Thousands Finns to receive basic income in the world's largest national basic income experiment

Finland is about to launch an experiment in which a randomly selected group of 2,000–3,000 citizens already on unemployment benefits will begin to receive a monthly basic income of 560 euros (approx. $600). That basic income will replace their existing benefits. The amount is the same as the current guaranteed minimum level of Finnish social security support. The pilot study, running for two years in 2017-2018, aims to assess whether basic income can help reduce poverty, social exclusion, and bureaucracy, while increasing the employment rate.
The Finnish government introduced its legislative bill for the experiment on 25 August. Originally, the scope of the basic income experiment was much more ambitious. Many experts have criticized the government’s experiment for its small sample size and for the setup of the trial, which will be performed within just one experimental condition. This implies that the experiment can provide insights on only one issue, namely whether the removal of the disincentives embedded in social security will encourage those now unemployed to return to the workforce or not.
Still, the world’s largest national basic income experiment represents a big leap towards experimental governance, a transformation that has been given strong emphasis in the current government program of the Finnish state. Additionally, the Finnish trial sets the agenda for the future of universal basic income at large. Its results will be closely followed by governments worldwide. The basic income experiment may thus well lead to the greatest societal transformation of our time.

http://www.demoshelsinki.fi/en/2016...greatest-societal-transformation-of-our-time/

 

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The biggest source of poverty is due to the impact of big government. The reason has to do with math. Government, even when well intended, does not have to earn a profit to stay in business. Only the private sector needs to earn a profit to stay in business. If the US government was a business and was carrying this much debt, it would have gone bankrupt since nobody would lend anymore money to it. All the leaders would have been fired, and the entire organization downsized and broken up into smaller more efficient agencies. But as a government, huge levels of waste, can continue. A lot of money goes down the toilet, since there is no free market need to end the inefficiency and waste.

Let me give another example of the contrast, using a positive example of government and business at their best. Say we have two piles of money of $10M each. One pile will be given to a government agency and the other pile given to a startup business. After one year, the government agencies may have provided a useful service, on budget, but its money will be gone. It needs a new pile of cash for the next year. On the other hand, if successful, the small business will use that seed money to become self sufficient. The following year, it may be earning enough in the free market to perpetuate itself with useful jobs and services. Government money is deposable, instead of recycled; funny money. Private sector recycles the money and adds a multiplier affect called the generation of wealth. The public sector makes the multiplier equal 1.0, at its best.

As you shrink down government and transfer tax money back to the private sector, there is more recycling of money for the creation of wealth; multiplier means jobs. Trump may attemot to make the government work more like a business, that can get a rate of return for its shareholders; tax payers. For example, Trump has proposed to use the government to generate revenue, such as making better trade deals and making other countries to provide for their own national defense. This could mean more jobs for suppliers of defense materials and all businesses who trade with other countries. A dividend is given to the shareholders as more jobs and a tax cut.

 

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The universal basic income concept is so spectacularly stupid at face value that it is difficult for me to even imagine what people might be [not] thinking when they propose/support it.

 

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You could read what they write - the professional economists, political analysts, historians, and various other intellectual types who have been pointing out for decades that it's a pretty good idea.

 

The concept that wealth can be created is so spectacularly stupid at face value that it is difficult for me to even imagine what people might be [not] thinking when they propose/support it. Wealth can only be redistributed, not created. Harumph...

 

Sorry, but it isn't clear to me if you are being sarcastic or serious. For the record, I was being completely serious.

 

Sure, provide a suggestion.

 

A netsearch on this: "basic income instead of welfare"

turned up pages and pages of favorable stuff, from the Wall Street Journal and Forbes to Thomas Paine, Milton Friedman, and the like.

Here's the wiki page on basic income guarantees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income Here is their partial list of US advocates only (very partial, does not include for example Krugman)

Here's a single essay overview by some stats guys,http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/universal-basic-income/
but the most interesting stuff is toward the bottom, where they check out some actual trial runs of the idea in the past.

As a rule of thumb, if Finland is doing something it probably isn't stupid. There are exceptions, but not many.