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See this (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/switzerland-to-vote-on--2-800-monthly-%E2%80%98basic-income%E2%80%99-minimum-for-adults-181937885.html). Absolute madness. If someone gets $2,800 pm for free without doing any work, then how many adults will actually work for a living? In effect this is punishing hard working people, while rewarding the welfare kings and queens.

That's really old news you know :P it's also not mathematically viable.

Basic income is also discussed in Germany (esp. by the Pirate Party), although not that high in amount by far (maybe ~ EUR 800-1000 a month).

It would be economically viable if it would replace all other forms of already existing subsidies and would therefore dramatically reduce the related bureaucracy (if that would actually happen in practice is another question).

They made surveys and almost everybody said they would still go to work, so the argument "no one would work" is not viable.

It would take away existential fears, and people would prefer the work they actually would love to do, resulting in a boost of productivity.

None other than Milton Friedman proposed a negative income tax, which is a similar model.

It makes sense in a more and more automated society; production is unfortunately already quite centralized and controlled by a few corporations, and their profit and wealth does not easily flow back into society. Stock markets are corrupted, laymen cannot easily have their (literal) shares of this wealth.

The problem I see is, of course, the centralization that would be required to manage the collection and distribution of wealth, and the corruptible bureaucracy that would almost certainly come with that. States (and central banks) can't even manage money supply, as we all know.

Maybe a more libertarian-compatible approach would be to try this model in several independent city states (for which inhabitants would simply own shares) and see how it would work out.

An alternative might be a more syndicalist model: People own shares of the means of production directly, similar to how it's done at Mondragón: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-obHJfTaQvw

There is only so much fat in the system to play with

Matter of time before the Northern European welfare model implodes

Taxes used to be so much higher (I'm talking about top brackets) in the US and there was less equality, now they all want lower taxes but the rich don't really share in terms of the proportion they receive.  In the US it doesn't seem like "trickle down" is working, which is one reason I like BTC.

2 millions Romanian gypsies heading their way.
I know how it will end.

Switzerland is having tough immigration laws, and it doesn't have to follow the orders from the EU. So no chance.

On the other hand, plenty of them are heading towards England.

while i think that the elite don't pay enough taxes (at least in the U.S.), a minimum $2,800 monthly income rate is a bit outrageous. is this pre-tax or after? either way, that's almost a minimum of $34k a year for everyone.. the cost of everything is probably going to rise out of proportion.

You can't punish someone for being rich. But I'd support increasing the inheritance tax though.

It is true that tax rates are lower in the US when compared to the EU. But insane tax rates (75% as in the case of France) can trigger complete economic collapse and capital flight. Just wait for a few years... and we will see the economic collapse of a large number of EU nations.

Wouldn't this push business out of Switzerland?  Let them do it.

On other hand pretty much all of the income would go to spending. And most of it on local level. Rich people don't spend all their money, poor and middle class do...

2.8k is probably too high, but at resonable level I see it as positive way of doing things.

I am quite surprised to see so much support for the welfare state model here.....

The population of Switzerland is 8 million (of which ~5.6m are adults). At 2.8K USD per month, the benefits will cost the Swiss exchequer some $ 188 billion. The current tax revenue is much lower than this figure.

So from where the remaining money will come? Remember that the taxes in Switzerland are already very high.

you think work is hard you should try being homeless.

I think the 2,800 was overly ambitious but the concept is a good one. Once the only job left is robot repairman, even robot repairmen won't be able to make a decent living.

You can only kill so many jobs with technology before you have to acknowledge that you aren't subsidizing lazy people, you are compensating them for replacing their livelihood and all alternative livelihoods with a microchip.

What's a mere human to do...


(edit - sorry I meant to quote OP )

Yeah , right!
Like some laws can stop those people.
They've already reached Norway and Sweden , what do you think it will stop them from Switzerland?
How can you stop them without shooting them?

Norway and Sweden are welfare states and are part of the EU. They should abide by the European laws on immigration. They can't deport the gypsies.

On the other hand, Switzerland is not a part of the EU. It is an independent country, which can deport people illegally entering its territory.

Before we continue on this topic , where do you leave (name the country I don't need your address , not sending you any pizza :) and how much do you know about this gypsy community?

By American standards maybe, but by the standards of most of the rest of the developed world, they're on the low side as a percentage of the GDP.


Norway is not part of the EU.  They're part of the Schengen zone, the European Economic Area, and the European Free Trade Association, but not part of the European Union, much like the Swiss, except that the Swiss aren't in the EEA.

There's a bunch of "European" groups.  Here's how they fit together.

edit : Bah.  I guess SMF doesn't like svgs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Supranational_European_Bodies-en.svg

I live outside the EU. And I know enough about the Roma, to distinguish a Lovari from a Kalderash and a Sinti from a Vlax.

I get your point. You are claiming that the local law enforcement will be powerless against the Roma, as has been the case in France, Italy, Spain.etc

Anyway both of us agree that measure will lead to the financial ruin of Switzerland.  :)



My bad. Forgot that Norway was outside the EU. They are quite rich (due to oil) and don't want to give two-thirds of that to the EU budget.

But as far as I know, the immigration controls of all Scandinavian countries (perhaps with the exceptions of Denmark and Iceland) are near-Zero. At least when compared to Switzerland, the immigration rules in Norway are more or less toothless.

I've been living with them close to my neighborhood for almost 20 years.
Even before Romania was into the EU , those people had no problem entering Italy and Germany. No r will they have with Switzerland.

