Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE WALLS OF the Paris bar are plastered with images of Jim Morrison and The Doors, and a bust of the lead singer presides over the beer tap — all part of the owner’s lifelong passion for the band. But a California attorney for the group doesn’t love it madly.
Christophe Maillet said he received a letter from a Beverly Hills, California-based attorney warning that “The Doors do not want to be seen as having approved of your establishment and also the consumption of alcohol.”
The 21 April letter — signed by Anthony Keats, The Doors’ intellectual property lawyer – Maillet is urged to remove images of the group from his bar within three months.
Not an easy task.
The walls are plastered with oversized close-ups of Morrison and hung with gilded-framed photos and posters of the band. A white bust of the flowing-locked singer presides over the beer tap.
Morrison, known for a partying lifestyle, died in 1971 at age 27 of heart failure in his bathtub in Paris — at a site just minutes away from where Maillet’s bar stands today. Morrison’s grave at Pere Lachaise cemetery remains a pilgrimage site for his fans.
Doors lawyer Keats did not respond to email and phone messages by reporters on Friday about the letter.
The decorations are from Maillet’s own collection — the fruit of 25 years of dedicated fan-dom, he said.
“I found my passion for Jim Morrison at the age of 12,” said the soft-spoken Frenchman, a bartender by trade. “Then I found a profession that could go along with it.
“Since I started in this business, my goal was to start a bar dedicated to Jim Morrison.”
After nearly a decade spent working at other people’s establishments, Maillet’s dream came true nine months ago, when he struck out on his own, opening the “Lezard King” — a play on Morrison’s nickname, the lizard king. Because he worried about possible copyright issues, Maillet used the French word for lizard, he said.
On the menu are cocktails of Maillet’s own creation that he baptized after Doors’ songs. The “Light My Fire” is a blend of rum, Cointreau and citrus juices, while the “Roadhouse Blues” mixes tequila, Cointreau and blue curacao.
Maillet won’t say how much he invested to rent and decorate the 70-square-metre locale in Paris’ hip Bastille neighborhood but said it amounted to his life savings.
Maillet doesn’t know what could happen if the legal action goes ahead — the attorney’s letter doesn’t spell it out — but said “I guess worst case scenario is that they could close the bar.”
Maillet, who does not have a lawyer of his own, wrote back to The Doors’ attorney, but said he hasn’t yet received a response.
He said in order to appease The Doors, he’d be willing to add other ’60s and ’70s rock bands to the bar’s decoration. But the lawyer’s letter also demands that the name of the bar be changed — something Maillet flatly refuses.
He said he knows of a about a dozen other Doors-themed bars, scattered across the globe, from Amsterdam to India. It is unclear whether others have faced similar legal woes.
“I didn’t do this to destroy (The Doors’) image or to dirty it,” Maillet said. “I did it to make them happy.”
- AP
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
We could fix our welfare system very quickly by putting the present government on it indefinitely. That fool Enda Kenny wouldn’t get a job anywhere else.
Oh, that’s hilarious. Imagine, if there was a UBI, you would be getting paid for your radical, innovative humour.
And just imagine, if there was a UBI, you would be getting paid for a hair and personality transplant. I’m not sure if your wit or attention seeking are worth anything, I guess you could try though.
I heard Sean Healy from Social Justice Ireland speak about this last year, it sounds like a brilliant idea, but way too much forward thinking for our small minded country I fear!!
Absolutely. The bureaucratic costs if administering welfare payments would be eliminated. Society gains nothing in value by such activity. The people presently o. Welfare who feel trapped once they are accepted in the system and give up looking for part time work now would be encouraged to do so.
Totally agree. An excellent and thought provoking article. When I first saw the headline I thought it was going to be more pie-in-the-sky stuff, but the more I read the structured and well thought out arguments contained in it, the more sense it made.
Not sure what the implications would be for the tax regime though – does it just mean that taxpayers pay more tax to give straight back to ourselves or would the overall level of taxation need to increase? Some costings would be good…
I’d only support this if recipients had to work for it.
There is always a job the state needs done.
Lunacy to just hand out more social welfare. So it should be UBE. Universal Basic Employment.
Repair schools, pick up litter, clerical public sector line duty etc.
The problem is the huge bureaucracy involved to maintain it, and the increased intrusion into people’s lives. That, indeed, would be a true nanny state. UBI actually cuts down the need for bureaucracy. (There is an argument to be made for some kind of national service that might take the form of social service rather than military service, or as an alternative to military service, but that’s a separate argument.)
if the state hands you money, prepare to report for duty, duty with a broad definition. Pay any able bodied person to sit on their bums? Preferably not with my money!
@ Arbitrasure & Paul O’Brien
I tend to be with Arbitrasure on this one. What he/she describes as ‘UBE’ is termed ‘Employer of Last Resort’ or ‘Job Guarrantee’ in the MMT school of economics which I’ve talked about in comments here before. (The JG is about voluntary, minimum wage, ‘non-competing’, socially useful ‘counter cyclical’ jobs in the community/charity/voluntary sector.)
