Spain rolling out Universal Basic Income

[scottbeard]

On 08/04/2020 at 11:28, Odin said:

So toilet paper shortage due to hoarding but also the change of behavior, we no longer go for a sh** at work using commercial toilet paper, are spending all time at home, so use more at home, maybe 40% more and consumer retail product papermills can't just turn up production of +40% in weeks.

But the eggs where are they?  do they have medical uses ?  as I assume commercial food places use loads and they are all shutdown.

So why are they not overflowing on the shelves at the supermarkets?

Commercial companies buy eggs by the tray of 100: not boxes of 6.

its the Lack of infrastructure to package and transport them that leads To shortages : not a lack of eggs

[dances with sheeple]

On 09/04/2020 at 13:55, Andy T said:

Never understood this 's*hit 'o' clock thing

It is biological I believe,  but if you eat three Pizza Hut family meals a day though you will sh*it round the clock ( and maybe even on it)

[GregBowman]

On 11/04/2020 at 22:59, dances with sheeple said:

It is biological I believe,  but if you eat three Pizza Hut family meals a day though you will sh*it round the clock ( and maybe even on it)

???

[dances with sheeple]

[bear.getting.old]

Do any of you know that you can't just move to Spain like that. You need a resident VISA and you have to pay a lot of tax to have access to their healthcare system.

[richmondtw]

On 4/7/2020 at 9:54 PM, Social Justice League said:

Give everyone a grand a month forever. 

It will be the only way shortly, unless this useless "lockdown" is kicked into touch very, very soon.

 

The useless Tories need to hold their hands up and admit they have fooked up, otherwise they will need to introduce a citizens income for all and scrap the fooking useless benefits system, which is about as much use as the chocolate teapot.

Everyone knows how bad the "benefits" systems is now and can see it in full 3D.

Who pays for that then. Why would people bother to work and pay tax?

Maybe the govt should give me a Ferrari and a mansion in Kensington because I would like it and because some other people have that and I do not.

Benefits are meant to be a short term aid not a lifestyle choice paid for by people who work.  

I have a more radical idea. If people want money - work.  

[GregBowman]

15 minutes ago, richmondtw said:

Who pays for that then. Why would people bother to work and pay tax?

Maybe the govt should give me a Ferrari and a mansion in Kensington because I would like it and because some other people have that and I do not.

Benefits are meant to be a short term aid not a lifestyle choice paid for by people who work.  

I have a more radical idea. If people want money - work.  

What happens when there is no work? AI - automation ? de-industrialisation.

Pragmatically UI is cheaper than paying people benefits 

You only pay either to stop the breakdown of society anyway  

[cbathpc]

Until covid-19 happened, employment was at the highest it's ever been. As is the case throughout all human history, the second jobs get automated, new jobs get created. 

There is a reason universal basic income didn't come in after the invention of the plough, the same reason it won't come in now. 

[Riedquat]

On 09/04/2020 at 20:24, scottbeard said:

Commercial companies buy eggs by the tray of 100: not boxes of 6.

its the Lack of infrastructure to package and transport them that leads To shortages : not a lack of eggs

Sometimes a very bad idea to have that many - someone had left the tray in the wrong place at my local once and the landlord's dog got them. He described the results as "evil."

[Riedquat]

21 minutes ago, GregBowman said:

What happens when there is no work? AI - automation ? de-industrialisation.

Pragmatically UI is cheaper than paying people benefits 

You only pay either to stop the breakdown of society anyway  

Ideally throw away the AI and automation and employ people with all the spare time on their hands. The idea that it makes sense to replace people with machines is ridiculous, with only certain exceptions (society not productive enough to produce for a universal decent standard of living - true pre Industrial Revolution but not now, the problem is inequality, not total wealth, and for jobs that are too dangerous or unpleasant for anyone to really want to do them).

[regprentice]

Still no official word from the Spanish, but a fairly detailed analysis of the proposals as they stand here. Quite clear its not a UBI. 

.... this policy is a minimum income to be targeted to vulnerable households, and the generosity will be dependent on the the family typology (mono-marental households will receive more generous quantities) and upon the number of number of children. In a recent article by La Vanguardia, the quantity has been stipulated as for 500 euros for individuals living by themselves, and up to 1000 euros for families with children. 

This is a non-contributory cash payment, which adds to current policies in different ways: those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits can have access to it, and those who are not eligible for unemployment benefits will have access to it if they comply with other criteria. Very importantly, in principle this is a permanent measure, so it is not exhausted until the recipient is employed. Such a design is convenient to target particular vulnerable groups of people like domestic workers without contracts, or self-employed people who have seen their activity come to a halt. According to calculus made by the minister of employment, Yolanda Diaz, this measure could benefit a total of 5 million people, which is close to 10% of the Spanish population.