You can't deal with people who grow kids and send them 1 years to school to qualify for state aid , then send them to beg at every corner.
You can't deal with people that refuse to work for 500 euros , but will gladly stay and watch the sun all day long for 100.
You can't deal with people that refuse work , but would rather spend hours and hours watching an unguarded road then work 5 house to cut cables or street signs or even railway tracks to sold them for a few pennies.
You can deal with people you spend so much money into deportation that come the next day back.


Also , vlax are not gypsies.
And the term Roma is used for far more peoples than gypsies alone.

well, i don't support overtaxation of the wealthy, but there's a reason why there's all that money in offshare accounts. if everybody paid a flat tax and loopholes weren't exploited, that would probably bring in more revenues. it'd effectively be a tax increase on the wealthy.

I agree with the taxation of the wealthy, I mean why tax the poor for small amounts of money when you can tax the wealthy for big amounts of money?

about the "basic income", it is a great idea but what would we lose with it?
a lot of stuff wouldn't be free anymore would it? :D

Then it may be time for you to change your place of residence. I have never lived close to them, but had enough bad experience. 


The problem is with the lax rules which some of the EU nations are having. The only place where these people lived by abiding the laws were in the former USSR, which severely punished any sort of crime. However, ever since the fall of the USSR, gypsy crime has increased by manifold in Russia and Ukraine.


If they come back, then put them in jail.


Yes... Vlax is a white ethnic group (Used to speak the now near-extinct Aromanian language). However, a subgroup of the Roma are known as Vlax Roma (mostly found in the former Yugoslavia).

Me also.  But I've seen it over and over again in thread after thread here.  It seems there's a long way to go to get economic truths to people.

Maybe when you buy a currency which goes up in value by such massive amounts in a short period of time you start to believe money comes from thin air.

With the basic income you would also see a great deal of inflation.  You have money being spent with much less production of goods.  More money chasing less goods and services equals inflation.   Which would then require a bigger basic income which just increases the cycle of inflation.

Definitely. Inflation will skyrocket. People will be careful with the money as long as they earn it. When they get it for free, money loses value.

Someone has to answer my question which I had posted yesterday. From where the $188 billion will come up for these welfare payments?

Hard work was what made Switzerland the wealthy nation which it is today. If someone want to turn it to a nation of lazy boozers, then I can't help.

Well they don't leave exactly in my neighborhood , and in this 300k town , this is the safest :) place.
Currently there is no town without such a community that is spreading inst tentacle everywhere.

I'm surprised no one posted this yet: http://basicincome2013.eu/ (http://basicincome2013.eu/). Basically the same proposal, but for Europe. Also, this movie might help explain a little better how it could work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExRs75isitw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExRs75isitw).

I for one would like to see this implemented in a small scale, to test it out, pretty much like it was done in Canada with Mincome.

Your question is really the only valid argument against this proposal. Also the only factor one ought to consider it not feasible.

Hard work is overrated though. People with more free time are more creative and innovative. They take better care of themselves and their families. The idea of everyone getting paid as being inflationary is pretty antiquated. People don't eat 12 meals a day because they can suddenly afford more than 3. Automation and mass production brings costs down for larger consumption base, and globalisation distorts the issue a lot. You think the price of iphones would go up if everyone is Switzerland could afford one? There's only 8 million  people there.

Now as for giving everyone in China 28k that would be more interesting. Because they would stop going to Foxconn for sure. That would drive the price of an iphone way way higher. Seems an obvious primary question, should countries support global firms whose employment practices would be illegal in the destination market? If an unemployed Swiss is getting 28k a year and buys an iphone made by a kid working 100 hours a week for 80 cents an hour... well that seems pretty messed up. Of course somewhere in Switzerland is a banker's grandkid living on the interest garnered off fencing the teeth of holocaust victims. He's not working hard.
 
Inequality is more complicated nowadays than hard work= success. That's just a myth perpetrated by successful hard working people to justify their greed and selfishness. I include myself in this category. I've worked hard but not any harder than some third worlder who will never have the chances I was given just by being born.

 

OK... Tax revenue and all other revenue received by the Swiss government is much less than the 188 billion USD required for this plan. So from where the remaining money will come?

from air , and there is plenty in their heads

Good one. I am asking this for the past many days and those who supports this measure are not ready to answer me. Very basic question... but so far I've got no answers.

By all means, try it!

I'm not sure if this is a good idea, but at least we'll find out what happens.

What I like about this is that it acknowledges that technology keeps making jobs disappear and you can't have a system where everyone has to keep working to earn money in order to survive in the face of such a development.

OTOH since this is a government in charge of doing this, I shudder at how badly they will probably mess it up  ;D

this is one of the better topics coming up for a vote and judging by how many times we get to vote, it was bound to happen; although the chances of it passing are pretty slim.
Some basic cleaning up and the obvious, in my humble opinion, misunderstanding.

The obvious comment is the source of payment, who will pay so much money !!
In my ideal conception, this one is very easily solved considering the roughly 480 Billion Euros accumulated by the Swiss National Bank in just a few years, with the grandiose illusion of maintaining a minimum exchange rate and bailing out the Euro and the more real reason of European solidarity and piling on debt on the Swiss economy. This is lost money in the near future anyway, so one could even consider just handing out Euros.

Secondly, as pointed out, this money is readily reinjected in the economy providing ripple effects, so just printing out the damn paper with 0% interest rate and handing it out to the citizens would work just fine.
And no, not unlimited amounts like now leading to potential massive inflation (be it to the banks in the US for example who then get to 'lend' out that free money, eventually extracting more money than was put in), but a basic amount with no exponential interest and where the money circulates to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. Some balancing mechanism through taxes to take money out and so on depending on growth, infrastructure etc. How someone can be okay with handing out free money to banks and not to the end user directly is puzzling.

