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It is a nice idea, but it does not work at least not in EU. It is also a nice idea for personal freedom, but not for the benefit of the society. Minimum wage

by PinguTS 11y ago

It is a nice idea, but it does not work at least not in EU. It is also a nice idea for personal freedom, but not for the benefit of the society. Minimum wage is a way much better thing. For a) The EU has the property, that any citizen has the freedom to choose freely his work place and to choose freely his living place. People are using it and this is good for one and bad for others. For example here in Germany, we have many people from Poland, Hungary, and other such countries working in jobs for cheap, at least cheaper than a German works for. Jobs are like health care system, construction work, butcher, and even in Amazon Fulfillment centers and alike. For them it is still a lot of money, because their and their families living place are their home countries. It is way cheaper to live in those countries than here in Germany. (I think the same is true for the Netherlands, Belgium and others.) So those people live here in Germany for cheap, because they consume here in Germany few to none services and goods. They bring their goods from their home countries with them. So that they can save money for the family support at home. That leads to the situation, that the money is removed from the circulation within Germany. Little to few services consumed means, no jobs for others, means also no taxes for the country. That is not changed with BI. It is even more, local people (or people who decided to have their living place in that country) will benefit from BI and decide not to work for that low income. That is not a problem for the companies, because we have lots of those other people, who will work for that money, which will not qualified for BI. So basically, with BI you will introduce an even lower class/society. Versus with required minimum wage the country, the society can set that to a level, which supports to live in that country. So that people are willing to work for that income. That means, that the money will no be removed from the country by people from abroad. The money will be used within the country to consume services and goods and as such will support other jobs as well. That will lead to an healthy economy. For b) BI is not for people with disabilities. Do you really think, that people with disabilities should have the same amount of money? People with disabilities have way higher costs of living. They need special support in terms of (medical) device, re-fitted living space, re-fitted mobility requirements, and much more. So that people with disabilities have an equal quality of living, they need more support. But all ideas, I have seen so far, consider also the budget dedicated to people with disabilities as budgets to be usable for BI. That is like a kick in the ass to the people with disabilities.

mcv 11y ago
In a common labour market like the EU, the sensible thing would be to introduce Basic Income in the entire EU. Having completely different economic systems in a union that lets people cherry pick their favourite element from each country, is not going to work. That has nothing to with BI, and everything with needing some degree of homogeneity in a system like that. The mismatch between forced homogeneity in some areas (like currency) and not in others (fiscal policy) is what contributed to the Greek debt crisis. For people with disabilities, you can add an additional income on top to reflect their additional costs. And as far as I'm concerned, if they do manage to get a job, even temporarily, they keep the extra income. I used to know a buy who was seriously spastic. Easily 100% disabled. Nobody would ever expect him to work. But inside that spastic, uncontrollable body, he was actually very smart and good with computers, and he got a job as programmer with an employer willing to accommodate for him. Then the department he worked got downsized, and all his coworkers got unemployment, but he didn't, because he was disabled. So he registered for regular disability pay, but didn't get it because that was for people who got disabled during their working life, and his was a birth condition. There was a separate kind of disability pay for that, which he also didn't quality for, because that's for people who couldn't work at all, and he'd clearly worked. With BI, that wouldn't have been a problem.
thegp 11y ago
Erm, aren't you contradicting yourself? With minimum wage , it either has to be high enough that local workers are interested, people come and bring their own goods, so money gets removed.But that also happens with the higher minimum wages, since it is even more attractive. Just more competition. And if the minimum wage gets to low, you still have the "problem" of guest workers. Without a minimum wage, but with basic income, companies can now lower the wages such that they no longer are attractivene to people living here and only to the guest workers. However, they are also free to lower them to almost match the guest workers home country, if their primary form of labour comes from their. So the companies benefit, the country with BI benefit from increased consumption, social stability and more people taking risks like entrepreneurship and extended education and the only ones shafted are the guest workers. Which still sucks, from a solidarity point of view.

by PinguTS 11y ago

mcv 11y ago

In a common labour market like the EU, the sensible thing would be to introduce Basic Income in the entire EU. Having completely different economic systems in a union that lets people cherry pick their favourite element from each country, is not going to work. That has nothing to with BI, and everything with needing some degree of homogeneity in a system like that. The mismatch between forced homogeneity in some areas (like currency) and not in others (fiscal policy) is what contributed to the Greek debt crisis. For people with disabilities, you can add an additional income on top to reflect their additional costs. And as far as I'm concerned, if they do manage to get a job, even temporarily, they keep the extra income. I used to know a buy who was seriously spastic. Easily 100% disabled. Nobody would ever expect him to work. But inside that spastic, uncontrollable body, he was actually very smart and good with computers, and he got a job as programmer with an employer willing to accommodate for him. Then the department he worked got downsized, and all his coworkers got unemployment, but he didn't, because he was disabled. So he registered for regular disability pay, but didn't get it because that was for people who got disabled during their working life, and his was a birth condition. There was a separate kind of disability pay for that, which he also didn't quality for, because that's for people who couldn't work at all, and he'd clearly worked. With BI, that wouldn't have been a problem.

thegp 11y ago

Erm, aren't you contradicting yourself? With minimum wage , it either has to be high enough that local workers are interested, people come and bring their own goods, so money gets removed.But that also happens with the higher minimum wages, since it is even more attractive. Just more competition. And if the minimum wage gets to low, you still have the "problem" of guest workers. Without a minimum wage, but with basic income, companies can now lower the wages such that they no longer are attractivene to people living here and only to the guest workers. However, they are also free to lower them to almost match the guest workers home country, if their primary form of labour comes from their. So the companies benefit, the country with BI benefit from increased consumption, social stability and more people taking risks like entrepreneurship and extended education and the only ones shafted are the guest workers. Which still sucks, from a solidarity point of view.