Although it adds to current policies in several ways, this is far from a basic income in various ways as it is not individual, unconditional or universal, which are three of the key characteristics of the so called universal basic income policy that some media outlets are are using to label the future policy that will be implemented in Spain

Edited April 20, 2020 by regprentice

[dugsbody]

8 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

Ideally throw away the AI and automation and employ people with all the spare time on their hands. The idea that it makes sense to replace people with machines is ridiculous, with only certain exceptions (society not productive enough to produce for a universal decent standard of living - true pre Industrial Revolution but not now, the problem is inequality, not total wealth, and for jobs that are too dangerous or unpleasant for anyone to really want to do them).

You'll have to fight your fellow brexiters on that one. They seem intent that the fruit picking jobs done by humans (foreign humans though) should either go to locals or if not possible then automated. Just as long as foreigners don't do them.

[richmondtw]

 

37 minutes ago, GregBowman said:

What happens when there is no work? AI - automation ? de-industrialisation.

Pragmatically UI is cheaper than paying people benefits 

You only pay either to stop the breakdown of society anyway  

Greg,

To an extant I share your concerns. There is a real issue which will be here in 20-30 years. This is the industry I work in and there is going to be 1930's type unemployment for people especially those in low skilled occupations. 

However I do not think any country can afford to pay people £1,000 a month for eternity. Again I understand your point about the breakdown of society but is that just rewarding people who are a nuisance? Or who have not bothered to make the effort to educate themselves?  

I guess one could say the equivalent is saying to a drug dealer we want you to stop dealing drugs so with will pay you as much as you make dealing drugs so you stop doing it.

With far fewer people working there will be far less tax income.  This is something that all govts over the world are aware of and are very concerned about.  

i do not see that paying anyone to do nothing for a lifetime helps society as to me its breeds an attitude of entitlement and laziness.  On a purely personal level I was always taught that if I want something have to work for it because I do not have the right to just expect it.  Even as  kid if I wanted pocket money I would have to clean the car, wash dishes etc and I see no issue with that.  

It is also a huge disincentive for any one to have ambition or to improve their own circumstances by their own efforts which i think is a fundamental element of many folks psyche.   

All psychological studies show that working is a huge benefit for most people's mental heath.  Helping to feel useful, make friends, use initiative, grow in confidence, learn social skill etc etc. That is a concern for the future.  

I cannot see how any country which a constantly expanding population can just give millions of people £1,000 a month to do nothing.  I can see that if those people then do basic jobs that may need doing such as litter picking etc although I can see that some may think this a contentious point.  

I think people should be encouraged to have smaller families.  It is important I think to reduce the size of the population as in 20-30 years time no country is going to need the size of labour force it has now.  

I do not pretend to have the answers and if I am being pessimistic I think that in 2-3 generations  time the while world will be like the poor nations in the Middle east and Asia. 

 

 

[GregBowman]

1 hour ago, richmondtw said:

 

Greg,

To an extant I share your concerns. There is a real issue which will be here in 20-30 years. This is the industry I work in and there is going to be 1930's type unemployment for people especially those in low skilled occupations. 

However I do not think any country can afford to pay people £1,000 a month for eternity. Again I understand your point about the breakdown of society but is that just rewarding people who are a nuisance? Or who have not bothered to make the effort to educate themselves?  

I guess one could say the equivalent is saying to a drug dealer we want you to stop dealing drugs so with will pay you as much as you make dealing drugs so you stop doing it.

With far fewer people working there will be far less tax income.  This is something that all govts over the world are aware of and are very concerned about.  

i do not see that paying anyone to do nothing for a lifetime helps society as to me its breeds an attitude of entitlement and laziness.  On a purely personal level I was always taught that if I want something have to work for it because I do not have the right to just expect it.  Even as  kid if I wanted pocket money I would have to clean the car, wash dishes etc and I see no issue with that.  

It is also a huge disincentive for any one to have ambition or to improve their own circumstances by their own efforts which i think is a fundamental element of many folks psyche.   

All psychological studies show that working is a huge benefit for most people's mental heath.  Helping to feel useful, make friends, use initiative, grow in confidence, learn social skill etc etc. That is a concern for the future.  

I cannot see how any country which a constantly expanding population can just give millions of people £1,000 a month to do nothing.  I can see that if those people then do basic jobs that may need doing such as litter picking etc although I can see that some may think this a contentious point.  

I think people should be encouraged to have smaller families.  It is important I think to reduce the size of the population as in 20-30 years time no country is going to need the size of labour force it has now.  