Thirdly, this idea of bums just living off the system misses the larger issue at hand of providing dignity and basic living conditions and the possibility of exploring and delving into what interests us and providing value to the lot that way rather than just surviving. It is of my belief that ignorance is the cause of most problems and our collective naiveness has lead us down a road with pretty bad choices and negative consequences. Actually putting into use technology and a sound monetary system would be a good thing in our current times. If someone wants to bum around all his life, so be it; he will do less damage to the collective that way anyway and somehow that the current rat race can serve as an incentive to do something good is rubbish, or at a minimum, a reflection of pretty poor intelligence.

Furthermore, as additional benefits, whole piles of bureucracy and useless paperwork for the unemployment agencies, Social services and actually put out of business this criminal enterprise of handing out credit at 18% interest rate to buy a couch, can be be reduced and all this energy put to some venture more profitable for everyone.

Lastly, that this would attract all the foreigners !! OMG !! Right, lets just follow the EU and in the words of our late National bank president, let's strive to make the swiss franc less attractive so as not to set the example but rather join in the race to the bottom so that no one would want to come. That's a vicious circle and not a virtuous one and is absurd..
Despite the progress made by the gangsters, there is still a process to go through before gaining the nationality. And doing a revote on the Schengen stuff that passed at 50.1% would make things clearer.

The scam of this entire monetary system worldwide is to such an extreme that the relevance and pertinence of a sound system and dare I say common sense, is difficult to grasp.

These westerners have no idea with what they will have to deal.
All they do all day it's shout , save the stray dogs , save the gypsy  from Romania , but wait until they will have the problem on their doorstep.
Ps. I'm from BUCURESTI :)

i would not support that but i like their way of democracy, enviable.

I think that is a great thing if it gets accepted.Then finally you dont
have to think about how to put some food on the table and you could do things
that you really like doing.

lol so many people in this thread concerned with nation states and their borders, and reasoning in xenophobic and scarcity thinking, hasn't Bitcoin taught you anything?

Excuse my ignorance! What is a gypsy? Google images gives me women that looks like they are going to the Renaissance Fair.


https://www.google.com/search?q=gypsy&client=firefox-a&hs=2Fs&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=2SulUoLjO5HZoAS0-IGACQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=759

It is not that easy. The 480 billion Euros currently held by the Swiss bank is the amount accumulated over many decades. It won't be enough for 3 years of handouts. After that what they'll do?

Also, even if the Swiss bank offloads just one-third of its reserves, the Swiss Franc will collapse by 100% or 200%. (Right now 1 CHF = 1.1 USD, it can become 1 CHF = 0.4 or 0.5 USD).

Well, more like this I think:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7204/6999821894_bd385568da.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhebs/6999821894/)
27-_MG_4494 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhebs/6999821894/) by PRESSEFOTOS (http://www.flickr.com/people/rhebs/), on Flickr

http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/my-big-fat-gypsy-wedding/lists/all-about-gypsies.htm

Today i learned :     They dont like the lower half of their bodies.



Back to the free money nonsense.. 

Gypsies are the descendents of refugees that came from India to Southeast Europe, when Islam did there the usual convert-or-die a few centuries ago.

That is false, it is not many decades, the minimum exchange rate of 1.2 dates roughly from september 2011 with the decision to buy unlimited amount of Euros. Reserves of other currencies obviously exist for a long time but absolutely nothing in comparaison with the rate as of autumn 2011. Some months, more than 66 billion dollar worth of Euros were bought, roughly 7 million every minute. This will not last for many decades. Edit: Also, the Euro has barely been around for 1 decade..

Having Euro in reserve is a liability, not a strength and for your information that massive buying of Euros was precisely to stop the appreciation of the Swiss franc vs Other currencies so offloading it would more likely lead to an increase valuation.

Google for "tigani" , that's the Romanian term and set your results for Romanian only.
You'll see a totally different pictures.

And don't expect anything like Jennifer Lopez video:)

Bitcoin has tough me only two things , first one will be to buy and hold till 10 000!.
The second one is to always use escrow because 50% of people are trying to scam and bitcoin , with no charge back option is their perfect heaven.

So no , bitcoin isn't bringing the "best" in human nature to the surface!

^^ haha

Switzerland is one of the most highly taxed countries in the world. They also provide great healthcare & drug rehabilitation programs. However setting a basic income of $2800 monthly will make it near impossible for certain businesses to operate.

That's what I have been saying all along. Some people want to raise the taxes from 40% to 400%. How is that even possible?

Just tax 100% of 2.8k from those who don't need it to live. Simple ;D

Do you think that the HNWIs will be stupid enough to pay 100% tax? They'll just pack up their bags and move to low-tax countries such as Russia and UAE. Just take a look at what happened in France.

And one more thing. The total taxable revenue for the entire Switzerland is around $300 billion, of which some $120 b is already being collected as tax.

In order to give everyone $2.8K per month:

1. A total of $188 b worth additional taxes should be collected. So the net tax becomes $308 billion, which is almost 103% of the total revenue.

2. Every citizen in Switzerland will pay a 103% tax, all the corporations will pay 103% tax... and even the real estate dealings will be taxed by 103%.

Imagine a situation where someone getting $30 or $40 million in annual salary has to pay all of that in tax, and have to live off the $2.8K you are offering.  ;D

+1

It happened in the URSS , and it wasn't the best idea around.
People will stop working if they will get the same amount of money by sleeping all day and counting sheep.

