14 ms·

Spanish minister proposes €20k ‘universal inheritance’ from age of 18

57 points by manuel_w 3y ago

henvic 3y ago
How about just cutting taxes? Damn politicians love to rob Peter to pay Paul so much...
- jjcm 3y ago
  That would affect a much smaller percentage of people who are 18 to the same amount. €20k in taxes is how much you would pay if you were earning 65k/yr, or 5 times the average of what Spanish people under 25 earn. Cutting taxes for this age bracket would effectively only help those who are already well off, which isn't the purpose of this proposal. Regardless of the discussion of whether or not you should give out 20k, your proposal doesn't address the same issue.
- t0bia_s 3y ago
  State would never come up with something that would make citizens less dependent on them.
activiation 3y ago
Interesting idea
simonblack 3y ago
I think that would be a great idea. Except that I would put the age of receiving that inheritance at about 30. It's one of the ironies of life that when you are young you have time but no money, and when you are old you have money and no time. Think how great it would be if you got that money while you were still young enough to use it, and old enough to use it wisely.
- helpfulclippy 3y ago
  Exactly. There’s a lot of danger waiting for you when you grow up and leave home. Money would certainly solve some problems, but if everyone knew every 20 year old had a big check they could go get a piece of, it will cause many more problems. 30 year olds will also have the same bullseye painted on their backs, but will at least have experience.
  - mike_hock 3y ago
    Experience with what? A sudden 20k windfall? This will create an industry that is centered solely around milking 30 year-olds for every penny they're worth as soon as they turn 30 and then drop them like a hot potato. This will drive up prices immensely because there's a continuous stream of people turning thirty and your hard-earned 20k is worth the same as their 20k that just fell from the sky. It's a completely insane idea, and it doesn't solve any problems. When the 20k is gone, it's gone. It's precisely the people who need it the most that are the least likely to stuff it in the bank.
    - thrawa8387336 3y ago
      It's a people problem not a tech... sorry, money problem.
      - mike_hock 3y ago
        Money problems are economic problems. Economic problems are people problems.
  - tcmart14 3y ago
    I wonder if to address this, we could do something slightly different. There is definitely a danger here. Hang out around a military base where a bunch of young men got back from deployment and see how many of them are driving BMWs. When I was in the Navy, my junior sailors would blow all the money they made on deployment on shitty cars and strippers. Maybe instead of just cutting a $20K check, perhaps an account that allows certain purchases. Like here is $20K, it is pre-authorized to use it to pay for tuition for a college or trade school. Pre-authorized for medical expenses. And perhaps other things, but you can't exactly go out and blow it on cars and strippers. Then perhaps with a, if you don't use it by 25, you can roll it into your 401K?
- goodbyesf 3y ago
  Why not 20K every year? Get rid of all government programs ( welfare, healthchare, social security, etc ) and replace it with a universal yearly $20K. The only downside is that it would collapse the war machine since no 18 year old will sign up for the military.
  - lotsoweiners 3y ago
    Aren’t we currently experiencing inflation at least partially due to government stimulus handouts during Covid? I know there are multiple causes but free money certainly didn’t help. Also, I think it is a good idea to keep government programs means tested and separate. If you give people 20k, the number of people who should be feeding their kids with the money but instead bought “new rims” for their 2007 Honda Civic is going to be much greater than zero.
    - admax88qqq 3y ago
      The problem is most means tested programs end up as poverty traps where people avoid making more money productively so they don't lose their welfare or disability.
  - xsmasher 3y ago
    Some people are not equipped to handle that responsibly. They'll promise it to rent-a-center in perpetuity and still be hungry halfway through the month.
  - JimtheCoder 3y ago
    "Why not 20K every year? Get rid of all government programs ( welfare, healthchare, social security, etc ) and replace it with a universal yearly $20K." Because next election cycle, some politician will set themselves apart by promising the 20k, plus a supplement for healthcare...and the whole circus begins again...
