better to share it amongst everyone than just a few bankers.
There is no need for tax when you can print money to fund the government.
Hmmm... $2,600?
So, about an ounce of gold, right?
This is about what the price of gold...
Will be after the Swiss shake up the gold market...
By voting to get/keep and not sell their gold on 30 Nov!
How much you wanna bet that there is no gold in Switch-er Land? Gold got switched for contracts - "But these promises are as good as gold!"
This is an initiative. It was launched by the far-left. Enough said.
This article did a poor job of mentioning it, ZH = more and more the TMZ of finance. Behold this initiative being crushed 75 to 25 when the time comes.
gotta use all that nazi gold for something.
For settlements between the US and Germany through the BIS during WWII, yeah, that's for sure.
Cue Nancy Pelosi's orgasim in three, two, one...
First we bartered for our needs and wants (productive labor)
Then gold was used to facilitate the barter and store wealth from the productive labor (real money)
Gold was eventually stored in a bank safe and bank certificates were issued to represent the wealth of gold (paper money)
Governments took control of printing certificates and eventually broke the gold link (fiat money - no labor)
The Fiat money of the unproductive is eventually rejected by the real producers of the world (productive labor)
sounds like desperation from the Swizz gooberment to bribe the voters not to pass the gold referendum.
It is a popular initiative. The collect of signatures goes back a long time. The government stands against it.
Welcome to Swiss democracy.
Just going to jam this in here - the argument over Basic Income scenarios is the most distorted and misunderstood concept there is. I don't expect to change that, because it would be asking people to do the math and put down their biases for a minute.
But.
About 25 yrs ago, in an upper division policy analysis class @ UC, we were presented with the argument for Basic Income. As an example, I'm pretty sure, for how some policies that make objective sense will never become law.
Every fucking time this comes up, the same cookie-cutter, stereotyped, unthinking, regurgitated responses show up.
I'll try to distill it: "If every Amurican had enough to live on guaranteed, they'd all turn into goatsuckers that bought iPhones and played videogames all day," or some shit like that. So much for our exceptionalism. Seems the only thing keeping us from becoming a race of slugs is never ending fear of starvation and hypothermia. So why haven't all the 0.01% become FSA slugs yet? They must be even more exceptional, I guess. Or else the idea is just an exceptionally stupid soundbite that is just wrong.
Thanks to tech, productivity (as measured) has gone way up in the last 40 years - but wages have gone down. Not including banker's wages. Of course.
This productivity increase means a surplus. One person can now do ten people's job in the same unit of time. This might seem a strange concept to people too young to remember rotary dial phones, or party lines, or when a sales call was a real person talking to you. I could go on.
A person on welfare has a case worker, supported by an armada of government drones who process the paperwork, an army of call center workers who process calls to your case worker, and an enforcement bureau of lawyers and agents looking to detect and apprehend cheaters. Because we all hate cheaters. Except those elected or appointed. All these government employees are above minimum wage, create nothing, and are unaccountable - they can suck at their job and all it hurts is the "little people."
Talk about productivity increases. Fire all these fucksticks, give every citizen a dividend (including the recently-unemployed .gov fucksticks) of the national surplus. Much cheaper than having 10 govt employees monitoring the life of a FSA citizen. Like Alaska did with their oil profits.Tell me it's not cheaper to have a check written monthly to every man, woman and child, than it is to administer, oversee, enforce, and investigate the FSA as it currently stands. If the USA is a corporation, we're all shareholders. Right?
I mean it. Google it.
And for the "Libertarian" fucktards here: fuck off, this is post-scarcity here, the mentality of 10 may die that I shall live is just stupid.
We have enough, if we use it well.
$2600 a month - yes for some it might mean endless cheetos and videogames - cheaper than law enforcement for if that element of society was broke. For many, $2600 a month would mean $1000 a month of capital that could be invested - not in stocks, a loser's game, but in real wealth building - capex to buy tools and training, to make things; not that many people want to sit on their ass unless they have no choice. If every citizen had capital, and the security of a national dividend, I think you'd see an amazing resurgence of craftmanship in this country. People would live better. And less other countries would need to be bombed.
Tired here, so I'll end this screed.
Think about it.
All Swiss have to defend their mountainous country. Banks' security in Switzerland rests on the perceived ability of these citizen soldiers to succeed. Something to think about in our new old age of international gold-jacking. Banks and Pharma have done well behind the convincing security of the Swiss citizen soldiers, so they, TPTB, can afford to kick some back.
@Hobo gives us the biggest bullshit comment of the century.
Because the 0.01% are workaholic sociopaths trying to rule everyone else, that means the 60% worthless pieces of shit should have more free shit. And we should be happy about it. Priceless.
