Finland considers paying every citizen €800 every month
Adam Bolt

HELSINKI: -- Authorities in Finland are considering giving every citizen a tax-free payout of €800 ($1185) each month.

Under proposals being draw up by the Finnish Social Insurance Institution (Kela), this national basic income would replace all other benefit payments, and would be paid to all adults regardless of whether or not they receive any other income.

Unemployment in Finland is currently at record levels, and the basic income is intended to encourage more people back to work. At present, many unemployed people would be worse off if they took on low-paid temporary jobs due to loss of welfare payments.

More than 10 per cent of Finland's workforce is currently unemployed, rising to 22.7 per cent among younger workers.

Full story: http://www.smh.com.au/world/finland-considers-paying-every-citizen-800-every-month-20151207-glhff9


-- Sydney Morning Herald 2015-12-07

And every muslim "refugee" in Sweden just made a right hand turn towards Finland.

That's pretty decent of them!!

Won't the government go broke?

This is actually a good idea in theory. The discussion in Europe that generous welfare benefits discourage claimants from accepting or even looking for work is valid. Even more so, with lower skilled unemployed.

This idea largely solves that problem in one fell swoop. The problem in practice would be to prevent fraud.

I have been supporting this base salary for quite a long time. The biggest benefit of it is that it would give unemployed and small business owners the same social security.

Currently, if you are unemployed, you'll get ok benefits. But if you start to work for an startup, you'll loose all the benefits.

This makes is pretty difficult to create startups together with unemployed people.

And every muslim "refugee" in Sweden just made a right hand turn towards Finland.

The benefits for the refugees are going to be reduced.

Furthermore, there was a resent calculation, shared by the head of social security of Finland, which displayed the country's problem.

One would have to earn at least 2500 euros/month, to break even with the social security benefits.

Overall there are too many different types of benefits. This system would simplify it and let people to do odd works, without fear of loosing all the benefits. Living in Finland is expensive.

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

A novel, abet seemingly socialist idea.

I'm not convinced of the economic rationality of it though.

BTW, Finnish is one hell of a difficult language to learn.

From memory, Slavic based, while the rest of the Scandinavian countries are Nordic based.

Nice country, great people and they love their gin!

Some countries in this world will give you EU 800 a month and some (all ) countries will

take from you EU 800 a month...

From another report:

Previous experiments with a universal basic income have been positive, too.

In Kenya, poor families in rural areas were given £340 with no conditions attached between 2011 and 2013.

A year later, their incomes were 33 per cent higher than a control group who didn’t receive the money, their assets were 58 per cent more valuable, their hunger was reduced, and their overall psychological wellbeing had increased.

And the other benefit (excuse the pun) is that you don't need tons of people working to handle all the red tape.

They won't run out of money - they are in the EU. You just copy the model of the Greeks.....get bailed out and get bailed out again and again again again...simple.

The same system has worked for just about every African country whether it has mega mineral or oil riches...more and more foreign aid... Ethiopia...massive famine again...Dig deep and give them more and more money.....but its national Airline has just about the biggest and newest fleet of aircraft and Addis Ababa is a major hub for flights..go figure that one.

I worked in Angola from 2000 to 2003 and every time I landed at Luanda airport there were more "executive jets" than you could shake a stick at with World Food Aid or UNESCO or such group emblazoned along the the body of the plane.... The country is swimming in oil and gas and diamonds...and land mines.... India another mega sponging nation - a billion plus people. Yet China...how much foreign aid do they get ? Zilch I guess ?

Finland could be just about to shoot itself in the foot...great idea on paper but in the long term I doubt it will work.....A better idea would be to give 800 Euro to the refugees to stay away / go home, creating more jobs for the locals. Paying off the refugees / people trafficers almost worked for the Aussies....

They won't run out of money - they are in the EU. You just copy the model of the Greeks.....get bailed out and get bailed out again and again again again...simple.

The same system has worked for just about every African country whether it has mega mineral or oil riches...more and more foreign aid... Ethiopia...massive famine again...Dig deep and give them more and more money.....but its national Airline has just about the biggest and newest fleet of aircraft and Addis Ababa is a major hub for flights..go figure that one.

I worked in Angola from 2000 to 2003 and every time I landed at Luanda airport there were more "executive jets" than you could shake a stick at with World Food Aid or UNESCO or such group emblazoned along the the body of the plane.... The country is swimming in oil and gas and diamonds...and land mines.... India another mega sponging nation - a billion plus people. Yet China...how much foreign aid do they get ? Zilch I guess ?

Finland could be just about to shoot itself in the foot...great idea on paper but in the long term I doubt it will work.....A better idea would be to give 800 Euro to the refugees to stay away / go home, creating more jobs for the locals. Paying off the refugees / people trafficers almost worked for the Aussies....

China still receives foreign aid from the UK. Go figure...

As I see it... Finland is a member of the EU and under free movement rules any EU Citizen moving to Finland would be entailed to the same payout...

Maybe time to address the issue of benefits, make the country where they came from (if in the EU) responsible for paying benefits for the fist few years.

What is proposed does actually make a lot of seance but it would mean a hight rate of tax and the problems of ensuring everyone pays their taxes.

And every muslim "refugee" in Sweden just made a right hand turn towards Finland.