Ultimately, the question is about distribution of resources & fruits of our collective, aggregate production. Whichever way one looks at this, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that maximising employment – maximising the size of the resource ‘pie’ to be distributed – should improve the living standards of all of us. (And any approach to maximisation should address the hugely expensive, deep booms & busts of our economies which have an inbuilt tendency to instability in any case.)
This is UBI’s weakest point. The temptation of many to either do no work, or significantly less, means that our aggregate ‘pie’ of resources to be distributed will tend to be smaller, however we wish to slice it up.
It’s hard to see how one country, especially one as small as Ireland, would not be (relatively) swamped by immigration. Not just by those attracted by ‘something for nothing’, but by many seeking ‘something for less’. Would there be sufficient (flexible) work opportunities generated? Certainly, at the moment, for Eurozone countries faced with the straightjacket of a deeply flawed currency system & high unemployment already, it would require considerable internal restructuring of tax/welfare systems & be very difficult to ‘finance’ (meaning in reality, to re-configure our present ‘distribution’ choices).
But, supposing the entire EU had an epiphany of macro monetary enlightenment & realised that we all, whether in our country or otherwise have a central bank capable of issuing debt free finance for anything we desire, subject only to the (inflation) limit that there must be sufficient resources & labour available to be purchased in that currency. (If not, spending must be cut back, or taxation increased in order to ‘extinguish’ currency.) Imagine also that the entire EU was also willing to restructure its tax/welfare systems to suit. What then?
The ‘something for nothing’ option might well be attractive to some, but I see much bigger problems in the middle ground of ‘something for less’. We know from numerous studies that for vast numbers of people the work/life balance preference swings heavily toward a desire for less (but not ‘no’) work. It’s obvious that any UBI tax structure would need to be much more progressive than at present for income earned beyond the UBI. The incentives to work less than full time would thus be even greater, as ‘marginal’ benefits decrease. Moreover, as individual enterprise, self employment, rather than PAYE (likely) greatly expands, the temptation to evade taxes & work in the ‘informal’ economy increases enormously. Any attempt to tackle this is going to weigh back heavily against those previous savings in bureaucracy.
I’d have to say I’m in favour of greater opportunity for people to structure their work/life balance according to their needs & circumstances, but a UBI system appears to me fraught with so many difficult issues in the detail of implementation & potential instabilities.
On the other hand, the ‘UBE’ or Job Guarantee (voluntary for participants), could be very easily introduced within current structures. Some bureaucracy will be required, but it should be realised that the powerful counter cyclicality of it means that in normal circumstances the numbers to be dealt with would be far lower than the high levels we might see now in such deep recession. (And certainly some of the bureaucracy/administrative effort needed would be provided by the community/charity sector offering job placements & even by the JG participants themselves, under supervision.)
‘Finance’ is not a problem for a Job Guarantee. Just as the ECB, as currency issuer, ‘created’ (from thin air), €1,000 billion for aid to banks recently, it can just as easily provide cost-free, debt-free funds for a Eurozone wide JG scheme. At least as an interim measure, to reverse the present ruinous, growth defficient, course of policies causing further recession, loss of GDP output, and ongoing recurrent crises. Whilst recovery would begin immediately & proceed rapidly, it would be some years before we reach some overshoot & risk of inflation. Giving the EZ plenty of time to agree, design & implement the fiscal/monetary structures needed to regulate & limit over issuance of currency. (Stimulating the private sector to recovery in the meantime of course.)
The Job Guarantee puts a solid commitment behind that long forgotten/ignored ‘human right’ of a right to work. It throws down the gauntlet to those who believe the private sector job ‘markets’ are ‘efficient’ – ie if they can deliver, as promised, there will be few, if any, unemployed seeking a JG job. Besides relieving the social costs of persistently & cyclically high unemployment, it reduces the very costly losses in forgone output of downturns by greatly decreasing long run economic instability.
In short, a Job Guarantee (along the lines proposed by MMT) is easily introduced from where we are & would be enormously effective in addressing our most pressing (and deepening) crisis. A UBI may well be something to be considered for the future (I’m not against it in principle), but I think it’s a very long way from being useful in our current circumstances.
Are you arguing against social welfare in general? Because this seems like it would deal with the major problem I hear people currently complain about with the dole: no incentive for people to work.
@ Nick Beard
If you mean me?
No, the proposal I outlined does not affect social welfare, which is still required. The Job Guarantee is strictly voluntary.
The minimum wage of the JG (so as not to ‘compete’ with ‘normal’ jobs & incentivise transfer to those as the economy recovers) would not necessarily be attractive to all unemployed, for various reasons, but I believe it would be of inerest to a large majority & the minimum wage could be adjusted slightly if needed to encourage take up. Especially the young & those without children who want to get on. The most important aspect, alongside the social value of their work to society, is the ‘automatic’ stimulus effect of their having a wage to spend into the economy. And usually any work experience would make them more attractive to ‘normal’ employers.
The ‘incentive’ narrative you mention is simply rediculus. We know 2/3 +at least+ of those currently unemployed were sufficiently incentivised 5 years ago – because they had jobs. We also know from historical evidence, for example the decades following WWII in the US, UK, Australia & other countries, that a sustained rate of 98% employment is perfectly possible where jobs are available.