Those people in Fergusun aren't taking their welfare money and going out and buying tools, dumb shit. Nor are my neighbors, who I know for a fact are doing the video games and cheetos lifestyle.
Epic fail.
Excellent comment there Hobo.
I've been taking the softly, softly two-sided approach this time so its nice to see you spell that out so clearly.
TY couldn't help myself, I mean...
If everyone gets X dollars a month from the government, all that happens is the cost of living goes up X dollars. And there is no such thing as a 'National Surplus.' Every damn country, with only a few exceptions, has a national debt. The yearly interest rate on that national debt is a significant portion of the annual revenue. There hasn't been a national surplus for decades.
So don't pay off the debt! Ignore it! Aaaad see Argentina and other places for what happens when you do. But Iceland did this, and they are doing fine! No, everyone left Iceland once they said they weren't paying the debt back.
I get what you are trying to say, but that national surplus your yearly stipend would come from - that's taxes. So just tax the rich some more, right? No. That results in the rich and their money leaving the country. So you get no more tax revenue, no more national surplus, and the jobs left when the rich guys left. So you wind up with the situation becoming worse than what it was when you started to reallocate the national surplus.
What most countries need are good jobs for the younger generation, affordable housing, and a decent standard of life. Y'know, prosperity. And this is what most countries do not have.
Want to know what happened to your prosperity? Previous generations spent it 20 years ago. Plus they did not maintain the infrastructure, so the electrical system, the water, the roads, the bridges, they are all in a dismal state of repair and need to be fixed. And it's going to get worse, not better, because there will be massive numbers of boomers retiring soon looking for pensions and free medical care. These retirees will deplete the pensions and the medical care costs will just about kill the finances of most countries. And the demands for pensions and medical care won't stop until the whole fiscal house of cards collapses.
Most of the folks here can see this coming. We're buying gold, and putting aside stores of food and making other preparations, but really, we're hoping to get the hell out of the country !and go somewhere better! before things get really bad, or if we can't do that get hit by a truck we didn't see coming.
Very nicely put, TK.
I'm all for the "go somewhere better" idea -- have in fact moved countries more than once, chasing short- to medium-term opportunities -- but am having a hard time thinking of one that really, truly gets it right.
Singapore is very good, but the climate... Switzerland seems promising, but proposals like this make you shake your head. Maybe Luxembourg? New Zealand? Costa Rica? Some Caribbean island?
(Yeah, I know, I know: subscribe to Simon Black's newsletter for the answer, or maybe sign up for Doug Casey's new property deal.)
So, in a nutshell, "A good economy does not exist anyway, so skip country(preferably to a tax heaven) until you die"? Somehow, i feel that's exactly how the FED cronies think about it. That and "No one truly gets it right but me." I guess the current generation still has a long way to go before becoming adults.
Well, it's partly the desire to live in a country with a good economy, of course; but more the fear of what politicians will invent if a country's economic situation deteriorates too badly -- look at Cyprus, or Poland, for instance. Also, it would be nice not to have my limited time and resources taken away and applied to building an ever bigger and ever more intrusive state, feeding the downward spiral. If that's somehow less than adult, then guilty as charged.
I once read somewhere (Harry Browne?) that there are usually two kinds of solutions to problems, one of which involves changing the attitudes and behaviours of others, the other which requires changing only your own. Guess which tends to be the most effective?
Yeah, I was being wistful/sarcastic when I said 'go somewhere better.' But around me, the voting public keeps electing corrupt idiots whose lies are transparent. And when you attempt to have a decent conversation about budgets and finances, I get treated to the Republicans Are Ruining the World meme from the liberals, and the conservatives keep insisting ole God put them there dinosaur bones in the ground to keep things interesting.
My hand to God, I have had those conversations. Is it any better where you live?
"If everyone gets X dollars a month from the government, all that happens is the cost of living goes up X dollars."
What happens if every bankster gets a X million dollars a month from the government? Does the cost of living go up and if so, how much?
Or does that X million $ a month just get taken from the savings and pensions of the 99 percenters so they no longer have any demand on goods and services, because they can't afford cat food and heat anymore?
Google "Gruber"
Birds of a feather.....
And go visit any inner city. They already get a living wage for doing shit. That's why they are poor but FAT.
We already pay folks in EBT, medical, etc. a decent salary. Where do you think the tatts and grills come from?
See you in the unemployment line.
I agree with you. The ramifications of basic income can't be estimated without it being tried, but there is an enormous potential in them that simply cannot be ignored, that is in fact criminal to ignore. It wouldn't be hard to experiment with it on a state, county or even city basis, however it represents true innovation, which is what everyone is afraid of. This sort of innovation is however the only thing that can dispel the economic downturn the world has teken. Basic income might and might not work, however it MUST be tried. This and many other things. This is the world we live in, after all, not one of scarcity, but one of idiocy: http://www.stopthehunger.com/
What you are talking about has other names. Socialism is its mildest form. But if everyone gets a basic wage, irregardless of their work, that is called communism. And communism does not work.