Because some people like the idea of how many votes a "free money" law will bring them.

As a percentage of GDP, Switzerland's taxes are lower than Canada and only a little higher than the USA, which themselves are relatively low, contrary to the "We're being taxed to death!!!" screaming.

I have already covered this. Even if they tax their citizens 100%, the money which is required for the handouts ($ 188 b) can't be raised.

And you should also add into equation that there will be a halving of Switzerland population once this goes through.
There are enough countries out there with nice mountains snow and chocolate without stupid taxes in which you can move.

How do you figure that?  As of 2013, Switzerland's GDP is approximately $646 billion US Dollars.

The $188B for the "handout" (which assumes everyone in the country gets the full amount, not just supplementing up to at least that level) would be 25.6% of that GDP.

That, in addition to their current budget (which would undoubtedly shrink as they could replace many existing assistance programs with the basic income), would put their taxation as a percentage of GDP about on par with Denmark and Sweden.  It would put them in competition for highest taxes in the world, but it's not impossible.

Swiss GDP is heavily inflated by its backing sector as well as foreign firms, which can't be taxed. The total salary and other revenue for all Swiss residents add up to ~ $ 300 billion only. Of this amount, $120 billion is already taxed.


Yes. Typical Atlas Shrugged situation. Hard working people will move out, leaving only the lazy and stupid. The welfare state will last less than 12 months.

Well, let's do some math:
75576 million CHF had been used for social security purposes in 2011.
If we divide this by 8 million people we get 9447 CHF per person per year.
That's 11035$ per year or 919$ per month.
Assuming that even children get the full amount.

Lets triple that amount to 2800:).
And add another 1 million foreigners that will dig their way through the Swiss Alps , get one time machine and in 10 years you're going to ask yourself:
"What the hell happened to Switzerland ! :)"

Some 500 million plus people with Schengen visas and you are saying that just 1 million will climb the Swiss Alps? I think we can be pretty sure of at least 2 million from Romania alone.

The monetary reserves will run out in 10-12 months. After that we can sell the Swiss Alps, peak by peak. Once that finishes, we can auction parts of the Lake Geneva.

Some 500 million plus people with Schengen visas and you are saying that just 1 million will climb the Swiss Alps? I think we can be pretty sure of at least 2 million from Romania alone.

The monetary reserves will run out in 10-12 months. After that we can sell the Swiss Alps, peak by peak. Once that finishes, we can auction parts of the Lake Geneva.

Wrong. The reserves were mostly printed to sell against euros to break (intentionally collapse) the franc when it soared against the euro in 2010-11 as investors went to the last refuge of money printing madness. They pegged the franc to the euro and the only way they could do this was print francs and sell them til the simmentals came home.

This is the funny part. All the sheeple clamor over the mere notion of giving people money, meanwhile the banks give themselves shitloads of money "to stimulate the economy" and the sheeple don't even understand it let alone criticize it...

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2013/01/SNB%20Balance%20Sheet.jpg


That is where the "reserves" come from, out of thin air, to the banks, and you can't have any because it will make you lazy. But it makes the uberwealthy bankers uberproductive, because they are your betters. Lick boots and shut up about the welfare schemes.

It will take just the first million to crumple the Swiss budget.
They will wake up only in a few months.
Also , just one million hitting their towns , imagine the picture with people sleeping in tents in parks.
London has seen this on a much smaller scale , and London is almost the same population as Switzerland.

They couldn't find any solution's at that time.
They basically had to sell CHF in order to give their exports time to breathe.
Because of the danger of having your exports killed by some panicking morons buying CHF they had no solution but to print more at sell them to the monkeys.
Now , the problem is , how you go back on this ?
Any thoughts on this?

First you stop the madness and stop the printing out of unlimited quantities.
Second, as the National Bank belongs in part to the cantons, this huge pile of Euros gets distributed to the Cantons to get rid of all this debt they have.
and/Or, these Euros be given to support the Exporting industries directly. (Rather than through some invisible mechanism with huge losses along the way through central bank dealings)The underlying fact being that the Euro system is not viable in the medium to long term, thus the strategy to deal with a short term high valued Swiss Franc needs to be short term as well, precisely not something that will plague the system long after the Euro is gone. Even with a higher exchange rate and after an adaptive phase with support in the meantime, certain products can no longer be produced and are swapped for more high value added processes, precisely something the Swiss have been known for in the past. In a world of continuous debasement, it would not hurt to be the example of another way.

The level of robbery is so big that pretty much anything else would have been better. Like the WTO 'saving' countries, it is the worst case scenario that is unfolding. So saying they had no solution but to print is extreme shortsightedness. And for all the crappy useless things we get to vote on all year round, we actually get a chance to vote on helping and supporting human beings directly for a measely 2'800 francs per month.

"That is where the "reserves" come from, out of thin air, to the banks, and you can't have any because it will make you lazy. But it makes the uberwealthy bankers uberproductive, because they are your betters. Lick boots and shut up about the welfare schemes."

Sadly no one will support you.  ???

I just watched Atlas Shrugged for the 5th time. This thread and its main contributors are resembling the film and its characters ever more closely.  ;D

Hard working people should be punished for wasting their lives doing pointless meaningless work and wasting their one chance of existence.
People who manage to escape such as system should be rewarded for making the intellectual leap and realizing that all work is pointless.

Work is wasted life. We're not donkeys.

Totally agree with this.
Let's all stop working cause this defies evolution , we're not animals.
I wonder how the world will look after one year with nobody working , this is , if we still have a world and a planet left , and somebody to tell the story.