Well my GF her mother and brother and me shall also sneak in so we can get our free money

A novel, abet seemingly socialist idea.

I'm not convinced of the economic rationality of it though.

BTW, Finnish is one hell of a difficult language to learn.

From memory, Slavic based, while the rest of the Scandinavian countries are Nordic based.

Nice country, great people and they love their gin!

It is actually not a socialist idea.

By giving it to everybody, not means testing it, the results are to

1. Remove barriers for unemployed to seek work.

2. Reduce administrative costs in a cluttered and complex welfare system.

3. Increase the cost of living for all.

4. Make society more meritocratic.

5. Make the unemployed effectively poorer.

The results are similar to increasing regressive taxation. Regressive taxation is the antithesis of socialism.

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

And the problem with Capitalism is spending other peoples money unwisely!

Looking forward to receive a 30.000 baht check every month.

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

In a socialist system there is no such thing as "other peoples money".

What you're quoting is a criticism of the attempt to operate socialist policies in a capitalist society.

The particular society that was being criticised was the UK under the Labour party.

It was being criticised by the person who did more than anyone, since Charles the First, to divide and disunite the country.

In doing so they failed in the the first duty of a national leader, which is to unite the nation.

But many people defend that person, just as many defend the actions of Prayuth.

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

In a socialist system there is no such thing as "other peoples money".

What you're quoting is a criticism of the attempt to operate socialist policies in a capitalist society.

The particular society that was being criticised was the UK under the Labour party.

It was being criticised by the person who did more than anyone, since Charles the First, to divide and disunite the country.

In doing so they failed in the the first duty of a national leader, which is to unite the nation.

But many people defend that person, just as many defend the actions of Prayuth.

Anyone who knew the truth would never defend her!

...some of these generalizations and oversimplifications....geesh...

Finland (with a population of 5.44 million) has long been noted as one of the world’s most generous welfare states. It is also considered one of the happiest (top 10 according to Bloomberg Business are: Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia).

In monitory terms, it would cost around €46.7 Billion/year to give each adult (18 years and older) their tax-free payout of €800 each month. The country has a GDP (2014) of €166.03 Billion derived mainly from manufacturing [specifically, electronics (21.6 percent), machinery, vehicles and other engineered metal products (21.1 percent), forest industry (13.1 percent), and chemicals (10.9 percent)].

A poll commissioned by the agency planning the proposal showed 69% support for the basic income plan. But, the proposal will not be considered until November 2016!

It seems the Swiss are also considering a national basic income, as is the Dutch city of Utrecht.

An interesting article on the rationale for this is at http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-mincome-experiment-dauphin

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

Give credit where credit is due please, this was a quote from Maggie Thathcher

https://www.google.co.th/search?q=maggie+thatcher+the+problem+with+socialism+quote&rlz=1C1CHWA_enTH608TH608&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=675&tbm=isch&imgil=eO6VTVfflLYvyM%253A%253BtAd_RTjPNhrElM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fquotesgram.com%25252Fsocialism-margaret-thatcher-famous-quotes%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=eO6VTVfflLYvyM%253A%252CtAd_RTjPNhrElM%252C_&dpr=1&usg=__csfISGCTtTiS2bL7XjevmGm5mGs%3D&ved=0ahUKEwi49u-cycnJAhXknqYKHRUECaoQyjcIMQ&ei=o2NlVviYGOS9mgWViKTQCg#imgrc=eO6VTVfflLYvyM%3A&usg=__csfISGCTtTiS2bL7XjevmGm5mGs%3D

Don't know about politics. But unemployed gets better benefits than employed in Finland? Are the government encouraging their citizens to do nothing?

Watching Fox News too much, are you?

In many EU countries, a massive army of bureacrats is employed to process the countless different benefits, (benefits ranging from unemployment and disability to social security/pensions). Giving everybody a basic income would make many of these bureaucrats redundant. Many of them would join the ranks of the unemployed and see a huge cut in their income. That's probably what has been preventing implementation of a basic income.

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

In a socialist system there is no such thing as "other peoples money".

What you're quoting is a criticism of the attempt to operate socialist policies in a capitalist society.

The particular society that was being criticised was the UK under the Labour party.

It was being criticised by the person who did more than anyone, since Charles the First, to divide and disunite the country.

In doing so they failed in the the first duty of a national leader, which is to unite the nation.

But many people defend that person, just as many defend the actions of Prayuth.

He can't, surely, be talking about Clem Attlee?

Bugger off Thailand,, i'm off to Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia

i hope i get there before all the refugees learn to read the Sydney Morning Herald ?

Don't know about politics. But unemployed gets better benefits than employed in Finland? Are the government encouraging their citizens to do nothing?

Could be, but where does the handout cash come from...?

Finland currently spend 30% of their GDP on welfare. That is 30% of 250B Euros, about 75B Euros per year.

800 Euros times 12 months is 9600, times the population of Finland 5.4 Million equals 52B Euros per year.

The sums work out.

And every muslim "refugee" in Sweden just made a right hand turn towards Finland.

This is the pinnacle of progressiveness- equality in outcomes.

And every muslim "refugee" in Sweden just made a right hand turn towards Finland.

You got that right. and some of them can't wait to commence Sharia patrols against local women.