  - pcurve 3y ago
    "welfare, healthchare, social security, etc" Healthcare: Some people get unlucky with genetic lottery and will require far more cost in care than others. Some type of universal coverage still needs to exist imho. Social security: Unfortunately, not everyone is good with money. Social security is a mechanism for balancing out and restributing wealth, but it's also an investing service for those who don't know how to. I'm not against some type of UBI, but there are some downsides with getting rid of existing programs. imho.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  That's just debt, which everyone in the West is already swimming in.
- germandiago 3y ago
  As a spanish who pays 47% PIT and a ton more taxes including 21% VAT, tax for having a property (only one!) and that I see how much money is wasted on top of a 113% official GDP debt... and I can tell you tjat to pay what I pay you do not need to make even 80,000 eur/year. Who do you propose it should pay those 20,000? This woman, who talks to people as if they were 10 yo or less, said "the rich people". Do you know how much of that proposal you can pay with "the rich" in Spain? Very little. And by very little I mean not even 5% of that, probably less (I did not make the exact numbers but I am pretty sure it won't go beyond that). If you knew politicians, especially spanish politicians, you should know that the only thing they want is more money controlled through their hands. You know why, right? We all know it... Every spanish has 35,000 eur debt right now. A great idea, yes... to charge pwople that did not ask you with more debt til services collapse.
  - throwaway92700 3y ago
    You do not pay 47% income tax in Spain. You may pay 47% marginal income tax (only for income above 60k EUR).
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - downWidOutaFite 3y ago
    Eres us spaniard no un spanish. No sé porque pero el inglés no es racional.
    - horsawlarway 3y ago
      "as a spanish person" would have worked. Basically - spanish isn't a noun it's an adjective, it describes a property of a noun (ex: Spanish language, Spanish Car, Spanish food, Spanish person etc...). The oddity is that we also treat "spanish" as the proper name of a language. So "Speaking spanish" and "Speaking the spanish language" are interchangeable. But no disagreement at all that english isn't rational. As an aside, it's a perfectly understandable comment, it just identifies the person as non-native english speaking.
    - 3y ago
- layer8 3y ago
  The problem is, many people would just take a 10-year loan at 20 since they know they’ll receive the €20K at 30. There’ll be a whole industry springing up around that.
  - sublinear 3y ago
    It's almost like stimulus doesn't really work.
    - Eldt 3y ago
      If stimulus is people spending their money in the marketplace to meet their needs, I'd say it works quite well
      - sublinear 3y ago
        > their money Broke people immediately spending the money they got from the government... That's everyone else's money.
- c22 3y ago
  There's no guarantee you'll be wise enough when you're thirty. Better idea: give them a couple grand at eighteen so they learn an early life lesson about windfalls, then give them the rest at thirty.
mensetmanusman 3y ago
Are there enough rich people in Spain to redistribute and give everyone aged 18+ €20k?
- thegrim33 3y ago
  Well, if just counting all the billionaires [1], they have a total net worth of ~135 billion, and there's currently ~47MM people in Spain [2], so if you sent out the stormtroopers and forcefully confiscated every last penny of net worth from all the billionaires, and redistributed it equally, each person would get a one-time payment of ~2,800. I'd theorize that the resulting destruction to the economy/country in the process would probably ultimately wipe more wealth from the people than 2,800 per person, but hey, maybe not. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_billionaires_by_net_worth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_billionaires_b... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Spain
  - jahnu 3y ago
    > ~47MM people in Spain … and redistributed it equally I know the OP asked that but isn’t this really about future people turning 18 which would be massively fewer people and roll along every year?
  - buffington 3y ago