He's obviously stretching it too far, but let me put this another way: if you were to receive those $2800, would you be happy just sitting in your couch, doing nothing else for the rest of your life?

Hahaha... at least it will be good for our planet.  ;D


I am sure that if everyone if being given $2.8K for free, 99.99% of them will not work even for one second.

I'm better paid than any of my friends , and I don't make more than 2500$.
And no , I wouldn't sit all day on my couch , I wouldn't spend some time in my bed  , in the chair at the desk where I have my computer , and some on the toilet seat.

Strange you all presume the only reason people work is because they have to.

If that were true nobody would be running the world anyway. You make 10 million a year you know what you do? You get up early every morning and go to work.

Seems the confusion is believing people should either work somewhere they hate or starve to death.

Really this whole argument is about dishwashers and status. You want someone to wash your dishes and not get paid shit for it. So you need a starving class. If they all make 2,800 a month they won't wash the dishes for 8 bucks an hour.

I think it is too high but aside from that it's the right way to go. People will still work, they just won't have to, make a better world for sure. And don't tell me about the budget/allocation whatever all the money is fake anyway.

Bitcoin excepted.

You make 10 million a year and you got to work because unless you go , you're gonna end up losing them.
If you would be be making 10 millions but the state is taking 9.8 to give it to the idiot next door , why should you even bother?

HONEY BOO BOO

money isnt shit. sorry about the language. but money isnt shit. money is to land as gas is to a car. people wont live well, people wont be able to live free-er. what can you do with gas and no car.. NOTHING.

think about at. immediately after the population has extra money to spend, they will all approach a higher cost of living. after all why would money be needed if people were living their ideal living situation..? SO, after people start living in their higher cost of living, (RENT, PAYMENTS, CONSUMER GOODS) the demand for all these things will up, and so will the price. ARGUMENT OVER.

every post on this thread discussing:  would you continue working? , 2.8k to stop working...,  is it fair?, how much is too much? ......... ALL OF IT IS BESIDES THE POINT

granting people a monthly income is no different than raising the minimum wage. supply and demand / and inflation will quickly inhibit their purchasing power.

if some sort of safety net is the ideal situation to have establish, then government back resources is that answer. keeping our governments accountable for a basic well being & the wealth of people is where its at.

i prefer the idea about the 1:12 pay ratio an employer can pay themselves.  wages need to be tided in with profits & losses and with relation of percentages. this could still be taken advantage of by a bureaucratic system, with fines and fees, but the issues within the government and within the workplace have always been two separate issues.

Rather than stop working, I'd pack my bags and move to some saner country. Just like what Gerard Depardieu did after Hollande raised taxes to 75%.  ;D

Gerard Depardieu was a great actor , but how he started praising Russian , I will not look at him as a man with the same eyes.
Like Snowden , fighting for the freedom of speech and ending up hugging Putin.

I don't know about Depardieu, but if Snowden's only options are either staying in Russia or being sent to the US to be jailed, held incommunicado, possibly tortured, and having to wait for months before he even has a chance of appearing before a trial like Manning, I'd say Russia looks good by comparison.

Wait till he tries to get out of Russia. This is going to be so funny , when he understands where he is.
They won't let him go that easily. And they will turn to all that your have said above to get all the info from him.

Well yes, Russia isn't exactly a great example of freedom and democracy, to say the least, but what does it say about the West that his best option was to stay there?

If I was in Gerard Depardieu's place, I'd do the same.

I will never ever pay 75% tax. Even if that means losing some of my assets, I'd migrate to some other country having saner tax rules. And why you want to single out Depardieu? Hundreds of French VHNWIs have migrated to other European nations such as Monaco and Germany. No need to single out Depardieu because he chose the East. 

And regarding Snowden, I support whatever he has done. The amount of courage shown by him was immense. And Putin was the only ruler with balls to grant him refugee status.

Nobody likes traitors.And , no matter what he did and what good will come out of it , he is a traitor.
Simply put:

“I love treason but hate a traitor.”
― Julius Caesar

I think the word you're looking for is whistleblower. He exposed wrongdoing, widespread abuses and outright illegal activities. Following the cases of William Binney, Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Chelsea Manning, etc, it's pretty obvious what happens when you go through channels. What more do you want? He sacrificed a lot to reveal what he knew; should he also have given his life?

Snowden is a traitor for you? May be you are from the USA. For those outside the US, he is very much a hero who exposed the dirty tactics played by the US administration on other governments.

Bullshit. Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP in Switzerland is about 30%. With a GDP of $646bn that makes out to $193.8bn.

edit: enlarged quote

No more free money... And I was ready get fed on chocolate and cheese for life. Time to unpack... ;)



With almost all votes counted, it looks like Switzerland--which never joined the European Union (EU)--is set to reintroduce measures that would significantly reduce the free movement of people across its borders with the EU.
While the political and media establishments have argued that Switzerland's freedom of movement agreements with the European Union are crucial to the country's trade and employment figures, the Swiss people appear to have narrowly rejected the premise.
Around 51 percent are said to have voted in favour of measures which would see an effective end to the treaties that Switzerland and the European Union currently abide by, which allows any European Union citizen to move to the non-EU country.
The new rules would impose an absolute limit on the number allowed to settle in Switzerland, a move which some have argued would be detrimental to business interests in the country.
Hans Hess, the head of a Swiss electrical company said, "Innovation is the driver of the Swiss economy. That's why we need highly qualified workers inside Switzerland and from abroad."
But Independent politician Thomas Minder said, "I don't want to live like a sardine in a tin can." Minder supports the initiative, while Georg Lutz, professor of political science at the University of Lausanne Georg, told Reuters: "Many people feel this is challenging their identity, even if there isn't any concrete economic impact on a personal level."
Last year, 80,000 people moved to Switzerland from the European Union. The country has a foreign population of over 23 percent, and its unemployment rate is just 3.2 percent, compared with an EU average of 10.9 percent.
Turnout is reported to be 56.5 percent.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/02/09/Switzerland-votes-to-reintroduce-limits-on-immigration

Still looks like a paradise, I live in EU country with 30% unemployment among young people and minimal net wage ~$350. The situation in Europe is getting worse.

