Posted on 10/05/2013 8:31:14 PM PDT by grundle
More than 100,000 residents in Switzerland have signed a petition demanding that the government ensure a minimum monthly income of nearly $2,800 (2,500 Swiss francs) for all adults in the country.
The 120,000 signatures are enough to formally call a vote in the government over whether or not to approve the “CHF 2,500 monthly for everyone" (Grundeinkommen)” funding proposal.
Funding for the proposed measure would come out of the Swiss social insurance system, which already guarantees universal health care coverage for its citizens, along with other benefits designed to uphold the country’s social safety net.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I am pretty sure those are Surfers Paradise meter maids in Queensland, Australia - but thanks for the pics anyway :)
By by Switzerland.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
The undoing of democracies is that they can vote themselves money from the central treasury, thus bankrupting the said democracy.
Certainly most will. It would be stupid not to. I wonder how their immigration laws are?
A little perspective from someone who lives and works in Switzerland:
The average wage in Switzerland is ~6K CHF. As a matter of fact, my daughter who just became an RN earns 6K starting.
So, no one is going to quit their job to get a free 2,5k!
I don’t know where the author gets the idea that the Social Insurances pay for “universal health care” - they don’t! That is paid for individually, but there is a universal requirement. My plan (Family of four, high deductables / franchises) runs at well over 800/month).
From your monthly check -
5% is withheld for “Social Security”
1% for Unemployment and
1% for non work related accidents
another 7% is normally withheld for your pension (varies)
taxes are NOT withheld, but you are “encouraged” to pay into an account monthly to cover the taxes due ~10%
All told, you lose at least 30% (including Health Insurance).
Prices (in Francs):
Gas = 6.75/gallon
Childrens Levis = 130 (non brand can be cheap ~50)
Beef Cubes for stew 9.30/lb (at a discount grocery)
These types of initiatives are raised almost every year by the “young socialists” who only need to get 100k people to sign a petition to get it on the ballot. Most never make it into law. Currently they are pushing a 1:12 plan which would limit the pay of the highest paid person in the company to 12x what the least paid person receives. It appears doomed. Apparently enough people have realized that the CEO’s would simply restructure the companies and / or outsource the “cheap” jobs ....
Thanks - danke - for the on the spot reporting. I lived there for a decade as well, and worked in human resources. So I know the system as it was 15 years ago pretty well. I do think we could have benefitted from going more Swiss re health insurance instead of this crap.
The three levels of insurance - private, semiprivate, and ward, mean that you get what you pay for, and if you can’t afford much, your care is decidedly less good. That is how everything should be in life. You pay $500, your TV is not as nice as when young $5000. ObamaCare should offend everyone’s sense of fairness and decency.
Because anything over $240,000,000 per month is just plain silly.
There's your key factor.
How is this any differnt here, it’s just under multiple programs we have welfare, food stamps, housing, obamacare, social security and disability
In the short run, this may help some in poverty, but in the long run it will destroy the Swiss virtues of hard work & personal responsibility.
As a college student, I spent a summer working in a bakery in Switzerland. At lunch one day, an old worker & I talked. He said to me, “the difference between the Swiss & the Americans is that the Swiss live to work, while the Americans work to live”.
Right or wrong, the Swiss are coming around to our way of thinking. IMO, it’s a big mistake.
Yes. The behavior is essentially theft and it represents a moral breakdown in society due to a moral breakdown of the majority of individuals in a society. Once stealing a citizens money from the treasury begins national destruction is inevitable. At least that is the lesson of history. It seems that only in the furnace of misery can the steel of individual morality be forged.
If switzerland has strict controls over immigration and ends all other welfare I could believe this could work.
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