Switzerland will hold a vote on whether to introduce a basic income for all adults, in a further sign of growing public activism over pay inequality since the financial crisis.
A grassroots committee is calling for all adults in Switzerland to receive an unconditional income of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,800) per month from the state, with the aim of providing a financial safety net for the population.
Organizers submitted more than the 100,000 signatures needed to call a referendum on Friday and tipped a truckload of 8 million five-rappen coins outside the parliament building in Berne, one for each person living in Switzerland.
Under Swiss law, citizens can organize popular initiatives that allow the channelling of public anger into direct political action. The country usually holds several referenda a year.
In March, Swiss voters backed some of the world's strictest controls on executive pay, forcing public companies to give shareholders a binding vote on compensation.
A separate proposal to limit monthly executive pay to no more than what the company's lowest-paid staff earn in a year, the so-called 1:12 initiative, faces a popular vote on November 24.
The initiative's organizing committee said the basic income could partly be financed through money from social insurance systems in Switzerland.
The timing of the vote has yet to be announced, pending official guidance from the government.
(Reporting by Denis Balibouse, writing by Alice Baghdjian, editing by Gareth Jones)
Society's Child
Reader Comments
sass
2013-10-15T19:29:09Z
Here comes socialism... thhis is unbelievable. They'll all have a number, we're next. Watch the train wreck people, it's gaining momentum.
It's a "nice" idea, and like communism tho the reality is quite different Ruth. Especially when there are psychopaths at the top controlling the strings of the majority.
I'm suprised at the question coming from you.
I'm suprised at the question coming from you.
And I'm surprised that you think I don't know that psychopaths rule our world and that all systems are 'up for grabs' so to speak.
Your comment comes across as if socialism is more likely to be a target than say capitalism or communism for that matter.... They're all ways and means as far as any psychopathic hierarchy is concerned. One isn't better way of doing things than the other.
Your comment comes across as if socialism is more likely to be a target than say capitalism or communism for that matter.... They're all ways and means as far as any psychopathic hierarchy is concerned. One isn't better way of doing things than the other.
I didn't say - or mean - that I think that you don't know that psychopaths rule our world and that all systems are 'up for grabs' so to speak.
No, I just find it difficult to watch the masses being lured so slyly into such a false sense of "care". It's so sheeps clothing, I feel my life - or life in general is just one grand cliche, or maybe like the Truman's show. No one can see the writing on the wall, just like Nazi Germany. It's all over again like Groundhog Day, but on such a grander scale that I shudder in terror and anticipation.
No, I just find it difficult to watch the masses being lured so slyly into such a false sense of "care". It's so sheeps clothing, I feel my life - or life in general is just one grand cliche, or maybe like the Truman's show. No one can see the writing on the wall, just like Nazi Germany. It's all over again like Groundhog Day, but on such a grander scale that I shudder in terror and anticipation.
Hi, sass, I think you misunderstand something conveyed by Ruth to you. If you think about that since time immemorial good people everywhere around the world has been trying to create a society where all the members of the community live in peace, justice, love and care for each other. This ideal is just indestructible part of human nature. It was, it is, and it will always live on in the hearts of all good men and women. This is socialism/communism for you. Its seems to me that your confusion comes from the fact that you're paying too much attention to what is commonly referred as 'socialism' or "communism'. The psychopaths may call themselves communist or socialists, democrat, republican, christian, or whatever, you name it, to hide their devious nature. You might want to look deeper into the essence of these words and ideas, and for that, it might be helpful for you to read, if you haven't read it already, a book by Rev. John Clifford _[Link]and "Political Ponerology" by Andrew M. Lobaczewski, Laura Knight-Jadczyk _[Link] And since the music always a big help in my learning, I want to share great song that fully expresses the idea of socialism:
John Lennon - Imagine _[Link]
John Lennon - Imagine _[Link]
Thanks Olesya. My point is, I doubt that the socialism John Lennon (supposedly) sung about is what they have in stall for us. Though that point wsa pretty obvious really. Yes, read all the books, tah.
I only want to say this. The book by Jon Clifford in the link above might explain something really important about the socialism and true christianity. And to give so much power to "them' is to take a power that someone might have inside themselves. And it's certainly your choice to see or not to see.
If John Lennon was a socialist, why did he become a tax exile when we had a socialist government here in the U.K?
Exactly. Who knows what John Lennon was, a mind control slave for all we know, and eliminated once the job was done.
IMO Lennon was simply a musician trying to find a better life in the U.S. The reason I believe he was murdered was because he was taking part in demonstrations against the war in Vietnam.
Lenon
Lenon was killed by the boyfriend of his secret lover - a latino lady, in a bout of jealousy. People interested to make a hero out of him (and sell even more records) started to talk about the secret services being involved lol
As far as socialism is concerned, people like him and Bono will sing about equality but pay what is worth an annual salary in a third world country for their hat to be transported by plane, hypocrites! Just try to take their wealth and distribute it to the poor lol!
Lenon was killed by the boyfriend of his secret lover - a latino lady, in a bout of jealousy. People interested to make a hero out of him (and sell even more records) started to talk about the secret services being involved lol
As far as socialism is concerned, people like him and Bono will sing about equality but pay what is worth an annual salary in a third world country for their hat to be transported by plane, hypocrites! Just try to take their wealth and distribute it to the poor lol!
Yeah, a better life with less taxes.
I like a lot of the pre-LSD Beatles records, the ones with all those fabulous chord structures, but I think politically John Lennon was full of s*it. I think "Imagine" is full of s*it, it's a heroin song.
"The reason I believe he was murdered was because he was taking part in demonstrations against the war in Vietnam."
I think that's likely, but his activism period, or panto Jesus period, depending on your point of view was long behind him at the time of his death. This from a Playboy interview in 1980...