To be honest, there’s a lot of criticism from a bunch of different viewpoints. I mainly wondered why Arbitrasure though this would be less acceptable to him than the current provisions.
That may sound like s panacea but much of it is in place at the moment with the TUS scheme. Those that speak of putting people to work picking up thrash invariably are the ones that are.still lucky enough to be employed. Bad enough as things are that work should be done by convicts. The Victorian mentality of the ” deserving ” and ” undeserving” poor should be a thing of the past. Hopefully Ireland had moved beyond the workhouse solution. The vast majority of unemployed people want the right to work I’m meaningful employment and have the dignity the support their families. There is nothing positive about queuing for the dole. The desire to work is attested to by the number who have emigrated. As usual the debate gets waylaid by those that want to focus on a minority that abuse the system. That minority has existed since the introduction of the workhouse system in 1838 and will exist as long as there is a social welfare system. They are a distraction from the true goal of providing income maintenance and ensuring the provision of basic needs of citizens.
I’m sure pressure to emigrate would be reduced. How about pressure to immigrate Anne?
Well, those immigrating from outside the EU would most likely be ineligible (as they currently are). Those within the EU, by EU law, would have to be eligible for 6 months to a year while looking for work (could be cut off after this) and once they are working in Ireland.
I’d be interested to hear how this would affect the proposal, as it would certainly add an administrative burden to deal with the eligible EU workers.
Brilliant Idea!
Nanny state bullshit .
Interesting, but the details may prove tricky. How exactly does this replace child benefit? Does every child receive a UBI as soon as they are born?
Do all those other welfare systems remain along with this? Lone parent, medical cards, disability payment etc?
Making it work in the context of a europe with open borders is also an issue, would it just be for irish citizens, or anyone who is eligible to work here?
Child benefit is already a form of UBI. It’s universal, unconditional and untaxed. (That’s one of the reasons why the principle of universality, unconditionality, and tax-freedom re child benefit should be maintained, rather than cut back.) UBI would extend the principle of an unconditional payment to the whole adult population. People who are unable to work through disability would have an increased payment as needed, through the normal social welfare channels–which would now be much more efficient than hitherto. Issues like medical cards etc would need to be worked out in terms of the overall rationalisation of the system that UBI would involve.
Naive, socialist, namby pamby nonsense in my opinion. Another dreamy idea which shows a shocking lack of understanding of basic economics. Far too many flaws to be workable with not a single suggestion of detail.
Actually many economists have supported the principle of UBI, including (surprisingly) Milton Friedman, the guru of neo-liberalism. (In fact UBI was nearly instituted in the US in the form of a “negative income tax” under Nixon.) It’s not specifically a Left-wing idea–it’s supported by people across the political spectrum. Check out the website of BIEN: Basic Income Earth Network on this.
You should change your name to PWND Dublin, because you just were.
@Paul Don’t confuse PWD with any facts that might take the fire out of his knee-jerk reactionary position.
UBI – Honestly, where does one start. Firstly, as everyone in the country would now be getting ‘the dole’ or ‘UBI’ as it woukld now euphemistically be called, who pays for it? Answer, the working man again “The rest would come from an increase in income tax, which would be paid on all personal income over and above the UBI.” Great. I would love to see the level of tax payable to fund this freeloaders fantasy gravy train. UBI would merely punish/disincentivise those industrious enough to work or create businesses, whilst rewarding those who couldn’t be bothered to work, large swathes of unmotivated people would foster a devastating culture of procrastinationary entitlement “Hey its the UBI, I have earned it by virtue of doing nothing, the State owes it to me”.
Communism/Socialism: People with nothing who are willing to share it with everyone. Where did that ever work?
“The working man”. There are working women as well!
The question re paying for UBI is legitimate and a number of studies have been done on it. The short answer is that everyone receives some kind of subsistence already, but in a very convoluted and obstructive way. UBI rationalises the system and allows people to work part-time, set up businesses etc rather than preventing them.
Communist systems did not have UBI but were a kind of workfare. The State pretended to pay the workers, and the workers pretended to work.
The ‘working man’ comment. An oversight of course. There are countless women too that would see most of their hard earned income whisked away into the UBI’s fund for the super freeloader.
So which is worse then: The State pretending to pay the workers, and the workers pretending to work, or the state actually the people for doing nothing and the workers not even pretending to work, they just don’t work at all.
I’d love to see some ‘hard figures’ illustrating this wonderful utopian existance. Maybe they could roll in out across the continent of Africa and solve world hunger.
Its not just that, the biggest issue would be because there would be a huge transfer of income from higher earners to non-earners (not in itself a bad thing), the disposable income at lower ends of the income “ladder” would be massively increased: and we know exactly where that led us before: rip-off Ireland; huge increases in prices of basic items such as food, utilities, rents, housing, transporation, services. This would hurt not just those at the lower end but those at the middle who have no means to “escape” taxation. Thus we could actually end up impoverishing even more.
