Swiss to vote on unconditional minimum wage

[Cebu_4_2]

Share the wealth: Swiss to vote on unconditional minimum wage
Published time: December 18, 2013 11:06 Get short URL (http://rt.com/business/swiss-vote-universal-wage-420/)

http://cdn.rt.com/files/news/21/8c/c0/00/swiss-vote-on-universal-wage.si.jpg Committee members use brooms to spread out five cent coins over the Federal Square during an event organised by the Committee for the initiative "CHF 2,500 monthly for everyone" (Grundeinkommen) in Bern (Reuters / Denis Balibouse)

Per capita Switzerland is one of the richest countries in the world, and voted ‘no’ to a maximum wage for execs in November, but early next year will vote on a $2,800 basic income for every adult, employed or unemployed.
Socialists, Marxists, and Communists alike have proposed some form of ‘universal wages’, but Switzerland will become the richest country to take the idea to a vote.

A petition led by the youth section of the Social Democrats has gained more than 120,000 signatures in support of a minimum disposal household income of $2,800 (2500 Swiss francs) per month for every legal adult resident.
Since the salary would be paid by the state, conservatives worry it will deplete resources that provide welfare payments and pensions.

On November 24, 65 percent of Swiss voters rejected (http://rt.com/business/switzerland-ceo-salary-referendum-242/) the so-called 1:12 referendum, which sought to limit the wage of top executives so they don’t earn more in a month than lower paid employees do in a year.
Officials feared, if approved, the pay ceiling would have forced multinational companies to relocate outside the country, weakening the national competitiveness in attracting top companies and bosses.

http://rt.com/files/news/21/8c/c0/00/214.jpgAFP Photo / Fabrice Coffrini

Highest monthly wage

Switzerland already has the highest average monthly wage in Europe, which was $7,765.5 in 2011, according to UN data.
Presently, there is no minimum wage in Switzerland; this will also go to a referendum in the New Year.

In 2010, the 10 percent of the workforce with the lowest salaries earned a monthly salary of roughly $4,400 (4,000 Swiss francs) according to the Swiss Trade Unions Association. The inequality pay ratio in Switzerland is 1:194.

The fair pay sentiment that has swept through Europe has gained traction in Switzerland, where this year they have already held two referendums on limiting executive pay and ‘golden parachutes’.

Many blame bankers for the financial crisis, for building up speculative investment bubbles and not contributing to the real economy. Anger surged when some of the biggest banks, like UBS, continued to pay bosses big bonuses while simultaneously reporting massive losses.

Switzerland is home to at least five of Europe’s top 20 paid executives, Bloomberg News reports.
Under Swiss direct democracy, citizens can bring about popular proposals as long as they gather the needed 100,000 signatures to initiate a public vote.

[mick silver]

not to bad , dam good if you ask me . i dont know what the cost of living is there ..In 2010, the 10 percent of the workforce with the lowest salaries earned a monthly salary of roughly $4,400

[Hatha Sunahara]

The coins on the street and on the floor f the vault are fiat money, and have the same intrinsic value as paper--zero. Fiat money is not a storehouse of value. In fact, it is the opposite. If you want to lose value, you can save fiat money in a bank account. All it is good for is as a medium of exchange.

As a medium of exchange its value can only be stable if there is enough of it to allow people to exchange all their goods and services. The way we assure that now is that if we need to buy something, we borrow money to buy it. You can achieve the same result with a minimum income if the government creates the money, and cut costs by issuing the money at no interest. It would be good for the economy. Here is a short story on 'scrip money':

http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html


A ‘fairy’ tale

Let us look at another historical instance of clearing that was vitally important in the Middle Ages: the institution of city fairs. The most notable ones were the annual fairs of Lyon in France, and Seville in Spain. They lasted up to a month and attracted fair-goers from places as far as 500 miles away. People brought their merchandise to sell, and a shopping list of merchandise to buy. One thing they did not bring was gold coins. They hoped to pay for their purchases with the proceeds of their sales. This presented the problem that one had to sell before one could buy, but the amount of gold coins available at the fair was far smaller than the amount of merchandise to sell. Fairs would have been a total failure but for the institution of clearing. Buying one merchandise while, or even before, selling another could be consummated perfectly well without the physical mediation of the gold coin. Naturally, gold was needed to finalize the deals at the end of the fair, but only to the extent of the difference between the amount of purchases and sales. In the meantime, purchases and sales were made through the use of scrip money issued by the clearing house to fair-goers when they registered their merchandise upon arrival.

Those who would call scrip money "credit created out of nothing" were utterly blind to the true nature of the transaction. Fairgoers did not need a loan. What they needed, and got, was an instrument of clearing: the scrip, representing self-liquidating credit.

With a minimum income, you can stabilize an economy in a way that moderates booms and busts. If people need more money than the minimum, they can dig into their savings, or borrow it.

Yes, it is a tough concept to digest. I had difficulty with it when I was learning about Social Credits. It's similar in concept to 'priming a pump' The question is how to get liquidity into the system to get it going at its full potential. If you think a minimum income would cause large numbers of people to stop working and living on the largesse of others, you have a pretty poor opinion of human nature. If the society assumes people are productive and honorable, people will live up to that expectation. Likewise if you assume the opposite.

Here's a description of how to implement Social Credits. Note how the 'pump is primed':

http://www.michaeljournal.org/localmoney.htm


Hatha