    > I'd theorize that the resulting destruction to the economy/country in the process would probably ultimately wipe more wealth from the people than 2,800 per person I wonder if you wouldn't mind expanding on this idea more. While I'm not saying I agree with the notion of redistributing wealth in the way you describe, I am skeptical of the "destruction" part. What does that look like to you, and why would it lead to that?
    - chii 3y ago
      > I am skeptical of the "destruction" part you only need to look in the past to see how collectivization in communist countries have fared to see what sort of results could be expected when you confiscate wealth from people.
CraigRo 3y ago
Gamble on La Liga, and when you are bankrupt, go apply for welfare, because you are now poor.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  Or we could just ban the very agressive ads for gambling targetting the poorest instead of blaming people for falling to psy-ops…
pkaye 3y ago
I think its election season in Spain.
- bsaul 3y ago
  i wonder how those kinds of proposals are even legal. It's litteraly the equivalent of buying votes.
  - MattRix 3y ago
    so this is a problem but a politician promising giant tax cuts isn’t?
  - ndlan 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    We should be so lucky. But then most of those promises would be frauds since they are most of the time not followed up on once the politician is in power.
  - Thiez 3y ago
    Hardly, if you want to win elections you pander to the older generations. Being popular among 18 year-olds isn't politically interesting at all.
- germandiago 3y ago
  Yes, the 23rd.
4g 3y ago
Israel introduced a similar concept in 2017 that deposits a small amount of money monthly into a savings or investing account for each child, money can be withdrawn at the age of 18, or later at 21 with a small bonus. https://www.btl.gov.il/English%20Homepage/Benefits/Children/Savings%20plan/Pages/default.aspx https://www.btl.gov.il/English%20Homepage/Benefits/Children/...
tantalor 3y ago
This is baby bonds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_bonds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_bonds
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sublinear 3y ago
> The minister, who was raised in a staunchly communist household, said she had been unable to follow her own dreams of becoming an employment inspector because there was not enough money for her to spend years studying.
- bassman9000 3y ago
  BS > Díaz graduated with a licentiate degree in Law from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC),[5][6] and later earned three post-graduate degrees. Upon concluding her studies, she commenced working as a paralegal for a law firm. Later, she registered as an attorney at law and opened her own law firm, which specialised in labour law.[5]
etrautmann 3y ago
This is an awesome idea. There should be universal baby bonds that pay half at 30 and half at 40
jacknews 3y ago
It's time to invest in venues offering lavish coming-of-age parties! Seriously, giving 18yo a lump sum in cash is maybe not the best idea, they should give this out as a non-transferable share in a state wealth fund (backed by some percentage ownership of the nation's companies), rather than cash. ie a universal basic equity. Rules could allow people who want to start a business etc to borrow against it.
bassman9000 3y ago
Fun fact: the process will be made artificially slow to last til you are 23 years old, which means voters making 18 this year would have to vote for them, again, in 4. Total corruption.
DoctorMckay101 3y ago
And meanwhile everybody from 18 to 30+ that lives paycheck to paycheck, without a possibility of getting into a mortgage, without being financially stable enough to become parents, get nothing. Also, "everybody" will get 20k? Even people that are rich? What is the reasoning behind that? Too many edges to sand down in this proposal.
- t0bia_s 3y ago
  Whole UBI idea is just for make citizens more dependent on state rather than free market. Capitalism vs socialism.
  - DoctorMckay101 3y ago
    Tbh, I'm not against a Basic Income. I'm against the "Universal" part. A basic income should be something handed out to those in need of it and they should be helped so they can stop relying on it. Thus handing out 20k to everybody no matter their situation seems like a really bad idea to me.
    - t0bia_s 3y ago
      Isn't that what we already have? Social benefits for those who really nees them?
deepthunder 3y ago
The landlords will just raise their rents accordingly. Effectively taxpayers will be subsidizing landlords. This is effectively what happened in the UK where those on low income get their rents topped up by the government. Hence why so many MPs are landlords.