Meanwhile, the initiative to evade taxation would be hugely increased, resulting in massive outflows into tax-incentives and untouchable offshore tax havens. Its quite likely that tax exiles would increase in response.
The biggest problem with basic income is that it raises the barrier threshold between the benefits of working income and unearned uncome: you have to earn much more than before in order to really “make a difference”, which disincentiveises work. As a result, large swathes would simply “opt out”, making the cost burden of the system sky rocket. So tax would have to be raised higher, disincentivising work even further. We’d rapidly start looking like Greece, before an inevitable crash.
Agreed though, that universal child benefit is a form of UBI, but this doesn’t prove that its right or workable. The problem is mainly that it creates a self-reinforcing circle of disincentivising work as taxation keeps having to rise higher to pay for those who “opt out” of working as it is no longer viable.
You are wrong: a LOT of people, but not everybody, get some form of subsidy. However this wouldn’t stop.
At the moment self employed people, people with no children and single people get little or nothing from the state, especially if they pay for all of their own healthcare. However if you are a single, childless private rented sector tenant without a pension plan who pays for healthcare entirely privately, you get exactly zero from the state. A property owner in the same position will get a little mortgage interest tax relief if they have a mortgage.
“there would be a huge transfer of income from higher earners to non-earners (not in itself a bad thing)”
No, not a bad thing. A very bad thing. Unless we’re talking about parents giving their kids pocket money.
Good idea but can see the dole lites strokers and unmarried mums like this .as they sleep till 11 everyday and this would be change …..dream on enda wants to spend our kids children’s money to pay bondholders in banks & himself .change it or it will change your Kids country! …
Do you work Alvin? I’m guessing if you do, your job doesn’t involve reading or writing in English.
Is personal abuse the limit of your intellect PJ?
“Abuse” ? I would deem an ignorant categorizing all unmarried mothers and welfare recipients as lazy ‘strokers’ to be personally abusive.
So? Doesn’t change the fact that all your contribution so far has been limited to personal and abusive comments.
Excellent article and very forward thinking. We definitely need to reform our social system and need more articles and discussions on this area.
Great article, Anne. Yes, there is an issue re pressure to immigrate as one contributor suggested. Alaska, which has a (partial) UBI, deals with it by paying only a fraction of the basic income for each year one has spent there. Obviously, if we did that, it would not be sufficient for subsistence for the person or family involved. But they would have made the decision to come here, so presumably they would have the wherewithal to supplement the (partial) basic income. If you wanted to institute a full basic income, you might have to have a retrospective citizenship requirement for payment. Marginal cases could be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, as indeed they are in the present social welfare system. In any case, Ireland is relatively under-populated and as long as the immigrants were industrious and well-behaved (which experience shows is largely the case) there should not be a problem. If there were an inordinate number of people who wanted to come to Ireland to beg, play video games or smoke dope, there might be a problem–though again the rationale for begging would be largely eliminated by UBI, since everyone gets a basic payment.
Try living on our benefits up north,107 pounds for a married couple ,very little help when it comes to housing costs and single people living on 67 pounds a week. We envy the very generous benefit in the Republic, who would want to work on nearly 200 euros a week i certainly wouldn’t. Common sense will tell you that when there are only so many people working and paying tax to pay for a colossal benefit system it is only a matter of time before it bankrupts everyone.
Hey Martin! The trick is to claim on both sides of the border, many have been sucessful at this in the past! Only in the Banana Republic!
Reminds me also of the the time we saw a sharp decline on the numbers ‘signing on’ during the ash crisis! No wonder we’re broke and the laughing stock of Europe!
I would. I like working, and 200 euro a week would not be enough to fund my extravagant lifestyle.
I feel this UBI suggestion would be a lot stronger if it had any costings in behind it. Costings for this year, and where it would be at in ten or twenty or fifty years when we account for the demographic shifts we already have to contend with in just paying existing entitlements.
What would the top marginal rate of income tax (all in, IT/USC/PRSI) be, what would the effective rate be on different salaries; what would it have to be in three or four decades out?
The data is there to compile this, I see economists like Ronan Lyons pulling apart our taxation system as it stands. I think the academics largely behind the UBI should produce similar numbers.
Then we can have an informed debate.
The annual expenditure on social welfare atm is about 20 billion euro, or 40% of overall government expenditure. Just over 1 million of the 4.5 million people in Ireland are under 18. So 3.5 billion people must be provided for. You could pay 1000 euro a month to all of these people for 28 billion. So you’d need to take in an extra 8 billion on income tax and maybe corporate tax or financial transaction taxes to cover that. 750 euro a month per person would be 21 billion and almost immediately affordable.
Interesting and usually well liked idea whenever someone writes about having ubi. I mean, who wouldn’t want free money, right? One big problem though is people. Will ubi increase or decrease dole-lifers? Would the fact that everyone would have extra money just drive up the price of everything? Reform of systems is needed no doubt. I just don’t think this is it. Besides which, our governments don’t do radical.