There are several flaws in this argument. First, poverty is as much about personal habits/potential as the lack of money. Proof is the number of lottery winners, sports figures who die broke or the number of people in the US eligible for Medicaid but don't apply and don't access the healthcare system to help themselves.
Second, this assumes that the money being distributed is actually profit from productivity and not just additional national debt created for the purpose. Fortunately, Switzerland runs a surplus and if that's what they want to do with it, I'm fine with the choice.
I always thought Alaskans were paid lots of money too, but it has averaged only around $1,000 per resident per year since the program started. So skip Alaska, move to Switzerland!
https://pfd.alaska.gov/DivisionInfo/SummaryApplicationsPayments
Should have never given the vote to women.
I hope some Cantons secede.
But it's for the chiiiildren!
I don't know who the fug downed you, but somebody has no idea how the world works.
Get the goobermint involved and it gets FUBARed
Since I in turn don't know who "the fug" downed you, Knukles, I up arrowed you just for good measure. I agree ACP's comment was spot on and could provide some food for thought for the US government. And the Japanese government. And the EU. And the... Well, you guys get the picture.
Wow, you two sure are smart. The main feature of Basic Income is to REDUCE government involvement by a massive degree and these Libertarians only circlejerk about their three token catchphrases. It's INVERSE TAXES, people. It's how it should be. I have always been a far right individual, but this "I can't be a winner if there are no losers!" mentality is what allows the current govt abuse to go on. You don't want there to be less govt, you just want for the govt to ignore you personally.
Let the citizens choose what to work on, what to dream in and where to invest, that is basic income, that is true libertarianism!
"I wish everyone got the dole. Then no-one could complain." - Can't remember who said that but it looks like they got their wish.
It's true. Just pay a wage to everyone and then you don't have to worry about means testing, dole cheats, unemployment forms etc. The only thing you have to worry about is double-dipping. And inflation.
I'd say that the first casualty will be real estate prices. If everyone is getting an extra $60k per year then I predict that mortgage repayments will soon go up by $60k per year. Since when have banksters ever let that opportunity go to waste? Banksters? How about markits? Supply is the same. Extra $60kpa per person into the same restricted supply - the most desperate get the land until they miss the repayments.
Oh yeah, what about production? Lots of people "retiring" until prices go up again? We'll get to see how powerful that "keeping up with the Joneses" mentality really is!
And business incentive. Borrow a bucketload of money and work hard in order to start a business? Or do nothing? The old downside model is work hard and go into debt while starving VS do nothing and starving. The new downside model will be work hard and go into debt while having $60kpa minus interest payments in your pocket vs do nothing and have $60kpa in your pocket. On the plus side, those who do odd jobs while unemployed won't have to re-jigger losing bennies into the equation. Eliminates a lot of "dole cheats" and disincentive for the unemployed to do small jobs.
Bloody! I'm jumbling the figures again. $31k per person. $62k per household (couple). grrr! (At least it doesn't effect my argument. The concept stays the same.)
Lemme guess. Households will spend 60% of their income on the mortgage and all the single people will go homeless.
The Swiss people already voted against a referendum earlier this year to raise the minimum wage to ~$25/hr.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/18/switzerland-minimum-...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-18/vast-majority-swiss-reject-25-m...
So I'm not sure why this alternate 'social credit' referendum would be any more successful.
I know we have a number of posters who reside in Switzerland; I would be interested to hear their opinions.
Wages add to the price of a product while a social credit gives purchasing power back without adding to production costs
However this is highly inflationary if you allow credit banking to continue also .
Just need to periodically cancel the excess money that pooled in the hands of the superrich via a yearly asset tax and there will be no inflation.
And no rich people left in your country.
How many escaped France, and how many bit the bullet? Still more of the latter.
That may be because the 75% tax rate is being discontinued.
Actually, if people get free money, production costs will go up. Haven't you ever heard of more money chasing the same amount of goods?
Why do so many people have so many screws loose? Say we give everybody a million dollars every day- will prices go up? Yes!
But then thees feel goody types of people say, "oh well if we just give some money to some people (the poor!)that won't make prices go up".
People living in fucking dream worlds I tell ya!
Actually this will be more money chasing a lesser amount of goods, because no doubt people will leave the work force and productivity will be down.
When are these fuckers going to realise that intervention in a free market, kills the market....stop controlling the fucking law of supply and demand!
They only stop working until inflation fucks them over, then they gotta try to remember how to work again.
(And they probably won't figure that out until they've sold off the farm and have to work for someone else. Then they'll really find out how to work again.)
Most of the workforce in Anglo countries work to access purchasing power , they are not involved in the basic production process.