57 points by manuel_w 3y ago

henvic 3y ago

How about just cutting taxes? Damn politicians love to rob Peter to pay Paul so much...

jjcm 3y ago
That would affect a much smaller percentage of people who are 18 to the same amount. €20k in taxes is how much you would pay if you were earning 65k/yr, or 5 times the average of what Spanish people under 25 earn. Cutting taxes for this age bracket would effectively only help those who are already well off, which isn't the purpose of this proposal. Regardless of the discussion of whether or not you should give out 20k, your proposal doesn't address the same issue.
t0bia_s 3y ago
State would never come up with something that would make citizens less dependent on them.

activiation 3y ago

Interesting idea

simonblack 3y ago

I think that would be a great idea. Except that I would put the age of receiving that inheritance at about 30. It's one of the ironies of life that when you are young you have time but no money, and when you are old you have money and no time. Think how great it would be if you got that money while you were still young enough to use it, and old enough to use it wisely.

helpfulclippy 3y ago
Exactly. There’s a lot of danger waiting for you when you grow up and leave home. Money would certainly solve some problems, but if everyone knew every 20 year old had a big check they could go get a piece of, it will cause many more problems. 30 year olds will also have the same bullseye painted on their backs, but will at least have experience.
- mike_hock 3y ago
  Experience with what? A sudden 20k windfall? This will create an industry that is centered solely around milking 30 year-olds for every penny they're worth as soon as they turn 30 and then drop them like a hot potato. This will drive up prices immensely because there's a continuous stream of people turning thirty and your hard-earned 20k is worth the same as their 20k that just fell from the sky. It's a completely insane idea, and it doesn't solve any problems. When the 20k is gone, it's gone. It's precisely the people who need it the most that are the least likely to stuff it in the bank.
  - thrawa8387336 3y ago
    It's a people problem not a tech... sorry, money problem.
    - mike_hock 3y ago
      Money problems are economic problems. Economic problems are people problems.
- tcmart14 3y ago
  I wonder if to address this, we could do something slightly different. There is definitely a danger here. Hang out around a military base where a bunch of young men got back from deployment and see how many of them are driving BMWs. When I was in the Navy, my junior sailors would blow all the money they made on deployment on shitty cars and strippers. Maybe instead of just cutting a $20K check, perhaps an account that allows certain purchases. Like here is $20K, it is pre-authorized to use it to pay for tuition for a college or trade school. Pre-authorized for medical expenses. And perhaps other things, but you can't exactly go out and blow it on cars and strippers. Then perhaps with a, if you don't use it by 25, you can roll it into your 401K?
goodbyesf 3y ago
Why not 20K every year? Get rid of all government programs ( welfare, healthchare, social security, etc ) and replace it with a universal yearly $20K. The only downside is that it would collapse the war machine since no 18 year old will sign up for the military.
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  Aren’t we currently experiencing inflation at least partially due to government stimulus handouts during Covid? I know there are multiple causes but free money certainly didn’t help. Also, I think it is a good idea to keep government programs means tested and separate. If you give people 20k, the number of people who should be feeding their kids with the money but instead bought “new rims” for their 2007 Honda Civic is going to be much greater than zero.
  - admax88qqq 3y ago
    The problem is most means tested programs end up as poverty traps where people avoid making more money productively so they don't lose their welfare or disability.
- xsmasher 3y ago
  Some people are not equipped to handle that responsibly. They'll promise it to rent-a-center in perpetuity and still be hungry halfway through the month.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "Why not 20K every year? Get rid of all government programs ( welfare, healthchare, social security, etc ) and replace it with a universal yearly $20K." Because next election cycle, some politician will set themselves apart by promising the 20k, plus a supplement for healthcare...and the whole circus begins again...
- pcurve 3y ago
  "welfare, healthchare, social security, etc" Healthcare: Some people get unlucky with genetic lottery and will require far more cost in care than others. Some type of universal coverage still needs to exist imho. Social security: Unfortunately, not everyone is good with money. Social security is a mechanism for balancing out and restributing wealth, but it's also an investing service for those who don't know how to. I'm not against some type of UBI, but there are some downsides with getting rid of existing programs. imho.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
That's just debt, which everyone in the West is already swimming in.
germandiago 3y ago
As a spanish who pays 47% PIT and a ton more taxes including 21% VAT, tax for having a property (only one!) and that I see how much money is wasted on top of a 113% official GDP debt... and I can tell you tjat to pay what I pay you do not need to make even 80,000 eur/year. Who do you propose it should pay those 20,000? This woman, who talks to people as if they were 10 yo or less, said "the rich people". Do you know how much of that proposal you can pay with "the rich" in Spain? Very little. And by very little I mean not even 5% of that, probably less (I did not make the exact numbers but I am pretty sure it won't go beyond that). If you knew politicians, especially spanish politicians, you should know that the only thing they want is more money controlled through their hands. You know why, right? We all know it... Every spanish has 35,000 eur debt right now. A great idea, yes... to charge pwople that did not ask you with more debt til services collapse.
- throwaway92700 3y ago
  You do not pay 47% income tax in Spain. You may pay 47% marginal income tax (only for income above 60k EUR).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- downWidOutaFite 3y ago
  Eres us spaniard no un spanish. No sé porque pero el inglés no es racional.
  - horsawlarway 3y ago
    "as a spanish person" would have worked. Basically - spanish isn't a noun it's an adjective, it describes a property of a noun (ex: Spanish language, Spanish Car, Spanish food, Spanish person etc...). The oddity is that we also treat "spanish" as the proper name of a language. So "Speaking spanish" and "Speaking the spanish language" are interchangeable. But no disagreement at all that english isn't rational. As an aside, it's a perfectly understandable comment, it just identifies the person as non-native english speaking.
  - 3y ago
layer8 3y ago
The problem is, many people would just take a 10-year loan at 20 since they know they’ll receive the €20K at 30. There’ll be a whole industry springing up around that.
- sublinear 3y ago
  It's almost like stimulus doesn't really work.
  - Eldt 3y ago
    If stimulus is people spending their money in the marketplace to meet their needs, I'd say it works quite well
    - sublinear 3y ago
      > their money Broke people immediately spending the money they got from the government... That's everyone else's money.
c22 3y ago
There's no guarantee you'll be wise enough when you're thirty. Better idea: give them a couple grand at eighteen so they learn an early life lesson about windfalls, then give them the rest at thirty.

mensetmanusman 3y ago

Are there enough rich people in Spain to redistribute and give everyone aged 18+ €20k?