I do not pretend to have the answers and if I am being pessimistic I think that in 2-3 generations  time the while world will be like the poor nations in the Middle east and Asia. 

 

 

I agree - work is dignity - complex problem 

[GregBowman]

1 hour ago, Ghostly said:

That's based on the assumption that the people whose jobs are automated now are able to re-train and become a data centre engineer, robot technician or whatever else.

+1 I am in technology and often I repeat on here I did something called the D- Pack test when I joined IBM I am sure there are others in essence only about 7% of the working population have the attitude DNA or whatever you call it to work in a diagnostic/Tech way - they are fully employed and will be in the foreseeable future but what about everyone else ? 

[Riedquat]

1 hour ago, Ghostly said:

That's based on the assumption that the people whose jobs are automated now are able to re-train and become a data centre engineer, robot technician or whatever else.

There are a lot of assumptions going on with people who say "more jobs are always created, that's always been the case." There are numerous problems with that statement. Firstly "always" isn't really all that long because there have only been really significant shifts and changes since the Industrial Revolution - hardly "throughout history."  And that leads on to the second point. Pre-industrial times, society struggled to produce enough to get by, let alone have a reasonable quality of living for more than a few. Famine and disease might've been more a threat to the poor but no-one was entirely free of the risk of them. So it's no wonder that freeing up some labour from existing jobs meant new ones. But we're not in that position any more. The whole reason for it is largely passed - we suffer from inequality but not lack of productivity (in the First World anyway). This is reflected in that even when employment is high it's really made up of a lot of non-jobs. And finally the choice of types of jobs shrinks. There aren't new jobs arising for those who get on best with doing things with their hands.

So all in all one big clusterfvck due to not knowing (or being able) to stop, continually applying a solution that was useful once even though it's past it's sell by date. Not to say that there still aren't areas where automation is genuinely useful but people are too wedded to the idea of simple one size fits all approaches for everything, means you don't need to make decisions.

[cbathpc]

1 hour ago, Ghostly said:

That's based on the assumption that the people whose jobs are automated now are able to re-train and become a data centre engineer, robot technician or whatever else.

It's based on the assumption that your current unskilled lorry driver becomes the next barista (whatever that might be)

[Andy T]

2 hours ago, cbathpc said:

Until covid-19 happened, employment was at the highest it's ever been. As is the case throughout all human history, the second jobs get automated, new jobs get created. 

There is a reason universal basic income didn't come in after the invention of the plough, the same reason it won't come in now. 

On paper at least, with zero hour contracts, worsening conditions, 1 person doing 2-3 part time jobs etc.

Unfortunately, as skilled jobs got automated or exported,  new jobs created haven't been at the equivalent skill & pay levels.

[Burbujista]

The Universal Basic Income proposal of Podemos is absolutely unfeasible. As a Spaniard myself... we all know that in Spain people will be very happy to receive the money, but we aren’t precisely in a situation where the State can afford such stupid idea (unless we are talking about 50€ per month or something silly). For the people in need it makes sense to target particular programs, but for normal people... I would rather not pay as much in taxes and avoid creating unnecessary intermediates (corrupt politicians especially).

[The Preacherman]

 

 

[regprentice]

On 20/04/2020 at 13:05, Riedquat said:

There are a lot of assumptions going on with people who say "more jobs are always created, that's always been the case." There are numerous problems with that statement.....

People say automation isn't here yet but then you can have companies like WhatsApp which has 50 staff. 

A small bank Like Revolut recently managed 7 million customers with around 250 staff, it now employs 2000 staff but that's because It opened a customer services centre with around 1400 telephony staff. For comparison RBS has 19 million customers, in 2008 employed 225,000 staff and now has cut that to 63,000 staff. Now RBS offers a more complex set of services, but the small banks are really beginning to cut into those areas. 

In five or ten years revolut could offer effectively the same products as RBS to the same number of customers, but with 1% of the headcount. 

It's going to be a long slow grind of large businesses slowly shrinking and failing and being replaced with 'young' 'cool' digital businesses that customers seem to like and which employ virtually no-one. 

[Riedquat]

3 hours ago, regprentice said:

People say automation isn't here yet but then you can have companies like WhatsApp which has 50 staff. 

...

It's going to be a long slow grind of large businesses slowly shrinking and failing and being replaced with 'young' 'cool' digital businesses that customers seem to like and which employ virtually no-one. 

And has been going for years, to varying degrees. The consequences do not look very appealing - a massive increase in inequality is the most immediate one - but there are others. The future is a bleak-looking place for anyone who isn't very materialistic and at the top.