Spanish Government Aims to Roll Out Basic Income ‘Soon’ | Hacker News Reader

Spanish Government Aims to Roll Out Basic Income ‘Soon’

bloomberg.com

31 pointsperfunctory16 comments

Flagged, as the title is super misleading, this isn't about basic income, it is about rolling out unemployment insurance + economic relief to people. Nothing long term here, just another gov working to save the economy and people.

From the article

"But the government’s broader ambition is that basic income becomes an instrument “that stays forever, that becomes a structural instrument, a permanent instrument,” she said."

I am in Spain and Bloomberg is just translating the comments of a far left party that has no ability to do that. Bad reporting.

https://elpais.com/economia/2020-04-06/la-renta-basica-deja-...

Proposals from Airef, and unions to my understanding.

exactly, one time Keynesian cash transfers is way different than a discussion about ubi.

Yep. I had a better opinion on Bloomberg news before.

You really shouldn't. Bloomberg gives bonuses to reporters for stories that move markets. They don't make money by providing truthful news.

That is interesting to me to hear. Bloomberg News has the lovely characteristic that a lot of people believe them and they're also generally wrong so you can usually trade on that info. It's the fascinating power of building an enduring brand through one field (the terminals and Bloomberg himself) and parlaying it into another.

For instance, the day after the SuperMicro story popped up and I saw that it was Bloomberg that broke the story, I went long SMCI. A month later, the sweet smell of victory and +100% gains sat in my eTrade account. Now there's edge, and I didn't even need 5 ms to the exchange to get it.

A bit of background here since I keep seeing the craziness that is going on in the US. While jobs in Spain are not great, the social safety net is quite good in general. With the coronavirus, most jobs were frozen into place with a government unemployment plan (ERTE).

This administrative tool existed before where the company could put your job on pause for a specified amount of time. This way you get full unemployment benefits from the government, and after said period finishes you keep your job as it was before. In practice it is commonly used to try different jobs meanwhile or to take some time off after working for a while in a company.

So in the current covid-19 situation, the government has mandated that most (all?) of the people who cannot work during this time to be on this program. They have also frozen mortgages and rent payments. This is amazing for the society at large, since it means most people will be able to not go bankrupt during this time. The two big worries right now are what will happen to the companies (and those frozen jobs) and where will the govt get the money if the situation gets too long.

So a basic income program would not be such a large change here as it would be e.g. in the US. It's still massive of course, because it'd apply to students and everyone who didn't have a job before, but I think it's important to clarify the background.

EDIT: I haven't read anything about a basic income in the Spanish news yet so I cannot say about the accuracy of these news.

Strange that this is not mentioned at all in the Spanish press. Maybe the original story has been mistranslated or blown out of proportion.

This was exactly my reaction when I read it on Reddit - it’s on the frontpage as a I type. Haven’t read any of this in the Spanish news...

Finally. Who would have guessed that what was needed to remove the various ideological and structural obstacles that so far prevented this idea from breaking through, was a global pandemic. Likely that many more countries will at least evaluate the introduction of a basic income.

This isn't that debate IMO, the media is just taking the phrase "basic income" and sticking it on top of unemployment insurance and Keynesian economic ideas around increasing consumption in times of an economic crisis.

I don't think countries care about basic income nor should they in a time like this. Right now it is about keeping people employed and with enough money to cover rent, food, etc.

You find appealing to use a global pandemic, or any other disaster for that matter, to remove "ideological and structural obstacles" to try new ideas without debate?

I find it totalitarian, and a great way to incentive politicians to declare or even cause "problems" to remove ideological obstacles that block their ideas. Just a four days ago the president of Hungary did exactly this to end legal recognition of trans people.

Different things, strange comparison. Taking rights away from a specific group vs providing all people with something. The immediate motivation for Spain’s UBI appears to be easing people’s financial suffering. And as governments are spending gigantic sums to bail out industries, what harm can there be in providing people with direct funds?! If people don’t want it in the long term, they certainly will be able to use democratic means to get rid of it again. There really isn’t anything totalitarian here.

It's a dangerous slippery slope. And you are not providing all people. You are taking from some to give to some others, there's not such thing as a free lunch. And the most probable course is that you get indebted today to pay in the future (i.e. our descendants are going to pay our current UBI), and not that the rich are going to give to the poor.

One thing is to say that in this dire situation you opt to give an UBI to everyone, and as soon as the emergency is revoked so is the UBI and all extreme measures. Another thing is to pass the UBI and "if in the long term the people using democratic means" can get rid of it. Just bind the UBI to the Alarm state, so that when the last ends, the former is automatically scrapped (and if anything, approved through democratic means and in a more sane environment).

I'm tired of things that are passed through the backdoor in difficult times, and then we can never ever again get rid of it. In Spain, for example, the "Ley Mordaza" is here to stay or even get worse. By "democratic means" the people voted PSOE+Podemos that promised to get rid of it, and here we are debating to make it even worse... ⸮for a good reason, of course⸮

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