You are correct. We do know that when average incomes increase prices rise with them. Thus the cost of living would just go up to meet the “basic income”. The ultimate impact would be huge increases in real poverty levels as even middle income earners would find the twin costs of inflation and spiralling taxation impossible to keep up with. Productivity would be wiped out.
I wouldn’t even think about inward migration: its impossible to predict, although common sense would suggest that if it was considerably more favourable there would be a large “pull” factor.
All the systems in this Country are broken, we need a total clear out and a complete new set up!
next door a house got wrecked (vermin and all) by people who were upgraded to a bigger house in d15. When I myself was unemployed I found the Dole defenitely adequate.
However if my wife would have made 200 less a year….. We would have been eligable for a few other assistance programmes as well.
With the cost of childcare its not worth it going to work.
Suggestion… government contributes or pays childcare…. half the dole….Make people better of by working.
(and before usual suspects start… I been unemployed looking after two kids …. I am on a normal salary now)
If we had this it would give myself and my wife the confidence to start our own business. We are thinking of doing so anyway, but without any sort of safety net it is a daunting prospect. I’m not sure about the economics behind it so I will have to read more on that. Have any other countries instituted such a thing?
Alaska has had a partial basic income for a long time. Not a hotbed of socialism!
Maybe that’s why Palin quit as governor, she was disincentivised to work by a guaranteed income.
Here are some info about projects in the world: http://www.globalincome.org/English/BI-worldwide.html
There is an EU-wide initiative running: http://basicincome2013.eu/
This sounds like a good idea in principal and would provide the protection people need to fight for their entitlements.
At the moment Civil Servants can effectively leave people to starve using opinions and you are expected to use an appeals process which could take over a year with no money. Its very hard to fight long lengthy legal process with no money.
The Social Welfare that really needs investigating is how successive so called governments have been financing the rich, but that called investments, which is lie.
I have always quiet liked this idea. However i am not sure that people would ever go for it.
ALL foreign nationals should be sent home after they’ve used up their stamps (if any i.e.) let their countries look after them. This EU thing is a joke and we’ve been lied to by Brussels. Try getting your dole in Portugal or Hungary after your stamps are used up! I dare you, which is why they’re all coming here and living on crumbs to make their way to Western Union every week. Its all very fine and good but try getting your benefits in these said countries then you’ll realise not all EU countries are playing ball. The dole here is worth triple in these countries, a months wages ffs! Close the borders NOW! we can’t hold anymore
i’d imagine the red thumbs down are from either foreign nationals or those who haven’t lived abroad in EU states and tried to avail of THEIR services, particularly the area of PIGS, I as in Italy. Don’t worry your time will come too and bloody time and all.
The Germans and the Dutch won’t pay foreign nationals any welfare why should we…
I red thumbed you Johnny
I’m an Irish citizen, born here and lived most of my life here, as have my parents, grandparents and so on.
I red thumbed you because I find statements like ” all foreign nationals should be sent home” repugnant.
@ Joan: ok lets re-phrase it, what i really meant was all foreign nationals out of work after their stamps are used up should be cut off dole. they can stay if they want, but lets do things as they are in these OTHER EU states. Or are their policies repugnant? I’ve lived in Athens and South Portugal, i’ve first hand experience. Have you? As the other poster clearly stated about NL and DE, the ball is played different but we’re not been told this. With Italy and Greeces debt i’d hate to think what state they would be in had they an influx of 500,000 Irish living there after 2 years.
What about all Irish citizens whos stamps have run out?
What would you do with them Johnny?
The EU actually allows EU workers to have their benefits removed after a period of time: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32004L0038:en:NOT.
Irish people are always surprised when I tell them that. Blame the Irish government, not the EU, for the fact that they don’t.
@ Joan: Are you thick or something like our own Joan Burton?, cos she is thick as a plank, after been told countless times by staff that ‘welfare tourism’ was happening, she is only now acting upon it – 5 years too late! Our Citizens are Our Citizens not EU Nationals, you know fine well what i mean.
Cheers Nick, cos im blue in the face trying to explain this to them. It will probably take Joan Burton another 5 years to realise this.
No Johnny I’m not thick
I don’t like ignorant statements like ” All foreign nationals should be sent home “, and I’m not afraid to say that in public.
If you are “blue in the face” maybe it’s because you need to sit back and take a few deep breaths.
Not that I am an apologist for Joan Burton, but you can’t blame her for not doing something five years ago. She is only minister for the last 15 months.
The welfare system certainly needs reform.
So as part of the debate on that reform lets consider the option of Basic Income.
Why don’t you read the information on their website. You might be surprised.
@ Joan: i’m winning!
Story with last comment!
Would you like to tell us a story Alvin?
Would be used by the state to extract cheap work, jobbridge mark II. Would be used by employers to get around paying minimum wage. Sounds great in theory but I’d just rather we had a society were no one depended on handouts. And that won’t exist inside the current framework. Revolution not reform shall we say.
Interesting idea but I’m don’t think paying the rich a UBI is justifiable (the idiocy of the current child benefits system comes to mind) which, in my mind, is the fatal flaw in the UBI proposal.
