"The proposal is, in part, the brainchild of a German-born artist named Enno Schmidt, a leader in the basic-income movement. He knows it sounds a bit crazy. He thought the same when someone first described the policy to him, too. “I tell people not to think about it for others, but think about it for themselves,” Schmidt told me. “What would you do if you had that income? What if you were taking care of a child or an elderly person?” Schmidt said that the basic income would provide some dignity and security to the poor, especially Europe’s underemployed and unemployed. It would also, he said, help unleash creativity and entrepreneurialism: Switzerland’s workers would feel empowered to work the way they wanted to, rather than the way they had to just to get by. He even went so far as to compare it to a civil rights movement, like women’s suffrage or ending slavery."
Annie Lowrey NYT
25 comments:
I like the idea and it should be called an allowance, like what a parent gives a child.
I like that plan. Please sign me up for one million dollars a year.
If it fails by the time year two rolls around I will already be set.
Who pays to keep you alive? Your mother and father. Until you can keep you alive. Why do they do it? Because you are their flesh and blood. Because they love you. It beggars belief that the state, an agent of coercion, of force, has become your mommy and daddy in the eyes of the best and the brightest. They really believe this shit. And the result is inevitable -- universal enslavement.
Schmidt said that the basic income would provide some dignity and security to the poor, especially Europe’s underemployed and unemployed. It would also, he said, help unleash creativity and entrepreneurialism.
No it won't, Mrs. Pelosi. It will inspire laziness and eventual societal collapse. Why bother working at all? Why should anyone bother working again, ever? The idea isn't new-- it's socialism.
Pay people to do nothing, and this will inspire "creativity and entrepreneurialism".
And this time it will work!
Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen.
Harry Lime: Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.
The Third Man (1949)
I have to admit that the people I know who live on welfare and the like are very hardworking and industrious, just jumping right to it every morning at the break of dawn. They can't help themselves, and they have the free time to do all that. If we increase the welfare rolls any more it will put daytime TV out of business I bet.
The guy is an artist. Of course if he got paid regardless of how valuable people found his work then that would be nice for him, and HE would work at his job more, but a society can't survive with just artists following their bliss between white wine sit-downs to discuss their passions. Who the hell is gonna unclog your drain, when we can all just play at the potter's wheel to Unchained Melody and get paid anyway?
When I see people on welfare, yes, "dignity" is the overpowering feeling oozing out of the whole experience for us both.
You know a lot of people get paid for being dead. Well, someone gets paid for them, and they get a vote too.
Imagine you could get paid to sit and watch tv vs developing a business plan or inventing a new technology. The pay is the same, because that is fair. What job would you do?
This is a great idea, freeing people from the never-ending struggle to feed themselves and their families.
In fact, let's take it one tiny step further and cut off all the men's balls, freeing them from the never-ending struggle to fornicate.
Just think how empowered they would be. Imagine all the creativity and entreprenurialism that would unleash.
The NYT reporter, who wrote this article, is Ezra Klein's wife and she obviously loves this idea. Those two tidbits tell us it is probably a really dumb idea.
What is the NFL player failure rate i wonder?
If not nothing, they pay guys to do little.
"What job would you do?"
The quality control of all those porn films doesn't get done by itself, and someone needs to count the waves hitting the beach.
Pay them to monitor what they do with the money. That way we learn somthing for it?
Why is the idea of working and getting paid for it something we need to find a cure for? I'd suggest it IS the cure for many of society's ills. We don't need money - we need work, and the poor need it most of all. That's dignity.
The quality control of all those porn films doesn't get done by itself
Indeed, and the internet stuff is just more quantity over quality, but hey, it pays the bills and helps me feel dignified. If you don't see me posting, I'm giving back to the community! Someone has to do it.
If people were creative and entrepreneurial, they wouldn't be on welfare.
How much can a Swiss serial killer clear for 'cost containment?'
Considering how many people pay somebody to get somebody else dead, I guess it evens out.
I knew a man who owned a cabinet shop. He had an employee, a fairly good reliable guy, whose wife had applied for disability based on agoraphobia. She was afraid to leave the house. It took several years but she got it. When it was approved, the guy quit his job in the cabinet shop. The couple were seen riding around in our small town on a daily basis. Apparently she was not afraid to do that.
Some people are glad to get by on very little money if they can do it without working.
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