PLAYBOY: "What about the Bangladesh concert, in which George and other people such as Dylan performed?"
LENNON: "Bangladesh was ca-ca."
PLAYBOY: "You mean because of all the questions that were raised about where the money went?"
LENNON: "Yeah, right. I can't even talk about it, because it's still a problem. You'll have to check with Mother (Yoko) because she knows the ins and outs of it, I don't. But it's all a rip-off. So forget about it. All of you who are reading this, don't bother sending me all that garbage about, 'Just come and save the Indians, come and save the blacks, come and save the war veterans,' Anybody I want to save will be helped through our tithing, which is ten percent of whatever we earn."
PLAYBOY: "But that doesn't compare with what one promoter, Sid Bernstein, said you could raise by giving a world-wide televised concert... playing separately, as individuals, or together, as the Beatles. He estimated you could raise over $200,000,000 in one day."
LENNON: "That was a commercial for Sid Bernstein written with Jewish schmaltz and showbiz and tears, dropping on one knee. It was Al Jolson. OK. So I don't buy that. OK?"
PLAYBOY: "But the fact is, $200,000,000 to a poverty-stricken country in South America..."
LENNON: "Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn't mean a damn thing. After they've eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway."
PLAYBOY: "On the subject of your own wealth, the New York Post recently said you admitted to being worth over $150,000,000 and..."
LENNON: "We never admitted anything."
PLAYBOY: "The Post said you had."
LENNON: "What the Post says... OK, so we are rich; so what?"
PLAYBOY: "The question is, How does that jibe with your political philosophies? You're supposed to be socialists, aren't you?"
LENNON: "In England, there are only two things to be, basically: You are either for the labor movement or for the capitalist movement. Either you become a right-wing Archie Bunker if you are in the class I am in, or you become an instinctive socialist, which I was. That meant I think people should get their false teeth and their health looked after, all the rest of it. But apart from that, I worked for money and I wanted to be rich. So what the hell... if that's a paradox, then I'm a socialist. But I am not anything. What I used to be is guilty about money. That's why I lost it, either by giving it away or by allowing myself to be screwed by so-called managers."
I like a lot of the pre-LSD Beatles records, the ones with all those fabulous chord structures, but I think politically John Lennon was full of s*it. I think "Imagine" is full of s*it, it's a heroin song.
"The reason I believe he was murdered was because he was taking part in demonstrations against the war in Vietnam."
I think that's likely, but his activism period, or panto Jesus period, depending on your point of view was long behind him at the time of his death. This from a Playboy interview in 1980...
PLAYBOY: "What about the Bangladesh concert, in which George and other people such as Dylan performed?"
LENNON: "Bangladesh was ca-ca."
PLAYBOY: "You mean because of all the questions that were raised about where the money went?"
LENNON: "Yeah, right. I can't even talk about it, because it's still a problem. You'll have to check with Mother (Yoko) because she knows the ins and outs of it, I don't. But it's all a rip-off. So forget about it. All of you who are reading this, don't bother sending me all that garbage about, 'Just come and save the Indians, come and save the blacks, come and save the war veterans,' Anybody I want to save will be helped through our tithing, which is ten percent of whatever we earn."
PLAYBOY: "But that doesn't compare with what one promoter, Sid Bernstein, said you could raise by giving a world-wide televised concert... playing separately, as individuals, or together, as the Beatles. He estimated you could raise over $200,000,000 in one day."
LENNON: "That was a commercial for Sid Bernstein written with Jewish schmaltz and showbiz and tears, dropping on one knee. It was Al Jolson. OK. So I don't buy that. OK?"
PLAYBOY: "But the fact is, $200,000,000 to a poverty-stricken country in South America..."
LENNON: "Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn't mean a damn thing. After they've eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway."
PLAYBOY: "On the subject of your own wealth, the New York Post recently said you admitted to being worth over $150,000,000 and..."
LENNON: "We never admitted anything."
PLAYBOY: "The Post said you had."
LENNON: "What the Post says... OK, so we are rich; so what?"
PLAYBOY: "The question is, How does that jibe with your political philosophies? You're supposed to be socialists, aren't you?"
LENNON: "In England, there are only two things to be, basically: You are either for the labor movement or for the capitalist movement. Either you become a right-wing Archie Bunker if you are in the class I am in, or you become an instinctive socialist, which I was. That meant I think people should get their false teeth and their health looked after, all the rest of it. But apart from that, I worked for money and I wanted to be rich. So what the hell... if that's a paradox, then I'm a socialist. But I am not anything. What I used to be is guilty about money. That's why I lost it, either by giving it away or by allowing myself to be screwed by so-called managers."
Haha.. funny. So bad-ass apathetic (for the time) - "There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway."
Still think the possibility that mind control was at play is present, that's the level of control (even Marx). The music was just so influential. I have often wondered about the power of music to influence social forces, and I mean in the less obvious ways - ie, by certain tones, key-changes and such. I mean, if it could be used to build pyramids (the power of spinning and such too) the knowledge on how to use these "powers" is of course still around at the top of the hierarchy. It most probably started with classical music to control the upper-classes, then filtered downward to the "people", as it seems the way it goes for everything.
Anyhow, on with the day.
Still think the possibility that mind control was at play is present, that's the level of control (even Marx). The music was just so influential. I have often wondered about the power of music to influence social forces, and I mean in the less obvious ways - ie, by certain tones, key-changes and such. I mean, if it could be used to build pyramids (the power of spinning and such too) the knowledge on how to use these "powers" is of course still around at the top of the hierarchy. It most probably started with classical music to control the upper-classes, then filtered downward to the "people", as it seems the way it goes for everything.
Anyhow, on with the day.