There are huge savings if the current welfare system is dropped and the amount of employees of the civil service administration is reduced. This immediately frees up money to make the payments and reduces ratio of government spending on administration versus GDP. Regarding people deciding not to work when they get UBI, the payment will be a minimum and just cover people’s costs of living but is absolutely guaranteed at one fixed amount. If one starts work they still receive but at a cut off they would start to pay tax enough to be paying for their own UBI. Up to that cut off the extra money earned would be an incentive to work. Remember the majority do want to work and be progressive. But I don’t want anyone to starve or have their children turn to crime just because they could not get work for a couple of months. remember they have to live on the same streets my children do and no man is an island. All the extra tax allowances etc. could be deleted so you pay less percentage but on every penny earned. This stops any fiscal loop holes for people on different wage structures! You work harder you earn more you are incentivised to do so and not penalised. This is not socialist in nature. This is a very sensible structure that also allows people to be creative and work at what they like. It means employers would need to look after employees better and vice versa! Its much simpler to run and cheap as chips to administrate which is what we need for the future. By the by, done right and we would have healthcare for all free also! This idea needs to be promulgated. Government needs to stop controlling an just Govern for what the majority need and want. Then go home and put their feet up. As it is there is huge waste because some of the greatest Luddites have civil service jobs so I’m happy to give some of these 189 euro a week to stay at home and pay someone who wants to work to go do the jobs!
I thought that in this sort of situation we would be better placed incentivising people to find work rather than disincentivising with scheme like this.
Welfare is supposed to be safety net for those unlucky enough to find themselves without work, this scheme would be a further alternative for those unwilling to find work. Those of us in employment would find our pay reduced as our employers would drop our net by 200 a week and then the government would tax our income more and more to pay the rest of the population.
Meanwhile those out of work who want a bit more will quickly realise that the only way to work and earn a little more without having it taxed away will work black and pay no tax.
Eventually corporate tax would have to be raised to continue to sustain the expense and finally all the companies will leave and the whole thing will become unsustainable.
I’m glad many respondents have already suggested workfare style schemes for those in receipt of “free” money from the government. That sort of scheme will promote competition between the public and private sectors and stimulate growth.
The way out of recession is growth and a population incentivised to work to achieve that growth.
If you want to make things cheaper to run remove salary taxation from all in receipt of government monies and adjust salaries downwards accordingly, simplify taxation generally to make it easier and cheaper to collect as well as harder to find loopholes.
IMO The incentive is in fact increased by a scheme like this (and that is assuming the minimum wage is also removed).
Why? Simple – Any hours someone works they will receive addional income for it. Rather than the the current system whereby as soon as someone who is on welfare starts working, they seem to be instantly penalised (if only by red tape). The incentive may be (initially?) to only work a few hours a week to fund your weekend activities, but thet could be enough to get people back into the working routine and instill the “more work” equals “more benefits” mentality.
Two-and-a-quarter billion tomorrow. Almost eight million on Wednesday, 50 million next Saturday, 57 million the following Monday to pay the lost gambling debts of wreckless UK French and German speculators ,but for some the un employed smoking and drowning their misery with cheap alcohol is what needs addressing , lets pretend its all about the Irish and Greeks living beyond their means ,better that than confronting the unbearable truth ,European economics and thus our economic welfare in Ireland are to be determined by greed ,Anarchic market forces and just how much can be squeezed out of those least able to pay untill it enevitably goes tits up !
Some quick calculations,
3.08 million adults in Ireland.
Lets put UBI at a 200E a week.
= 600 million a week
= 31 200 000 000 a year,
Our current social welfare spend is around 20 Billion. Given there is definitely increased activity from taxing all income.
The ten billion is still quite a gap… Though I did include students.
I think the flaw with your 10 billion shortfall comment is the assumption that the payment is 200 euro per week.
You could pick any figure and argue that it UBI was cost effective or not depending on your views.
I don’t think the 200 a week is too far off Joan. That’s the current total PAYE, PRSI and USC for people who are earning about 40k per annum. Which is about the national average wage of 32k.
So if anything the 200 a week is too generous.
Also, our tax doesn’t just fund social welfare. There’s the other big hitters to fund, health dept in particular.
UBI looking a bit pricey unless the UBI payments were way lower than what people currently get.
Nice to see a new perspective and idea for a big problem in our economy but I also believe there are too many flaws, I think this sentence did it for me:
“because they would not be reliant on income from work to supply basic needs”
I also don’t know how we’d afford it at the moment..
Yeah but would people in Mayo go for this ? They may nit want to share their new found fortune !
I’m all for reform of the social welfare system as it’s a joke. People in this country are rewarded for sitting on their lazy arses. Don’t work, you’ll get a house handed to u, free medical care, allowances for this that and anything else they can think of. Not to mention all those people claiming single parents allowance and be shacked up with their partner.
This makes my blood boil – my partner and I work round the clock to pay for a 250,000 mortgage.
A local authority has Just bought the same house as ours in our estate and a foreign family (not that this makes a difference) have moved in.
Neither parent works and they have a better car than I do! We cannot afford to start a family so who are the fools!