thegrim33 3y ago
Well, if just counting all the billionaires [1], they have a total net worth of ~135 billion, and there's currently ~47MM people in Spain [2], so if you sent out the stormtroopers and forcefully confiscated every last penny of net worth from all the billionaires, and redistributed it equally, each person would get a one-time payment of ~2,800. I'd theorize that the resulting destruction to the economy/country in the process would probably ultimately wipe more wealth from the people than 2,800 per person, but hey, maybe not. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_billionaires_by_net_worth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_billionaires_b... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Spain
- jahnu 3y ago
  > ~47MM people in Spain … and redistributed it equally I know the OP asked that but isn’t this really about future people turning 18 which would be massively fewer people and roll along every year?
- buffington 3y ago
  > I'd theorize that the resulting destruction to the economy/country in the process would probably ultimately wipe more wealth from the people than 2,800 per person I wonder if you wouldn't mind expanding on this idea more. While I'm not saying I agree with the notion of redistributing wealth in the way you describe, I am skeptical of the "destruction" part. What does that look like to you, and why would it lead to that?
  - chii 3y ago
    > I am skeptical of the "destruction" part you only need to look in the past to see how collectivization in communist countries have fared to see what sort of results could be expected when you confiscate wealth from people.

CraigRo 3y ago

Gamble on La Liga, and when you are bankrupt, go apply for welfare, because you are now poor.

littlestymaar 3y ago
Or we could just ban the very agressive ads for gambling targetting the poorest instead of blaming people for falling to psy-ops…

pkaye 3y ago

I think its election season in Spain.

bsaul 3y ago
i wonder how those kinds of proposals are even legal. It's litteraly the equivalent of buying votes.
- MattRix 3y ago
  so this is a problem but a politician promising giant tax cuts isn’t?
- ndlan 3y ago
  [flagged]
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  We should be so lucky. But then most of those promises would be frauds since they are most of the time not followed up on once the politician is in power.
- Thiez 3y ago
  Hardly, if you want to win elections you pander to the older generations. Being popular among 18 year-olds isn't politically interesting at all.
germandiago 3y ago
Yes, the 23rd.

4g 3y ago

Israel introduced a similar concept in 2017 that deposits a small amount of money monthly into a savings or investing account for each child, money can be withdrawn at the age of 18, or later at 21 with a small bonus. https://www.btl.gov.il/English%20Homepage/Benefits/Children/Savings%20plan/Pages/default.aspx https://www.btl.gov.il/English%20Homepage/Benefits/Children/...

tantalor 3y ago

This is baby bonds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_bonds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_bonds

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sublinear 3y ago

> The minister, who was raised in a staunchly communist household, said she had been unable to follow her own dreams of becoming an employment inspector because there was not enough money for her to spend years studying.

bassman9000 3y ago
BS > Díaz graduated with a licentiate degree in Law from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC),[5][6] and later earned three post-graduate degrees. Upon concluding her studies, she commenced working as a paralegal for a law firm. Later, she registered as an attorney at law and opened her own law firm, which specialised in labour law.[5]

etrautmann 3y ago

This is an awesome idea. There should be universal baby bonds that pay half at 30 and half at 40

jacknews 3y ago

It's time to invest in venues offering lavish coming-of-age parties! Seriously, giving 18yo a lump sum in cash is maybe not the best idea, they should give this out as a non-transferable share in a state wealth fund (backed by some percentage ownership of the nation's companies), rather than cash. ie a universal basic equity. Rules could allow people who want to start a business etc to borrow against it.

bassman9000 3y ago

Fun fact: the process will be made artificially slow to last til you are 23 years old, which means voters making 18 this year would have to vote for them, again, in 4. Total corruption.

DoctorMckay101 3y ago

And meanwhile everybody from 18 to 30+ that lives paycheck to paycheck, without a possibility of getting into a mortgage, without being financially stable enough to become parents, get nothing. Also, "everybody" will get 20k? Even people that are rich? What is the reasoning behind that? Too many edges to sand down in this proposal.

t0bia_s 3y ago
Whole UBI idea is just for make citizens more dependent on state rather than free market. Capitalism vs socialism.
- DoctorMckay101 3y ago
  Tbh, I'm not against a Basic Income. I'm against the "Universal" part. A basic income should be something handed out to those in need of it and they should be helped so they can stop relying on it. Thus handing out 20k to everybody no matter their situation seems like a really bad idea to me.
  - t0bia_s 3y ago
    Isn't that what we already have? Social benefits for those who really nees them?

deepthunder 3y ago

The landlords will just raise their rents accordingly. Effectively taxpayers will be subsidizing landlords. This is effectively what happened in the UK where those on low income get their rents topped up by the government. Hence why so many MPs are landlords.