Indeed if these people leave the workforce the amount of capital wasted to access currency will decrease ,therefore more capital will be available for consumption
++++++
You told 'em, but someone still didn't get it. Yet I bet if you structured the conversation properly then they'd end up saying the same thing themselves.
Production costs go up? More money chasing the same amount of goods? Then you or a competitor build more factories and produce more - right??? You know, that supply / demand equilibrium thingy. Not only that, all your workers get their first $31k from the givmint so you got cheaper labour costs. I gotta admit though, I don't see anyone borrowing money and building a second factory if they can just eat and fuck all day instead. Well, not until price inflation makes that $31k worth fuckall, anyways.
Q. How can a country have poor workers but rich customers?
A1. Sell stuff to a different country.
A2. Govt chips in with funny money.
Not saying that the Swiss idea will work but:
Prices can go up but they also can go down. Ever heard of Economies of Scale? The question comes down to how well production can keep up with demand. eg. if you have a factory running at half capacity and demand doubles then you can run your factory at full capacity but your overheads are the same but distributed over larger quantities so you can offer your product cheaper. Oh that's right, due to price-competition no-one can afford to build 100% over-capacity factory anyways. The accountants always get it all spot-on, right down to the last nano-cent otherwise you're too expensive and you go broke and then due to lack of supply prices go up and then your competitors buy up your factory for pennies in the dollar and... oh now I'm confused again. To tell you the truth, I can't say the Economies of Scale effect would significantly dampen the other-reasons-for-inflation effects but I just thought I'd mention it anyways. Try being the only man in town that owns a car and see what that does to your purchasing / servicing costs.
Where is the production that can not keep up with demand? Land - they ain't making any more of it. That's why, with or without the bankster shenanigans ( the bankster Ponzis definitely make it a whole lot worse ) I say this will lead to inflation but primarily driven by increases in the price of land.
Chill out, relax. Just hope it happens in a different country than yours. If they fuck up, you can watch from a distance. If they get it right, you can emigrate.
"There's four of us so if one goes a bit crazy then the other three can pull him back into line." - One of The Beatles said something along those lines. Worked great until they all went the same crazy together at the same time.
That's the big trouble with the NWO. All the world will go the same type of crazy together at the same time and no-one will be left to pull them back into line.
"Will" go? Isn't that what we're seeing today?
Giving people purchasing power has nothing to do with production.
When a bank gives credit it indeed is involved in the production process as it front loads the process.
I am talking about giving people enough tokens to buy existing capacity ' otherwise a country needs to export so as to access scarce currency
I suggest we put big billboards every 500 feet along our southern border, facing south, alerting everyone to this important news about what's being offered in Switzerland. We have a responsibility to keep people informed, you know. Take out some ads on TV in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador too.
Plus, the price of a one-way plane ticket will only be the amount the government spends for each week of illegal alien care.
I've thought about that one in a slightly different context of blacks returning to Africa. Offer them a one way ticket and a million dollars with the stipulation of no right of return. Bet we would get a lot of takers.
Freetown? Problem is we sent the worst and they enslaved the locals. Shoulda sent along some model citizens... And I don't mean lawyers.
I've always been one to decry racism, but seriously, there are a lot of fucking stupid black people. I'm not talking about the majority. I'm talking about the fuckers that want to riot in Furguson. I'm talking about the fuckers that go gang banging around killing people. I haven't checked the FBI crime statistics recently, but blacks murder at a rate six times higher than the other races. And it's not all the blacks obviously- it's the minority of blacks within the black minority that are really fucking it up for their race.
I'm waiting for the day when black people will turn away from the Democratic party and stop being tools, stop defending the ilk that keeps the black image down.
As a white person, I don't give a fucking shit about murderous low-life white people. Fuck those fuckers. They don't represent white culture because white culture condemns them. When will the black community finally lynch the scum among them? Blacks are one step away from being as uncredible as muslims. Maybe they are a lost cause. At some point in time, you have to be brave enough to stand up to your own race if neccessary.
If I was a black dude I would be so popular with the white people. Many blacks would call me an uncle Tom, and I would take it as a badge of honor. Me and the white folks would laugh about me being an uncle Tom. "Oh look at me, the white folks really like me, they let me join in their lawful parties. They laugh at my racist jokes about other black people. I quite like the company of white folks. It sure is swell living life without a chip on my shoulder, living like the white folks."
Jobs are a Barbarous Relic
He's dead
"It's my money, and I want it now!"TM
See comment in another thread about what will matter to the people: purchasing power or straight up wages. I'm betting the latter holds more sway over savings cash yields. The fact the Swiss are pushing to launch a subsidization program speaks volumes to their confidence what a sudden surge in Franc will do for their productivity and wealth effect in export industries. If there was a sudden surge for Franc's that would overwhelm their currency pegs & the profits (and liquidity) of their export oriented institutions. Exact repeat of asian flu's first flight shock.
