They should just download a new fix from internet to make it work again. Yawn.

Next year we will celebrate 100 years of independence from the Russian empire. So basically we are still a grand duchy.

Sick leave with 100% compensation for about 2 weeks and a smaller pay for longer times. Complete with possibility of retiring due to health reasons at any age. (The pension from doing that is not great, but it exists.)

Actually, EU member countries do have limits on what their level of taxation is. Specific taxes have specific minimum and maximum values. That is all part of the EU treaties. In my opinion, one of EU:s main achievements is its work against tax competition of countries.

But, let's keep in mind that Ireland joined EU and those treaties willingly and they can also leave EU if they so choose.

Well, they already did discover one new particle. The one they call the Higgs.

If they never again find anything new with LHC, that will at least direct theoretical physicists to new directions by invalidating all the theories that rely on new particles.

Getting rid of employees here in Finland is actually quite easy. There is a process you are legally bound to follow, but it just takes 60 days and the end result is that you can let go any employees you have. If you just have a single employee and want to sack him, that can be more difficult, but these massive layoffs are easy. For long time employees, you have to give several months notice when getting rid of them, but OTOH if you want they will work for you during that time.

"The safety net" gives a person living alone about 10%-20% of the salary of a typical tech worker, so most people want to work.

This latest round of MS job cuts is not trimming, they are ending the design of phones completely. There will be nothing left of the Nokia phone division. (The rest of Nokia that was not sold to MS is actually doing pretty well nowadays.)

It says on the article that the rules are supposed to cover parers written on taxpayer money. I'm sorry if this takes the edge off your righteous anger and rage.

A well known event that happens every year in Europe is when people from Belgium and the Netherlands pack their stuff in their cars and migrate through Germany to southern Europe. This pisses of the Germans as their autobahns are stock full of cars. .. how will they continue to do this with cars that only move a few hundred km between recharges?

Can you please quote me the paragraph where he condemns all 1.6 BILLION Muslims?

"Then it is obvious that Islam has a real problem and is a real threat to the civilized world." is not condemning all 1.6 BILLION Muslims. The religion is not the same as the people. And further "Islam has a real problem" does not mean that Islam could not stop to have a problem.

Do you think 1.6 BILLION Muslims are unable to join us on the 21st century with equality and universal human values? As humans, they are fully capable of doing that.

For me, the Pi Zero is pretty much useless, because it has no networking. No wireless, no wired. Nothing.

So, if someone says they were not sure if people would buy them, I believe that. Looks like there are a lot of people that have completely different uses for their Pies than mine. Go figure.

I'm sorry, but you are just misunderstanding (on purpose?) and I'm not going to write another explanation to you. But no, income tax rate is not 80-90%, but 80-90% of the money given as basic income is collected back as taxes. There is a difference.

Because 80-90% of the amount is collected back in taxes, so the net expense for governament is 10-20%, or 30-60€ billion. Sounds like the amount you already use on welfare. The other 80-90% of the basic income goes to people with decent jobs and their tax rates are adjusted so that they only get about the same amount of money after taxes as they now get.

Currently an unemployed person in Finland can get about 500€/month in benefits and also aid for housing, something like 300€. If you add these together and we get a 500-800€ / month range that is the range proposed for the basic income here. The point of the experiment is to test some different amounts. Obviously, depending on the amount there may or may not be other benefits available and taxation also changes.

Like I said originally: the idea is not to give people more money, but to get rid of the inefficient and demoralising welfare bureaucracy that requires a lot of paperwork and does not allow the unemployed to take short term jobs.

You do not ask for the basic income - it arrives automatically on your bank account every month. The trick is that taxation is modified so that people like me - with a decent salary - will end up the same as now after taxation.

To understand why this is useful, one thing to realize is that our taxation is a very clean and automated process, while the social benefits are a horrid mess that requires a lot of paperwork.

I live in Europe - Finland, and I'm commenting from the POV of our starting basic income experiment. I have no idea of how basic income would work in the US.

I live in Europe, in Finland. So at worst I'm making a Finland centric comment about Europe. I was describing our system, but I believe many of the rich western europe countries have similar.

And I do not think the EU is doing anything about this - it is several member states doing experiments for themselves.