A local authority has Just bought the same house as ours in our estate and a foreign family (not that this makes a difference) have moved in.
oh but it does make a difference, how long were they on the housing list? its an extra burden to the state that you or i dont need. thats the difference.
According to the 2011 Census, our population is 4,590,000. If everybody was paid a universal benefit of €200 a week, it would cost the State €47,736,000,000 per annum. This sum does not include the payment of any other benefit such as child benefit, rent allowance, supplementary welfare payments etc. According to the Department of Social Protection, the State is expected to spend €20,500,000 in social welfare payments in 2012. While a laudable idea, this proposal is unaffordable. We cannot afford the existing welfare system with income tax heading towards 60%, let alone almost treble that cost.
I don’t think those under working age would be getting it….
The article certainly seems to imply that everyone, working age or not, would get it.
“UBI replaces social welfare payments, child benefit and the state pension”
“It is possible to pay for UBI in Ireland, with our existing revenue system”
Absolute codswallop: the CORI study done around Basic Income around 5 or 6 years ago estimated that there would be a need to increase normal taxation to a minimum of 50% or more just to pay what was then considered a basic income. The actual cost would almost certainly be higher now: who would like to pay 70% tax?
You make the point on rewarding those who currently get less from the welfare system, such as the self employed. But many self employed are VAT liable as service providers, which means that not only are they getting less back from their tax paid, they are, theoretically paying a lot more, and also prohibitively more expensive to users (anybody who picks a nixer over a tax compliant indepentent operator will tell you that). Yet there is zero acknowledgement of this in the tax system, not even a distinction between VAT liable self employed and non VAT liable (which is extremely disturbing as the differential on tax take is enormous with VAT at 23%).
I will give this a better critique later as I am at work and busy, but to introduce such a system now would crash the economy entirely with little or no hope of recovery. The unindened consequences and social behaviour it would encourage would be the main culprits. I’ll come back later with more on this.
You might want to take into account that Social Welfare Recipients buy goods.
Social Welfare contributes huge amounts of money to the economy by jobs and VAT.
What would the so called economy be without welfare?
@ LoyalIrish Citizen – How much of Benefit/Welfare payments get wired out of the country annually via Western Union etc. This could immediately be stamped out by introducing a welfare debit card to ensure that the money stays in the Irish Economy!
@John F: It is extremely hard to imagine that people send huge amounts of money home and cannot feed them selves or pay rent etc.
I would agree that some money is sent home to family and their are some who are in organised crime can do it, but its probably very small on comparison to pretentious subsidised corporations and their management, who have offshore bank accounts.
Interesting article, but like others, I would like to see some costings. I woudl also be worried about the consequences for low-middle income earners. Similar to the current “dole trap”, my concerns would be that, going to work to supplement your UBI adds to your cost of living in terms of childcare, transport (public/private) and other costs attached to employment. As mentioned in the article, tax levels would have to be increased to cover the costs of UBI, so any additional income would be taxed significantly. Can the author clarify that the same issues would not happen with low income earners under UBI as with the current system? SOME people may see it as a negative, working 40 hours a week, leaving kids in a creche, etc as opposed to sticking with UBI levels and having a lot of free time.
I’ve seen this suggested for Ireland before a number of times but any discussion around this issue is wasted effort without costings, an economic analysis relevant to Ireland and some treatment of the drawbacks.
Unfortunately, Ireland (unlike the UK, US etc) doesn’t have a large number of permanantly resident very wealthy individuals. Those making over 150k per year are in the single percentile figures and that’s simply not enough of them. In order to implement any scheme like this you’d need to tax middle income earners on 40k to 100k out of existance and hence it’ll never fly. We need viable alternatives – not pie-in-the-sky fantasy. That involves jobs for those who want to work and decent support for those who can’t. Newideas are always needed however I do wish people would stop putting forward schemes and proposals that even with a complete suspension of disbelief can’t possibly be implemented.
tragedy of the commons/freeloaders charter : fix these first, then we”ll talk.
I submitted this idea to the “Your Country Your Call” competition (not as well written obviously).
One side effect worth noting is that it would remove the need for any minimum wage (as whatever you earned is always on top of what you are getting); this would then open the doors to manufacturing companies again.
Some interesting (and flawed) math:
2010 Social welfare budget = 20.8 Billion
2011 Irish Population (aged between 15 and 65) = 3,087,894
Dividing the budget by the “adult” population = 130 Euros per week
I like the concept. Indeed a less bureaucratic system would offer major savings on time and money. However getting universal agreement that society should ideally provide for all citizens basic needs seems to spur seige mentaltity responses from some, not unlike the French aristocracy resistance to using a fork to eat food which occured in the late 17th century, even though it has obviously been accepted through European society today.