No way is Comcast going to be accretive at 420 bps in a normalized enviroment where equities must price in 17% cash return as a baseline.
This is aimed squarely against the gold referendum. Also, it will cause financial pressures in the long run for which of course there can only be one solution. Join the Euro. The Swiss government has been working against Swiss national interest for some time now.
Well color me swiss and drop me off in the Alps i'm movin' to Switzerland! Hot damn!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNZA1OL6j_M
Hells ya!
Maybe this is why Italians are flooding across the border...
The great euro migration to the promised land has begun, free shit for everyone!
What are the requirements for citizenship?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNZA1OL6j_M
LMGTFY: Basically, ten years' residence, during which you'll be living amongst people who each have CHF 2500 more per month than you. Sounds like it'll take a while to break even.
That's kind of an interesting point, Toady. Italians are flooding across the border because wages are so high. If Swiss citizens are subsidzed, then there is no more minimum wage and wages drop across the board.
Italian citizens are no longer interested in flooding into Switzerland because wages would have dropped a good portion of CHF 2,600. A lot of menial jobs are only going to pay CHF 100/mo because the Swiss will work for that if they were previously making CHF 2,700/mo - their purchasing power hasn't dropped and prices are dropping anyways.
It's a lot more complicated than that, but there are intriguing possibilities. If everyone in the U.S. got a $5/hr subsidy, then plenty of people would be willing to work for $3/hr. How many Mexicans would keep flooding across the border if they needed to undercut $3/hr? You have just destroyed the economic disadvantage of being an American competing with illegal labor. It simply isn't worth it for anyone to sneak into the U.S. because you removed the biggest economic incentive. You would have to get rid of the 'born on American soil' thing though or the border states would turn into a giant maternity ward.
I know there's a million other things wrong with an automatic subsidy, but it does show that there are methods to fix illegal immigration that have nothing to do with fences, prison camps and stripping your own citizens of rights and jobs.
The most glaring problem with this solution is who is going to pay, but I'll let someone else figure out those details. Where's that Gruber socialist ass-hat? He'll figure out sumpin'
The down-side is that it turns every American into a kind of a fractional slave to an eternal welfare state. But think of the free shit!
If this can be done while still rewarding productive work with little friction, then it is a good policy, however that is a big IF. High taxes to fund this sort of thing are a major drag on productive work.
On the other hand, what in the hell are we going to do with all the redundant people when machines are smart enough to do most jobs? We either go this way or things get really, really nasty.
I see the first problem as real estate prices. Limited supply, necessity, - it soaks up all monetary gains. Give someone an extra ten bucks and they use it as a deposit so they can borrow an extra 100 bucks. Wouldn't be too bad if banks paid more attention to income and less attention to Ponzi finance.
The second problem is incentive to borrow for business purposes. Why risk losing everything when you can eat for free? At least those who do choose to borrow for business purposes should now have a decent business plan, as opposed to a hungry tummy. Some say that hunger is necessary in order to succeed but I think they have survivors' bias. The good thing about the minimum-wage-to-everyone model is that at least there is no penalty for the unemployed taking on extra odd jobs.
General inflation is the next problem. It will start, as I mentioned above, with real estate and then filter through everywhere else. What will that $60kpa be capable of buying after the dust settles?
Then population growth. Put bluntly, with free food, where is the incentive to stop fucking? Of course, this is only possible if inflation is kept out of the picture.
Re the redundant people: You're right. The point of automation was to put people out of work. We're just unlucky to be in the transition stage where some people still have to work but others don't. Either the over-achievers relax a bit and spread some of the work around or we stop forcing people to look for jobs that aren't there.
Well, what we need in the USSA is to raise the minimum wage to $100 per hour.
A lot of low income people can not afford even the McDonalds Dollar Menu items.
This would allow them to afford the McDonalds Dollar Menu items.
DK
.
free money are bad. Easy gain - easy loss.
I want that deal
Gold vote. Fuck that shit...free money. Can't pay people to sit on their asses with Gold.
I have to double check the URL from time to time when reading stories on ZH, because I feel as though I'm reading The Onion.
The difference between fiction and reality is fiction has to make sense-Tom Clancy
Whatever happened to Living Skills?
and Yellen is still a cunt that smells like depends
I found something interesting in Bussines Insider, a guy who was reading Russian media for seven days!
Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!
More paper to grind like confetti carnival in Rio de Janeiro kkkkkkkkkkkkk!
If continued for seven more days circumcision it would be undone!
Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!
I wonder if crime, divorce and other social problems would decrease as well as the need for as many police, jails/prisons, lawyers, debt collectors, etc. It might also reduce the need for bank loans. I am not sure it is a bad idea if they tax the hell out of the 1%.