The only solution for the EU, if they keep their policy, will be to pay people not to go insane in the streets.

This upcoming initiative is even better and can't happen soon enough:

http://www.vollgeld-initiative.ch/english.html?&L=1

Interesting turning.

No wonder the gang is trying to stifle the direct democracy mechanism with such prospects. And we get to see the true colours of most if not all political parties in Switzerland.

if that ever goes through, then Switzerland soon won't be a neutral country anymore

Is this the first country doing this?

Well, it depend to what extend.

In France you get this basic income:
$690.55 for a single person.
$1035.83 for a couple.
$1182.31 for a single with a kid.
(+$295.57 per kid)
+ at least $82.86 for your rent. Up to $205.10

Plus a shift to full-reserve banking would make the "basic income" scheme feasible.

"Marxist Dream" Crushed - In Landslide Vote, Swiss Reject Proposal To Hand Out Free Money To Everyone








This weekend the Swiss population was called upon to make a historic decision, when Switzerland became the first country worldwide to put the idea of free money for everyone, technically known as Unconditional Basic Income (of CHF2,500 per month for every adult man and woman, and CHF625 for every child, for doing absolutely nothing) to a vote.

As reported previously, the outcome of this referendum would set a strong precedent and establish a landmark in the evolution of the debate of handing out free money in a centrally-planned world. And as predicted, based on early vote projections it has been a landslide decision against the "free lunch."

According to BBC, some 78% of voters opposed the plan, a GFS projection for Swiss TV suggested. AFP adds that most Swiss vote in advance by post, so a large majority of ballots had already been counted, and gfs.bern put the margin of error at just plus/minus three percent.

Supporters said since work was increasingly automated, fewer jobs were available for workers. Switzerland is the first country to hold such a vote. No figure for the basic income had been set, but those behind the proposal suggested a monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs (£1,755; $2,555) for adults and SFr625 for each child, reflecting the high cost of living in Switzerland. It is not clear how it would affect people on higher salaries.






"We are very happy," Ralph Kundig, one of the lead campaigners, told the ATS news agency. Supporters threw a party in Lausanne to celebrate the 22 percent of votes they had garnered. "One out of five people voted for the unconditional basic income, so that is a success in itself," Sergio Rossi, an economics professor and backer of the initiative, told ATS.

However, there was little support among Swiss politicians for the idea and not a single parliamentary party has come out in favour, but the proposal gathered more than 100,000 signatures and was therefore put to the vote under the Swiss popular initiative system.

Critics of the measure say that disconnecting the link between work done and money earned would be bad for society. But Che Wagner from the campaign group Basic Income Switzerland, says it wouldn't be money for nothing. "In Switzerland over 50% of total work that is done is unpaid. It's care work, it's at home, it's in different communities, so that work would be more valued with a basic income."

Luzi Stamm, who's a member of parliament for the right-wing Swiss People's Party, opposes the idea. "Theoretically, if Switzerland were an island, the answer is yes. But with open borders, it's a total impossibility, especially for Switzerland, with a high living standard," he says.

"If you would offer every individual a Swiss amount of money, you would have billions of people who would try to move into Switzerland."

Because, one you start handing out free lunches, everyone wants a piece of the pie...

Andreas Ladner, a political scientist at Lausanne University, told RTS the Swiss were "realistic" in their assessment of the UBI plan. Accepting that people can "be paid without having to work would have been a very big step" for the industrious Swiss, he said.

Critics have slammed the initiative as "a Marxist dream", warning of sky-high costs and people quitting their jobs in droves, causing economic chaos.

The wording on the initiative was vague, asking for a constitutional change to "guarantee the introduction of an unconditional basic income" but with no mention of amounts.

Switzerland may be the first but it won't be the last. The idea is also under consideration elsewhere. In Finland, the government is considering a trial to give basic income to about 8,000 people from low-income groups. And in the Dutch city of Utrecht is also developing a pilot project which will begin in January 2017.


The Free Lunch – A Fantasy as Old as Methuselah

The promise of a free lunch is by no means a new thing in politics. Getting “something for nothing” is an age-old shiny trinket that has been dangled before the eyes of the public since time immemorial. In fact, it has appeared so excruciatingly often in our political history, for centuries on end, that one would think that it wouldn’t work anymore; not in 2016, surely. And yet it does. UBI is the proof that there are still people who choose to believe that “no strings attached” freebies and gifts are promises one can rely on and build an economy on, especially when they are coming from their government and rulers.

However, there are always some strings attached to such gifts and if history has taught us anything on this matter, it is the distinction between a gift and a bribe. Unsavory political ideologies and catastrophic cultural philosophies often tend to make their debut in front of the public hidden inside a Trojan gift horse. Unrealistic yet enchanting promises have always been a reliable political tool and it has never been a big strategic challenge to corrupt the people by granting the majority something that was stolen from minorities.