There is still this institutionalised blindness towards people labelled as unemployed….reading here.. Stay at home mothers should all go out and work – no child should be reared in its own home among neighbours and family – the erosion of family autonomy – values, habits, interests – to be replaced by one system applied to all by strangers – ‘experts, professionals, skilled people’. People who are long term student s are seen as spongers. People who are carers are seen as ‘milking the system’. People who are self employed but in-between income earning periods of activity – writers , teachers, inventors, merchants, farmers, contract workers, seasonally employed. Very few people do not work – or do not want to work. We have structured our residential warrens in such a way as to thieve away many traditional activities that ‘employed’ people not in professions – people grew their own food and spent a great part of their week occupied in doing this . Now we are a slave to the supermarket and ‘cheap’ ‘food’. Quite a few ‘unemployed’ people I know are growing gardens now and supplying both themselves and neighbours with fresh seasonal produce. People did not tie every basic need to money and put a tax or a price on it . We once had a LETs system for lower income to trade skills rather than pay for services with money. We are forced into buying expensive forms of energy for heating electricity communications and mobility – all of which could be improved on to lessen the cost.
Anna, there is a reason for all of that: somebody else is paying for those people that you mention to allow them the freedom to do as they please. But it does not work that way for all: for many people, they risk losing the roof over their heads should they not work or lose work. There is a very limited safety net, as many point out, for those who don’t have an employer. And the system is free to selectively discriminate on those grounds, which effectively has created an inequality whereby a minority can “choose” idleness that is state facilitated, while the majority risk ruin.
Suppose you were asked to design a tax/welfare system suitable for the times we live in. There are two options:
(a) A hugely convoluted and impenetrable tax system, favouring the already-wealthy who can afford the best advice on how to avoid tax, while the working and middle-classes are squeezed to the bone; combined with a social welfare system that pays people too little to live on, on condition that they remain idle, in order to show that they are available for jobs that don’t exist–partly because of the obstacles inherent in the system itself. (Furthermore, like an estranged couple, the two systems are often not on speaking terms.)
(b) A rationalised tax system with few or no tax breaks whereby, if you earn above a certain amount, you pay tax, and if you earn below a certain amount, you get an automatic rebate from the state.
Which system is likely to facilitate recovery, a sense of social security and a healthy economy?
Paul, On b, the people earning below the level, do they have to do anything to get this money or do they just get handed it?
@Damocles. It’s their share of the social wealth. So no, they don’t have to do anything.
@Pat. Near where I live there are families who haven’t worked for generations. They manage to get away with that quite successfully under the present system. I can’t see that UBI would make things any worse in that regard. And with UBI, at least people who wanted to work, would be able to do so.
My comment wasn’t posted for some reason . Good luck
Perhaps they couldn’t decipher it Alvin.
UBI assumes there would be one payment only. So no extra benefits on top of that .
Again you are assuming a payment of 200 Euro per week.
I don’t see anywhere in the article that uses that figure.
nope
Nice idea but far too utopian in my opinion. Where’s the incentive to get out of bed in the morning, and what kind of example is it giving to the children of the bone idle? I’ve seen the opposite extreme in the USA, especially in California which must have the highest proportion of bums and dropouts I’ve ever witnessed. But paying people just to do nothing is ripe for abuse.
I don’t believe in a basic income as advocated here, but I cannot understand why a system could not be established that would allow people on social welfare to earn whatever money they can and say, twenty per cent, of that income would be deducted from their social welfare. This would include a one off job for €200 resulting in €40 being deducted from their social welfare. I think this would encourage people to be more open with the authorities because the risk of losing just a small portion of their overall income would not be worth it in most peoples minds. This would encourage initiative and give people more opportunities to become self employed. Of course you would get some people who would want to just work one day a week and not move on, but surely safejuards against this could be put in place. Also you will get those who won’t report at all; the penalty for not reporting I would make very severe.
I am a person with disability, and a wheelchair user. Up until four years ago I was completelly dependent on disability allowance. In 2008 I got a place on a CE scheme. I am in the process of starting my own business, but my main fear is if the business fails would I get my disability allowance back?
Further information for those citing the Alaskan equivalent of UBI – it is funded by oil exports. Ireland has no equivalent resource that it sells to the rest of the world (unless we nationalise U2 and Jedward!). As such it is genuinely a “citizen dividend” and not to be confused with this proposal which, if I understand correctly, simply redistributes the sum of all present SW payments equally among all citizens. So those already receiving large SW payments (eg large families) would receive less so that people who currently don’t receive any SW would get a payment. It would have worked fine when the government was receiving billions in stamp duty but funded by taxing every penny of income from sources other than UBI implies a high rate of income tax or VAT as suggested by other commenters.
We may not export oil, but we do export software, pharmaceuticals etc. There’s no intrinsic difference in regard to the revenue involved.
There is an EU petition afoot: basicincome2013.eu
Information also on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ECI.BasicIncome
There is an EU petition for a basic income running: http://basicincome2013.eu/
It is also present on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ECI.BasicIncome
Absolutely spot on. I’m a candidate for mayor of bristol November 2012 and its my single manifesto promise.
£15000 per year, unconditional basic income guarantee to every adult in bristol, whether working , non working or retired.
http://corruptbstard.wordpress.com/recommended-manifesto-pledges/
And change the tax system from a tax on income to a tax on spending. It’s called the automated payment transaction tax. This tax could fund it all in one go.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_payment_transaction_tax
have your say