Thanks for stating that explicitly that you do not see any problems with robbing some 1 %.
If capitalism worked as advertised then we wouldn't have a 1%.
Yes, yes, we only got crony capitalism not real capitalism but in that case you agree that we're only stealing from cronies i.e. reclaiming what they have stolen from us so have a good little think about that one for a while.
Alternatively, you could have the nicest, most honestest guy in the world who earns all his wealth legitimately and takes over every company in the world but he's really fair and a nice guy, he might even abolish paper money and only trade in gold. But if there is a mismatch in prices and wages then after a week he owns all the gold and no-one can buy anything. Oh, that's right, after a week everyone has earnt it all back again so he just has to adjust everyone's wages to match production.
Or he can halve production because obviously the other half was unnecessary because it didn't sell.
Or he can double wages so people can afford to buy more ... until it causes inflation, at which point it will be necessary to produce more to soak up the extra money.
But why would he increase everyone's wages? Someone might save some of their money and use it to open up a competing store ...
The hitch is that is is almost impossible to become a Swiss citizen unless you were born there! They have lots (and lots) of temporary foreign workers - but becoming a citizen is something else altogether.
Is that a problem? Or isn't that exactly as it should be?
you know what. Watch swiss family Robinson and see what takeaways you get. No excuses.take what you get and make a better world.
And if you can help others... Invite them to learn and send them back to do the same.
Currently not true for Germans. You can go there live there and in a few years you can ask for full citizenship. That might change in a few years because of another vote held in Switzerland - I guess it was this year....
I'm convinced the Earth was invaded by aliens, and they secretly provide all productive input in exchange for cheap gold to recharge their Mothership .
Yen.... Now you got me worried.
I been wondering about something along those lines for quite a while.
First, I'm not sure that anybody works but me anymore other than in the service sector. And the service sector doesn't provide very good service anymore. So, they kinda look busy. To wit: try a MickieD's in a kinda part of town. Lucky you get spit on the cheese with a "No problem" and a sneer.
Somebody or something somewhere is doing something productive or I wouldn't have any toilet paper. Or fruit Popsicles (Oompa-Loompas?)
And this gold thing. Somebody somewhere is stealing all the shit. At "Prices that are Insane" in the Grand Tradition of Crazy Eddie. And we all know how that turned out. Don't we. Not good. Certainly not great. Maybe kinda shitty, but I never got to ask Eddie. I think the Mossad killed him, BTW.
So by default, one Must By Definition become a serious believer (Occam's Razor) that the Annanuki are here, selectively taking the rest of their gold (which is theirs because they created us to mine the shit and when we got out of hand, created the Big Flood to eradicate us, but Noah and a few cave dwellers took care of that mystery) back. I don't know if they're doing the fruit Popsicles though.
And I know it to be true. Just go to a dark shitty smelly dingy bar late into an evening and watch the patrons. They lean forward, speak in odd voices, mean tones, have a sense of violence surrounding them (red auras) and squint when they look at you. All they'd have to do is flick their tongues in and out a few times and you'd be a believer, too. Fucking reptilians. Whom you never see during the day!
See. Not so far fetched after all.
lol. I guess you caught the Greenspan and Kissinger posts on Z/H Knuks.
Awesome post knukles! Truly inspired. I bust my gut laughing.
For anyone that's interested in the Crazy Eddie Story (WELL worth the read!)
http://www.whitecollarfraud.com
Thanks. Classic!
They're pretty easy to spot Yen with the NOTW stickers on their cars. When they and the dolphins levitate up into space, I think the end is near.
I was tempted to put one on my car too hoping they may take me as well by mistake but my " Fuck this, I'm going to yoga", " Molon Labe" and " Nuke all the Gay Baby Grey Whales for Jesus " stickers may give me away.
Miffed;-)
This is an interesting site I came across I think from one of the posters on ZH
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/
Good news articles that you do not see elsewhere and they seem to be real.
Interesting link, Thanks.
LOL every swiss can now become a day trader. guarenteed income and extra from your tradnig.
Does everyone get paid in stolen Jew gold?
Let's go one better and give every American 1 million dollars a year free and clear? We will instantly become a nation of millionaires, the wealthiest country in the world. Hey, better yet, why not totally eliminate money and just make everything free in unlimited quantities? What's the problem?
What's the problem? - all people will stop working and collapse will happen in 1-2 days
We aren't far from that now, could be an interesting terminal experiment.
But everything is made overseas. No-one works anyways. It'll only be a problem when the importers stop work - ... oh.
Just another effort to devalue the CHF to maintain the CHFEUR peg. This time at least; allowing the people to choose the method of devaluing instead.
yeap, at least people get money this time, but i think inflation just eat it up
I have no idea how that would work, but Zürich here I come.