The Cultural Argument for Collectivism

Key figures of the pro-UBI camp take pride in claiming that the main motivation behind the campaign is not economic but cultural. They say this proposal aims to make people think about the nature of life and work, it is a way to liberate them from the jobs they don’t like but need, a status which the scheme’s advocates, quite unhistorically, equate to the indignity of slavery. On top of this, they claim, UBI will help society survive the imminent unemployment apocalypse: they believe that with the help of automation and artificial intelligence 50% of all the existing jobs will be taken over within the coming decade by computers and machines.

Such an argument might sound superficially rational, but it goes deeper than that: It presupposes that we as human beings see ourselves downgraded and equated to a machine, like just another cog that can be replaced at any time, in a system where man is literally defined as a human resource.

The truth is that it is indeed a cultural debate, far more than it is an economic one. The only conceivable aim of such a factually unhinged and unfounded proposal can be to gauge the mind-set of the Swiss people in this moment in time. The outcome of this referendum can provide a valuable insight into the Swiss mentality, and whether the Swiss  actually prefer collectivism over individualism. Such a signal could serve as cue for a further escalation of government empowerment: After all, the collapsing centralized system is bound to show symptoms of desperation by “doubling down” and accelerating and maximizing its centralization efforts. Thus focusing on the symptoms and secondary effects is futile; a real difference can only be made by addressing the root cause, the system itself.

Despite the economic non-sequiturs and the plain Utopianism that lie at the core of the idea of a Universal Basic Income, the concept seems to be gaining popularity worldwide. Canada is set to conduct an experiment with this idea later this year. The city of Utrecht in the Netherlands is launching a pilot program, Finland is planning a two-year trial and a British proposal is gathering interest, while the nonprofit group Give Directly will start providing a guaranteed income to 6,000 Kenyans this month in a decade-long scheduled program and track the results. The idea seems to be gaining traction due to the Western Left’s efforts, however the polls in Switzerland are painting a dramatically different picture: the UBI initiative is projected to suffer a crushing defeat.

A Bastion of Liberty

The Swiss have been voting counter-intuitively for years: When they held a referendum for or against six weeks of vacation, or when they were called upon to vote for an initiative advocating fewer working hours, or even when they made their choice on the issue of the minimum wage, they always delivered outcomes that seemed surprising to the rest of the West, especially the rest of Europe. Up to now, the Swiss have consistently rejected interference by the state when it came to such topics and have refused to grant more powers to their government. Even in recent years, when the trend in favor of aggressive state expansionism seems to be stronger than ever, Switzerland appears to still hold the line as the last bastion of liberty that remains standing.

So what is so different about the Swiss then? Switzerland is indeed very different, because it became a nation by its peoples’ own will, based on limited government, strong private property rights and a direct democracy founded on the principles of subsidiarity. This has always required open dialogue and being exposed to different ideas and values: Vigorous debate itself leads to an enlightened society. Thus, the essential difference lies in the nation’s culture, mentality and philosophy.

The Swiss have grown up in an environment in which the people were always able to decide for themselves, but they also have a long tradition of doubt and of dissent. Every critical issue is discussed and decided by the people, the actions of government are subject to the judgment of and limited by the citizenry. All viewpoints are heard, even anti-establishment voices have their say, and critical thinking provides the basis for society’s future. However, this is only possible when people rely on their own mind to think about the issues individually and independently.

Switzerland is therefore quite a hostile terrain for those who wish to promote “free lunches” and “no strings attached” gifts. A long history of independent thinking, of consequential analysis and of government limitation, makes it very easy for the Swiss to see past the populism-fueled empty promises and the associated publicity stunts. The upcoming rejection of the UBI proposal on June the 5th will and should serve as a reminder that the Swiss still remain the exception to the rule.


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-05/landslide-vote-swiss-reject-proposal-hand-out-free-money-everyone?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29

Bad mistake by Switzerland it can be done..One day it will have to happen robots will take away many many jobs..Uber one day they wont need drivers no more self driving cars vans trucks taxis ..
Banks will get rid of loads of staff..

If you own a business and could get a robot to do the job 10 times faster and 10 times cheaper you would for profits..MONEY MONEY MONEY MAKES PEOPLE FUNNY IN A RICH MAN'S WORLD..

The more people out of a job the more crime FACT..
And it will be nasty crimes because things have got harder or worthless to rob steal..
Let me tell you what i mean..
Car thieves years ago..
You could break into a car steal it with another key or a screw driver jemmy bar scaffolding bar and drive the car or steal it's radio and sell it..Now when you done this crime you done it outside no one would get hurt except for the fact you been robbed..
Now because of new cars the radio no good because no one will buy it because every car got one in
as standard..Plus now you need the keys to drive the car away it's gone harder to rob a car without the keys..
So now people break into your home to just get your car keys making the crime go up many many many fold compared to when i was a kid just to rob a car..

You could sell a car radio for 35 pounds when i was a child.
You run up smashed the window with screw driver lean in car and pull radio out with screw driver..
All done in 10 seconds and your gone..Now kids need to break into your house rob straight off the person..So in this day and age to get money the kids need to do much more serious crime than kids of the past to make money..
Now what will happen when robots do most human jobs..CRIME WILL GO UP..NASTY CRIME..

Now lets break down how much a person can cost the tax payer because of his crime waves...

people who go to jail it cost 40k pounds a year to keep a person in prison..
court cost can go into hundreds of thousands for all these trials just for 1 person..
the amount to insurance companies because they have to pay out claims because house been broken in car robbed shop robbed bank robbed bike robbed claims because of damage..

