<story><title>Switzerland’s Proposal to Pay People</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/switzerlands-proposal-to-pay-people-for-being-alive.html?_r=0&amp;pagewanted=all</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lmg643</author><text>i also agree the idea sounds pretty interesting.&lt;p&gt;i think the main problem is how to address cases where people mis-spend their basic income. someone is unemployed, and they blow the basic income on booze, etc. issue is how do we protect people from themselves. we can say damn the consequences and encourage prudence but i believe this is why most aid qualifications exist.&lt;p&gt;i know HN readers will be less likely to do have this problem (other than spending on a startup :) ) but HN readers are not a representative cross section of people.</text></item><item><author>swombat</author><text>As a Swiss citizen currently living in the UK, who is earning a fair amount of money and planning to probably go back to live in Switzerland, I am going to vote &lt;i&gt;for&lt;/i&gt; this proposal (unless the referendum documentation makes it look absolutely stupid, e.g. it has some really bad implementation idea).&lt;p&gt;I hate taxes as much as the next guy, but reducing risk of destitution for everyone in the country down to zero is one cause for which I&amp;#x27;ll be happy to pay taxes.&lt;p&gt;Why do I want more money? To buy toys, to buy time, and to buy security. The basic income resolves the last two items, and puts the first one well within reach for most reasonable toys.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>omegaworks</author><text>Minimum cash transfers are one of the most effective methods of sustainably increasing the wealth of a population. There&amp;#x27;s a pretty successful charity that does this kind of work in Africa:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/cash-transfers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.givewell.org&amp;#x2F;international&amp;#x2F;technical&amp;#x2F;programs&amp;#x2F;cas...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a guy at Columbia University that&amp;#x27;s running studies about giving drug addicts guaranteed cash, and it&amp;#x27;s actually allowing them to more easily break their addictions:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/science/the-rational-choices-of-crack-addicts.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;science&amp;#x2F;the-rational-choic...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;My only worry about this program is if it will indirectly inflate the cost of everything.</text></comment>
<story><title>Switzerland’s Proposal to Pay People</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/switzerlands-proposal-to-pay-people-for-being-alive.html?_r=0&amp;pagewanted=all</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lmg643</author><text>i also agree the idea sounds pretty interesting.&lt;p&gt;i think the main problem is how to address cases where people mis-spend their basic income. someone is unemployed, and they blow the basic income on booze, etc. issue is how do we protect people from themselves. we can say damn the consequences and encourage prudence but i believe this is why most aid qualifications exist.&lt;p&gt;i know HN readers will be less likely to do have this problem (other than spending on a startup :) ) but HN readers are not a representative cross section of people.</text></item><item><author>swombat</author><text>As a Swiss citizen currently living in the UK, who is earning a fair amount of money and planning to probably go back to live in Switzerland, I am going to vote &lt;i&gt;for&lt;/i&gt; this proposal (unless the referendum documentation makes it look absolutely stupid, e.g. it has some really bad implementation idea).&lt;p&gt;I hate taxes as much as the next guy, but reducing risk of destitution for everyone in the country down to zero is one cause for which I&amp;#x27;ll be happy to pay taxes.&lt;p&gt;Why do I want more money? To buy toys, to buy time, and to buy security. The basic income resolves the last two items, and puts the first one well within reach for most reasonable toys.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mistercow</author><text>If people waste their basic income on alcohol, well, so what? I don&amp;#x27;t know the tax situation in Switzerland, but in the US, that means a big chunk of that money is immediately reclaimed as taxes. The rest goes back into the economy, and the person is not really in any worse of a situation than they would have been without basic income.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s one situation where basic income doesn&amp;#x27;t really help, but it doesn&amp;#x27;t really hurt either.</text></comment>