As biflation gets more entrenched and evolves, even free money won't cut it anymore: buying power collapses. So governments will need to just serve food and issue vouchers for gas.
I must admit, I'm a bit jealous. I never even got my government I(crap)phone. The Swiss got it all over us here...
Fucking lazy ass shiftless white people!
Dude, you just hit a 14gram rock. Ease off that $hit homie it will obviously Fuk you up.
Michelle Bachmann is kicking herself.
.
Karl Marx is jizzin in his grave.
Yeah. I'd a had a hard decision with that one. Like just tell everybody to fuck off, I'm keepin' it.
The rest falls where it might.
So I loose my job as a politician, get into recovery, join Politicians Anonymous and get my self-esteem back. And still have dual passports.
Simon would be so proud
sigh
So.....all other forms of entitlement are eliminated? So if you piss all the money away on hookers and blow, it's your tough luck?
LOL - start poppin the popcormn and sit back and watch this debacle. Should be fun.
Fuck money, better yet fuck free money altogether isn't this corrupt bullshit why we're all here in the first place
If a minimum living wage is legalized, then that minimum wage becomes ground zero.
All prices will adjust as if the minimum living wage would be zero.
Conclusion: It is just propaganda
Conclusion:Just another effort to devalue the CHF
Conclusion. This is a stealth attack on the .1 percent. You are not thinking this through. Obviously there is more at work here. THINK.
The swiss have a long history of non conformity... Except for matters of defense. I wish them well and I wish we (USA} took care of our multi-tribal peoples as well as they do.
There are ~115,000,000 households in the USA. If each one received $2,000/month it would cost $2.76T. I think we already spend $1T just on poverty.
If this did reduce crime, divorce, bankruptcy, need for police, lawyers, jails, broken homes, homlessnes, etc. I think it could be worth trying. Many people would still want to work or might even start businesses. Consumption would go up, etc., etc.
That only works if you produce goods in your own country and need workers to produce them. If everyone had an extra $2k a month you would have to pay any productive individual more than that. The cost of goods would increase to the point that the $2000 would be essentially worthless.
I agree. Prices would rise with all that capital to spend. The government would then have to institute price controls at every level of the economy. It would be a fiscal nghtmare.
You do not have to pay robots.
Didn't the Council on Foriegn Relations propose some big giveaway in the US recently? Hey, It's all good. Trillions for the crony banks and corporations and trillions for the public. No problem right?
WOW, both Japan and the Swiss seem to be doing it correctly.
With the Japanese giving the citizens money cards and the swiss making minimum wage guys rich.
All we do is give the money to the Banksters. I am kinda jealous.
Sarc or not, that is the question?
Up my FAFSA Yellen M'Fer.
Give me a swiss check and a swede chick.
Fuck it, I quit.
Sorry, but the best you're going to get is a Sudanese check and a Sierra Leone chick.
I predict the cost of a Big Mac will rise to about...I dunno...SF 2,600.....just a guess.
I know they are against a strong currency when the whole world has weak currencies but unless you are the USA you will get hyperinflation...tanks goodness we are immune...
This actually makes way more sense the garbage we have in the U.S. We would drop at least 50% of the Federal Workforce, possibly more. Save lots of money. We could easily adjust it, as needed.
Make really good sense, which means it won't stand a chance.
Hell what's so hard to multiply a few numbers? It does no make any sense because it can't be paid for by any means.
If I can has free money no working no pay hamburger no work rent free tattoos beer. How can I has get free green card too
Can't see how this could possibly backfire in any way shape or form. /sarc
so finally we get to the wall of absurd..
the end is approaching fast now
In principle, this is a good idea, assuming that the country implementing it is a welfare state anyway. The size of the wage is critical: it needs to be large enough to buy you food and a roof over your head, but no more. If you want any more than the bare basics, you have to work for it. And of course, all wages should be reduced so that the total wage for those who work will remain about the same as before. That's how you pay for this thing.
Handing it out per family instead of per person sounds like a very bad idea, though. It would probably cause the number of single households to skyrocket as everyone tries to maximize their wage, while in practice they would live together as before, with a bogus second address.
If correctly implemented, a living wage like this could be the way forward. It would make lots and lots of benefit administration redundant, thus making it possible to reduce the size of government. And in a future world where there most likely won't be enough work for everyone to have a job all the time, this makes it so much easier to work part of the time, relax part of the time, reeducate yourself if your previous career is going nowhere, dare to follow your dreams and create something of your own instead of just drudging in a meaningless 8 to 5 job all your life...
Basically, I'm all in favour of this! And I'm not at all surprised that Switzerland is at the forefront. Real democracy is the shit!
Have you ever read anything here, before this? Are you sure you're posting on the right site? Did you take your meds?