1 thief can cost the tax payer at least 500k to the tax payer by the crime he does plus the tax payer got to support his family housing cost school medical bills and so on..

Most people get a roof over there heads and 50 pounds to live on if your claiming welfare..
How easy is it to live on 50 pounds a week? VERY VERY VERY HARD..So then they go and rob
Also it can make people depressed and they end up on drugs and drink ..then the bad crime comes then for drugs..

So if you look at life people who are poor can cost a lot more than 40k free a year...A hell of a lot more..
Now if people have a steady income knowing they get paid every week month so on they are more likely to do well in life..FACT..No worries in life then..Kids do well life becomes great..

What could happen is everyone gets it when you reach 21 years no matter if your in a job or not
And they will only pay if you have a baby in the 2 year breeding cycle

Just say it's 2018 when they start this system..Then when its 2020 they stop paying people who where born in 2021 and 2022..You can still have a child but you got to pay for it because you never had your child in the breeding cycle..Just keeps the population down from exploding..
Because most people would have there baby in the breeding cycle instead of every year so they qualify for the money..

even if your rich you still get the free money..everyone gets it..So the poor can live..

Also remember it's not the money that does the work it's human hands  ;D
soon to be robot hands..

Also you could do away with a lot of public services because no need for them every gets 40k

Also you and your partner don't get money for your children you paqy out your 40k each for your children ..they only get the money when they where born in the breeding cycle and must be 21

 
Basic income is not necessary yet but it will in the future to preserve social-peace when most humans will be obsolete.

So when this goes through and millions quit their jobs to live off this foolishness, where is the money supposed to come from??

Comes from the investments of many people who are into Swiss banking secrecy.

Also comes from the reason why Switzerland is the neutral nation of the world. The world (at least in the past) needed a worldwide postal-like system. This is what Switzerland is. That's why so many of the international agreements of the past were done in Geneva Switzerland.

8)

You've obviously not been reading the news - the Swiss REJECTED this initiative by 76.79% to 23.07%

Good for them.

More money gets wasted on war ..Where does all the money come from to build battle ships and what ever other weapon you could think of?...
And these companies are private. I take your tax money and buy my friends weapons he gives me a cut..I spend 1 billion on weapons that only cost 100 million the 900 million we will pay our selves the money and give the company that made them there 100 million plus a 100 million more as a bonus
because they all sold..
Now we can split the 800 million between all our top heads but i want 300 million because i am the boss and you can split the rest between the 30 managers..

1 billion got split between 31 people it was tax payers money
Money on weapons how does it help the poor or the roads or hospitals schools

But just think of this for every 1 billion spent on wasted government projects it can give
22000 people 40k for free so how many billion gets wasted on government projects..

Medicine Same drugs gone up as much as 1 thousand fold..
And why because i am in power and my friend owns a drug company and i get a cut on the profits he makes because i put the price up on these drugs.. Because we have to pay more because they need to do more research to find new drugs..lie lie lie...

All these billions wasted and not collected could go into trillions..

So just think for every billion wasted on government policies 22 THOUSAND PEOPLE :o could get 40k for free..SO COULD IT BE DONE?
One day it's got to happen robots will be used more than humans for work no doubt about it..
I thinks 10 years we will see many many with no jobs because of robots..

Plus why do politicians go to the bilderberg group,,TO MAKE MONEY ..I MAKE IT FOR MY COUNTRY..
BUT I MOSTLY MAKE IT FOR MYSELF...

Also a woman can have 10 kids and get 40k of the government for free right now ..
The more kids you have the more you get in the UK

So, people in Switzerland rejected this proposal on national referendum.
I'm not surprise with such outcome.
They are hard working people and also very realistic.
They understand very well that ''there is no such thing as free lunch'' and that this money should come from somewhere, most likely from increased taxes.
People who suggested such idea didn't really explain from where they will collect money for ''basic income''.
We should inspire people to work and help them with jobs, not help them to stay at home and do nothing.

I absolutely agree with this. Doing nothing is not healthy for the person who is doing nothing in the first place. There would be a lot of suicides in a country with such monthly ‘basic income’. I'm glad the Swiss people rejected the stupid idea.

looks like common sense has prevailed

I need to promote this to every homeless person in LA to go to switzerland.

So we can actually have a decent state to pay less taxes.

But overall though, thats pretty absurd - if that was here in the US I`d fucken cry so hard.

Still, I am alarmed by the fact that more than 23% of the voters (568,905 out of 2,465,868) were in favor of the proposal. Also, the Swiss voters are not using their brains recently. A proposal to expel foreign criminals was rejected by an 18% margin recently. And the voters have approved a proposal to speed up the asylum applications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_referendums,_2016

Wow!! a basic income for life! Then I wouldn't have to work anymore. That wouldn't work, after all, who would pay the politicians? Who do they think they are? USA?

Don't worry. This is what will happen when robots take over all the jobs.

8)

We won't allow them to! Remember The Matrix, first they take all the jobs, next they take all the power. If we want to live like free humans we should do most of the jobs by ourselves.

Even when there are massive productivity gains to be had from automation? The same benefits of the first Industrial Revolution come with the fourth! But still I consider the requisite taxation to be theft

the elderly needs more than anyone else, maybe its thier way saying thanks to the elderly for if it weren't for them they wouldn't be there too.
elderly needs medicine from time to time. its the least that they can do. the y0oung ones will benefit later when they grow old.

Is it about age? If anything it's discriminatory towards the elderly because funds that might otherwise be put towards those aforementioned services are being directed to everyone equally