Well, most people commenting on ZH seem US oriented. Thus they don't know the first thing about welfare states - except of course that they despise them. I'm not saying that a living wage would be a good idea for the US. It probably would be for Switzerland, though. (But it's all in the implementation details, and I don't know the details of this particular suggestion.)
I know welfare states very well.
You want to post the UE figures for the southern EU welfare states, for those under the age of 30 or should I save you the trouble?
Yes, those civilised, European countries with superior values and governemts, with their enlightened welfare states and 60%++ unemployment for those under the age of 30.
So superior, so enlightened, so intelligent.
Hey, see that bum on the sidewalk? Boy, what a bastard, eh? Let's kick him in the face for being such a lazy bastard.
Never mind that he worked hard all his life, but was unlucky enough to end up being attacked, beaten nearly to death, and completely robbed by an evil gang calling themselves the "banksters." But don't say anything bad about the evil sadists that beat and robbed him! No, no, that won't do, instead, let's blame the victim and call him names! Much better!
Perhaps someday you might learn how to identify and blame criminals instead of victims.
I don't think that you can read English very well.
I placed the blame very squarely on The State, and the result of the high UE on The State, and the European systems
Nowhere did I blame the UE.
Knukles, Börjesson is Swedish (assumption based on his name and profile pic), and I can tell you that most Swedes - probably around 80% of them - are living in lala-land. You see, 50 years of Communist-style "edumacation" and 60-70 years of Socialist and Communist governments has ruined the minds of generations of Swedes. They do not understand anything about how wealth is created, nor how and at what levels what we may describe as proper and holistically sound taxation should occur. Sweden is an over-indebted Marxist disaster waiting to collapse. Only here in Sweden, the government didn't take out the loans - it instead encouraged the public to go deep into debt on their houses. As a result, less than 3% of people in Sweden own their houses debt free. 60% of the population has less than $10000 in savings and that is before we take their mortgages into consideration - in reality, we are a dirt poor nation run by mostly childish imbeciles.
An impoverished debt-laden nation pretending to be a beacon of morality - when in truth, it has just bought itself massive social spending through mortgaging people's houses.
The game is almost over.
I agree, of course, about the very problematic private debt in Sweden. But what sets us apart from e.g. Greece and Italy is that we have a healthy current account surplus. As long as we keep that, the rest is only about how our money is shuffled about domestically. We should be OK - as long as the govt isn't stupid enough to enact an Irish-style all-in rescue of the banks once the housing bubble goes kaboom...
Real democracy is the shit!
Just wait until 51% decide to kill you and take all of your stuff. That is the true power of Democracy. Still like it....??
That's not real democracy. The "one person, one vote" thing is only a part of the whole democracy package. Pure majority rule, without any safeguards preventing the majority from abusing the minority, is obviously a bad idea.
In the USA We have Military Republic, so we don't discuss what a Democracy really is. There is nothing in our Constitution or Declaration of Independence that approves of Foreign Military Entanglements or conquering other countries for Resources. And we don't have Referendums, so really can't vote on National Issues as a Democracy would.
Liberal democracy (Redirected from Constitutional democracy)
- is a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of liberalism, i.e. protecting the rights of the individual, which are generally enshrined in law.
- multiple distinct political parties,
- a separation of powers into different branches of government,
- the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society,
- and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms for all persons.
- enshrined the social contract.
- a system of checks and balances between branches of government
- state of justice, In a Rechtsstaat, the power of the state is limited in order to protect citizens from the arbitrary exercise of authority
- federalism—also known as vertical separation of powers—in order to prevent abuse and increase public input by dividing governing powers between municipal, provincial and national governments
- "loyal opposition", where political competitors may disagree, but they must tolerate one another and acknowledge the legitimate and important roles that each play.
- Preconditions for Democracy:
Although they are not part of the system of government as such, a modicum of individual and economic freedoms, which result in the formation of a significant middle class and a broad and flourishing civil society, are often seen as pre-conditions for liberal democracy (Lipset 1959).
**Wikipedia helps a little, but article doesn't address Cultural Secrecy, Covert War, Covert Action to overthrow Other Democratically Elected Governments, and doesn't mention NSA or FBI Spying on Domestic Population, or spying on other Democracies***
**Clearly, USA is no longer a Democracy at all, And there are some pieces of Democracy not listed above**
You can always tell whose ancestors didn't have the balls to escape all that bullshit and come to America.
Too bad their descendants did, after we built paradise.
Then they want to make it just like the shithole they left.
Dear Borjesson:
Your comment: "Basically, I'm all in favour of this!"
Makes me recommend that you stop listening to the "Dire Straits" song:
"Money for nothing and chicks for free"
And who will be robbed to pay that?
I'm surrounded by idiots.
Wasn't HELOC essentially the same?